Leading My First
Tantra Group
“Now, Margot, you go and write your book.”
How did Osho know that I was writing a book? I had never told him. Nevertheless, when I arrived back in Poona after a short trip to Paris, he welcomed me with this invitation. It was just what I needed.
For me, it was going to be “third time lucky.” I’d already thrown out two manuscripts of Le Chemin de l’Extase. Once because my publisher had tried to influence me, and twice because Miles, my husband at the time, had done the same. Now it was my turn.
But it wasn’t easy. I sat on an elegant balcony in my rented house in Koregaon Park, just behind the ashram, enjoying the sunshine while listening to bright green parakeets screeching to one another in the trees … and gazing at a blank piece of paper in front of me.
It became a routine: I would go in silence to Osho’s morning discourse, then afterward, in silence, to breakfast in the ashram, then, in silence, to my balcony … to sit in front of the white page and brood.
I spent hours and hours in front of the white page. I wrote the first sentence twenty, sixty, a hundred times or more every day, rearranging the words this way and that in endless permutations, as if meditating on a Zen koan. I was learning the art of writing the hard way: confronting and evaluating the influence of all the men in my life, including my father, my ex-husband, my teachers, and Osho.
They wanted the best for me, but I had to explore things for myself. And yet, what did this “self” have to say? Nada! I needed to go deeper to find my own unique voice and I wasn’t sure how to do it.
At about this time, Osho chose to focus his discourses on Saraha, a Buddhist scholar born two generations after Gautam the Buddha. Saraha met a wild Tantric female mystic in the marketplace of the town where he resided. He recognized her as his spiritual guide and abandoned his books to join her.
Saraha and his teacher lived together in a cremation ground near a river. Eventually, Saraha became spiritually awakened and began to sing wonderful sutras, or teaching verses, to the people who came to burn their dead. It is said that, upon hearing and partaking of the bliss conveyed through these sutras, people’s hearts opened and they danced in ecstasy.
As Saraha’s reputation spread, the local king sent his chief minister to find out what was happening. The minister listened to one of Saraha’s songs, “got it,” awoke to his own “Buddha nature,” and never returned to the palace. Puzzled, the king sent his queen. She, too, listened to Saraha’s songs, got it, and failed to return.
Finally, the king went himself, whereupon Saraha sang what became enshrined in Buddhist traditions as The Royal Song of Saraha. Listening, the king also became ecstatic. He got it and stayed there himself—bliss is infectious. And it is said that for a hundred years the kingdom was peaceful and people were happy.
Osho’s commentaries on the verses of The Royal Song of Saraha were recorded, transcribed, and edited into a book titled The Tantra Vision. Saraha’s life and transformation remains one of my most beloved stories among Osho’s Tantric teachings.
However, there was a problem. What Osho was saying in his discourses did not correspond at all to the ancient Tantric scriptures I’d studied over the previous years, prior to coming to his ashram.
These scriptures talked about renouncing the senses and retiring to meditate in a cave. According to them, Tantra was a kind of yoga that incorporated the control of sexual energy in order to achieve transcendence. Moreover, modern “experts” on the subject seemed to agree with these traditional views.
Sitting in front of Osho in darshan, I shared my confusion regarding so many different Tantric precepts and philosophies.
He answered:
“Tantra is not in the scriptures. The scriptures are not revealing the truth but only hiding it. The truth is always revealed in a deep, intimate contact between the master and the disciple. This direct transmission happens outside and beyond all scriptures.
“These experts you meet in the Orient, or even in the Western world, will never be in accord with me. Because I do not follow any traditional teaching.
“I live Tantra. And I provoke those who are with me to rediscover it. For we must live it in a manner appropriate to the needs of this century. That is why we don’t need the ritualized structures of old.
“We need a Tantra that is more spontaneous, more poetic. That is what I do here, so that Tantra becomes an experience that is deeply vital, direct, and alive. So forget about the scriptures and trust this new approach.”
Meanwhile, I’d joined a group of sannyasins who gathered in the evenings to study Tantra. Our conclusions fitted with Osho’s remarks, because the more we studied books and scriptures, the less we understood anything about Tantra.
I was particularly disappointed by the fact that ancient texts focused almost exclusively on male Tantrikas, as if female partners were only to be used as means to an end.
