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Questions: Sexuality, Desire, Passions, Yoga, Ecstasy, Love, Joy, Pleasure, Space, Beauty, the Heart's Peace

Why is there so much insistence on the body in Tantra?

Without the body, there would be no philosophical or metaphysical questioning; there would be no creativity, no gods, no ecstasy, no yoga. The body gave birth to the absolute, and the tantrikas, by coming back to the embryo—the incomplete human form—regain the absolute in themselves in a constant outpouring of consciousness.

What is the body?

Space and all that it contains. The first thing a yogi experiences is that the body is not the image of the body. He becomes calm, he relaxes deeply, he starts to breathe, and suddenly all limits disappear. Each cell reintegrates space. This is what is called samadhi, experiencing union with the world. This experience can be very ephemeral, but it is what places the quest in its true location, space.

I have followed all kinds of spiritual paths where women were allowed, but I have never felt that woman occupies a central or equal position. In other words, I have never had the impression that the divinity of woman was recognized. There is always subjugation to man. In the vows taken by the Buddhist nuns, for example, and in actual fact, a woman of a high level of realization always owes obedience to the less experienced monks. A nun is required to undertake a greater number of vows than do the monks, as if it were necessary to tame some kind of fatalistic nature. How has Tantrism been able to avoid this tendency?

Shiva would be nothing without Shakti, the energy that puts him into the state of tremoring vibration. The worship of woman in Tantrism comes from the deepest and most ancient roots of this movement. Five, six, or seven thousand years ago, woman was worshiped in most cultures. The Great Goddess seemed to reign over the world. Even the Jews divided themselves into two opposing clans: those who believed in the Great Goddess and those who exalted a masculine God. There was a time when woman taught, carried the light. The Tantric movement has always worshiped woman because its most spontaneous and iconoclastic masters were often women, and the Buddhist tantrikas are no exception. The story is almost always the same: that of a great erudite like Saraha, Naropa, Luipa, Tilopa, or Marpa, who one day, after a dream or a vision, meets a woman, often an untouchable or casteless, who by the power of her presence and her state of realization, by her audacity and her humor, her disrespect and her incandescence, causes, in one instant, a scholarly and disciplined life to crumble.

All of these venerated masters recognized that the yoginis placed on their path were there to get them to cross over to the ultimate stage. When their universe collapsed they followed these women, leaving the luxury of the great monastic universities and the palaces where they were venerated in order to live lives of wandering, often in the cremation grounds. They received from the yoginis a teaching that integrated totality, and in turn became spontaneous beings. These extraordinary women, in Kashmiri Shaivism as well as in Buddhism, trained other women, and the lineages have survived to our day. There has never been a break in them. If we supposedly have more texts written by men, this is simply because the women most often sang spontaneous hymns and were not overly concerned about leaving a legacy other than the spontaneity that enables people to drink from the source. But this is in the process of changing, thanks to certain academics, like Miranda Shaw, who are doing marvelous work unearthing these chants, many of which have survived. The balance will be gradually reestablished. Still, what is important is that you, a woman of today, have access to this tradition; you can be one of these yoginis clothed in space.

For a man, hearing all this talk about the supremacy of woman is a little frustrating. What about masculine energy in all of this?

There is no masculine energy. There is only totality, space. The Tantric masters believe that a man who is alive, in a state of tremoring vibration, is a woman energetically. They believe equally that a woman who is not in this state of tremoring vibration is a man energetically. But this does not mean that there is any fundamental difference between man and woman; it simply means that everything is this tremoring vibration. The Tantras are written dialogues in which Shakti questions Shiva or the universe. At the beginning of most of the texts, it is stipulated that Shiva and Shakti form a single loving union and that they split apart from each other in order to give birth to the teachings. When that is done, they reunite. It is clearly specified that they are united “in the same knowing.” In paintings Shiva-Shakti are generally represented as a single hermaphrodite body; when they are represented individually, there is always a sign of the other’s presence, in the form of a serpent or the sun or the moon. Leave behind dual questioning; do not oppose the sun with the moon anymore: One could not exist without the other. Reintegrate totality at the body-mind level by abandoning yourself, surrendering, to reality.

For several years I practiced another form of Tantra, which revolves much more around sexuality, and I must say that it helped me a lot. I had been totally absent from my body, and this training helped me get to know it. I think that one can reach ecstasy through sexuality without worrying about mystical or spiritual teachings, and that this is the fastest and simplest way in our current social framework. Why seek further?

