Sensing Creation
The last of the five paths we are exploring is the path of Tantra Yoga. I know what you are thinking and yes, sex is a creative act; however, true tantra is far richer than mere sexual connection. Tantra can be thought of as harnessing the subtle senses to transcend our physical awareness. Tantra is a path of body-mind health, where attuning ourselves with the energies within and around us provides an abiding perception of unity, inspiration, and clear vision. This subtle, connected sense supports your authentic, passionate self-expression. The creator on the Tantra Yoga path feels it.
“Feeling” is at the core of much creative work. Intuitive, energetically sensitive people often follow the Tantra Path. Through the pleasure of your five senses, self-trust, and intuition you can let your genius shine.
Pleasure
You are probably not surprised that the topic of “pleasure” comes up in the tantra chapter. What may surprise you, however, is that the deepest pleasure comes from the realms beyond the physical. Just as you may perceive your creative process as originating from somewhere outside of your consciousness, so the experience of pleasure can be transcendent. We elaborate our idea of pleasure when we think of how pleasurable it is to watch a blank page turn into a story, a canvas become a play of color, or fingers on a piano align with complex harmonies and melodies. There is a richness of pleasure to be derived through the act of connection and creativity.
This creative delight springs from connection with our inner realms. The Upanishads teach us that we physical beings contain evermore subtle layers of existence (koshas): from the physical body, through the breath-energy (prana), the mind/emotions (manas), discerning intellect (vijnana), to the spiritual realms of bliss (ananda). We have easy access to the breath-energy level, which is the plane where our energy meridians (nadis) and chakras are perceived. A few simple ways to open your perception to the pranic realms are to look at the space between tree leaves, shape your hands as if you were holding a ball and “feel” it, or receive an energy treatment such as Reiki. These subtle perceptions can be mentally and emotionally nourishing. The following exercise harmonizes those layers of being and helps tune you in to your subtler perceptions.
Exercise: Feeling Good through the Layers of Your Being
This exercise takes you through the koshas on a journey of self-appreciation. Enjoy your physical form and the rolling waves of the breath. Truly appreciating physical and energetic forms connects us to the Tantra Path.
Step 1: Select a part of your body you appreciate. You may admire its strength, beauty, function, romantic association—it doesn’t matter. The point is to find a part of your body you feel good about. It can be as large as a limb or torso or as small as the nail bed on your baby finger.
Step 2: Sit or recline in a comfortable position and attune to the depth, rhythm, and flow of your breath. You do not have to direct the breath in any way; simply watch it flow and let the breath breathe for your body.
Step 3: As you watch the breath, notice how good it feels to have this vital force flowing through you. No matter how much you relax and let go, the breath continues to roll like ocean waves … in again … out again … vitalizing … surrendering … nourishing … releasing …
Step 4: Once you have a sense of that relaxed pleasure in breathing, set your awareness to the part of your body you selected in step 1. Imagine breathing into and out of that part like a dolphin breathes through a blowhole. The breath still distributes through your body; however, the focus is on the exchange directly at your feel-good body part. You may imagine this in a variety of ways, such as in a cartoon, compared to scientific concepts, or as a movement pattern. If you are having trouble, just ask yourself, “If this could work for me, how might that happen?” and trust what follows.
Step 5: Continue witnessing the process for three to twelve minutes. Wrap up the practice by imagining that feel-good sense of the breath amplifying and circulating through your entire body.
Step 6: Express what you perceived in your breath-energy body. You may play with interpretive dance, color, hum, or however else you wish to express that pleasurable body appreciation and subtle flow.
Return to this kind of practice throughout the day, taking pleasure in your breath and body.
You may have noticed from the previous exercise that your more subtle layers are less obvious than most of what you encounter in the material world. When we begin to experience beyond the range of the everyday, we open our potential for expressive freedom. It may be redundant to say that the delicate is not dense; however, this is a key point on the Tantra Path. In order to connect to transcendent energies, we must be less attached to what we find in the material realm. The following section lets you explore beyond your five senses to open your creative perceptions.
How Many Senses Do You Have?
How do we learn about the world around us? Through what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. In fact, we become so reliant on our five senses to teach us about the world that we often forget how flawed they truly are. Remember, your eyes, ears, and other sense organs can only perceive within a limited range of experience. We can’t hear dog whistles or see Wi-Fi signals, yet they exist. Thus, when we remember that there are many factors at play beyond what we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, we open ourselves to a more comprehensive view of the world. When we become less attached to what our senses tell us is real, we are free to explore different realms of reality. How creative is that?!