One member of our group, who had been studying the ancient scriptures, explained that it was not uncommon for sadhus and yogis to travel with teenage girls as their companions, if not their servants, claiming they were for “Tantric practice.” This was certainly not how I imagined it, nor how I wanted it to be today.
In other scriptures, the emphasis on transcending sex seemed to exclude any kind of pleasurable experience. For example, in one classical exercise, the man was supposed to gaze at the body of a young, beautiful, naked woman for hours, perhaps days, until he no longer felt any sexual desire. Only then was he allowed to make love with her. Most peculiar indeed.
As far as I was concerned, Osho was right: a totally fresh approach was needed.
To deepen our understanding, six of us—three couples from our Tantric study group—took off to a nearby mountain resort called Mahableshwar. We were a motley group of therapists and group leaders from the United States. To intensify the group experience, we chose to live together in one room for two to three days, talking and experimenting with various nonsexual Tantric practices.
In one memorable ritual, we sat in a circle, symbolically surrendering all our knowledge by bowing down, touching our heads to the ground, and emptying our minds into the earth—including everything we’d read and studied about Tantra.
Then we lay on our backs in a circle on the mattress-covered floor, holding hands, forming a human mandala with our heads almost touching a large crystal that rested in the very center of the circle.
Each of us held a tiny hand-carved box with a talisman, given to us by Osho, so that our hands were clasped with one box between them. Later, I learned these boxes contained hairs from Osho’s beard and nail clippings from his fingers. At first I thought this was a bit, well, “woo-woo”—crazy. But I was told it was the custom in India to be given a little “piece of the master” to be intimately connected to his energy. I left it at that.
We began an intense breathing exercise, and after a few minutes, I suddenly felt a lightning-like energy flash from the boxes into my hands. It passed through my arms, into my heart, and through our circle, connecting us in a living energy circuit. I felt myself and everybody else disintegrate into pure energy and light in a kind of “spiritual electrocution.”
After a few moments, the intensity receded and I was back in the circle. Everyone had experienced this extraordinary effect. We had been mediums for the transference of a mysterious, mystical energy. Was it a gift from Osho? It certainly felt like it.
The rest of the day we spent walking in the hills and boating on a nearby lake, enjoying the after-effect of the morning’s energy transference. In this expanded state, everything was sparkling, fresh, and new. I saw trees as living beings, emitting a soft, fluid radiance all around their branches.
I recall one extraordinary moment. Walking by the lake, we were attracted to a tree that was covered in a translucent orange cloud, pulsing and shifting in shape. As we stood beneath it, we saw that the cloud was, in fact, thousands of brightly colored butterflies that had just hatched from their cocoons amid the branches.
They alighted on our arms and shoulders and fluttered around our heads and bodies. We stood still and let them crawl across our faces, softly kissing our mouths and eyelids with their delicate wings. It was magical and reminded me of something Osho had said in his discourses:
Tantra wants you to be alive—as alive as the trees, as alive as the rivers, as alive as the sun and the moon. That is your birthright.
Back in Poona, I continued with my book. Writing was coming easily to me now—sometimes the ideas came so fast my pen couldn’t keep up. Yet I felt increasingly isolated in my work, which took me away from the throbbing heart of Osho’s ashram, now crowded with Western seekers.
After two long months, I finally wrote to Osho and told him my writing “job” was too lonely. I needed to be with people. His response? “Come to darshan.” I wondered, with familiar excitement, what new situation Osho would devise to challenge me. Little did I know …
When my name was called and I sat down in front of him, Osho came straight to the point: “Now, Margot, start leading a Tantra group here in the ashram,” he told me.
I was stunned. I knew a Tantra group was being planned, but I had never envisaged leading it.
“But Osho, I have never led a Tantra group!” I protested. “I am a Western-trained psychologist.”
Meanwhile, instantaneously, my mind was surreptitiously computing which of the many methods I’d studied might apply to this new situation: Gestalt? No. Arica? No. Exercises from ancient Tantric scriptures? No.
At this point Osho smiled, leaned forward, and pressed his finger on my third eye. My mind went completely and utterly blank. Then he answered:
“Forget about the trainings of the past. I am here now, and you are here. That is enough. And if you don’t know what to do in the group, just close your eyes and call me, and I will be leading the group through you!”
Well, that did it. What could I possibly say? I left darshan feeling thrilled but confused. What kind of group would it be? It was ironic: I had just found my independent voice in the book I was writing, but now I was supposed to “call” on a mystic to lead the group “through me”!
