Tantra: The Shadow
and the Light
“I paid the training fees and came here because I trusted you as a teacher, colleague, and therapist. And then you fucked my woman. Is that what I paid for?”
Frederik was angry. Very angry. A Swiss psychiatrist, he had signed on for the Love and Ecstasy Training with his attractive partner, Adele, and then he discovered she had made love with Aman, my co-leader.
For Aman, the incident was out of character. Normally, he was a rather conservative, well-behaved, well-organized German. Not only was he my co-leader, but he was also my lover, staying with me exclusively during the times I taught with him—at least that was our agreement!
Adele was a petite, slim brunette in her late twenties, with short hair and a very nice body, quite lovely but not beautiful in a striking manner. She had brown, doe-like eyes, a well-proportioned body, muscular legs, and almost arrogantly perky breasts.
Overall, she gave off an adolescent, student vibe, quite innocent, which effectively disguised her willful determination to seduce any man to whom she felt attracted.
That made life hard for Frederik, who was ten years her senior. He was a good-looking man, of medium height, with a boyish fringe of brown hair covering the upper part of his forehead. He had piercing, intense blue eyes. By nature, he was a straight shooter, honest and clear, which was why he had called the meeting.
I had no idea this little affair had been going on. So when we had the foursome meeting, I, for once, said little, because I was the least involved in this situation. I had been teaching while they had been making love.
My main concern was that Aman and I were leading a large training group of fifty-four people, and an incident like this, if news of it spread throughout the rest of the group, might jeopardize the atmosphere of safety and trust that was so important for everyone—especially if they were to feel secure enough to move beyond their inhibitions and self-doubts and explore their sexual potential.
Meanwhile, Aman was shrinking to half his normal size with embarrassment and was very apologetic, clearly mortified at having been caught in such a gross breach of teacher-student ethics. But Adele was unrepentant, saying she felt strongly attracted to Aman and could not resist.
On the other hand, when Frederik announced that he would leave the training, Adele insisted that he stay on—no doubt because he was paying for her as well as himself.
Then, after he had calmed down, Frederik said he would stay only if Aman and Adele promised not to continue their sexual tryst until the course was over. Since the Love and Ecstasy Training was divided into three one-week sections over a one-year period, this meant another two weeks of training in the coming eight months.
Frederik described in detail the hands-off attitude he requested, including not partnering with each other in workshop exercises and not meeting at all during the next eight months. Aman and Adele agreed to respect his conditions.
After the meeting ended, Aman and I returned to our own suite at the top of the farmhouse. I was not in the best of moods. In fact, I was furious. I accused Aman of being weak and dishonest. He explained the lurid details of Adele’s irresistible “assault.” I pouted. We spent the night in platonic fashion, separated by a wide and cold expanse in the middle of the bed.
The next morning was awkward, but we managed to make up. Really, we had no alternative. We had a group to lead, so the incentive to forgive and move on was strong. As the days went by, in the course of our work, we forgot all about it and there were no more difficult incidents. Serving others in a training, we had to practice compassion—even toward the Adeles of this world. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it.
After the end of this first week of the training, everyone went home, and some days later, I left Switzerland for my next assignment. Aman stayed in Zurich. One morning, the doorbell of his apartment rang. It was Adele. She parted her coat to flash her perfectly shaped naked body in his face. Within minutes, they were in bed making love. I can just imagine what Frederik must have felt when he found out. But, unlikely though it may seem, Adele and Frederik did manage to complete the training together.
My own situation, during those years of personally managing and leading the Love and Ecstasy Training in many countries, was unique. I don’t know if any other woman in the world has lived the kind of mad life needed on this global mission to heal sexual ignorance.
Since 1981, unbeknownst to me at first, I was slowly becoming the creator of and driving force behind a new Tantric movement in the West. But my personal motivation was not so much sexual as spiritual. It was my quest for bliss that had taken me into the world of Tantra.
Sexual chemistry was, however, part of the package, and so was breaking rules. In the first Tantra groups I led at the Poona ashram, I toyed with the idea of sleeping with a participant. After all, I reasoned, we were with Osho to break social taboos, so why not this one as well?
