My introduction to Tantra

Namaste,

I write to you from Dharamsala, one of India’s spiritual meccas and home of His Holiness, the exiled Dalai Lama. Over the past 4 days I attended a seminar led by the man himself in which he taught us how to become enlightened. More about this event and India in general in the next post, for now I MUST tell you about an extraordinary experience I had just last night.

I spotted several flyers around town advertising a free guided meditation class from 6 to 7pm. When I asked around I was told it was a “breathing meditation” which sounded simple enough. Simple, however, this class was not. Here’s what went down:

When I walked into the classroom at 6 there were roughly 20 students there. The teacher/guide was an Indian man in his late thirties named Shiva with long straight frizzy black hair that fell to the small of his back.

Everyone picked up one of the padded mats scattered about as Shiva skipped around the room with incense aflame to quiet the stench of the departing yoga class, yet nothing was quite strong enough to tame the fierce odor emanating from his own body. It was the type of BO that comes from simply neglecting to wash one’s body or clothes – not from sweat or from handling livestock or refuse – no, this man just wasn’t particularly interested in personal hygiene.

We sat in a circle and watched Shiva set up speakers and an iPod. I wondered why breathing meditation would require the use of music but my question was soon answered.

“Tonight we will be doing Tantra meditation,” he said.

Oh, OK. I had no idea what Tantra meditation was. I’d heard of Tantra before, some kind of spiritual sexual practice popularized by Sting and his ilk. This troubled me, it was not what I’d signed up for. I sat still, however, intrigued, curious for what might come next. I can always leave if it gets weird, I thought to myself.

First he described to us 5 different exercises involving rapid breathing to a beat played through the sound system. Three beats on the inhale, two on the exhale. During exercises 1 and 3, we were to employ the practice of Mulabandha.

“Does anyone not know what Mulabandha is?” he asked the class.

To my disbelief, no one raised their hand, and so despite my deep wish to remain a silent, anonymous figure during this session, I held my hand up. He turned to me, staring at me for 5, maybe 6, long seconds before he responded.

“Mulabandha means that as you inhale, you suck your genitals up into your body,” he said calmly as he cupped and then squeezed an imaginary pair of testicles. He paused for effect, continuing to gaze deeply into my eyes. “As you exhale,” he continued, “you release your genitals to their natural resting place.” At last he loosened his talon like grip on the imaginary genitalia.

Again he paused. Then, he repeated himself. This time however his hand gestures were more dramatic. “While you inhale you bring the genitals up!” he said with a raised voice as he made a fist with his right hand and held it above his head. “Then release as you exhale.” His hand came crashing to the floor.

He then paused again for another uncomfortable 5 seconds of penetrating eye contact before asking with a serene voice: “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, “I understand.”

“Excellent, let’s begin,” he replied. I looked around the room to see if anyone found what had just been said funny or strange. I hoped desperately to at least exchange a glance or smile with someone, anything to reassure me that, yes, there was something a bit odd about this, something out of the ordinary. Nothing. No reactions whatsoever.

We were asked to rise to our feet and then to shake our bodies. Every inch of our bodies were to be shaken. “Don’t let any parts feel left out,” were the exact instructions. Eyes closed of course. We shook ourselves for maybe 15 to 20 minutes, and by the end of this I was dripping in sweat. I was apparently not shaking correctly, or with enough vigor, because Shiva approached me more than once to “encourage” my body to be free.

Then we were to dance. Upbeat 1980s style techno music was blasted through the speaker system. We were ordered to explore the space of the room with our eyes remaining closed. Needless to say I bumped into more than one person.

Next, we were instructed to find a partner and dance with them. Our arms were to remain stretched vertically above our heads as we kicked our knees and then legs outward.

“Connect with your partner!” Shiva exclaimed, “Swim in their Chakra. Look deeply into their eyes until you know them. UNTIL YOU ARE ONE!”

We were asked to switch partners from time to time. If our “connection” failed to reach the profound echelons mandated, Shiva came over to join in on the fun. He stopped the music and told us to freeze at various intervals.

“What are you feeling right now?” he would ask. “Look inside, deep, deep inside. Listen to your heart. Can you feel that? It is powerful, is it not? This is love my friends. Surrender. Surrender to this love and you will be free.” And then the music would begin again.

One very important thing I must mention, the ex factor in this entire escapade, was that we were being filmed. A middle aged Australian man, a burned out surfer passed his heyday, was in the corner of the room adjusting a camera on top of a tripod. As we danced, he held the camera in his hand and wandered around the room, directing the lens at various individuals or couples enthralled in the sacred dancing ritual. More than once, I turned to see the camera pointed right at me. This, as you may imagine, was highly disconcerting. Here I was, doing my very best to give in to this experience, trying to relinquish the ceaseless prison of my ego, need to “look cool,” be in control, or understand what the fuck I was doing. I wanted to give in, give everything, I really did. Surrounded by no one who knew me, I aimed to bask in the glory of total anonymity while behaving like a raving fool. But that damn camera kept bringing me back to reality. Naturally, when a camera is pointed in my direction, I think of the internet. I think: this is going to wind up in the public domain. Imagine if I wanted to run for some political office some day. Or worse, imagine if my former roommates from Brooklyn got their hands on the footage. I shiver at the thought.