The tantric tradition reminds us that the material realm is an illusion (maya) and ultimate reality can only be contacted by a shift in perception, as discussed in Chapter 7. The difference is that the Raja Path gives us a systematic process of cultivating a meditative mind, while the Tantra Path gives a thriving interaction with spirit via the material/energetic world.
The following exercise offers the opportunity to interface with the world beyond the experience of your five senses.
Exercise: Sensing Beyond the Senses
How many senses do we have beyond the classic five? I am not sure it’s relevant. What are we sensing with, if not our five senses? The yogis would say “the source of our senses.” We could play in these abstractions for the rest of the chapter, however, it may be more useful to delve into a direct experience of these ideas. Throughout the next exercise, remember that you are perceiving through a different filter than usual, so the information may come to you in strange, faint, creative, or unexpected ways. If you are not accustomed to playing with energy, you may need to repeat this exercise several times before the epiphany happens. If you are interested in the Tantra Path, be patient, enjoy the journey, and stick with it.
Step 1: Sit or lie down in nature or near a living thing such as a tree, a flower, or rain. Close your eyes and attune to the natural movement of your breath. Don’t direct the breath in any way; simply trust the breath’s own intelligence and watch it flow.
Step 2: Go more deeply inward. As you witness the breath, appreciate the experience of it: it feels so good to breathe! You don’t have to do anything—the motion of the breath just happens.
Step 3: Acknowledge that the energy of the breath is circulating through your entire body. Sense its presence in your torso, back, limbs, neck, face. You may especially feel it in places like your digits, lips, tailbone, low belly, or chest (major and minor chakras). You may sense the breath as imagery, sound, tingling, warmth, lightness, aroma, flavor. Do not judge your unique way of filtering these perceptions. Trust yourself and your imagination.
Step 4: When you have an internal sense of the breath-energy flow, imagine it broadening. Let your body, energy, senses, mind, etc., interpret this in their own way—the intention is to perceive or imagine the breath becoming more expansive. It fills you then shines out of you, extending through your pores and creating a beautiful field around your physical form. You may pause at this point and bask in the sense of being bigger than your body.
Step 5: When you have a visceral sense of the space beyond your physical form, imagine it broadening again, this time connecting to the natural object nearby. It can be fun to sense the other life form with your eyes closed, using internal experiences to glean information. It may also help to open your eyes and connect via your physical sense before returning to the subtle connection. Be gentle and patient. Free yourself from expectations of how the information may come to you or what you may sense from the natural subject. Openness is important. Stay curious and connected as you trust your perceptions.
Step 6: Use this energetic connection as a perceptual bridge to gain a true sense of the natural item you are connecting with, all the while remaining energetically connected to the sense of your breath filling your physical form and expanding outward. You may pick up the simultaneously grounded and reaching actions of a tree, the bubbly freedom of a running stream, the fragility of flower petals, or the pent-up release of falling rain.
Step 7: When you are ready, offer appreciation to the living thing who shared your energetic space by smiling from your heart, saying a prayer, or sending gratitude. “Let go” of it. Begin to draw your presence back into your own energetic space, then into your body.
Step 8: Take your time awakening to the world around you. Use your five physical senses to experience yourself and your environment. You may notice that your sense organs are more sensitive now. Stay relaxed and witness the world with new eyes, so to speak.
Step 9: Express yourself as if you were the aspect of nature you were just connecting with. Write what the grounded, reaching tree might say. Paint the way the stream runs. Play piano with a flower petal’s touch. Dance like a bursting cloud. Let your connection with the world guide your expression. You are a part of everything around you.
By connecting to your own body, then broadening that kinesthetic sense into the world around you, you gain a tender kind of access to the nuances of life. Continue appreciating the world with this expanded sense of being. Being in nature is an essential aspect of staying balanced on the Tantra Path. Have you heard of a forest bath? It washes away the gritty stresses of the everyday, human-made world. Life feels different when we’re in the thick of nature. We can perceive ourselves being nourished. This gentle, unified sense can greatly inform your creative process. In your creative life, you may apply this exercise to help you connect to movement in a visual piece or characterological aspects in your novel, film, or poem. We often perceive more than we think we do, even within the realm of the five senses, and attention to these details can be the thing that enhances our creative endeavors.
Sensing Intuition
As with the previous exercise, yoga offers a path to subtle-sense perceptions. When we are sensitive to our environments, we perceive more than the limited amount of information our five senses take in. Even within the range of what our senses record there are countless bits of information. It is possible that we are not even aware of all the content we are gathering, as the brain filters sensory “noise” from what is important and should be attended. The interesting thing is, all of the information the senses perceive is recorded on some level—it is just that most of it is not conscious!