I tried it. On the one occasion when I took a participant home with me, he told me frankly that he found me intimidating. My role as the workshop leader had raised me—in his eyes, at least—to a higher status in the ashram, and this, unfortunately, had a dampening effect on his libido. His vajra refused to cooperate. So much for breaking this rule! It didn’t work.
I understood that, even if the vajra of a participant did respond and stand at attention, our connection would, most likely, be on unequal terms. Moreover, it could disrupt the man’s process in the workshop itself, distracting him from dealing with whatever personal issues he was facing. So I dropped the idea.
When I moved from Poona out into the world, I realized that the nature of my Tantra trainings was such that I needed supportive male partners and co-leaders with whom I could enjoy a heartfelt, loving connection. I prayed, visualized, talked to various gods and goddesses, and announced to the world that I wanted partners with whom to practice advanced Tantra. The word advanced must have appealed to the male ego, because the partners showed up.
Sometimes my co-leaders would travel with me, from workshop to workshop, around Europe and beyond. But sometimes, too, I would travel alone, while they would stay in their own country. And so, inevitably, our partnership as lovers had to be flexible, which meant that, in most cases, we maintained open relationships.
Gradually, it was becoming clear to me that being a teacher of the Tantric arts wasn’t all glamour and fun. I had to learn detachment. Bliss was a fleeting gift … and it did not belong to us. No sooner had my partner and I tasted this exquisite natural ambrosia than we had to shift our focus toward teaching and sharing it with others. And when the training was over, we had to part, trusting that our love would remain alive, even at a distance, until I returned. This created a constant emotional insecurity that I learned to accept as I moved deeper into self-reliance.
Moreover, I had to let go of the option of building a secure and stable future, such as is possible when two people live in the same town and begin thinking in terms of settling down and even starting a family. That was not for me; that was not part of my mission.
Yet, sometimes it was painful to relinquish those kinds of dreams and the longing for abiding intimacy. It was a pain I had to bear, but I did so gladly, because my calling was too strong to ignore. I was good at my work and loved to inspire people to celebrate their highest potential in love, sex, and spirit.
The upside was that my participants “got it.” As they moved through the training, they were growing and healing by leaps and bounds. The downside was that, predictably, many women fell in love with my man, reasoning that if he was with Margot, then he must be the alpha male of all time and the ideal Tantric partner.
A man in charge acts on female sexual instincts like a magnet, and a charismatic Shiva standing in front of the group was a tempting target for many.
Because of this, I often felt that my love life was under a bad spell. I had no real home, little privacy, no foundation for stability and protection. And I could never be sure whether my partner would respect the ethical guidelines—keeping his hands off the participants—when I was not in the country.
It’s difficult for men in power to resist the seduction of the women who look up to them. One has only to think of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, a twenty-two-year-old White House intern, or John F. Kennedy’s swift seduction of Mimi Alford, a nineteen-year-old virgin, to see how effortless it is for an alpha male to conquer women who come within his sphere of influence.
For this reason, some years ago I was invited to design and teach a course at the Center for Political Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. The request was to teach powerful men how to channel sexual energy to higher centers, so they could resist the seductive temptations generated by their magnetic charisma and popularity.
The purpose was to give them tools that would help them avoid embarrassing and unethical mistakes that might cost them their career.
Such an offer was intriguing, but I declined. At the time, I took the view that the lessons of my work had to be transmitted through direct experience, to courageous people willing to explore new territory. It didn’t seem possible to teach anything of lasting value when speaking from a podium to people sitting behind desks.49
Yet the temptation of seduction is everywhere. How many group leaders are mature enough, as therapists, to receive the love projected onto them by grateful participants without exploiting it?
It was for this reason, I am sure, that Osho decreed that only women should lead Tantra groups in his ashram. He knew that a male leader would most likely be tempted to turn female group participants into some kind of personal harem.
This recurring issue in my workshops was not without its educational side. For example, I noticed that there were two types of women affected by alpha-male attraction: the “dark” ones who would secretly steal the man away from their “sister” when she wasn’t looking, and the “light” ones, who were courageous and honest enough to first come to me and say, “Margot, I would love to spend a night with your man. Is this okay with you?”