I was perturbed that my consent was not sought before the camera began rolling. We were doing something profoundly spiritual and private, and here was this aging Aussie in board shorts strolling around the room like it was a wedding party. I did my very best to ignore the camera, but it was hard to steer my mind away from it’s prying grasp. What was even more strange to me was that no one else seemed to be bothered by it. “Look at what you’re doing!” I thought to myself as I scanned the room, gazing upon my unperturbed company, “How would you feel if this wound up on YouTube?”

When the dancing was over it was time for breathing exercises, of course employing the aforementioned Mulabandha. These exercises went on for roughly half and hour. The breathing, as I mentioned, was quite rapid, and aroused a sort of hyperventilation.

Next, we were instructed to lay on our backs as intense tribal music was played through the speakers. “Let your emotions come to the surface,” the instructor said, “if you need to cry, then cry.” Then I burst into tears. Totally kidding I did no such thing, but the girl to my right did.

I squinted through one eye and saw Shiva approach the girl. He beckoned the cameraman to follow him. The cameraman held the camera no more than a foot from the crying girl’s face. How invasive, I thought, to capture such a private moment without consent. My thoughts must’ve stirred the energy fields because seconds later the camera was pointed at me.

The instructor took the girls left hand and leaned it up against mine. “Feel the energy,” he whispered to her. I peeked as Shiva and the cameraman wandered around the room, “adjusting” people as they saw fit. Some of their adjustments were, shall we say, intimate. I was resolute that were anyone to touch me below the chest and above the knee that I would respond in my own way. Perhaps the energetic field I emitted indicated such thoughts, and I was left alone.

After I don’t know how long we were told to sit upright. Shiva asked us to rub our hands together, softly at first but then quickly, urgently. We then held our hands over our closed eyes, forehead, then ears, neck, and gradually moved all the way down to our toes. We repeated this process, and then were asked to hold hands with the people on either side of us. A candle was lit in the center of the room, the lights were extinguished, and we stared at the candle for a time. Then we chanted a full-breath OM 10 times, held our hands in prayer position and said “Namaste,” concluding the meditation.

I opened my eyes. Shiva told us that for the next few hours we would feel “different,” more sensitive to everything, both good and bad. “You may feel like you’re on drugs, such as LSD or MDMA. This is normal, it will pass, but try to enjoy it. Tomorrow we will be meet again at 6. Tomorrow’s class will be similar to this one but more orgasmic!”

Shiva then asked us if we had anything to say about what had just happened. When a few seconds went by without anyone volunteering, I held my hand up and said: “I was quite anxious about the camera.”

“The whole time?” he asked.

“Yes, it was very hard to ignore the camera in my face, especially when we were dancing. I was nervous that my behavior, which would certainly appear strange to the outside world, might wind up on the internet and forever in the public domain. I felt anxious about letting loose during the exercises for fear it might prevent me from getting a job in the future.”

“So, you are battling some inner demons,” he proposed.

“Well… you could say that I suppose,” I replied, “But I also believe my concerns are valid.”

“Ok, thank you for sharing,” he said, thus concluding that line of discourse. “Anyone else want to share their experience?”

Several people spoke of the powerful spiritual visions, even hallucinations, they experienced during the breathing exercises. One girl spoke at length about her experience, which, if I remember correctly, included a confrontation with an evil blue-horned cow that suddenly transformed into a serpent and slithered into her mouth. She then battled the reptile writhing inside her until it transformed once more into, I kid you not, a golden Orca whale, with “eyes like desert sand dunes at sunset.” Thankfully, the Orca wasn’t inside her when it transformed (which was my first question) for this surely would have been a very painful experience.  The Orca was more understanding than the evil cow, a relief to us all, and she was able to dispel at least a few of her many grievances (of which we heard quite a long list), and the Orca to his/her/its credit listened to her patiently, more than I can say for myself. When she seemed finished at last a few people asked her clarifying questions, the content of which I do not remember, but effectively they meant: “Go on…”

No one shared my concern about the camera. Even when I approached a few people individually later on, no one seemed bothered by it. When sharing time was over several people in the class who I suppose already knew each other engaged in very passionate, long winded embraces. A few people approached the instructor to wrap their arms around him.

I approached the instructor when the crowd thinned. I thanked him for the experience, which admittedly had been powerful, but I also asked him what was going to happen with the footage. He told me it was being used to analyze the class. I asked if it would wind up on the internet and he said yes it would. I told him that I felt uncomfortable that there had been no mention that the meditation would be filmed.

“You need to ask for people’s consent for before you film them – especially in this context, when we’re engaging in highly unusual behavior,” I told him.

He tried to ease my mind that not many people would see it. This did not put me at ease, however, for I am well acquainted with the viral potential of web content. I asked if he could edit me out, because I did not feel comfortable with what I’d just done being public. He said, “No problem, I am a computer engineer.” By the looks of him this was highly unlikely, but  there wasn’t much I could do. I thanked him again and left. When I checked my phone the time was 9pm, the class (advertised as from 6 to 7) had lasted 3 hours.

As I walked down the hill toward my guest house, I did feel different. It’s very difficult to put into words what I was feeling exactly. I was agitated, dizzy yet focused, on another plane, another state of consciousness. I wasn’t hungry or full, cool or warm, and my mind wasn’t overly busy or particularly at ease. I didn’t feel good or bad. I was, in short, awake. It was something else let me tell you. Powerful. I have never felt that way, body or mind, in my entire life. I think I’ll go back tonight.