Was I surrendering my voice again? But wasn’t surrendering to the Master the essence of this spiritual game? It was very confusing. All I knew was that, up to that point, my interest in Tantra had been focused on the search for mystical experiences. Little did I know that I was about to enter the most insane circus I’d ever encountered in my life.
The date was set for my first Tantra group. I was informed of the basic rules: All participants had to have a darshan with Osho first. No one could come to this group if Osho had not sent them personally. The Tantra group was reserved for those who had already done inner work and had enough maturity to tackle the delicate issue of sexuality in a group setting.
Everyone, including me, had to go through a medical check to make sure we had no viruses or infections, from a common cold to herpes. Participants would be freely touching each other and sexuality might also be involved, so basic measures of hygiene were in order.15
The group was to be held in Chaitanya Chambers, a series of specially built underground, soundproof rooms with padded walls and mattress-covered floors. These had been designed for primal therapy, so sannyasins could shout and scream at full volume—all day long if need be—without alarming our neighbors in Koregaon Park, the residential area in which the ashram was located.
On the first day, I showed up at the door of the underground chamber, the key in my hand, my knees shaking. What would I do? How would I lead? Who would come?
Slowly, people started to trickle in until there were sixteen in total, mostly Westerners in their twenties and thirties. The group had the same number of men and women, some couples, some singles. We were dressed in simple orange robes, with little or no underwear, and were allowed no notebooks or other baggage.
Everyone sat down, leaned back against the padded walls, and waited. There was to be no ritual, no collective Aum or holding hands like we’d done at Woodstock, no dedication or blessings. Just sitting there, looking and waiting … boys looking at girls … girls looking at boys … or boys looking at boys, and girls at girls.
I could not tell who was gay and who was heterosexual. But I did know that being gay in the ashram was a tough challenge, because Osho, normally so rebellious against any limitations of one’s personal preferences, did not condone “gayness” and had said so in his discourses.
This surprised me. I had then, and continue to have, no prejudice about anyone’s sexual preference. But at the time, the scene at the ashram was majorly heterosexual. It was only years later that I encouraged one of my gay participants to open up an Institute for Gay Tantra in Berlin.16
In this first Tantra group, we soon became aware of the impulse of attraction. It was an instinctual feeling. I could read the energy that was beginning to flow across the room: this man looked good and was attracted to that woman over there, but hadn’t he walked in with a girlfriend? Ah yes, there she was: the blonde, curly-haired, angel-type sitting opposite him, looking somewhat constricted and on her guard.
I’d seen them in the ashram. He was a big bear of a man and she was an angelic beauty, leading him around by the nose with her fluttering eyelids and seductive looks, her high-planted, generous breasts waving freely under her orange robe with no bra to contain them.
But now this “angel” was pouting, sensing she’d lost her power. To me, it seemed she was feeling as vulnerable as all the others, worried about what was going to happen.
It was time to begin. I introduced myself. “I am Margot. But I am not leading this group. Osho is.”
I read a quote from one of his discourses and then added, “We are here to allow everything to be expressed, especially regarding sex and our feelings about each other.17
I added: “Before we start, we must all agree that there will be no physical violence against each other in this group. If you feel intense emotions coming up, use your voice or hit a pillow, if needed. I am here to help.”
My explanation was followed by a long silence. The kettle was percolating, getting ready to come to a boiling point, but it needed some additional heat. I guided the group into an exercise, encouraging people to identify with a wild animal—a lion, a stallion, a bear, an eagle—and to move around the room, embodying and expressing this energy.
These participants were not new to groups—they’d already done many—so they needed little encouragement. Soon the room became an arena of lions, hyenas, and snorting buffaloes. Bodies moved and the atmosphere became more and more intense, until it seemed like you could have flicked on a lighter and the whole room would have exploded.
Suddenly a growl erupted from the corner opposite me. Then there was a huge piercing scream and a woman shouted, “I hate men!” She turned toward one man and shouted, “I hate you!”
The man, of course, could not be left behind. He started shouting back and soon other men joined him, releasing their feelings toward women, saying directly to them, “You bitch! You control freak! You fucking whore!”
Then it got wild. All I could do was slide cushions under the hands of participants and encourage them to beat pillows rather than yield to the temptation of hitting one another.