When a woman asked me this question in this honest, direct way, including me in the equation, I appreciated her respect, so I often said yes.
In the early eighties, in Europe, there was a certain wild mood in our trainings that somehow made our indiscretions less serious, more like a comedy play, a part of the scenery, rather than major traumatic experiences.
For example, one time, in a big old castle near Nimes, in southern France, I entered my suite, returning from teaching, only to find my co-leader entwined with a group member amid blankets and pillows on the floor of our large and royal bathroom.
I was incensed and left, slamming the door behind me. Then I decided to have some fun and throw a scene. I went back, fully made up with red lipstick and eyeshadow, wearing an expensive, sexy red dress and a black, wide-brimmed hat, with a cigarette holder in my mouth. Striking a pose, I launched into a dramatic movie scene, calling the pair of them all the filthy names in the book. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
My co-leader, seeking a way out of this embarrassing situation, invited me to join them in a ménage à trois. But I refused. I ended up in the arms of the owner of the castle, a count of the local nobility, who conveniently informed me he had a crush on me.
I learned that it was essential, in such moments, to look after myself, to make sure I was taken care of in the same way as my partner. Staying home alone while your partner is having sex is different from going out and having sex, too. This tit-for-tat approach made it easier to remember that our love for each other was deeper than these shenanigans, as long as we could genuinely laugh about them. In my groups, I often reminded everyone:
A problem is an opportunity to be creative.
But times change, and, as my work spread and became more organized, it became clear that I needed to establish clear guidelines. It became a central tenet of our team’s behavior: no sleeping with participants.
This included the leaders, the organizers, and the assistants. When I started working in the United States, I had my staff sign a legal disclaimer affirming they would not do it.
This was the main rule, but not the only one. I informed my staff that a good Tantra teacher observes these principles:
• Is mature enough to keep to their position as teacher, without seeking a more personal and intimate connection with the student.
• Has taken care of their own sexual, sentimental, and relational needs outside of the group arena.
• Does not impose their own ideas about truth on students but is able to ask the right questions so the students’ ability to find their own answers emerges naturally.
• Does not seek to influence students in a direction that corresponds to the teacher’s financial interests (“Come and study in my school. We have the perfect program for you.”).
• Considers teaching to be a sacred event that allows them to act with humility as a vehicle for spirit.
• Is humble enough to recognize that students may at times also prove to be teachers, and the teacher can learn from them.
• Has enough experience and self-trust to know how to handle any and all situations with integrity, no matter how unusual.
• Walks their talk and practices what they preach.
• Avoids presenting themselves as the perfect example that all must follow.
• Chooses not to impress people with siddhis, or special powers.
• Does not feel responsible for the students’ evolution, but only for doing the best they can do, honestly and totally.
• Does not bring their own sexual needs and addictions into the group room.
As we all learned to honor these guidelines, SkyDancing Tantra trainings became more powerful and effective. We delivered results, with many participants experiencing deep personal transformation and profound healing. Since my first tentative beginnings in 1981, SkyDancing Tantra has been taught to more than 50,000 people over the last thirty years.
During this period, there have been SkyDancing Institutes in Switzerland, Germany, France, England, Canada, and the United States. Several of them are still active.
In addition, there are about two hundred teachers and trainers worldwide who have embraced SkyDancing Tantra and integrated it into their own work.
I taught at prestigious places such as Esalen Institute in California, Omega Institute in Rheinbeck, New York, and Blue Spirit Retreat in Costa Rica, to name a few. I wanted Tantra to be respected and honored.
Hence, it was helpful to be on the faculty of Dr. Deepak Chopra’s and Anthony Robbins’s organizations. Teachers at the Center for Political Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School also trained with me, and I coached Hollywood actors and producers in private sessions.
Today, I believe we are witnessing what Osho predicted when he said, in the eighties, “There will be a Tantra revolution.”
Now, so-called Tantra, or rather Neo-Tantra, is found almost on every street corner. This denotes a sincere longing in the West to find a spiritual practice and a worldview that offers a positive connection between sexuality and spirituality.