Who is seeking?

I am, at least, I think . . .

And what are you seeking?

Ecstasy . . .

What kind of ecstasy?

The kind I experience at the moment of orgasm.

Is that enough for you?

I would like it to overflow a little, to become more long-lasting or permanent. Sometimes I dream of a kind of ecstasy that would influence my whole life.

Then it is necessary to be involved in your whole life.

What do you mean exactly? Could you be a little clearer, use regular words? I want to understand!

I think you already understand, but let’s look for clarity together . . . You say you have experienced ecstasy while making love . . .

Yes, that has happened to me often.

And you would like to experience ecstasy in other circumstances?

That’s exactly what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Yes, that’s what it’s all about. When you have experienced these moments of ecstasy, how did they fade away?

Soon after orgasm.

So the orgasm was the ecstasy?

Yes . . .

And to have it again, what did you need?

Other orgasms.

Can you reach orgasm in another way besides during a sexual relation?

Yes, by masturbation.

What is masturbation?

You know, you gently caress yourself . . .

When you relax the whole body by the gentleness of the breath, when you abandon yourself, surrender, totally to gentleness, you will discover that the body is space and this is the most gentle of caresses, this is the most profound of orgasms because it gradually becomes established in continuity through the practice of presence to the world. Sexuality cannot be isolated, or made the special or choice vehicle of ecstasy, because the human being needs totality, he is totality. All searching that isolates one element of human nature in order to make it the only vehicle of the quest anticipates neurotic contact with life.

Sexuality is important if we believe that each and every contact of the senses with the world is a love affair. This is what the yoginis have taught us. This is what I understood from my time with Devi. For her, a leaf falling from a tree, a cloud passing, a fish in the river, the sensation of the sun or ash on her skin, the passing of an emotion or an idea—all that was lived like an unending love affair with the world. Every second, we are Shiva-Shakti in loving union; every second, our life provides us with a thousand propositions of ecstasy that a yogini does not let pass by because the flow of her consciousness continually inundates the tremoring, vibrating yoni of the world. To be this absolute lover in ordinary daily life is what causes wonderment to arise unceasingly. When the whole of life is permeated with this tremoring vibration, ecstasy is no longer linked to one particular activity: It flows in all things.

I am homosexual and I would like to know if Tantrism has any position in regard to homosexuality.

In Tantrism nothing is advised, nothing is forbidden, and there is no moral judgment—simply because we aim for full consciousness, and when there is full consciousness, everything is harmony.

In certain texts that concern the body and energy, it is said that sodomy is energetically disturbing, for both men and women. It is not said that this disturbance cannot be of use to yogis or yoginis. It is simply an observation. Dancing, breathing, looking, touching, listening also create an energetic and emotional modification. It is all about letting consciousness emerge in the body, in a more and more refined way, and about being in tune with the world according to one’s desire, in freedom, creativity, love. Sometimes anal penetration brings peace; sometimes disturbance. It depends on the color of the sky, the hormonal cycle, the moon, that day’s emotions, the season, the words, the vibration of the voice, the unconditional love that makes the body move and open or close its organs. All this is art; it is like the stream of colors that spreads out on the painter’s canvas by the grace of a movement or an action freed of all intentionality.

I would like you to speak about the satisfying of desire. Everywhere we look, it seems desire is the key element of language. Desire is everywhere: in ads, in magazines, in the way we dress, walk, laugh. We want to be desired, we want to seduce, at all levels. Everything seems like it’s just a big game of mutual seduction, but sometimes I wonder if we can find satisfaction.

Do you have the impression that you have found it?

Yes, sometimes, temporarily, fleetingly, in simple things.

Like what?

This morning, I ate a pear that smelled delicious and was deliciously juicy and this brought me great satisfaction. I was totally happy and I think my desire was satisfied.

You had a yoga experience. You fully connected with your desire; you let yourself be totally taken over by the qualities of this pear, and you found profound peace. But is it always like this?

No . . . unfortunately . . . often, I don’t find satisfaction. Yet I think I am passionate by nature and I search a lot, in everything.

That’s wonderful; yoginis and yogis are passionate beings. Why do you think you fail in your numerous attempts to have deep contact with the world?

Maybe because of distraction, because of a kind of greedy appetite as well, like bulimia. It’s awful—I want everything.