Naturally, people were taking these insults seriously. It was enough to be one of the chosen targets for someone’s emotional release, to feel personally insulted, and to use that as an opportunity to retaliate and shout even louder while looking at the opponent with the utmost fury or contempt.
The melee became so intense, the shouting so loud, that it was like being in one of those cartoon fights in the Gaelic village of my two favorite cartoon characters, Asterix and Obelix: everyone fighting, clouds of steam all around, red noses, dead fish flying through the air …
But if I was Asterix, I wondered, where was the magic potion to make it come out right?
I was moving about the room shouting, “Don’t hit one another! Use your voice! Use the pillows!” Women were getting hysterical, jumping up and down, screaming insults like fishwives in a marketplace.
I was surprised by the violence of these feelings. They surged like an underground power, pushing upward into a volcanic eruption, sexual feelings expressed in words that “educated” and “civilized” people did not allow themselves to utter—and yet they were real; they had been buried in our guts.
As the first outburst of energy subsided a little, I led the group into a structure: a line of men facing a line of women. I told them that each man standing in front of a woman could look at her as representing all the women he had ever known. Similarly, each woman standing in front of a man could see him as representing all the men she had ever known.
The men got off to a quick start, cursing the overbearing mother, the bullying elder sister, the teenage teaser girlfriend, the nagging wife, releasing a lifetime of pent-up emotions.
The women, at first, seemed stunned and unable to respond. I had to help them. I went behind each one and shouted my encouragement above the din: “Well, what are you going to say to your critical father, your cheating husband, your lying boyfriend, the lover who let you down, the uncle who fondled your breasts?”
The women came off the starting blocks and joined the race to express everything. Soon they were screaming at such a high-pitched volume that I had to hold my hands over my ears. Now I understood why those chambers were underground. The neighbors would have called the cops in seconds.
This was a Tantra group, this madness? I closed my eyes, tuned in to my heart, and called Osho to be with me in this moment of doubt. His response was immediate and reassuring:
Yes, let it happen. All of you have held in this madness, this anger, for so long. Now it has to come out. Love cannot flow when there is resentment. Hearts cannot open when there is hatred. Let it be as it is.
It touched me deeply to realize how Osho’s presence was so intimate, so close to my heart, like that of a friend watching over me and readily available. I continued to call upon this inner guidance in this way for many years to come, until I felt this inner voice had become my own intuition.
Hours went by, and I had little to do but protect, help here and there, guide a little, and let the energies find expression on their own.
The shouting released anger, the anger became sadness, the sadness became sobbing hearts, and tears opened the door to vulnerability and a longing to let go.
Some people were rolled up in a corner, some were hugging or lying naked together, and one was sitting in a corner sucking on her thumb while she held her sex with her other hand. Time went by and slowly silence descended.
We took a shower break. People came back fresher and more centered. Now was the time to share the histories of their inner worlds: the misery of growing up with ignorant, insensitive parents and abusive relatives, the violence of drunken fathers and mothers, the secret rape by an older brother, the shame of the silenced child having to keep such a secret. The horrors of hell were unfolding in front of me.
By now I could plainly see that these Tantra groups were not going to be a so-called civilized form of therapy, but rather what seemed to me, at the time, like the most dramatic and radical catharsis of all time.
Then and there, I decided I would not limit what happened in this Tantra group because of my need to “do it right” or out of any consideration for my professional or social reputation.
I realized what an incredible opportunity Osho was giving me: a laboratory in which to run the gauntlet of all sexual emotions, to clean the shadows, the old dust, the debris, from the cellars of our houses, from our root chakras, so that we could rise to higher, finer vibrations of love.
By the evening of that first day, after throwing out so many negative emotions hitherto unrevealed, it felt we were ready to open our hearts to one another. We walked around the room sharing deep, long hugs. Instead of being enemies, we now felt we all belonged to the same tribe.
We felt the longing to love deeply and freely, beyond hurt, and this was becoming possible because each member of the group had told the truth about their feelings, especially their shame, and had been received and accepted.
Before leaving the room, I told them to come back after dinner for a healing session. We got back together around 9:00 p.m. We sat in a circle, holding hands, and I said, “I’m touched by the women’s stories of sexual abuse and I propose we facilitate a healing circle for the women. Are you with me?”
Of course, they all said yes, the men included.