Tantra is a sex-affirmative spiritual path whose time has come. After years of enduring life in anti-ecstatic societies, perhaps we are now ready to create a new world, a Shambala, where people are not only free to explore pleasure and seek bliss but also encouraged to do so in all areas of their lives.
However, this possibility is not without its pitfalls. Sexual energy, in our modern society, is too often repressed, perverted, and corrupted. The shadow side of today’s sexual mores needs to be exposed.
But these distortions are coming to light, and keeping ourselves informed helps us walk our path with discrimination. We often forget, in our blissful practices, that there is so much sexual abuse in the world, and I feel a responsibility to help, to speak up, to encourage all of us to do everything we can to make a difference.
So, to keep things in perspective, let’s take a look at the shadow side of sexuality in the twenty-first century:
In a detailed article in Bizshifts-Trends, it is revealed that modern-day slavery is a $150 billion global industry, with 30 million people in servitude.50 Of this total, 22 percent—mostly children and underage women—are kept in slavery, exported for sexual exploitation. But, again, these are estimated figures. No one knows the exact number for sure, which is why Washington Post correspondent Glenn Kessler, in an article published in April 2015, warned against accepting statistics provided by anti-slavery action groups, who tend to use shockingly high but factually unverifiable figures in order to focus public attention on this emotional issue.51
However, whatever the actual figures may be, no one denies that a significant problem exists globally. In many parts of the world, it is grinding poverty that is the motivating factor for trafficking. For example, in Nepal, one of the poorest countries, unofficial figures indicate that about 7,000 young girls are sold every year, 52 usually by their own families, to middle-men who then smuggle them into big Indian cities like Mumbai to work in brothels, which offer them for violent rape and abuse.
To this day, right now as I write, this reality goes mostly unchecked and unpunished.
After BBC presenter Jimmy Savile died in 2011, a scandal emerged, which at first focused on Savile’s own seduction and rape tactics among hundreds of underage girls, but soon widened to include a well-protected, high-society pedophile ring operating out of the BBC, involving at least forty British members of Parliament.
And, of course, we have been hearing for years about the worldwide misconduct of Catholic priests, abusing thousands of young boys and girls, and the attempts of the Vatican to hush it up.
Over the years, I have heard a great deal from conspiracy theorists about the influence of hidden power elites, such as the Illuminati, who supposedly run the planet. A recent twist in these revelations alleges the creation of so-called monarch slaves, children who are secretly captured, tortured, and brainwashed until they grow up and are no longer able to function normally—at which point they become subservient, robot-like slaves who are sent to satisfy the sexual appetites of the world’s elite.53
I don’t know what to make of such reports.54 Conceivably, they may be true. One thing is for sure: we need to address the fact that there is a dark and violent side to human sexuality. I take this as an incentive: we need to choose each step of the way with discrimination, and we need to keep ourselves informed and find ways to help.
Tantra and yoga offer education and solutions, but Tantra, too, is not without its dark side. If I am honest, I have to say that one of the saddest things for me, after so many years of teaching around the world, is that Tantra is acquiring a doubtful reputation.
Over the years, several Tantra teachers have been embroiled in scandals involving the manipulation and sexual exploitation of students. As an example from my own experience, I recall being invited to teach near Sydney, Australia, at a yoga retreat.
In my room, I found a brochure on my bed, written by one of the local guru’s disciples. It offered the ultimate Hindu exhortation to practice devotion: “Surrender to the Guru, become one with the Guru, arrive at the end of all dual efforts. There, the long awaited union. … the intellect can’t function there, much less speech. There, is eternal light! Shiva and Shakti merge with each other, that is the ultimate goal of divine love, the abode of truth, the abode of thy Guru.” 55
The brochure included a picture of the guru, a swami, wearing long swami robes, sitting on a throne, buried in numerous garlands of flowers, looking very holy, with a Mona Lisa smile on his lips.
It all sounded fine, albeit a little overdone. I went on to teach a beautiful ritual during this festival and, when leaving, took some of the brochures and read them during my travels, noting that, in India, the swami order required celibacy.
While reading these declarations of devotion, I realized that this concept of surrender to a guru, while steeped in ancient Indian tradition, was all very well, provided the guru himself was worthy of such adoration.
