Tantric Massage is often implicitly (and sometimes even explicitly) presented as a millennia-old massage treatment modality that emerged during the rise of Indian Tantric practises around 500 CE. Tantric massage has appeared in the world as a service offered relatively recently, in the last 5-10 years, but its roots go back to long before Christ when it played a changing role in the whole of contemporary society and had a deep spiritual significance. In the epic about Gilgamesh, which originated 2000 years before Christ, we can find the first mention of the so-called sacred massage. At this time, the goddess of love and fertility was worshiped in most states. She was known by various names. In Sumer it was called Inanna, in Babylon Ishtar, in Egypt, it was called Isis, in Lydia Kybelé, the Romans knew it as Venus and in Greece as beautiful Athens. People begged her for fertility and blessings and worshiped her through sexual ceremonies and rituals. In every major city, there was a Temple of the Goddess of Love, in which so-called sacred prostitutes performed their service. They were women who chose the service of the Goddess as their profession, women in a society highly valued who enjoyed a good name and a good position. For example, their children had the right to inherit property. However, the service in the temple was also performed by ordinary honorable women. According to the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, living in the 5th century BC the Babylonian custom forced every woman to stay in the temple of love once in her life and to have sexual intercourse with a stranger. This act was considered sacred, and if a child arose from it, the husband of the woman accepted it and considered it a gift from the Goddess. The whole act of service in the temple was not considered humiliation, but rather honor. IN SHORT FROM THE HISTORY OF TANTRIC MASSAGE most people mistakenly believe that tantric massage is just like another type of sexual experience, or something like sexual services with the addition of a few massage touches. In reality, however, tantra massage is much more than that. And anyone who experiences a tantric massage at Aphrodite London Tantric for the first time is finally surprised by what they get. In fact, touch and sensuality are the essences and an important part of tantric massages. Well, that’s not all. These massages have a much deeper meaning, which we must look for in history. WHERE DO TANTRIC MASSAGES COME FROM? It is believed that tantra was originally a form of meditative yoga that was born somewhere in India. The popularity of tantric forms of massage quickly spread from India to other parts of Asia and quickly became established in practice. Given that Asia is indeed a vast continent, it is no wonder that over time, tantric massages have been modified in various ways and have undergone various variations in different parts of Asia. Simply, each region had its own techniques and methods of tantra massage. And gradually tantric massages spread to other parts of the world – to the west. THE ESSENCE OF TANTRA MASSAGE And why are tantric massages so popular? Let’s try to look at the essence of tantric massage in terms of history. As we have already said, tantric massages have developed as one of the forms of meditative yoga. And what is yoga all about? The essence of yoga speaks of the liberation of body and mind and at the same time of connection. And what is tantra about? The essence of tantra is also about the connection – male and female! It’s actually a tool to bring two people together. The essence of yoga and tantric massages is therefore about the same. Did you know that many positions of tantric lovemaking actually come from yoga exercises? So tantra and yoga are really close to each other! If you want to experience the incredible flow of sexual energy, but also your own inner liberation, you should definitely try tantra massage. Of course, there are many techniques and types of tantra massages that Aphrodite London Tantric offers. But with each of them, you will experience an influx of sexual energy that will literally engulf you!
0 Comments
The word Tantra comes from the ancient Indian Sanskrit language and it’s generally accepted that it has a root-meaning of “to weave,” “to compose,” “method” or “instrument” referring to educational texts, in many cases in the form of a dialogue between a God and a Goddess. The scope of Tantra is immensely vast, which explains the contemporary confusion of what Tantra actually stands for. Tantra deals with spiritual, cosmological, and religious topics, addressing the evolution and history of the world, male and female Gods and Goddesses, ritual worship, magic, sorcery, divination, esoteric practices, the awakening of Kundalini Energy, techniques for the purification of body and mind, self-realization, spiritual enlightenment, and divine sexuality, using a variety of techniques and methods, such as rituals, sacred texts, pujas, exercises, meditation, breathwork, visualizations, sexuality and sexual intercourse, chanting, devotion, Mandalas, Mantras, Yantras, Nyasas, Yoga, dance, and massage, among other tools. Tantra tried (and still tries) to unify opposites, being in essence a non-dual philosophy, by proclaiming that everything is sacred, even that what is considered blasphemous, dirty or impure. Very often, learning Tantra was (and still is) connected to a teacher, or Guru, who supports and guides students or laymen towards spiritual transformation, or even to attaining worldly and supernatural powers, and longevity.
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave.