We made two circles with four women in each, and the men were invited to be free agents who could join any circle they wished.
I said to the women, “You have a great teacher between your legs. She is the door to your femininity, the door to life, the door to your power. She has been denied for too long, and this night we will reclaim her power, giving her love and healing.”
One by one, under my guidance, the women took off their clothes, spread their legs, and showed their vagina to the others, who commented with appreciation.
I encouraged them to give a loving name to their sex centers and then give them a voice, allowing them to introduce themselves. It was important, I felt, to do away with the vulgar names often given to our sex organs. To help start this exercise, I gave my own example:
“My name is Yoni,” which means “cosmic matrix.” I’m not so happy these days, because Margot keeps me quiet, stuck under a table, because she is writing a book on Tantra. But mind-tripping about sex and doing it are two different things. I’m not sure she knows the difference. I just want to play!”
One by one, the women reclined in the center of the circle and allowed their sex centers to speak. Gita went first. She was from Sweden, in her late twenties, with a round, freckled face framed by a thick mane of curly red hair. She had a buxom, sexy body, with generous breasts, a round belly, and lovely long legs. She began softly and hesitantly, holding her hands on her vagina and saying:
“My name is Cherry Blossom. I remember when I was very little, maybe three years old. My parents had gone out. It was evening and I was lying in my crib. A big person came in the room. He was like a big dark shadow.
“Then Cherry Blossom felt these fingers pushing and pulling all around her. It was hurting. It was scary. The big man was breathing hard and saying crazy things.
“I remember he was holding his big thing in his left hand. It was like a hard stick. He moved it up and down. He shouted. It squirted. This went on every time my parents went out at night.”
Gita was crying. She wouldn’t say who exactly the person was—a relative perhaps? But she was back in the horror of it, telling us how the abuse had escalated until the time came when this man had pushed his penis inside her.
“And then,” she said, “I stopped breathing and I left my body. I went somewhere else. I don’t know what happened anymore.”
The group, listening, was stunned. We stayed silent for a long time, deeply affected by Gita’s story, the men as well as the women.
Looking at Gita, lying in the middle of her circle, eyes closed, still very much the little girl, it was a challenge for me to figure out how to help her heal. I had to find a way to help her travel from the powerless baby to the adult.
I waited until she opened her eyes. Very gently, I asked her if we could recreate the scene to help her move out of the baby stage. She nodded hesitantly.
To recreate the scenario, I asked for a male volunteer. This required presence and courage. Jurgen volunteered. He was a tall, strongly built German, clean-shaven, with short hair, and seemingly confident. He sat alongside Gita and, at my invitation, gently laid a hand on her pubis.
Then I guided the little girl to breathe slowly and deeply and relive the scene once more: “Go back. What are you feeling? The man is here … yes, breathe … give a voice to what you feel … stay present now … breathe …”
I was gently guiding Gita so that she could move from the helpless child to being present, here, now; so that she could give a voice to her sensations, her feelings, and find the power in that voice that would carry her from the baby to the adult—until she could shout her anger and rage and confront the abuser with her recovered power.
At first, Gita made no sound. Clearly she wanted to leave the body again, but I kept talking to her, engaging her, inviting her to open her eyes once in a while so she would stay present. She began to make small whimpering noises, like a child trying to wriggle away from something bad. I encouraged Jurgen to keep his hand resting on her pubis. Soon the sounds got louder. She was shouting now. Then moving her body. Then protesting louder. Until, finally, she exploded in a full-blown high-pitched, “Get away from me, you creep! You’re disgusting!”
Other men in the group had spontaneously moved to sit behind Jurgen, supporting him in his uncomfortable role as perpetrator and giving him the strength to be the healer regardless of what happened. Jurgen was taking the heat for all the abusers in the world, and it took guts to hold that position, to receive the wrath of a woman, of all women, who were reclaiming their bodies from male ownership, domination, and exploitation.
Slowly Jurgen removed his hand from Gita’s pubic bone and the women took Gita in their arms and thanked her for her courage, while the men did the same with Jurgen.
A deep healing was taking place through the trust Gita felt in us all, sharing her vulnerability, exposing her shame, and shouting and releasing her anger, supported by the cocoon of love and acceptance that surrounded her. Eventually Gita and Jurgen could face each other and share a heart salutation, bowing forward, hands joined on their own chest, in a gesture that expresses: “I honor you as an aspect of myself.”