What would happen, I asked myself, if it turned out that a garlanded “saint,” such as the one staring at me from these brochures, was just another Joe Blow, the same as the rest of us?
What if he had not managed to raise his kundalini? What if he still needed to fuck? As I knew from personal experience, transmutation of sexual energy, from lust to bliss, is one of the most difficult yogas—especially for men.
Several years went by and I forgot all about this until a friend sent me an article—a confession, really—written by a young woman who arrived at the guru’s Indian ashram with her mother to study yoga. Over the years, she became the swami’s disciple. In the article, she described scenes of sexual abuse at the swami’s Indian ashram. She reported being repeatedly beaten when she did not obey and being regularly forced into sex with the guru. After many years as the guru’s sexual slave, she finally managed to escape from the ashram and was repatriated to her home country.
A sharp analysis of how and why these situations occur is given by an American attorney, Charles Carreon. He has diagnosed a kind of mental disorder, which he calls Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome, or TIDS for short. Carreon writes: “The net result of the tantric milieu is to institutionalize a groupthink founded on individual helplessness and total dependence on the guru. Individually, this may deepen into self-hate, [and] an obsession with the person of the guru, performance of acts of extreme self-sacrifice to obtain approval from the guru.” 56
Carreon asserts that the guru’s megalomania (or “Guru TIDS”) creates a “vortex of delusional activity” around him, which he can manipulate to satisfy his (or her) pathological whims.
The testimonial and surrender of the guru’s sex slave is an example of TIDS in action.
Such reports support the general Western view that we should never surrender to a “holy man” under any circumstances. Yet the way to authentic spiritual growth, honored by Hindu and Buddhist spiritual seekers for millennia, is to surrender to an enlightened guru, or “root teacher” or “root lama.”
To benefit from the true guidance of an enlightened teacher is a great good fortune, so we need to be careful that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
The truth is complex: Tantra and yoga can be explored for awakening, in service of the needs of the world, or they can be exploited for the enhancement of personal power. There are no fail-safe guarantees.
The culture in India embraces the spiritual path of surrendering to a guru, while Western cultures introduce a healthy dose of discrimination and even skepticism into the matter. In the end, both have to be left behind. In that sacred realm of Supreme Bliss, where the mind itself dissolves into a vast cosmic silence, Western intellectual skepticism has no more place than horny gurus who seduce their devotees.
However, students must stay vigilant. Students must, at all times, remember that they are responsible for their evolution—not the teacher.
Rules and guidelines can help. Some years ago, at a meeting in Dharamshala with a large group of Western teachers from major Buddhist centers in Europe and America, the Dalai Lama had strong words for teachers who abuse their power—and students who give theirs away. He emphasized that when teachers break the precepts, behaving in ways that are clearly damaging to themselves and others, students must face the situation, even though this can be challenging.
“Criticize openly,” His Holiness declared. “That’s the only way.” 57
His Holiness also stated that if there is incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing, teachers should be confronted with it. They should be allowed to admit their wrongs, make amends, and undergo a rehabilitation process. If a teacher won’t respond, students should publish the situation in a newspaper, not omitting the teacher’s name. The fact that the teacher may have done many other good things should not keep us silent.
This approach requires courage. Still, it’s a different matter when you are exploring and awakening your own sexual energy through Tantric practices. There are so many temptations. It can be very confusing.
By the way, many people are unaware that Tantra and yoga have common roots. Hatha yoga began, hundreds of years ago, in the Tantric schools of India and was used as a way to awaken more energy in the body, including sexual energy. With the use of deep breathing and certain asanas, a sexual fire could be fanned in the pelvic region and used in Tantric rituals.
Scientific studies back this up. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine involved forty healthy women, ages 22 to 55, who were enrolled in a yoga program in India.58 Most of the women were married, and all were sexually active. They were given twenty-two yoga poses focusing on abdominal and pelvic muscle tone, digestion, joint function, and mood. The study concluded that regular yoga practice improves several aspects of sexual function in women, including desire, arousal, orgasm, and overall satisfaction.
So perhaps yoga and Tantra are not so far apart. Whether in Tantra or yoga, sexual energy needs to be handled properly—and honestly. All too often, it is not. In both cases, it is clear that repressed, untransmuted sexual energy can be harmful to students.