That’s marvelous!

How do I keep this intense nature and find satisfaction? Are these things compatible or will the virtuous get the better of me?

You have already escaped them.

Huh?

The true nature of desire is to disappear in the intensity of its search. If we offer it, as soon as the total freedom to act arises, we notice that it is self-sufficient, that it feeds itself on its own continual tremoring vibration because nothing else can satisfy it. Desire is a marvelous force that can flow from our heart in a continuous stream and shower over reality, ordinary daily life. To desire whatever happens: This is the playful, relaxed, easeful activity of the yoginis and the yogis, this is satisfaction in the continuous tremoring vibration of the human being, this is the joy of Soham, I Am. I am the source of desire, I am its path through space, I am its outcome, everything is alive, everything is only desire and satisfaction in one simultaneous tremoring vibration.

Does the practice of nonpostural yoga that you teach affect physical and mental health?

Every movement or action, every thought, every emotion, every tapping into of our sensorality has an effect on our physical and mental health, because everything is connected. Even the way you open a door has a direct effect on your physical and mental health. When consciousness emerges, we encounter things with extreme subtlety and refinement of perception. The fact that Tantric yoga is the spherical unfolding of consciousness in inner and outer activity permanently changes our psychic and physical life.

If this is the case, then the masters should never get sick.

The masters are born and die. They get colds, break bones, have accidents, get seriously and not so seriously ill, they experience pain when they get cut or hit, but they do not turn the painful sensation into psychological pain. They live the pain in its real space-time, without prolonging it by mental activity. They learn to do this their whole lives. Life is extremely inventive; it always finds the means to prove to you that you are still a little rigid and tense, still projecting somewhat, still expecting a little, still somewhat vulnerable, and it is this constant dialogue with reality that keeps you from mistaking yourself for a master. Then, over time, it sometimes happens that certain people reach the absolute and continue to exist there.

Do you mean that those who are considered masters do not have total mastery?

They don’t have it because they aren’t looking for it. They accept reality, they go with life, they receive lessons from life and understand them often.

Yet people rely on them!

Rely totally on yourself, on your own capacity, on your own awakening, on your own consciousness, on your own sparkling jewel, and you will realize that you are no different from the masters whom you venerate.

But you talk sometimes about impassioned worship?

Impassioned worship is the creativity that allows you to discover your own completeness.

Listening to you is irritating me to no end!

Why?

Because I have nothing the hell to do with becoming a yogini or a Siddha. There is already enough of this kind of confusion. You talk about things that are unattainable and for me, if I came here, it was to hear about things that are possible for ordinary mortals. I have a job that sucks, a pain-in-the-ass husband, a shitty apartment, a mother-in-law from hell, my car is a piece of shit that keeps breaking down, and I have friends who sap my morale. So make an effort: speak to an earthly woman!

What do you like, what touches you in life?

[silence]

Really look . . . You wake up . . . what is your first calm or pleasant moment?

I don’t dare tell you!

You mean when you go to the bathroom?

Yes, I like it, I enjoy it.

Me too.

So we have at least one thing in common.

Let’s go on . . .

After, I have to wait until my husband takes off. The morning is the worst. He doesn’t say one word. He only talks at night. When he has left—I work later—I take a little time for myself. I really like taking my shower and especially washing my hair. I get the impression that I am washing away everything. That’s one of the moments I like best. After, I put lotion on my body; that’s nice too. Then I get dressed and leave for work. There I run into my boss and I shrivel up like an oyster.

What do you think about when you wash your hair, when you put lotion on your body?

I don’t know . . . Sometimes ideas come to me, about work, or other things.

And when you don’t have these ideas, what happens?

Nothing . . . I feel good . . .

Do you think there is a connection between feeling good during these moments and your peace of mind?

Yes, but I still can’t find a cure for this sleepwalking.

It’s a cure for presence, a cure for consciousness, that Tantrism or Buddhism offers you. In these moments, you are totally present, you are a yogini.

And what do I do to be a yogini when I am faced with my boss?

How do you get to the office?

I walk. It takes me twenty minutes.

Is it pleasant?

No.

Why?

Because I think about what’s to come.

Imagine for a moment that you are making this trip like every morning. What do you see?

People who are aggressive and in a hurry, dogs shitting on the sidewalks, cars stuck in traffic, shop windows with things I can’t buy myself.

Is the sky still there?