What makes you a goddess? The Divine Feminine: Many believe becoming a goddess means awakening the Divine Feminine or following the feminine principles of being nurturing, loving, and compassionate, and of insight, intuition, creativity, forgiveness, healing, and wisdom. In Buddhist iconography, compassion is embodied in the bodhisattva Kuan Yin, who is said to manifest wherever beings need help. Engendering such compassion is not only good for others it is also good for us. By putting others first, we loosen the bonds of our self-fixation, and in doing so, inch closer to our own liberation. Introduction. Juicy Buddhism: The Power of Sexual Yoga “Buddhahood is obtained from bliss, and apart from women there will not be bliss.” - Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa Tantra Praise to Vajravilāsinī, goddess of eternal love! The Practice Begins Again India, 800 CE: Two practitioners, students of the great master Śabara, entered a beautiful pleasure garden to begin their practice. The garden was filled with cuckoo birds, bright flowers, and tall aśoka trees bursting with red blossoms. It was the night of the Full Moon, and a cloudless sky bathed them in a gentle light. They had already taken hot baths and received sesame oil massages from their friends, and their naked bodies glistened in the moonlight. With the air still warm from the heat of the day, they were embraced by the lush forests of Oḍra. Their devoted practice was The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī. Clear in their determination to attain enlightenment and liberate all beings from suffering, the practice began with a bow in heartfelt reverence to each other. They recited the opening verses together, which they had long ago memorized by heart. Viewing each other as god and goddess, he touched her body pleasurably with his hands, and they kissed each other with rising passion... And now, hundreds of years later, the practice begins again. 2 The Power of Inner Awakening “Let your heart unite with my heart.” - The Ṛig Veda, Ancient India You can live permanently in peace and bliss. Calm and relaxed, joyful and carefree, yet charged with energy and enthusiasm. You can possess clarity of mind, profound wisdom, kindness and understanding toward everyone you meet. Radiating love, you can feel complete fulfillment through your relationships. Fully open to the pleasures of life, you can create what you desire. All this can be yours, in this very lifetime. And you can use these inner qualities to help bring others to the same bliss as well. Enlightenment, the highest goal of all spiritual paths, is truly possible for you. While most spiritual paths require great hardship, you can follow a path of intense pleasure. You can have more fun than you ever had before, and find yourself growing in love and joy each day. This book shows you how. The practices are so enjoyable, you will want to do them again and again. These methods are not new. In fact, they come from the oldest spiritual tradition in the world. They have just been hidden for a very long time. Tantra: The Primordial Path “If you wish to see the nature of the divine mystery, consider the marvelous image of sexual intercourse. At the moment when the male reaches his climax, the female receives the strength of the male and the male the strength of the female. These are holy mysteries to be reflected upon and acted out.” – The Perfect Discourse, Ancient Egypt The path to bliss is bliss. That is the path and goal of Tantra. Tantra is the path of becoming whole through pleasure. It awakens your senses to reveal the sacred in all of life. As you practice, you break out of all the restrictions that have been your safe, boring shell, and expand to the fullness of your true being. The only rules in Tantra are to open to life, drench yourself with its pleasures, and rise again and again to the peak of your ecstatic true being until you and the universe are one. When there is no separation between you and All That Is, then you are free. You become the primordial bliss that is your birthright. Once you attain this bliss, it is eternal. The word “Tantra” comes from the Sanskrit root word “Tan” which means “to weave.” Tantra weaves together seemingly opposing energies (such as female and male, sex and spirit) to create wholeness, health and happiness. You weave or unite into your entire being breath with spirit, your own daily life with the sacred power of ultimate reality. The result is eternal peace and bliss. The Guhyasamāja Tantra (The Secret Assembly Tantra) defines Tantra as “continuum,” the ability to maintain continually the awareness of the dynamic unity of all experiences. It is the simultaneous awareness of oceanic clarity and stillness with pulsing, exultant aliveness, the release of all your limiting beliefs and emotional afflictions, the sexual ecstasy you always dreamed of, and the power to fulfill your heart’s desires, also called Great Bliss. 