In that moment, I understood Osho’s remark, given in discourse a few days earlier: “Love is the only therapy.”
We ended the evening on a soft note, with people choosing a partner and giving each other a tender, relaxing massage. It had been a wild and exhausting but liberating day. And as we left the room, I noticed that several of the massage couples went home with each other.
The group went on for two more days. Everything came up: an explosion of jealousy because a wife had noticed her husband flirting in the cafeteria; women attacking men for putting on the false appearance of being a sexy stud, a Casanova, and then not delivering the goods; men admitting they’d come to the group to get laid because they hadn’t done it lately.
As we journeyed on together, the women in the group felt free to openly seduce the man of their choice, telling him in public what they wanted to do with him.
The truth was coming out in the form of raw, outrageous fantasies that no one normally speaks about. People got into the mood and were acting out these fantasies with glee, power, and tears and then finding a partner to do a psychodrama, a respectful reenactment of what had, until then, only been imagined.
People were being sensual in new combinations: two women with one man, two men with one woman … Everyone had a chance to express their sensual and sexual fantasies, their wish list, and to enlist willing volunteers to cater to their whims.
There was also much work done around rebirthing, releasing deep emotions, expressing anger and frustration, and becoming aware of our prejudices against members of the opposite sex or the same sex.
Women talked to men’s penises as if they were people, while men looked at and honored women’s vaginas and told them what they wanted. Generally, everyone managed to be wild yet respectful at the same time.
My leadership role was to drop preconceived ideas, creating and guiding structures in the moment, depending on whatever situation presented itself. This, indeed, was the spontaneous Tantra Osho had told me about.
It was not about being a well-trained or technically savvy group leader. I had to be as open and vulnerable as all the others, being deeply present with each person to the point that, when I worked with people, I felt that I was them and they were me.
There was no separation, no difference. There was just an openhearted caring so vast that windows seemed to open in my brain, allowing rich, limitless visions of intuitive guidance as to what to do next.
Because there were no preestablished guidelines and no limits, it was possible for me to be in a kind of innocence, in the unknown, allowing anything and everything to happen—though, of course, not physical violence. When I say “everything,” I mean whatever presented itself. There was no preestablished plan or direction, but just an intuitive response to what was arising in the group. There was no sense of right or wrong, heaven or hell, better or worse. Clearly, this kind of Tantra was not about moral judgment, but about honesty, courage, and integrity.
I remember one scenario in which a participant revealed that she was a lesbian but also wanted to experience an orgasm with a man. The problem was, she didn’t know how to go about it. She didn’t know how to open up to a man. It was scary. Women, in her eyes, were much safer.
Kathryn was her name. She had a petite body, short black hair, a slim, muscular frame, and a masculine attitude about her that seemed to cover up a scared little girl. The emotional trigger point for her came on the morning of the third day, during a group feedback session, when a woman and a man reported spending the previous night together.
They were a sexy couple in their thirties from France. They told us they had enjoyed the most satisfying sexual experiences of their lives, saying things like, “We made love all night” and “She became all the women I’ve ever known and I loved them all.”
The female partner reported a whole-body orgasm, with energy streaming up and down her pelvis, bringing delicious feelings, electric tickles, and vibrations in her vagina.
This feedback triggered a storm of emotions in Kathryn. She looked at the woman and confessed, “Yes, I want that too!” But when I asked the rest of the group how they felt about Kathryn’s way of expressing herself, they all agreed: it sounded like, “I want that, but I will never have it.”
Her voice held a kind of resignation tinged with deep frustration. She clearly did not expect to win the jackpot. Nonetheless, she wanted to have an orgasm with a man.
An outrageous scenario manifested itself in my mind’s eye. My job was to facilitate this woman’s fantasy and allow a breakthrough to happen in a way that was safe, attractive, and healing.
I said to Kathryn, “So you want to make love with a man, but you are scared of being entered by a penis?”
“Yes,” she replied, “that’s it.”
“Do you think if a gentle but firm penis penetrated your yoni at the right moment, it could be a good experience?” I inquired.
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Do you fantasize about that?”
“Oh, yes. All the time.”
“Are you willing to explore that?”
“Yes,” she replied, in the faltering voice of someone interested yet scared.
I asked Kathryn to put on a blindfold and then led her slowly around the room, inviting her to touch and connect with every man she met. I guided her hands to touch their naked bodies, sensing the male energy in front of her, until she found Jerry.