Obviously.

Do you ever look at it?

Yes. I see where you’re going with this. Do I like it? Is it nice looking at the sky? Yes, okay. It’s nice. And even clouds and even rain. I love when it rains on my face, people trying to get out of it and getting all stressed as if it were raining steel rods. I like the rain, especially in summer. And I also like trees, and every once in a while, I come across a little boy or girl who hasn’t been gobbled up by life yet and I enjoy that, and every once in a while, I treat myself to a croissant and it’s delicious and I pass by a florist’s who puts flowers out on the sidewalk and I smell them and I even get a bouquet for myself every week, and every once in a while young guys try to flirt with me and that gives me a boost, as they say, and the first cigarette, that’s good too, but it’s not Tantric to smoke, they are only interested in nice things . . .

There is nothing that is not Tantric.

Even taking a drag off a smoke?

If you are conscious of the pleasure it brings you, of the pleasure of each drag, it’s yoga.

So in the end, I might be a yogini?

Each time that you are what you are doing, what you are feeling, what you are perceiving, you are a yogini.

Even when I cry at the movies?

Yes, because you have the courage to go with your emotions.

What do I do about my boss?

What don’t you like about him?

Everything.

Can you find one good thing about him?

No . . . I don’t think so. . . . He’s a sado-lewd-crude-yelling maniac and he smells like dirty socks. He has one thing going for him and that is that he leaves a lot to go have a drink, he’s an alcoholic.

When he’s not there, are you happy?

No, because I’m working.

What do you do?

Photocopies and parcels, I’m not very qualified.

Have you ever let anyone else do the parcels?

Yes, it’s terrible, badly folded and badly tied. They don’t stay together.

So, you make nice parcels.

Yes . . . I love the smells of the brown paper and the string. I think that, in the end, I really like making parcels. Are you going to tell me this is yoga?

Yes . . . I think that you can find a deeper satisfaction in your work just as it is.

Become a parcel-making artist, is that it? A paper and string yogini?

The sky and trees, your boss not being there, a croissant, flowers, a break, a glass of water, a breeze, shampoo, body lotion, unhindered emotion, movies and cigarettes, defecation, and a look from a child or a man. If you do that, you have nothing to envy of the yoginis, and the more you do this, the more your realm of presence will grow, until the day comes when maybe certain aspects of your husband and your boss will touch you deeply, when your own openness will create theirs. But you can also decide to change jobs and to live differently. With openness arise movement and action, with movement and action arises life, with life arises the pleasure of presence to the world.

So in the end, it’s not so complicated.

You have the openness necessary to live this experience deeply.

I get the impression that in sexual relationships, and in life in general, we are a little lost because we no longer have ritual landmarks. We have abandoned everything, everything is a so-called open field, and in fact we are confused. What do you think about rituals—what is their function, and to what extent are rituals practiced in the path you teach?

Rituals are in general codified rites of passage, of a basically magical significance. A ritual performed according to the rules, by someone who has the power to do so, opens new realms. At any rate, this is the way that ritual is viewed in most cultures. People consult oracles, they carefully choose a date, they prepare the instruments or tools, they purify themselves, and then they perform the magical act.

Tantrikas have a very different view. For us, there is no magic act because there is no duality and no intercessor. If we are what we want to attain, there is no need for an act that would open this unknown and far-off realm. No auspicious dates—all days are good from the point of view of consciousness—no instruments, no purification.

However, rituals do exist in Tantrism, but they are considered in a completely inner way. A ritual is not an action that will procure the divine for us, give us powers, etc. It is the celebration of the unity realized between the tantrika and the object of his awareness.

Ritual brings nothing: It is a celebration in honor of the state of unity in which the tantrika bathes. To take it farther, we can say that each gesture or act is a ritual celebrating union. Hence, there is no longer any separation between subject and object; everything is connection, everything is spherical, everything is plenitude.

In sexual relationships it is usual, for those who distinguish themselves from others under the pretext of following a spiritual path, to resort to a whole dramatic show: incense, candles, lights, music, joints, perfumes, soft cushions, shimmering colors, jewelry, and so on. This is fine—it can help people to relax, to come out of the mechanical aspect of sexual relations—but all this is like decoration.