3 The Tantras, divinely revealed texts from medieval India, teach the secrets to attaining oceanic bliss very rapidly. The central principle of their teachings is: everything is sacred. And the path of Tantra is: embrace everything. In the Tantric view, any spiritual path that rejects the pleasures of this world is incomplete – a dishonoring of the gift that life truly is. Whatever you love about life, Tantra wants you to have that experience even more. Tantra is the most fun you can have in the universe. It is the ultimate act of being alive, and the ultimate gift you can give to others. Nothing is or could ever possibly be better than Tantra. The Secret History of Tantra “My god, sweet is the drink of the wine-maid, like her drink sweet is her vulva, sweet is her drink, like her lips sweet is her vulva, sweet is her drink, sweet is her mixed drink, her drink.” - The Sacred Marriage Rite, Ancient Sumer Tantra is the world’s oldest spiritual path, yet it remains one of history’s greatest untold stories. For thousands of years, human beings have used pleasure, and specifically sexual pleasure, to gain the divine powers of the gods. From the time when people first began to develop a spiritual outlook, Tantra emerged, and its themes and practices are so compelling and enduring that Tantra has influenced every major religion in the world. About 150,000 years ago, the first humans moved across Africa, Europe and Asia, living authentically, passionately, erotically and spiritually. They honored the sacredness of their world with their bodies, emotions, minds and hearts fully open, to the awesome powers of nature, and to each other, celebrating in awe and delight each moment of their lives. They lived in peace and harmony with their world in a holistic consciousness that saw life and spirit as one. From these roots, Tantra as the path of uniting sex and spirit emerged as a natural expression of the essence of human existence. Tantra is not a set of ideas like a religion that some person once thought of long ago. Tantra is built into you. It is a potential within you to realize. The earliest peoples knew that through uniting sex with spirit they could be transformed into higher beings. The oldest written evidence for Tantra comes from the world’s oldest story, the Sumerian tale The Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates to around 2800 BCE, and speaks of timeless wisdom. In this story, the wild man Enkidu spends several days making love to a Sumerian priestess (often pejoratively translated as “sacred prostitute”), after which he becomes “like a god.” In India, the Harappans (6000 BCE to 1800 BCE) participated in ecstatic sacred sex rituals using sacred ring stones and liṅgaṃs - the ancient origins of the religions of the divine female principle (Śakti) alongside the worship of the eternal male principle (Śiva). The blissful harmony of early humans was ultimately shattered by catastrophic shifts in the ways people lived their lives. The original integrated consciousness that saw life and spirit as one was lost. Beginning around 3000 BCE, following the intensive adoption of farming and herding, new concepts like private property arose, which threw human beings out of their holistic world view. Land, animals, and even human beings became identified as objects to be exploited. Farmers 4 needed more children to tend their fields, and marriage was stressed as a moral virtue so that men would gain the sole economic benefits of their many offspring. For women to produce more children, the age-old practice of weaning them was shortened from three to four years to about eighteen months. Corporal punishment became the standard for child-rearing. These changes resulted in children growing into anxious, insecure adults - an inner lack searching for an everelusive wholeness. Once people gained greater material wealth, it had to be protected from greedy neighbors. With the development of metals, weapons became more lethal than ever. The terror of war began to dominate the landscape, creating devastating suffering. The invention of writing, which also occurred around 3000 BCE, further shifted human consciousness out of the original balanced harmony of awareness. Holistic thinking was replaced by linear, rational thought, a strong subject-object division of experience, and people were compelled emotionally toward controlling others rather than delighting in being their equals. This relentless process occurred across cultures over a period of several thousand years as human beings became progressively more imbalanced and ultimately insane. What we call the “story of civilization” is principally the story of what human beings do when they lack inner contentment and self-love. These events that began five thousand years ago continue to shape how most people live their lives today. The final shift in human life in ancient times was spiritual. Beginning after 2000 BCE, the world’s religions faced what the historian Joseph Campbell called the “Great Reversal.” The earliest myths point to life on earth as fundamentally good, worthy of sacred celebration. Yet life had become so drenched in misery that these myths could no longer speak to people. New myths arose that describe life on earth as inherently dangerous and filled with suffering, and teach that the only way to find lasting happiness is to escape from it permanently. In the West the concept of Original Sin took ground, while in the East humans were believed to have entered the Kali Yuga - the Age of Strife or degeneracy. In India, the hymns called the Vedas (Songs) expressed much of the pre-Great Reversal enthusiasm for the sacredness of life. The Vedic religion was a Tantric tradition whose priests made offerings to the abiding spirits of nature, organized their rituals to the polar elements of fire and water (united in the spiritually empowering soma drink), and participated in group sacred sex rituals. The earliest known Tantric sect, the Vratyas, is described in the Atharva Veda (The Songs of Atharva), which tells of worship of ecstatic gods, sacred sex rituals and kuṇḍalinī yoga. Starting around the time of the Upaniṣads (The Wisdom of Sitting Near; c. 800-400 BCE), however, much of Indian religion reflects an unprecedented new principle that following the sacred path means rejecting life. Life on earth is viewed as a tragedy and a trap from which a human soul