In his book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards, American author William Broad includes both Indian guru Swami Muktananda and yogic superstar Swami Satchidananda as charismatic teachers who violated sexual ethics with their students.
Muktananda died from heart failure shortly after being exposed, back in the early eighties. Satchidananda advocated celibacy while secretly keeping a twenty-six-year-old mistress at the age of seventy-three.
More recently, Yogi Amrit Desai, originator of Kripalu Yoga, ran into trouble many years after establishing the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts as one of the largest yoga retreat centers in North America, with branches in Europe and India.
Desai’s teachings permitted sex in marriage—he was married himself—but required unmarried devotees to refrain. His philosophy came unglued when it was revealed that he had at least three unmarried women as his mistresses. Former devotees eventually won more than $2.5 million in damages after Desai confessed to multiple affairs.
The question arising is what to do about sexual misconduct. How do we handle it? In the darkest moment on my path, I found the Buddha’s third mindfulness teaching about sexual misconduct to be the most helpful.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, well known internationally as a teacher, author, poet, and peace activist. He lives in the Plum Village monastery in the Dordogne region in southern France. In his book For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Thich Nhat Hanh retranslated the Buddha’s third mindfulness teaching:
Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. … To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.59
Thich Nhat Hanh advocates doing everything we can to protect and heal those who have been molested and also those who are the molesters—because they are sick and, if not helped, will perpetrate similar crimes on the next generation.
This invitation to participate in a form of spiritual activism touches my heart, and so, as part of my own contribution, I have included an appendix in this book outlining ways in which we can help, including supporting honest NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that help people trapped in sexual exploitation.
Despite all the scandals listed here, I still see both Tantra and yoga as precious additions to our Western lifestyle. I know from personal experience that my own trainings, which might be described as “Western Neo-Tantra,” can offer genuine healing to those who wish to enjoy a deeper connection between sexuality and spirituality.
Tantra has a long history. The term Tantra, in its original form, was used in India to denote “a teaching for expanding consciousness.” Thus, enlightened beings like Gautam Buddha were known in their day as Tantrikas, even though the bhikkhus initiated by the Buddha into the Eightfold Path were required to renounce the world and all its pleasures, including sex.
However, Gautam Buddha may have secretly taught sexual Tantra. In her seminal book Passionate Enlightenment, Miranda Shaw, after studying a number of ancient and original Tantric manuscripts, discovered that Gautam Buddha’s teachings advocated the Tantric path with YabYum practices for advanced practitioners.
For example, in the Candamaharosana-tantra, it is stated: “Because people of ‘inferior faith’ will not understand or benefit from teachings on sexual practices as a path of liberation, he [the Buddha] hides it carefully and teaches the real truth secretly, saving the highest teaching for the rare person of superior faith and diligence who desires to attain Buddhahood quickly.” 60
Certainly, by the eight century AD, Tantra and the Buddha’s teachings were deeply entwined. Padmasambhava, an enlightened mystic, was the first to bring both Buddhism and Tantra to Tibet and Bhutan, where he is still worshiped today—perhaps second only to Gautam Buddha himself.
As discussed in Chapter Nine, Padmasambhava was the beloved guru of Lady Yeshe Tsogyal, his consort and the first SkyDancer. It is said that they went on long hermitage retreats in caves, where they practiced advanced YabYum techniques. Yeshe’s awakening happened at the monastery in Bhutan known as the Tiger’s Nest, while practicing YabYum meditation.61
In the seventies, the teachings of Tantra arrived in the West through translations and commentaries on Indian Sanskrit sutras, including Osho’s discourses on the classic Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, or 112 methods of meditation, which he called The Book of the Secrets.
Other commentators included Lilian Silburn, Daniel Odier, and Lorin Roche, who created a new and exquisite translation of Vijnana Bhairava Tantra called The Radiance Sutras. It offers a supreme example of a new Tantric style of “ecstatic writing,” or sublime speech.
Now many people accept the idea that a person can have a direct experience of a blissful connection with the divine, independent of any religious organization, creed, or dogma, through the discipline and practices of Tantra.