What the other waits for is to be deeply touched in respect, tremoring vibration, spontaneity, nonprogrammation; with you, in contact with your body, she simply wants to get a taste of limitlessness. She desires you to be her and the creation of the sexual act to be a wonderment because it is always new, without reference, without past. Here is a very great ritual, that of a life, of a work of art. It can happen in a train, on a public bench, on the grass, or in a bed.

When you approach the other with this totality, you perform a very powerful ritual.

I think I have sexual blocks. I went through psychotherapy, I consulted a sexologist, but my sexual life has not changed. I am extremely tense during sex, and it brings me absolutely no satisfaction. I think I have never had an orgasm. I was wondering if what you propose can eventually help me, even though I am aware that it is not therapy?

Therapy is guided by specialists whose job this is, and it is centered on the idea that there is an I. The Tantric masters whom I have known are the opposite of specialists. They place everything in the perspective of consciousness and of the whole person in the abandonment of the I, which is dissolved by presence. One cannot replace the other, and to undertake a spiritual method in place of therapy is not a good idea. Sometimes our blocks necessitate the intervention of a specialist. This intervention allows us, when it succeeds, to approach sadhana more lightly, even more so given that this is a process during which our whole being will endure deep disturbances. On fragile ground, these disturbances can be devastating.

That being said, a sexual problem placed in the larger context is not a sexual problem; it is something that affects the whole inner dimension of the person and, even if this problem was caused by a very violent trauma—a rape, for example—it is possible that, placed in a larger, overall perspective, it would find the necessary opening and disappear. You have to really imagine that a person’s quest, in a larger sense, gently reconnects the emotional and physical circuits that were left in abandonment or that never had the opportunity to become developed.

Female mammals spend considerable amounts of time licking their babies. The effect of this licking is to get the nerve endings functioning. No doubt, a very long time ago we also did this, since we rediscover this pleasure in sexual play. This is why the contact we all lack is so profoundly regenerating.

The fact that the Tantric approach does not include any taboos, that the body is viewed as something noble and pure, that disgust is one of the things we get rid of during sadhana, causes the body right from the start to feel accepted in its totality. Tantrikas specially honor the menstruating woman, because they believe her to be at the height of her femininity; she is seated to the right of the master in Tantric gatherings, and menstrual blood is a sign of unfolding power at its peak. Ascetics willingly use menstrual blood to draw on their foreheads the three symbols representing the Shaivist trident, the three energetic channels of the body, the three paths, and so on.

Woman is never impure; she is animated by a surplus of power. This shows an all-encompassing acceptance of the human being, of the body, of the sensations, of emotions and thoughts, of fluids, secretions, tissues, bodily matter, dreams, fears, inner space. This sole unconditional acceptance, which disregards the ordinary social criteria of selection, opens to those who feel themselves considered in this way an immense space where the body can find its own path of equilibrium.

This acceptance is enough sometimes to resolve serious problems; it restores to the person his cosmic facet. It can close deep wounds because being in sadhana allows the realization that at the heart of every person is an absolute and faultless realm that cannot be sullied or damaged by any action. All aggression takes place at the edges of this immaculate jewel. Sensing the existence of this jewel permits people who have suffered great violence, such as child prostitution, to regain, in the deepest part of themselves, a territory that has never been sullied. This provides an immense power, a freshness that nothing can ever touch, affect. Consciousness of this core is the most precious thing a person can discover, because he discovers it in himself, by himself.

When there is this recognition and this profound contact, everything can then regain the path of life and tremoring vibration. Contact with a master brings this certainty that we can find in ourselves what we were expecting to receive from a third party. This is extraordinarily profound, this sensation of total regained dignity, this sensation that emerging within us is the most secret place of our being, which is marked by nothing, which is love, spatiality, tremoring vibration. In the face of this shock, many wounds disappear. We come into contact, then, with a feeling of plenitude.

But there is a danger: that of attributing this rebirth to the master. That of believing that the master’s actions have given us what we did not have already, which would put us in a place of dependence. As marvelous as your master may be, free yourself from the need to attribute powers to her. Everything breaks free from your own heart, no one gives you anything whatsoever, no one acts to provoke anything whatsoever. Love emerges from you because it is in you. A master is love, but she does not act: It is love that follows its own tremoring vibration, love that flows like a river. If, seated next to this river, you lean over its peaceful waves, you will see nothing but a stream of love—yours—which is reflected in the master’s. At this point you will have discovered your own nature and your heart will be peaceful. You will have no debt toward anyone at all; only love spilling over in all directions.