can only seek to escape. The Sāṃkhya (Enumeration) and Yoga (Union) philosophies both consider that the human soul is imprisoned in the world, therefore their goal is liberation from the world. Pleasure only further enmeshes you in the sinkhole of life; ascetic detachment, they say, leads to liberation and eternal happiness. In response to the intense suffering of so many people around the world, an era of reform movements known as the Axial Age (c. 800 BCE - 200 BCE) rose. The many leaders of this Age (such as Plato, Zoroaster, the Jewish prophets, Mahāvīra, the Buddha, Confucius, and others) 5 accepted the belief of their time that life is inherently suffering, and taught that the only true path to happiness is to reach an other-worldly paradise. They rejected worldly pleasures as leading to hell, and rejected anything Tantric as an especially fast path to hell. The leaders of the Axial Age established the religious language and concerns that guide the world’s major religions today. Tantra was once integral to all the ancient Eurasian civilizations. From the temple prostitutes of Babylon to the Greek mystery schools, from the Celtic spring festivals to the Gnostic Christians and the royal palaces of China, the idea that sexual pleasure led to inner transformation was an accepted fact. Following the guidance of the Axial Age leaders, however, almost everywhere the Tantric traditions that celebrated life were wiped out. The Buddha, like other Axial Age teachers, taught that people suffer because of their neverending desire for sensual pleasures. He found that although it is possible to find limited happiness in this world, because of the impermanence of everything in it, the immutable laws of karma, and the unending cycle of wandering in suffering he called saṃsāra, this world remains intrinsically dangerous. By renouncing the world, cutting yourself off from desire and sense pleasures, and pulling your awareness inwards through meditation, you can release yourself from your bonds and attain everlasting peace and bliss. After death, as a liberated being, you will never again have to face the suffering of life on earth. Although the Buddha taught the same world-denying message as other leaders of his era to his monks, remarkably, he taught a dramatically different message to his lay followers that is far less well known to modern people: to enjoy worldly pleasures responsibly. This “radical” idea produced two extraordinary results. First, of all the teachers of the Axial Age, the Buddha was the only one who actually established a successful record of bringing more peaceful lives to his followers. And second, it created a rare opportunity for something even greater to emerge – in time, from within the core of the Buddha’s own teachings, an extraordinary Tantric tradition once again affirming the sacredness of life and its potential for bliss was eventually born. Because of the enduring influence of tribal cultures on Indian civilization, Tantric ways remained strong in India even as they nearly died out in Europe and much of Asia. Beginning around the 400s CE, a richly Tantric Hindu culture flowered, and it eventually influenced Buddhism. Beginning around the 700s CE, India’s masters of Tantric Buddhism, the siddhas (accomplished ones), taught a very different path and goal than those first taught by the Buddha. All beings that are not enlightened are in suffering – the siddhas strongly affirmed this position. But the real enemy, they taught, is not desire, but craving or compulsive desire – also called attachment. Pure desires, and especially strong ones, can not only be enjoyed for their own sake, but can also be used to propel you to inner awakening. And the best path for achieving that awakening is not through renouncing the world but through intense pleasure, love, and bliss. The siddhas taught that the world is not inherently suffering – it is only your false misconceptions that make it seem so. Once you are released from suffering, this precious world becomes a paradise. They rejected the central message of the Axial Age leaders that hypnotized the world and reaffirmed the original, primordial vision of human beings of the sacredness of life, pleasure, and sexuality. Tantric Buddhism praises life on earth as inherently good and pleasurable, and all pure desires are to be enjoyed. 6 Tantric Buddhism is mainly known in the West today in its form as Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is one of the world’s most successful systems for spiritual transformation, and is becoming increasingly popular in the West. As Tantric Buddhism first came to Tibet from the 700s to 1200s, it was largely identical to its practices in India, but over time the Tibetans changed it. The greatest difference between the two traditions is in the role of sexual yoga. The great Indian masters who founded the major lineages of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, Padmasambhava (c. late 700s), Virūpa (c. 800s), Tilopa (988-1069), and Atīśa (980-1054), understood sexual yoga as central for liberation. Yet most later Tibetans moved away from sexual yoga as a core practice. In addition, many Tibetan teachers rejected the life-embracing philosophy of the Tantric siddhas, and returned to an earlier life-negating message found in the sūtras that life on earth is inherently dangerous and sensual pleasures should be avoided. Tibetan Buddhism is to a great extent a dis-integrated form of Indian Tantric Buddhism. All Tibetan lineages affirm in principle that sexual yoga is necessary to attain enlightenment, and the reverence for the Indian masters and early Tibetan masters who practiced sexual yoga is