TANTRA 2

Courtesy of the artist: Andrew A. Gonzales

Courtesy of the artist: Andrew A. Gonzales

There is a beautiful word for sex in the Sanskrit language, and that is Kama, which means sex-love together, undivided and indivisible. In Tantra, sex is always loving. Almost everyone is familiar with the 7th century classic the Kama Sutra, a Tantric treatise on lovemaking. Kama is also the name of the Hindu Goddess of love. And love is what Tantra encourages—total unconditional love, including the mind, the spiritual and the body.

Tantra doesn’t tell you to control or suppress your sexual urges to reach God, but rather says the opposite. It supports development of the vital energy to achieve union with Divinity. The essence of Tantra is the full expression of being—merging with, rather than a withdrawing from. It is the ultimate yoga, which is Sanskrit for union. In Tantra, the orgasm is the universe. You become part of the primal energy of everything. In the  Kama Sutra, genital contact is but one of the many kinds of intercourse. Tantrikas learn to make love with everything, letting go of all barriers to pure bliss.

Sex becomes sacred and divine when you approach it from your heart and body, rather than your mind. It is common for Tantrikas to “drop their mind” when engaging in Tantric lovemaking. When the energy comes from a space deep within you—your essential Self—it connects you to God/Goddess/All That Is…moving you into the realm of spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEXICAN OPALS — (A True Story)

I had the good fortune to have come of age in the early 1960’s. The joke is “if you remember the 60’s, you weren’t there.” It was a wonderfully wild time to be alive and young. I have to chuckle recalling Timothy Leary’s admonition; “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” We were the children taught to get under our desks and cover our heads if there was a nuclear attack; is it any wonder we grew up questioning the accepted reality? One, not living during that accelerated ‘Enlightenment’, can’t begin to imagine the period. As one song yelled “Kick out the Jams… Mother-Fucker!” It amazes me how conservative culture has become—in part a reaction to our concentrated, undisciplined and naive wildness.

“Turn on, Tune in… and Drop-out!” My rebirth had accelerated beyond a place where college related to my experience. A strange brew of experimentation and idealism fueled a lifestyle for many of my generation. Consciousness expanded by grass and psychedelics. A foolish war in Southeast Asia fought against on the home-front. Demanding civil liberty and human rights for racial minorities, sexual diversity, equal status for women — we were the warriors fighting for a New Age, and we found comfort during our struggles in each others arms. A sexual revolution unparalleled raged in a time period when sexually transmitted disease was easily controlled with antibiotics and Aids didn’t exist. Effective birth control was just invented.  “Free Love” was our slogan and such a glorious period of random coupling!

Mexican Opals — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Mexican Opals — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

You could safely hitchhike, probably picked up by other rebels and offered a joint. Many of us floated around on journeys of discovery. A good friend and kindred spirit, Scott Rund, returned from an extended adventure in Mexico. He had sent me magic mushrooms in a jar of honey he’d been given by a shaman in Wahaca, and on his return showed me two long cylindrical jars full of raw opals The beautiful gemstones were in water and still had bits of the rock they had been imbeded-in attached.

“I’ve decided, every time I sleep with a girl — I’ll give her one of these opals.” I remember thinking what a great idea, a sharing, after a sharing. Little did I realize how many mornings I’d wake after a night of blissful copulation and look over onto the bed stand or dresser of my impromptu perfect lover — and see one of those distinctive beautiful raw opals.

Mexican Opal — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Mexican Opal — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Telling this tale causes me to reflect on some lessons I might share as we are just starting this New Age where once again we’ll be using our bodies in a dance of liberation. This new dawn of Tantra. How easy it is when you have many varied partners to see them merge in your awareness, to be all one woman — each woman, all femininity. Yourself — represent all masculinity. How easy — especially then, on psychedelics — now, the heightened conscious gained through yoga making the drug no longer necessary — to merge with your partner in your embrace. A yin/yang with the dividing boundary dissolved, flowing into each other — Being One.    Realizing that One is Divine.    That One is All.    That One is Us.         We are Love!

TANTRA

29628_10151307975358648_1736567933_nThe word Tantra has many definitions, and perhaps its real meaning has been lost to antiquity. Some scholars claim it comes from the Sanskrit or Hindu word for fabric or tapestry, meaning that it is woven into one’s life. Others say that it comes from two Sanskrit words tanoti and trayati. Tanoti means to expand consciousness, and trayati means to liberate consciousness. One might then say that Tantra expands and liberates consciousness, making it the fabric of existence.

The highest possible synthesis between love and meditation, Tantra is also the connection between the third dimension and other planes of existence beyond mere materiality. While not a religious philosophy, Tantra embraces a deep spiritual understanding of life, and an ancient art of living in harmony with existence. It is a poetic science of super sexuality that dates back thousands of years, not only to India and Tibet, but to the Far East, Polynesia, and indigenous cultures of all parts of the world! The North America’s native Cherokee culture even practice a form of Tantra called Quadoshka. It was used as a vehicle to achieve cosmic consciousness and union with Divinity.

Tantra treats sexual energy as a loving friend, rather than something to be suppressed or talked about secretly in low tones. It does not deny sex, or consider sex a hindrance to enlightenment or Heavenly Grace. To the contrary, Tantra is the only spiritual path that says that sex is sacred, and not a sin, or something against God, whether in a marriage or not. Tantrikas are God loving, rather than God-fearing.