I hear you talking about love and it is refreshing, but what does one do when one lives alone? Can one find love without finding the other?

That depends uniquely on the idea that you have of your body, of your limits, of the perception of your sensorality. Are you the man whom we can look at, who can see himself in the mirror, or is your body something else? If you abandon tension, the image dissolves. If the image dissolves, your perception will fluctuate. Sometimes you will feel as vast as space, sometimes squeezed and tiny. You will develop a liking for the sensation of being vast because, in this expansion, you will lose your sense of ego and your sense of separation. When the sensation of being condensed and minuscule comes, you will be afraid you are going to disappear. But you will also find this fear reappearing at the edges of the feeling of expansion. Little by little, by playing with this fear, you will discover that there are no limits, neither in one sense nor in the other. Then, losing both the attachment to expansion and the fear of being infinitely condensed, you will start to perceive yourself as a mass free of all limitation and all fear, and you will be able to get a taste of a state of being in which solitude no longer exists because you will be totality.

What way do I take to get there?

You are the way and the destination.

How do I start?

By entering into profound communication with the reality of your life as it is.

How do I find this capacity, develop it?

By starting with what touches you or moves you naturally. If you are only that, even for a few seconds each day, your life will be transformed and the dynamic of presence will gain some ground with each new moment of full consciousness of this reality. Start each morning with the simplest things: a few swallows of tea or coffee, the taste of a piece of bread and butter, a few steps down the street. The pleasure of one peaceful breath. That is where we grasp the absolute.

There exist other passions and other desires, like power and money. Can there be something positive in these forces that take us over, or do they have to be eradicated if we are thinking seriously about following a spiritual path?

Nothing has to be eradicated. The classic trilogy—sex, power, money—requires a great deal of determination, a great deal of energy from its adepts. You have to be ready to suffer until the time comes when you have become desensitized. If this force becomes conscious of itself, of its real and deep desire, it will realize that these three passions are only masks, merely distorted translations of a deeper need, the need to be loved and recognized.

We imagine that we need to be loved and recognized as a totally unique being, as an entity separate from the common mortal by our greatness, and this also is a distorted translation of an essential need, the need to be recognized as nonseparate from the world, as a stream of love independent of an elevated ego.

The ego is the part of the human body-mind most susceptible to elevation. We need to be recognized and loved far beyond the ego. This unconditional love alone liberates people. When this essential need is understood, power, sex, and money hold no more interest than masks abandoned at the end of a carnival.

The positive force of all the passions is that it can allow us to return to the essential source of the Self. Passions then become the passion. This passionate impulse can only be satisfied by the discovery of the incandescent core of the Self. This is the reason the Tantric masters have a predilection for passionate people, because only they have the force and the courage to go all the way to the source. All the great saints, in all the traditions, are beings who live absolute passion.

Can you speak about the ideal relationship between master and student? What really happens and what makes this relationship different in Tantrism? Isn’t there a risk of subjugation, of dependence?

The ideal relationship between master and disciple is a passionate relationship that has regained the impulse of the original passion, that of the Self. It is a personal relationship, a long face-to-face, wherein each will totally reveal himself, without the least pretending. It is a stripping, cleansing relationship that breaks down spiritual fantasies one by one in a continual voyage toward the center where all differences are abolished.

Little by little the disciple recognizes her identity with the master and the universe; she ceases to be in a rectilinear dynamic and enters into a spherical effervescence where all movements or actions that are not circular, cyclical, will fade and then disappear. In a spherical perception of the world, all the concretizations that cling to the ego disappear, all differences fade, and the person reintegrates everything that has been extended without.

What is particular to Tantrism is the freedom of relationships. Nothing ceremonial, no fixed attitude: absolute love. We are not here to waste time with the expression of rigid forms. It is direct, simple, and without protocol. If fundamentally there is no difference, this must be apparent in actuality. A Tantric master is not afraid of showing his weaknesses, of being seen as he is. What he seeks to avoid is the dependence and subjection of his disciples, because in each particular relationship he fundamentally brings his own awakening to reality into play again. He shares fears, enthusiasms, idle times, boredom and discouragement, terror, in the very moment each happens, leaving the reassuring cocoon of the ego, the anxiety of abandon. He never acts the role of condescending guide; he lives what his disciple lives. It is the intensity of this relationship that causes the Tantric teaching to be given to only a small number of people. And in any case very few people truly want this intensity, because it leads to total inner nakedness. Most people are looking for something more bland and neutral, more comforting. In the end it can be said that the Tantric masters teach all those who have this absolute thirst. Very few people are capable of entering into a relationship of this kind once they really understand that no one will do anything for them, that dependence is a major obstacle to the relationship, that all the light will be found only within themselves. Most seekers do not have the maturity required to stop idealizing their master, to stop creating dependence, to accept their solitude. The jewel of the Self is found at the core of this solitude. This solitude alone connects with the world.