Exercise: Become Conscious of What You Are Sensing
This practice helps you become more aware of the information your senses are picking up. This increases your sensitivity to yourself and the world around you while giving you greater access to creative nuance as you perceive the world more completely.
Step 1: Perform a typical task that does not require much attention, such as going for a walk, brushing your teeth, or washing dishes. As you do so, notice what you see, hear, taste, feel, and smell.
Step 2: Intend to become more aware. What else do you see, hear, taste, feel, and smell? If you are walking, you may notice the calls and colors of the birds around you, the feeling of the wind across your skin, and the smell of trees, ditches, lilacs, or car exhaust, in addition to how some of those smells linger in your mouth. You will notice the sensations as your muscles move and the feeling of your clothes on your skin, as well as the ground beneath you. You may hear barking dogs and cars going by (notice their colors, too, and how many people are in each car, and how fast they are driving), in addition to the continual sound of your own footfalls.
Step 3: Intensify that awareness again—there is still more to perceive! See how much you can notice at once.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be conscious of everything you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, touched in every moment? Potentially maddening, isn’t it? There are many tidbits of information that we just do not need to give our focus to. What if you were aware of the feel of your clothing all day? It would be very distracting. The thing is, the nerves are still picking up and recording information about these unimportant perceptions continually. One of the implications of this is that we know far more about ourselves and our environments than we think we do. Accessing the greater awareness is an outcome of yoga practice. The following exercise offers you a practical experience of how to use that information hidden beyond your awareness.
Exercise: Tapping into Nonconscious Sensory Recordings
This is a simple practice to get you started. Note that you can elaborate this practice to tap into false core beliefs that may be holding you back or into unprocessed memories that may inspire your creative work. You will be guided to ask a question. Remember to stay relaxed and allow an answer to arise, rather than forcing an awareness. Your mind may jump in with doubts or attachments but your focus rests beyond that mental busyness in your nonconscious creative realms. This is an opportunity to use your creativity, as the response to your questions may come in the form of images, feelings, or some other cryptic answer. Trust what arises.
A Note of Caution: You know how in the olden days explorers hadn’t gotten together to share what they knew about maps of the world? Instead, maps would note unexplored areas with the phrase “Here There Be Dragons.” Our nonconscious realm is like that. We shove many dragons to the backs of our minds. Be gentle with yourself if you go exploring the depths, and I suggest you not go alone. Even a few counseling sessions can help keep you safe if any of those beasties happen to breathe fire. Sometimes there is deeper pain tucked away than we originally expect and, although it won’t come out unless you are ready to process it, processing it can be tough.
Step 1: Name something you are stuck on—a question you haven’t been able to answer or an item you have lost.
Step 2: Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 from the Sensing Beyond the Senses exercise earlier in this chapter.
- Once you have a sense of your vital force filling your body, imagine drawing it more deeply inward to the inception point of your ideas. It is okay if you don’t really know where that is right now; just imagine going there and it will be so.
- Once you have a sense of your vital force filling your body, imagine expanding it outward, through your skin into the cosmic realm or fourth dimension (space-time).
Step 3: As you settle into this space of creative potential, invite the solution to join you. This could be the next step regarding what you are stuck on, the answer to your lingering question, or a hint about what happened to your lost item. Ask the question once, clear and simple, then relax and note what arises.
Step 4: Call your energy back into your body, noticing the breath and physical sensations there, then follow your five senses into the material world your body occupies. Use whatever answer arises as the impetus for expressive work. You may whistle, draw, take immediate action in your life, or perform whatever other expressive method helps you elaborate and explore the answer that came.
Listen to Your Inner Voice
As the previous exercises may show, there is a part of you that is already connected to the vastness of creative possibility. Many of us are in the habit of getting in our own way: we don’t trust the movement of the brush, the words in our orations, our next joke in the improv class. What would happen if you let these impulses out? The risk, I suppose, is failure, chaos, making a mistake; but, as already discussed, the potential rewards of trusting ourselves are enormous. A part of you already knows what it needs and where your brilliance is. Trust that sense. When it feels too hard to trust yourself, take a note from the Karma Path and do not be attached to the end result. It is a pleasure to let ourselves be ourselves and express that authentic being in as many ways as possible. Truly listening to and expressing from the inner voice is the deepest kind of connection the Tantra Path can give.
Exercise: Yoga Posture Practice: Connect with Your Natural Inner Aspects
The following yoga posture practice tunes you in to inherent aspects of yourself and gives you the chance to explore what it might be to live as other life-forms. Adapt the postures in whatever way you wish for your own comfort and safety. The important part is sensing new ways of being in the world, not how the pose looks from the outside. In this exercise, your body is a vehicle of exploration and insight.