KALI-YUGA (Kali Age)

Kali-Yuga, the present dark age of spiritual decline. It is traditionally said to have started with the “death of Krishna in 3002 B.C.E. This idea is fundamental to Tantra, which purports to be a new gospel for the dark age. The word ‘kali,’ often loosely translated as “dark,” derives from the losing throw of the dice, dice playing being a favorite activity of the ancient Indians. — Georg Feuerstein, The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (1997)182162_467715173241114_1263210934_n

We have reached the apex of this era and the pendulum has just begun to shift into a new extended period of increasing “light.”  Astrologers date the aphelion and beginning of this shift, December 21, 2012.

MORNING RITUAL MEDITATION

543979_10152405976730551_2105317713_nSit with legs crossed, hold hands in Grounding (Prithvi) Mudra.

Breathe out twice as many counts as you breathe in. Pause briefly (whatever is comfortable) after you inhale. Complete eight cycles of breathing for each center of focus (chakra).

Focus on the perineum—feel grounded. Feel the energy move up to the base of the spine (eight breath cycles)     —feel the color red.

Focus behind the navel (eight breath cycles)—feel orange.

Focus behind the diaphragm (eight breath cycles)—feel yellow. Form the Sun (Surya) Mudra.

Focus at the heart center (eight breath cycles)—feel green. Form Peace (Gyan) Mudra and hold to end of meditation.

Focus on the base of the throat (eight breath cycles)—feel light blue.

Focus behind the brow center (eight breath cycles)—feel indigo blue.

Focus on the crown of the head (eight breath cycles)—feel a skullcap of ultra violet.

Let attention float above the head (eight breath cycles)—feel a thousand-petalled lotus radiating highlights of all the colors.

Open the arms in a wide arc, swinging up to meet in prayer with arms extended overhead.

Place hands in prayer position over the crown of the head with elbows out.

Place hands in prayer position over the Brow Center with elbows together.

Place hands over the Throat Center with elbows wide.

Place hands over Heart Center with elbows relaxed.

Focus on the diaphragm and Breath Center, then move your attention down the spine: the Navel Center, the Sacrum (spine) Center; the region below the perineum.

Picture a shaft of energy extending 40 feet above you, running down through your spine, and then 40 feet below you.

See your heart as the center of this shaft, radiating beautiful green light.

Interact with the world from your heart.

Inhale and slowly voice a long ‘OM’. Do this three times.

Place the hands in prayer over the third eye again and audibly say, “The Divine in me recognizes the Divine in you and in all.”

Place the hands in prayer back over the heart and say, “Namaste.”

Bow forward at the waist.

 

Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus, pages 41 and 42580513_458133137573581_1567877488_n

 

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 12

579256_257746264348884_751298859_nConsciousness beyond the sixth level is completely a matter of grace. All the seeker can do is place an offering of sincere efforts at the feet of God and humbly wait in awe for the Divine to elevate awareness. It is helpful to think about the greatness of the Higher Power within our limited capacity to perceive that which is so much greater than ourselves. The spiritual invitation to sing praises to the Lord. A natural law comes into force: lower life forms’ inability to perceive forms greater than themselves. We are analogous to the beneficial bacteria existing in our digestive tract. Those bacteria are totally dependent on us, the host, for life, but unable to perceive the host other than the bacteria’s interaction with the small world of their immediate surroundings, an inability to see around corners in a curved universe. The most understandable form of energy, sound, because of the slowness of its wavelengths, illustrates the curvature of the physical universe. Do Re Me, a half-step and a curve Fa, So La, half-step and a curve Ti, Do. The octave is the pattern taken by all forms of energy. Our senses just don’t have the ability to perceive that pattern in light, spiritual, or other forms.

The aura prevailing this highest level is an electric neon violet purple. Focus on the hue, listen to the prevailing tone and bask in the Divine. Feel total love and acceptance, knowing this is a perfect universe that is so vast, with so many dimensions, that we can only begin to perceive a most minute portion. It is terribly egocentric to think somehow we, humans, are the peak of evolution. In the vastness of the universe, worlds innumerable support what life forms? The diversity on this small planet is so huge, and existence is so varied and miraculous.DSC0065web

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 11

735178_4227949816911_1083566757_nThink of this seventh dimension as an altar where spiritual energy, processed up through the chakras, is offered to the Divine and accepted with unqualified love. The intensity of that acceptance, or love, further stimulates the spiritual oscillations, further refining them, causing their ascent. Imagine love so great, our concept of love doesn’t begin to approach it: completeness, understanding, beauty and joy so transcendent, it surpasses our cognition.

As on the physical plane, a food chain exists with higher life forms taking sustenance from lower life forms. This is the reason for our being, the answer to the meaning of life. Through the efforts we put forth achieving spiritual growth, we refine coarse vibrations into finer energy, nourishment for the gods. The Higher Powers become aware of an individual providing a substantial amount of refined vibrations and actively assist that individual towards their own benefit.734893_296363553820488_122123231_n

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 10

425684_519415408077856_2135665451_nCourse energy flows up the spine, becoming ever finer, accumulating at the top of the head, tickling the pituitary. This finer vibration rises, floating through the crest of the skull. The bone of the skull acts as a barrier to the body below Imagine a crescent moon, consciousness on the dark side of that moon, blocked from the light of the dynamo of the physical realm, the sun. During a solar eclipse the heavens appear hundreds of times brighter, simulating our ability to inhabit this realm closer to God. When God is described as being without sin, it is without the false concerns and limitations of the physical plane. To occupy this higher realm we must put the things of the world behind us. Our efforts don’t merit our entrance. Admission is a matter of grace.397669_10151592029388496_1960543857_n