I had seen him around the ashram; he’d been there for a while. He was in his thirties, of medium height, slender, with long brown hair and a beard—in fact, he was a very hairy fellow with a twinkle in his brown eyes, clearly stoked to have been chosen by Kathryn.
I asked Kathryn to lie down and invited several women to give her pleasure in a soft, sensual, erotic way so that her sexuality could be safely aroused. I asked her to keep the blindfold on, helping her to focus on the physical sensations rather than visual contact, which carries so many opinions and mental projections.
I asked Jerry to put on a blindfold and lie down a little distance away, while more women pleasured him until his penis, or vajra,18 stood proudly erect.
Gently, we helped Kathryn stand up and, with her blindfold on, led her to her chosen man, with a woman on either side of her whispering erotic encouragements.
I decided to talk to her vagina. “Beautiful Yoni, you are loved and moist, and we feel your calling to be visited and pleasured. The time has come for you to be completely in charge of opening to a visitor. He will be strong but gentle. He wants you and you want him, is it not so?”
“Yes,” said Kathryn, breathing hard, scared and excited at the same time, wanting this experience. I reminded her that she could stop at any time, but clearly this wasn’t going to be necessary.
I guided her on top of Jerry. She was straddling his pelvis and his erection. I continued to talk to her softly. I asked her to bend her knees slightly and crouch down, ever so slowly, while feeling reassured by the gentle, non-intrusive caresses of the women around her.
Two of us supported her weight, holding her under her armpits, as she lowered herself until her yoni touched the tip of Jerry’s vajra. Kathryn breathed deeply, listening to our voices telling her enticing things about the man’s penis, and slowly, ever so slowly, she allowed herself to slide her yoni down around his vajra.
Not even knowing who the owner of the vajra was, she could focus entirely on herself, on her own sensations.
She was describing everything that happened: the walls of her vagina were throbbing, relaxing, moistening, becoming soft and welcoming; the vajra was erect but not threatening.
“It feels good. Now I want it!” she exclaimed.
Then she stopped talking and moved totally into her sexual feelings, breathing, and soft sounds, adjusting herself to this male organ, taking it deeper, all the way in.
She started moaning, welcoming the new experience, until her whole body was undulating, until she was wet with tears, with sweat, with yoni juices, lowering her whole body down until she was lying on top of Jerry, melting into his energy.
Moving her pelvis and completely letting go into sensual satisfaction beyond guilt and fear, Kathryn held nothing back. It was a glorious thing to behold. A total, whole-body orgasm. Her first.
In this moment, Jerry seemed imbued by the power of his role as the god Shiva, who, in the Hindu myths, stays immobile and erect while his consort, Parvati, dances on his vajra. To the credit of his potency and endurance, this Shiva did not come. So, after a while, Kathryn was able to continue making love with him. It was beautiful to watch and to celebrate with them. I could see that their pleasure was a healing and joyful happening.
I felt a bit like a surgeon after a successful operation. My heart was relieved. Still, I remained neutral. I did not consider myself on a mission to convert Kathryn from being a lesbian to becoming a heterosexual woman.
That wasn’t my job. I was there to facilitate her desire to break through a limitation. If she’d been a hetero woman who’d wanted to explore same-sex impulses, I would have supported her just the same.
Even though, in this chapter, the stories that came up and wanted to be told were focused mostly on women, I have, over the years, always endeavored to be equally fair and active in working with men as well.
That evening, as the group ended, we all left the room in a state of openhearted appreciation. Many of the group members went home with their dates to continue their explorations long into the night.
For me, the experience felt complete and fulfilling. Deep in my heart, I knew somehow that I’d found my vocation. I was going to be a teacher of Tantra … Western Neo-Tantra, to be exact.
What I Learned
The first few Tantra groups I led at the Poona ashram happened around 1978. Imagine those days: life with new freedom given by the invention of the pill—the first truly liberating birth control method—and the openness to explore sex before the advent of AIDS.
It was easy to focus on the here and now because there was no Internet, no emails, no mobile phones, no Facebook, etc. It was an ideal environment in which to explore an open, wild, and free sexuality. It was a revolution that began in the sixties in the United States and then, for me, flowered in the seventies in Osho’s ashram in India. I’m glad I could experience it.