high. But the monastic establishment reshaped Tantric Buddhism to suit their needs. As a result, most Tibetan lineages do not practice the original Tantric Buddhist path in its complete form. Tibetan Buddhist rituals are thoroughly desexualized except symbolically, and this change creates a path that is inevitably different in its shape and power from what the siddhas followed in India. Sexual yoga is taught only to special students and a few high masters. Some Tibetan yogis do integrate these practices, but they are in a very small minority. Numerous other differences arose between the two traditions, and the Tibetans are keenly aware that they have never produced anywhere near the number and quality of enlightened masters as the Indians. Tibetan Buddhism’s form of consecrations or “empowerments” is a much weaker version than what is taught in the Tantras – rituals that were originally intended to permanently shift your consciousness into enlightenment have been reduced to merely receiving the blessings of deities. One of the great strengths of Indian Tantric Buddhism was its inclusivity – virtually anyone with the right motivation could practice. In Tibet, however, the preliminary practices – one hundred thousand each of refuge prayers, Vajrasattva mantra recitations, maṇḍala offerings, generating bodhicitta prayers, and guru yoga recitations - introduced by Marpa (1012-1097), along with the 19th Century addition of the three-year retreat, are so arduous that it turned Tibetan Tantra into an exclusive system for training spiritual elites. A final difference is that Indian Tantric Buddhism was motivated by a great spirit of egalitarianism – Tantric communities were fundamentally gatherings of equals. Tibetan Buddhism, however, is hierarchical and formalized, qualities the siddhas sought passionately to avoid. Tantric Buddhism has come to the West mainly through two groups, Tibetan monks and Western scholars. Neither have an experiential understanding of sexual yoga. Some non-celibate Tibetan lamas, including a few of high renown, practice sexual yoga with their consorts, but the practices have been largely kept secret, often referred to in popular books but never elucidated. The most prominent Tibetan advocate for sexual yoga is actually the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who writes very openly and positively of it in his books. But because he does not actually teach the practices, sexual yoga remains purely theoretical for his Western followers. 7 Understanding Buddhist Sexual Yoga “The bliss experienced when the tip of the male sexual organ is in the lotus is the ultimate realization.” - Kṛiṣṇācārya, The Yoga of the Jewel Garland Sexual yoga (Karmamudrā – lit. Action Consort or Seal) is one of the most treasured practices of the Buddhist tradition. For over a thousand years it has been honored and taught to remove emotional and mental obscurations and attain the Great Bliss of enlightenment. Buddhism is not a disembodied “science of mind.” Its teachings are meant to be sensuously understood and lived through the body. It is a system for totally transforming your body, speech, and mind into a whole new kind of being. Enlightenment does not mean simply a clear and peaceful awareness – it is the ecstatic intensity of being fully alive. “Mind” in Buddhism really means the “heart-mind,” as pre-modern cultures knew the “mind” to reside in the heart center. Buddhism is a path of the heart. Tantric Buddhism teaches the loving and intimate embrace of life - it values the feeling of connectedness to everything, flowing joyfully with the creative processes of reality. It offers fearlessness, empowerment, and inconceivable bliss. Sexual yoga is vitally important to Buddhism. It prevents the path from falling into either the extremes of scholarly dryness or meditative detachment. Sexual yoga is intimate, juicy, creative, and fun. As the most important practice of Tantric Buddhism in India, all the great Tantric masters practiced it with their consorts and taught it to their students. Buddhist sexual yoga comes from the Tantras themselves, the sacred revealed texts of the Tantric path. Over the centuries, as Tantric Buddhism passed into Tibet, these practices were not lost but overshadowed by other teachings and practices, and often frowned upon by monastic or governmental authorities as a threat to moral order. But the power of the sexual practices never diminished - they are as valuable today as they were a thousand years ago. Most importantly, as the siddhas knew, the other Buddhist practices find their true power when combined with sexual yoga. Sexual yoga is part of a system of practice called the Four Yogas (Catur Mudrā – lit. Four Consorts or Seals): 1) deity yoga (Jñānamudrā), 2) subtle energy yoga (Samayamudrā), 3) sexual yoga (Karmamudrā), and 4) nondual yoga (Mahāmudrā). Traditionally, these are not performed as four separate practices – they are practiced simultaneously and are totally integrated with each other. Like four pistons of an engine, they gain their power by working together. We are all on a path to bliss - that is our destination. As the Hevajra Tantra (The Laughing Adamantine Tantra) teaches, “The world is pervaded by bliss” - it is the true nature of all things. Once your emotional and mental obscurations are cleared, you see reality clearly, and dwell in an effortless state of bliss. The permanent, changeless bliss of ultimate reality united with everchanging worldly bliss is called Great Bliss (Mahāsukha). Awash in this ocean of bliss, you act joyfully to bring all beings into its embrace. Sexual yoga is the most powerful and effective practice ever created for attaining the Great Bliss. 