In the case of my own approach, I studied Tantra and blended this ancient wisdom with a great number of therapeutic processes inspired by Gestalt, bioenergetics, massage, encounter, Rolfing, emotional release work, and many more. These Western tools were placed in the service, so to speak, of the Neo-Tantric goal of sexual-spiritual awakening. Often, they were preventive, helping us all to stay grounded and sane, while stirring powerful energies to be channeled and transformed through the chakras.
When I work with people, there are, for me, two paths. One is to face someone’s situation head-on and do my best to help in healing a specific wound. The other is to guide participants back to their own inner source of strength and maturity, from where they can choose what they want and what is good for them.
Underlying all my work, as a basic healing process, is the removal of sexual guilt and the reclaiming of the fundamental human right to feel pleasure as part of the path to awakening through meditation, mantras, and other sacred practices.
This is why the first Tantra groups at the Osho ashram were so important. Nothing was left unsaid or hidden. Everything could be exposed, screamed out, revealed. Every emotion could be expressed and released. Taboos could be addressed, faced, challenged, and healed. It cleared the ground of weeds and other obstructions so the rose of Tantra could flower.
On this journey, when I look back on my life as a Tantra teacher, I feel that existence took me on a rollercoaster ride through hell and heaven. I traveled the whole gamut, tried the wildest things.
In the end, hell taught me detachment, while heaven gave me bliss and gratitude.
And I was privileged to be the first teacher of modern Tantra, in the form of a practical training for ordinary people in Western countries. I was, in the words of one friend, “the voice of the origin.”
What I Learned
By focusing so much on teaching Tantra as a path to bliss, I realized that I had disregarded the suffering of humanity, especially those who were victims of sexual abuse. This has changed.
Now I want to say to all those interested in healing sexuality: we need to be more aware of what is going on around us and involve ourselves in actions to help change things.
The time to bury our heads in the sand is over. We need the courage to face the really bad news and the factual truth of sexual abuse. In these intense times, let’s take a stance that can make a difference and can help make the world a better place (see Appendix One).
In my groups, I lead a prayer to remind us all to dedicate our blissful practices to healing the hearts of men and women around the world. We pray that they may all partake, finally, in a vibration of love, respect, and dignity with one another, as well as protect the children.
Isn’t that what being human is meant to be? Isn’t that what we are all working toward?
As far as Tantra is concerned, to those who are starting out on their journey, I will say this:
Choose your Tantra teacher well. Remember that any kind of teaching situation, whether traditional or innovative, whether about yoga or Tantra, can be exploited.
Look for signs that your teachers are walking their talk. Take the time to read their books. Gather impressions from their students, and find out if those people’s lives have changed for the better.
The real protection is to trust yourself, follow your own heart, learn from experience, and keep your eyes wide open. Mistakes will happen, but that’s how we learn and become mature. Just don’t give your power away for a yoga asana or a tumble in the hay!
The Practice: Atisha’s Heart Meditation
Atisha’s Heart Meditation is the quintessence of all Tantric meditations that work with the innocence of the heart, which has the power to transform even the darkest misery into love and light.
This meditation was developed by Atisha, a Tantra master who was born to a royal family in India in the eleventh century AD. After his enlightenment, Atisha taught mainly in Tibet and is still quite popular due to his influence in the Dzogchen teachings.
I have practiced this meditation for myself, and I know it works.
Atisha’s Heart Meditation can be done for ten to thirty minutes daily. Ideally, it should be done twenty-one days in a row.
Here are the steps of the practice:
Light a candle and create a sacred space.
Sit in a comfortable position, with your back straight.
Bring your awareness to your heart chakra at the center of your chest.
Focus on one person whom you wish to help, or on one group of people, or on the world. Make sure you have a clear focus of what you want to transform, so your energy is well directed.
With each inhale, breathe all the suffering of the world into your heart. See and feel this suffering entering your heart in the form of a dark cloud. As it enters your heart, see this dark cloud being dissolved and transformed into light.
With each exhale, breathe out love, light, and compassion to the whole of humanity.
If you are focusing on a particular individual, direct the light and love to the heart of the person whom you are healing.
