“In tantra we spiritualise everything including sexuality, not sexualise spirituality”
- Yogacharini Maitreyi
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In the last article we saw what Tantra is and what to watch out for. You can find the link here: Tantra: Living Connection — ARKAYA YOGA
We will delve deeper into principles as well as look at how tantra veered off course in the West. What masquerades as empowerment may reveal a rot as we scratch the surface.
Tantra is a moment to moment living in love
Everything we do with the body like moving, walking, eating, defecating is done with meditative awareness. It allows us to operate less and less from conditioning and more from being the witness. This creates a gateway to tap into our essence. The cultivation of karuna sakshi bhava or compassionate witnessing is the crux of both real yoga and tantra. This compassionate witnessing allows us to also be immersed in the experience, without identification from a space of true union rather than craving or obsessiveness. In craving or addiction too one sees no separation and is consumed by the object of desire and hence it is easy to confuse it with true oneness.
“Love is deep commitment to one's own and others evolution” - Yogacharini Maitreyi
Source: Bing images
Tantra veers in the direction of sex in the West
I have seen many tantra schools in Thailand train their women to titillate men which is a deviation from tantra. That is an amplification of wanting to be pleased and hence manipulating the women into being subservient. Once they are exonerated or get approval being that, they think they are fully consenting when they are conditioned or trained. Embodying Shakthi will allow one to call out oneself and another when there is a power imbalance.
I have also seen the trauma response where women in the name of gaining control bring in the exact domination that they have been subjected to and hook into unsuspecting souls. One’s innate body language is indicative of the trauma one holds. Over engagement or obsession and attributing ungrounded magical qualities to sex organs is also either a trauma response or entitlement pattern. One feels that because something has been stolen they now have to steal attention or reinforcements to balance out that unfairness. This culture of feeding off and self absorption can be seen in many so called tantric circles. This is because the core wounds, subconscious traumas and auric/ energy leaks have not been healed.
Role playing as a Dakini
Not many truly understand the time, commitment and refinement it takes to be a dakini. Or the many shades it holds.
Your self worth should not be based on how well you could wriggle or seduce which is what a dakini is reduced to these days. One can go into flights of fantasy about being some dakini , sakini or hakini or fantasize about copulating with one or being a daka ( masculine). However this idea and energy of role playing rather than embodying, is so insidious without truly understanding the depth. Everyone who has attended a tantra retreat becomes a dakini or daka. I have seen many intelligent women and men buy into this without even realizing how much of their self worth and peace they are bartering for such jagged magical thinking. There are so many concepts that are thrown in the air without understanding their gravity. In some literature dakinis can also be like fallen angels with a dark side. They are primarily sky dancers who are enlightened. They are not bound or attached yet may come down to support humans. They can also be fierce teachers of self realization. No doubt each of us has the potentiality for that, yet one must be careful not to get trapped in addictive patterns and justify them as the truth
I see so-called Tantric practices that give free rein to one's dark side without seeing the harm it can do to unsuspecting souls. If one does not comprehend the consequences of their sexual enactments one should not profess to be a tantric teacher or guru.
Boundaries
This gross or subtle transgression of physical and energetic boundaries is then cloaked under the guise of tantra. As much as there is no shame around sex or its functioning, there is no obsession or objectification as well. So the focal point does not become the yoni or lingam. As beautiful as it is to honour them, one must realise there is a fine line between conscious savouring vs craving, and a fine line between addiction and engagement. Reverence has a very different quality from slimy hooking in or enmeshments. Please remember thamas (dullness, darkness) and sattva ( stillness, aliveness ) look the same from the outside.
True surrender and reverence
to the divine feminine is the baseline for Tantra practice. The man has to surrender to the sacred mystery of union. This vulnerability is not common for a man in today’s polarized society where many are trained to be a bull in a china shop. So this reverential tender connection is what grants him the blessings of moving into the no mind void where the dissolution of his constructs takes place. He becomes the vehicle for the woman as well to become aware of her innate wisdom through this tender, patient and reverential connection. The woman too exudes the quality of holding the man in a safe space. This two way process of opening and dissolution requires a lot of preparation before the sexual act itself. The tantric practices impact all you do with your body like eating, relating and having sex and not focused on the sexual act alone. As we reparent ourselves by being present to the buried traumas we can be in our bodies fully and radiate its full glory. As we do the tantric practices to recalibrate the entire system we enable this. These practices are non sexual and awareness based.
To experience more of these Tantric practices you can drop into our Arkaya community class each Saturday from 9 am to 11 am via Zoom. Please see the link at beginning of blogpost to join.
There are other courses as well apart from a 500 Hour Self awareness Yoga and Tantra teacher training : Events — ARKAYA YOGA
About Yogacharini Maitreyi
Yogacharini Maitreyi is an international master teacher, practical mystic and founder of Arkaya Awareness Center and Arkaya Foundation. For the last 25 years she has been dedicated to sharing and teaching mindfulness, traditional tantra and expansive life principles. Her grandfather was her first guru and then she studied and served in the Shivananda and Ananda ashram for many years.
Since 1997 in India, Maitreyi has been given titles: Yoga Chemmal (expert), Yoga Shiromani (gem), and Yoga Acharini (guide). In 2007 she was one of the youngest to be invited to the Advisory Board of the World Yoga Council, in Europe. She has shared the deeper dimensions of yoga, self management and sattvic tantra worldwide. This includes seeing and shifting within ourselves, deep rooted conditioning that is divisive, exploitative, colonial, disrespectful or distorts.
Maitreyi facilitates a 500 Hour online Self awareness (Yoga and sattvic Tantra) teacher training apart from offering a weekly drop in session and satsang from 9 a.m to 11 am P.S.T each week. All are welcome to the satsang and to know more programs go to Events — ARKAYA YOGA for details.
Maitreyi has over 100 published articles and has trained over 60 corporations in enlightened leadership, stress and self management. She runs a foundation in India for children living in the slums. She enjoys ayurvedic food, being close to nature and lives in Vancouver now.
For more on her go to Founder Yogacharini Maitreyi — ARKAYA YOGA