Step 1: Select a quiet time of day and go to a park or along a nature trail. Walk briskly for at least three minutes to get yourself warmed up and ready for yoga postures.
Step 2: Stand in front of a tree that you find appealing. Imagine yourself growing roots from your low belly, through the perineum, down the insides of your legs and through the soles of your feet. Sense the warm earth, harder dirt, and bedrock. Notice as your roots spread how they interact with the roots of the tree in front of you and other plants in the area. Note the tree’s strong trunk and feel that thick presence in your own stable torso as you pick one foot off the ground, turn the knee out to the side, and set the foot above or below the knee of the opposite leg. Staying grounded, follow that upward sense of energy through the strong torso and spine, lifting the crown of the head. You may grow your arms like branches to the sky, letting yourself form the kind of tree that you are (evergreen, maple, birch … ). Continue connecting with the tree in front of you and sensing what it is like to be part of a forest. When ready, trade sides. You may repeat this a few times.
Step 3: Find a running stream or fountain. Take some time to listen to the melody of the running water and note its fluid freedom. When ready, bend forward from the hips and pour your torso over the front of your thighs. Bend your knees as much as you need to in order to feel a sense of letting go through the upper body and fold forward. Arms and head can hang loosely. Feel as though your upper body were running water, mobile and free, as it cascades forward and down like water running over the cliff face of your legs.
Step 4: Note the birds. See how their chests are full and round and the way their wings spread wide as they soar. Some birds walk by moving their heads forward first, then walking their feet forward in line with the head. Spread your feet wide. You may bend your knees out over your toes, and combine the following birdlike actions:
- Puff your chest up, creating a bend in your thoracic spine. Feel your shoulders roll back as you press your heart forward/up.
- Spread your wings (arms) wide to the sides, feeling light and open.
- Slide your chin forward. You may purse your lips and open and close your “beak.”
- You can stick out your tail feathers, creating an even arch through your entire spine. Perceive yourself as a creature of the sky, able to take off and see things from higher perspectives at any time.
Step 5: Gather some stones/twigs and, if there is one nearby, go sit cross-legged on a boulder (or dangle your legs off the side if you can’t cross them). Stack the stones/twigs one on top of the other, creating a spiraling action. Notice that each item is just a little bit twisted from the one below it, but the top twig/stone is far more revolved than its foundation. Imagine this stack of natural objects represents your spine and spiral yourself into a seated twisting pose. Remain erect as you rotate through abdomen, ribs, shoulders, and neck to look over your back shoulder, perceiving the revolving motion of your spinal column and the energy within. Repeat on the other side. You may practice this posture a few times each side.
Step 6: Observe the arc of a blade of grass growing from the ground in a gentle bend. Plant your feet together or shoulder-width apart, reach your arms overhead, palms together or apart, and bend yourself sideward to the left, then right. Perceive your body as a small living thing, easily influenced by the weather around it yet diligent in its growth as it reaches for the sun. You may go through this action a few times, aligning yourself with the tender strength of plant life.
Step 7: Based on this asana practice of connecting with nature, create an artistic piece. You may write from the point of view of your natural objects, or draw what they see from their vantage point, or move with their motivation and quality of action.
Anytime you feel stuck in your creative process, return to your senses and the natural world around you, drawing inspiration from the connection between the inner and outer world.
Trust Yourself
The Tantra Path shows that when we are truly connected—whether to our own spirit or nature or in a collaborative project—connection provides a genuine sense of spiritual resonance. A key point of this chapter is that you are connected to forces beyond your wee body and human power. You are made of stardust. (It’s true; look it up.) You have access to more realms of the human condition and your own unexplored territory than could fill a library of books or films, a gallery of paintings or sculptures, or myriad festivals of song and dance. You are already a part of everything you need to create authentic, truthful, brilliant expressions. Follow your breath, your connection to life, and your intuitive sense, and enjoy the process of expressing that which is greater than your everyday experience. Feel it!
Now you have the chance to play with the idea that creation is enlightenment. Yoga offers five paths to access the enlightened, creative Self. Karma is that path of purpose in creation. We can follow the system that Raja Yoga gives us and apply the eight limbs to our creative process. The Bhakti Path, the path of the heart, helps us move through old pain so that we are free to be tender, joyful, and imaginative. The path of Jnana is an intellectual one: observing, researching, and theorizing. The Tantra Path approaches creativity through the body-energy-mind. Continue to play with all five paths while honoring the ones that you are predisposed to.
The next section of this book attunes to your neurological makeup and how the brain can either help or hinder our creative lives.