Don’t you find it pretentious to talk about disciples?

Yes, I know, people prefer the word student. Yet it is the same word. Disciplus in Latin means “student.” People admit that professors of caliber have disciples, that master musicians have disciples, that scientists have disciples, that great chefs have disciples. It is only a word. The Ch’an masters have a lovely phrase: They talk about spiritual friends. Let’s be spiritual friends, if you prefer.

Sensorality and sexuality are talked about a lot in Tantrism. Is this to say that the masters have sexual relationships with their disciples, as is often the case in other schools where sexuality is passed over in silence?

The Tantric masters approach the human being in her totality. They talk a lot about the senses, sexuality, and passion in effect because the puritan schools abstain from talking about these or talk about them negatively. This openness naturally leads to a very close, very intimate relationship between spiritual friends, where the body is reconnected to the fundamental tremoring vibration, but it is exactly thanks to the depth of this intimate relationship in perpetual movement that there are rarely sexual relationships between masters and disciples—outside the process of the initiation to the Great Union, which is given only in exceptional cases. Of course, in all the traditions there are always cases cited about “masters” who sleep with their students. We cannot carry any judgment. Sometimes there is abuse; sometimes a marvelous exchange. Sometimes it liberates, sometimes it blocks the movement of the quest. Acting the moralist serves nothing. Each case is unique. Among the Tantric masters I have always encountered an immense respect for the body, for the totality of the other—and a great subtlety and refinement as well. I have never seen a person used for personal ends, but I know this does happen.

Sometimes, chaste and virtuous masters who have scrupulously observed their vows for a whole life give themselves over to actions that are not necessarily liberating for those who endure them. But this mostly happens when there are frustrations brought about by strict vows. What would be serious in these cases is if we tried to justify the actions of the master—who in the eyes of some fanatical disciples would not know how to make a mistake, even if he abused the naïveté of some, even if he succumbed to pedophilia. Caught in this unhealthy dynamic, victims of sexual abuse seek in vain to understand what was the “master’s” message.

Sometimes masters do in secret the opposite of what they teach. Sometimes those wrongly considered masters are nothing but egocentric manipulators. Sometimes, authentic masters do things that seem condemnable but thereby transmit the most profound teaching. All these questions are encircled by a gigantic halo of hypocrisy. Sometimes masters, in a nonsexual domain, require their disciples to undergo tests that to us seem too violent but that get rid of the final blockages. Sometimes masters are possessed by “sacred insanity” and liberate people through unbelievable audacities; sometimes they turn out to be the “regular” kind of insane, and their actions are dangerous. May we each follow our own intuition, without judging.

The physical closeness is a wonderful and divine game that makes us discover space, but whose fragility is as great as the possibilities. It is a subtle and complex relationship in which mutual creativity is required so that the phantoms of possession do not surge up. A Tantric master projects nothing, a disciple learns to stop projecting, and the physical intimacy is the marvelous and fragile ground on which this apprenticeship takes place and where everything can happen in grace.

It is an art, constant and absolute creativity, divine tremoring vibration. This is the freedom that I lived with my master, Devi. This is the freedom that I continue to live with a few other people following this path.

I would like to talk about a delicate problem that is at the heart of conversations between women: We often share a certain sadness in noticing that men do not bring us the enjoyment we long for. Of course there are exceptions, but I think most women live in overall sexual frustration; we end up becoming physically and spiritually dried up and drained because we don’t find the quality of connection that we desire, dream about, imagine. More and more women are purely and simply refusing to have routine sexual relationships; it’s like the rift is getting wider and wider. Where are the men? Why don’t they join us in this ocean of pleasure that we are capable of conceiving and sharing?