8 One of the most wonderful features of Tantric practice is that it is fun. The road to enlightenment can be long and challenging, and discipline hard to maintain. But in Tantra, the apparent opposites of discipline and play are united so that disciplined practice is inherently enjoyable. In this way, you will want to practice, you will practice longer and more intensely, and you will attain results more quickly. The goddess of the practice text presented in this book, Vajravilāsinī, is named the “Adamantine Lady of Erotic Play,” and it is through ritual play with her that spiritual growth is achieved. For the Tantric masters, play (līlā), and especially erotic play (vilāsa), is both a transformative power and an inherent aspect of ultimate reality. The contemporary scholar Miranda Shaw writes, “‘Play’ is an apt term for the contemplative yet amorous gestures of lovemaking as a religious discipline.” Common Misconceptions of Sexual Yoga Sexual yoga has always been controversial, even at the height of its popularity in India, and over the centuries many misconceptions have developed. Bringing light to these misunderstandings allows you to see its true power so you will not be distracted in your practice. One surprisingly popular misconception is that sexual yoga was never practiced at all, and that references to it are merely symbolic. Modern sexual repression and an inability to comprehend a culture that was intrinsically orgiastic and able to produce great erotic works such as the Kāma Sūtra (The Book of Love) have long prevented a clear picture of the past. Sexual yoga was practiced extensively, and it produced extraordinary spiritual achievements by countless masters. Some people believe that Tantric sex was part of a system of male oppression and that women were unimportant in Tantra’s development. In truth, many masters were women and they were central to its growth. In Tantric communities, women and men were honored as equals. Some teachers have argued that sexual yoga is so advanced that it should only be practiced by the highest level of practitioners, and criticize lower level practitioners. This is the position, for example, of the Tibetan master Tsongkapa (1357-1419). Curiously, however, others have criticized sexual yoga from the exact opposite viewpoint and claim sexual yoga is only for the lowest level of practitioners. The First Dalai Lama (1391-1475), for example, writes that it is only for those of “dull capacity,” and should not be practiced by those at a higher level. The place of sexual yoga within the Four Yogas has long been misunderstood - many masters in India taught their own systems and incorporated it in their own ways. The great Indian master Saraha (c. late 700s) taught sexual yoga as the foundation of all other Tantric practices, learned by his beginning students. Yet another Indian master, Jayabhadra (c. 800s), regarded it as the highest of Tantric practices and taught it as the final step. The most common method was to teach it as the third of the Four Yogas, after students attained some proficiency in deity yoga and subtle energy yoga, with nondual yoga saved for last. One of the most persistent misunderstandings is that sexual yoga is something fully set apart from other Tantric practices. In Tibetan Buddhism, students practice deity yoga, subtle energy yoga, and nondual yoga, while sexual yoga appears somehow divorced from them. For the Indian Buddhist masters, however, sexual yoga is fully integrated into all the practices - so much 9 so that when other practices are separated from sexual yoga, they greatly lose their power. A classic axiom of the siddhas is “Without Karmamudrā, no Mahāmudrā,” meaning, you will not attain enlightenment unless you unite sexually with a physical consort. All Tantric Buddhist practices are intended to be fully infused with the pleasures and powers of sexual yoga, making the other practices intensely intimate and enjoyable as well. A crucially mistaken belief is that there is no love in Tantric sex - that the practices are done purely and coldly for selfish individual spiritual attainment. Yet the Tantras themselves state that love (priya) is an essential qualification for practicing sexual yoga. The Hevajra Tantra says of the female practitioner, “She must love the yogi.” In the same way, Tsongkapa tells his male students to love women with sacred devotion. He advises, “Be very loving toward them. One should always worship women with a cheerful mind.” In Tantra, you love each other intensely. One very deep-seated but groundless idea is that once you attain enlightenment, you transcend sex and have no more sexual desire. A reading of the Tantras makes it clear that buddhas are eternally engaged in blissful sexual union with their consorts - and want you to be also. Another unfortunate myth is that in sexual yoga the man never ejaculates and must always hold his semen. There are statements in the Tantras that say this, but they have been taken out of context. Delaying ejaculation is taught because it allows higher states of bliss to be attained for prolonged periods between a man and his lover. But ejaculating is central to Tantric Buddhist rituals, not only for pleasure but also because semen is ingested as a transformative substance. Some people think that sexual yoga is totally serious and without fun and play. It is true that in practice you hold a strong and focused intention to end the suffering of all beings – and this is the most serious of all goals. Yet play is also deeply honored. And, after the formal practice session is over, during the orgiastic Tantric feasts, few rules apply and you are free to do