However, telling this story on paper for the first time has taken a huge effort on my part. In my mind’s eye, I can see the readers of today judging those no-holds-barred methods of therapeutic work as naive, amateurish, dangerous, and reinforcing trauma rather than healing it.
In those days, we did not have the gentle therapies that have been developed since, such as Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing or the Theta Healing process. This was a time of encounter groups, primal therapy, bioenergetics, scream therapy, and radical confrontational work.
The approach that I took in the Tantra groups at the ashram was rooted in my willingness to allow almost any kind of situation to manifest, trusting that I could find a curative solution. And it worked. The heady mix of “no limits” combined with the protection of a great mystic and an atmosphere of love and acceptance offered a potent healing environment for those who participated.
Scared as I was to lead those groups, I went into them wholeheartedly because I trusted Osho—trusted that he would teach me, and all of us, what we could not learn or discover anywhere else.
To this day, I am grateful that I had the good fortune to receive direct, hands-on, practical training in which I was free to try whatever my own inner guidance dictated without concern for social reputation.
It created the foundation for my later work. It gave me confidence and a sense of certainty that I could handle any kind of sexual issue, cleaning out the basement—so to speak—so that the house of Tantra could be built on a solid and clean foundation. Also, I had free access to Osho if I requested it.
Tantra, as Osho has said many times, is a ladder reaching from sex to superconsciousness. Sex is the first rung. Superconsciousness is the last. The folly of most spiritual disciplines is that they try to remove the first rung of the ladder—condemning it—and then urge people to climb to the top of ladder.
Osho changed all that. He put the first rung back in the ladder and showed us how to honor it, and use it to begin the climb to higher states of awareness.
Many years later, working as a therapist in Western countries, I did not continue to work in such a style. I found ways of facilitating profound healing for people in a somewhat softer, safer approach, which, to be efficient, had to be adjusted to the culture and the laws of the countries I lived in. After all, I lived and worked in Western countries and no longer in an ashram in India. Yet the progression and transformation of the work happened organically and naturally.
The Practice:
Cultivating Qualities for Bliss
Here, I will share with you the qualities I find so important in someone who is, or who will be, either leading a Tantra group or engaging in Tantric practice. Before you apply these skills in leadership, however, I propose that you cultivate them in your daily life. Ask yourself, in every moment of your day, how you can manifest these qualities.
1. Practice trust. Trust yourself. Trust that you have the capacity to understand your fellow human beings and their difficulties regardless of what happens with your client and in the group room. Trust that existence is taking care of you and will show you the way.
2. Stay present. The single greatest healing force is to be present with another person, in rapport, with an open, trusting heart and your undivided attention. This is the alchemy of transformation.
3. Listen with love and compassion and without judgment. This is the best therapy. Don’t try to know in advance what to say or how to answer. Trust “not knowing.”
4. Support your clients so that, whenever possible, they find their own answers to their problems. This applies also to raising children, being the leader in a team, being the boss at work, and so on.
5. Live dangerously, but do so intelligently. Yes, ecstasy is a jump into the unknown. Go where you have never been and trust your intuition. Simply put, choose the new over the old, take chances, and explore!
6. Fear is contained excitement. Let fear be your teacher. Choose to face it head-on. Express it. Feel it. In a therapeutic situation, it shows us what experiences we need to go into, so that we can move through and beyond them.
7. Notice your experiences of bliss. They often peep in on your life, usually when you don’t expect it. Bliss shows up very discreetly, like a bird on a branch. If you don’t pay attention, it leaves again. If you stop and listen, sit down and be quiet, it grows and gives you access to the unexpected. A new adventure begins.
Cast aside the ten thousand things,
And love only one.
Don’t go on to another.
Engage your lively awareness
With this one focus—
One object, one thought, one symbol.
Then go inside
Find the center.
Right here,
In the middle of the feeling,
Attend the blossoming—
Attention vast as the sky.19
15. AIDS had not yet appeared.
16. For more on this, you can visit Armin Heining’s website Gay-Tantra at www.gay-tantra.de.
17. At the time, I did not introduce any rule about not making love in the group room because no rules had been given and I was exploring in free fall, so to speak.
18. Vajra means “thunderbolt” or “scepter of power” in Sanskrit. I use that noble name for the penis.
19. Lorin Roche, The Radiance Sutras (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2014), Sutra 39.