Men are afraid. They are hiding. They are attached to values and attitudes that, for women, are peripheral. Men suffer; the superficial feeling of their superiority in all points of view is constantly undermined by a deep intuiting of the incredible capacities of women. They suspect that they no longer have a special place in the world. In close company with women, they are caught between an image of themselves that is crumbling and an anxiety about joining woman in her freedom, her courage, her worldly intelligence, her sensorality. Seducers lose the nerve to seduce; sexists lose the courage to affirm their views; men are expecting a sort of fantasized disaster, which woman would mastermind.

A tantrika worships woman because he recognizes her power. This recognition dissolves all obstacles, is the cornerstone of a deep relationship. As long as we have not recognized the power of woman, we cannot touch her and we cannot satisfy her. The great masters of the past who sought the teachings from the yoginis totally melted; they abandoned the whole reassuring and frozen universe of knowledge and authority because they recognized, right then and there, the power of woman, and they let themselves be led toward totality, the unsettling reunion of the body, mind, emotions, and space.

If we enter into the spherical universe, into the marvelous sinuousness of the total being of woman, we regain the suppleness of the newborn, joyous spontaneity, unprogrammed pleasure, slowness, the dawning of life in our organs, our skin, our gaze, our movements, our loving acts. At this moment man can again deeply touch woman; with her, he can become wave, curve, breeze, luminous spatiality. Woman asks for nothing else, and the man who touches a woman in this way satisfies her totally. It is a way of expression that, well beyond sexuality, touches the deep roots of the person. In this way man regains woman in himself, and the whole universe becomes Shakti.

In Tantra we often hear talk about control of ejaculation, which would allow men to perform better as lovers. In your books, you also mention this technique. Is this really possible or is this yet another spiritual illusion?

The words control, technique, and performance arise from a certain illusion, that of believing that a woman is longing for “a good lay.” She is longing for much more than that; she is longing for a deep connection with the totality of her being. I understand that a person can be interested in the first point—I was interested in it myself—but some generous and tactful women helped me understand that this was a paltry performance compared to their deep longing. Sometimes, I understood it more directly. One day a woman literally knocked me senseless in the middle of one of these vain performances. I was very grateful to her for this.

If you are in this phase, which can open into something else and is not condemnable in itself, it is not necessary to turn to Tantra. American sexologists like Dr. Barbara Keesling have detailed some efficient techniques for control, which you can find out about in her book How to Make Love All Night, published by Grammercy in 1998. Know that you have to be ready to masturbate every day, her book in hand or on the desk, and to enlist the help of compassionate female helpers. It is work but, in practical terms, it is not ideal; what is ideal is the heart of the approach. Despite the highly practical side of this book, those who truly reach the goal are rare, quite simply because the goal is very partial and because it does not take into account the deep and larger longing of woman. Holding back, performance, technique are profoundly contradictory to total pleasure.

If you are captivated by the Kashmiri Tantric teachings, you will discover that the larger quest of the person leaves no room for these slightly neurotic ideas. Apprenticeship exists; it goes hand in hand with the development of a complete yoga of presence, which it is impossible to attain as long as you get fixed on objectives. Then, over the course of time, you will discover total abandon to woman, which passes through the volatization of fears, total relaxation, and absence of plans. Then you will perhaps be lucky enough to meet the man or woman who will open you to these sublime abandonings.

You often speak about creativity, art, aesthetic beauty, and grace in human relationships. Is this a personal inclination or it is a kind of Tantric predisposition?

Both. The historical Tantric masters were artists. Not only is music very important to them but so is poetry, aestheticism, the formal beauty of creation, the inner tremoring vibration caused by aesthetic emotion, the coming into vibration of the person. There is always recognition in terms of beauty, because beauty draws us into spatiality and dissolves the ties to the ego. When we listen to music, when we are in front of a painting, it dissolves us, and our sense of separation disappears. We are then in the tremoring vibration of consciousness; in reality, there is no more subject or object. Sensitivity to art leads to acute perception of the beauty of everyday life. At this moment our entire life becomes the expression of an art that is perpetually renewing itself.

This love of beauty is what pushed the Tantric masters to write their teaching themselves, in short texts, of great intensity, of a very rich power of suggestion. Presenting ideas and philosophical concepts was not enough for them. They had a loving and sensual relationship with words, with language, with the profound dynamic between silence and space that underlies aesthetic form.

Once we penetrate deeply into the human fabric, comparisons with art become vital, because the tantrika’s search is precisely to transform life into a work of art—that is to say, into the discovery of the profound relationship of individual humanity to spatiality.