whatever pleases you, liberating yourself and your lover into pure pleasure as you desire. Perhaps the most misleading misconception is that sexual yoga, though once popular long ago, is no longer relevant to modern practitioners. This book demonstrates sexual yoga’s power and potential to return Tantric Buddhism to its original qualities of intimacy, juiciness, profound love, and lighthearted play, all leading to the Great Bliss of enlightenment. How Sexual Yoga is Different from Ordinary Sex Sexual yoga is dramatically different from regular sex. For most people, ordinary sex is very enjoyable, but it is limited by your habits and cravings, your need to feel whole, and your distorted ego desires to have and hold on to certain experiences. It is limited by your own dualistic illusion of a separate self and other, which gets in the way of achieving much deeper pleasure. It is limited because, no matter how much bliss you experience, that bliss inevitably dissipates, and then you are left with yourself and your insecurities just as you were before. Love and pleasure may be in it, but regular sex is not sacred, it does not elevate you to a sacred plane, and does not have the power to bring you to enlightenment. As the Hindu Tantras famously 10 observe, “If liberation followed merely from sex with a woman, all creatures would already be liberated by female companionship.” Sex is a sensual pleasure - a pleasure that always fades. Sexual yoga, on the other hand, brings you a bliss so powerful that it destroys your karmic obscurations and pierces the veils of your dualistic awareness. Your disturbing emotions and troubling thoughts are lifted away. Sexual yoga requires tremendous discipline. You must be able to hold your awareness on both the physical and subtle planes where transformation occurs. You cannot allow yourself to fall into mere lust. And most importantly, you must hold the proper motivation. Ninety percent of being a “high spiritual being” is simply purity of intention. No matter how wise, loving, or powerful you may be, if you do not have a high intention in your practice, you will not be successful. Pure intention and disciplined practice in sexual yoga bring the ultimate success of buddhahood. While Buddhism is ancient, it is compellingly modern in its direct approach to addressing the most basic challenges of human life. And sexual yoga is one of Buddhism’s most powerful assets. For over two thousand years, Westerners have inflicted themselves with a false and devastating duality of sexuality and spirituality: to be sexual, you must reject the spiritual, and to be spiritual, you must reject the sexual. Healing this split releases tremendous creative power inside you, bringing you greater health, love, and inner awakening. Sexual yoga can change your whole life for the better. Sexual yoga is essential for the modern world. Bliss is the greatest gift we can give to each other; we need to create a culture that supports being in bliss, and to establish the practices that can bring us inner awakening. Sexual yoga is intensely enjoyable, quick, and effective. And it is a path almost anyone can follow. Goals of this Book “Erotic love, enjoyed by the ignorant, becomes bondage. That very same love, tasted with understanding, brings liberation.” - Āryadeva, Creating Purity of Mind The principal goal of this book is for you to attain enlightenment. Tantric Buddhism as it was originally taught by the Indian siddhas is the fastest and most powerful path to enlightenment ever devised. Thousands of masters and disciples attained enlightenment in medieval India using these methods, and you can too. Great Bliss is the first complete, modern instruction book on Tantric Buddhism, and the first on Buddhist sexual yoga. For those who think that no Buddhist ever thought about sex, Great Bliss redefines the Buddhist experience for the modern world, and makes its most secret teachings accessible to practitioners for the first time. It presents the philosophy, history, practices and inner experiences of Buddhist sexual yoga. You will understand how to make the leap from orgasmic bliss to enlightened bliss - the Great Bliss of enlightenment. Tantric Buddhist practices are deeply rooted in the core philosophy and practices of the early Buddhism of the Common Vehicle and the Mahāyāna, and these are presented first. By demonstrating the vital role of sexual yoga in Tantric Buddhism, the 11 true nature of the Tantric Buddhist path, which has been long obscured out of a failure to understand its most key component, is finally fully revealed. This book also presents an authentic practice text (sādhana) that focuses on sexual yoga: The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī by the dynamic Indian master Śabara (c. 800s). The sādhana and commentary clarify these essential practices and make them available for you. The Four Yogas are well represented in the sādhana, but sexual yoga is clearly its main focus. In addition, most chapters begin with a short, fictional narrative of a young man in India who practices the sādhana with his consort under Śabara’s wise and loving guidance. Suggestions for Creating a Spiritual Practice through Sexual Yoga Sexual yoga is an intensive spiritual path, and should not be taken lightly. At the same time, it is also very enjoyable. Ideally, to make significant progress you should plan to dedicate yourself to the practices in this book for at least two years. Regular practice is important, with simple haṭha yoga poses and sitting meditation a daily part of your life. If you are new to Buddhism, you can begin the sexual practices right away but should also spend some time studying