Continue to inhale darkness and exhale love and light for the period you have chosen—even five minutes helps.
The suffering you breathe in is transformed by the heart principle.
As you exhale love and compassion, you experience the benefits of this transformation both within and without.
End with a namaste to the world, or to the individual or group on whom you were focusing.
Atisha’s Heart Meditation can also be practiced on yourself in the following manner:
If you feel miserable, imagine that you are sitting in front of yourself. See yourself clearly, sitting there, on a cushion, in front of you. Practice like this: inhale the misery and suffering of this person (you).
Exhale love and light to this person (you). You will be surprised how effective this can be to transform a dark mood into peace and love.
I recommend a three-way focus that lasts for a total of thirty minutes: focusing for ten minutes on yourself, ten minutes on a person close to you, and ten minutes on the world.
Or you can create a twenty-one-day meditation, again for ten to thirty minutes a day, focusing for seven days on yourself, seven days on friends and family, then seven days on the world.
I first heard about this meditation in 1979, in India, during a discourse series that Osho was giving on Atisha, titled The Book of Wisdom. Osho said: “The moment you take all the sufferings of the world inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart immediately transforms the energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness … Then pour it out. Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like to do it again and again.” 62
In any quiet moment when you are breathing,
The breath flows in and pauses of itself,
Attend to the suffering of the world,
Cherish the place in your heart,
Where darkness turns to light.
In any quiet moment when you are breathing
The breath flows out and pauses of itself,
Expanding radiance into exquisite vastness
With no beginning and no end.
Embrace this shimmering infinity without reservation.
Dive into it, drink deeply,
And emerge renewed.63
49. Today, I would be okay to teach in this way. I have done so on occasion.
50. “Modern-Day Slavery–$150 Billion Global Industry, 30 Million in Servitude: Business Must End ‘Forced Labor’ in Supply Chains,” Bizshifts-Trends, October 29, 2014, http://bizshifts-trends.com/modern-day-slavery-150-billion-global-industry-30-million-servitude-business-must-end-forced-labor-supply-chains.
51. Glenn Kessler, “Why You Should Be Wary of Statistics on ‘Modern Slavery’ and ‘Trafficking,’ ” The Washington Post, April 24, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/24/why-you-should-be-wary-of-statistics-on-modern-slavery-and-trafficking.
52. Katie Orlinsky, “Women, Bought and Sold in Nepal,” The New York Times, August 31, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/women-bought-and-sold-in-nepal.html?_r=0.
53. Cathy O’Brien, with Mark Phillips, Trance Formation of America: The True Life Story of a CIA Mind Control Slave (Las Vegas, NV: Reality Marketing, 1995).
54. See David Icke, The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World (Scottsdale, AZ: Bridge of Love Publications USA, 1999), and Lena Pepitone and William Stadiem, Marilyn Monroe Confidential (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979).
55. Quoted in Yoga Magazine year 9, issue 2 (Munger, Bihar, India: Sivananda Math, March 2010).
56. Charles Carreon, Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome: TIDS (Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2009). Text can also be found at www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Tantra-induced_delusional_syndrome_%28%22TIDS%22%29_by_Charles_Carreon.
57. Kate Wheeler, “Toward a New Spiritual Ethic,” Yoga Journal 115 (March/April 1994), pp. 37–38.
58. “In the Journals: Yoga May Help Improve Women’s Sexual Function,” Harvard Health Publications, www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/yoga-may-help-improve-womens-sexual-function.
59. I can give only a short summary here, but I recommend reading the full text: Thich Nhat Hanh, For a Future to Be Possible (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1998), p. 31.
60. See Passionate Enlightenment by Miranda Shaw (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 145.
61. Gyalwa Changchub and Namkhai Nyingpo, Lady of the Lotus-Born: The Life and Enlightenment of Yeshe Tsogyal (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 1999), pp. 39–41, describing sexual YabYum blissful practice.
62. Osho, The Book of Wisdom (New York: Osho International Foundation, 1979, 2009), ch. 1.
63. Margot Anand’s Sutra dedicated to Atisha’s Heart Meditation and inspired by Lorin Roche, The Radiance Sutras, Sutra 4.