the philosophy, learning how to meditate, and giving yourself the consecrations. You do not have to be a Buddhist to do these practices and benefit from them, but its philosophy is built into them as an integrated system for inner awakening. Performing these practices neither excludes you from working with other Buddhist teachers who may not be familiar with these practices, nor does it require you to find one. While the traditional steps and requirements of the Tantric Buddhist path are presented in each chapter, it is up to you how you want to create your path. A good plan is to practice twice a week, for two to four hours per session. You can focus the first session on the exercises of the Four Yogas and the second session on the sādhana, which eventually unites the Four Yogas together. With the sādhana, you might begin by spending the first three months learning it and doing just the deity yoga practices. Then, add the subtle energy yoga practices and do them along with the sādhana for another three months. When you are ready, incorporate the sexual yoga practices for the next three months. Finally, integrate the practices of nondual yoga. For daily practice, twenty to sixty minutes a day of haṭha yoga or meditation, or both, is ideal. You can practice sexual yoga with a consort or alone as you desire. Once a year, take a week-long practice retreat to deepen your experiences. In time, you will become a true sexual yogi or yoginī, and begin to know the Great Bliss. The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī The complete title of the sādhana is Yoginī Sarvasvaṃ Nāma Guhya Vajravilāsinī Sādhanaṃ, which means Revered by All the Yoginīs, Known as the Practice of the Secret Adamantine Lady of Erotic Play. The sādhana could just as easily be called “The Destruction of Suffering through Erotic Play,” for that is its chief goal and path: the attainment of supreme enlightenment through intense, amorous love-play. The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī is an extraordinary text, a 12 masterpiece of the world’s spiritual erotic literature. Both beautiful and powerful, it presents a complete path to enlightenment that can be practiced often over many years. It is a sacred text to be treated with great reverence. The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī may be one of the greatest Tantric sādhanas ever composed. For many reasons, it is an exceptionally powerful practice. It is an original text divinely received by one of India’s greatest masters. It is also preserved in its original Sanskrit, a language of sacred power honored for millennia. And, unlike many Tantric Buddhist texts, it is written in exceptionally good Sanskrit. The sādhana is simple and easy to follow. It has, unusually for an advanced sādhana, a very simple maṇḍala or sacred circle for visualization, making its practice easily accessible yet still very powerful. Through its simplicity and elegance, it is an ideal meditational tool for practitioners of all levels. This sādhana is a slow and lyrical meditation on two deities in lovemaking, which allows you to shift your consciousness with its flow in an easy way. Totalling 151 verses, it is one of the longest Sanskrit sādhanas known, allowing for everdeepening meditative absorption. Vajravilāsinī (Adamantine Lady of Erotic Play) is a peaceful form of the great goddess Vajrayoginī. Her purpose is to transform erotic desire into eternal bliss, and her special tool for enlightened transformation is sexual pleasure. She is called Secret Vajravilāsinī because of the power of her love that leads to enlightenment. Vajravilāsinī’s dear consort is Padmanarteśvara (Lord Lotus Dancer), the famous Lord of Compassion Avalokiteśvara as an erotic lover. While a highlight of Buddhist teachings is on developing compassion, it is very clear from the sādhana that these deities do not just feel compassion for each other – they really love each other. Love is a sometimes underappreciated quality in Buddhism, where “loving kindness” and compassion get favored. However, love is just as important in Buddhism as compassion. Here pure love comes to the forefront. In addition, most of the highest Buddhist Tantras are to wrathful deities. While the sādhanas of wrathful deities lead to enlightenment through transforming lower emotions like anger, once you have attained a more pure state within yourself, it is ideal to practice with deities whose forms and energies reflect that purity. Vajravilāsinī and her precious consort Padmanarteśvara are in fully peaceful forms. Love is the greatest healer of all, as this sādhana shows. Tantric Buddhism is not only a cultivation of wisdom and compassion, it is also a celebration of love. May Vajravilāsinī be forever honored as the Buddhist goddess of love. The sādhana is so powerful you do not need to learn any other practices to attain success in your own lifetime. As Śabara observes, twelve years of steady practice with your consort can bring enlightenment. To learn this one sādhana well is to master the essence of the Tantric path. The final advantage is that this sādhana is easily available to whoever would like to practice it. The sādhanas of many Tantric deities are available in some Tibetan lineages only to monks or lamas. In a time of global turmoil, it is urgent that even the highest Tantric practices be made available to the public. In an effort to re-democratize Tantra, this highest practice can be performed by anyone who feels it would benefit them. All acts of love and kindness bring merit and higher rebirth, so you can feel free to practice the sādhana for the benefit of all beings.
|
Archives
January 2024
Categories |