¡Tantra!
An ancient traditional wisdom.
So much?
Seven thousand years. From the Indus Valley, two thousand years ago it passed to Kashmir. I arrived there sixty years ago. And he saved me.
About what?
From my anguish, restlessness, nervousness, agitation, acceleration, cultural eagerness...
Cultural greed?
For reading the latest tantra book, being up to date, not missing anything...
Tantra: it's about sex, right?
No.
How not?
Western puritanism took advantage of hippieism to compensate by fornicating, and they dressed that up as tantric sexuality.
Isn't tantra a sexual practice?
Tantra, with attentive breathing, takes you to total presence, total silence of the mind and total ecstasy.
There there.
It is a practice to awaken to oneness, to dissolve into wholeness. Sexually... it is a consequence, not a purpose.
How did you come to Tantrism?
I was fleeing the Calvinist rigidity of my family and wanted to be an artist. In 1968 I arrived in the Himalayas to write a book on Tibetan painting...
And what did he find?
To properly understand Tibetan art I decided to start Buddhism... and for seven years I lived in monasteries.
Seven years!
One day I felt that I was not progressing, I confessed it to my teacher: he sent me to Kashmir.
Kashmir, India.
And there, in 1975, I met the one who would become my tantra teacher: Lalita Devi.
Who was?
“Naughty goddess” means. She was a yogini. She was a tantrika, an initiate of Shivaist Tantrism. She was a hermit and lived in a cabin in the forest, ascetically... In that area everyone was afraid of her.
What was Lalita Devi like?
As tough as it is tender, and fierce and serene. And beautiful. Dark, unctuous and perfumed skin. Bright Eyes. Sitting in the lotus position, her sex radiated golden rays that merged with the indigo of the sky.
Oh, oh...
He accepted me as a disciple. I was shaking.
What was the first thing you taught him?
Lalita Devi detected my fear of illness. And one day, without warning, she took me to the lepers' quarter, and she abandoned me there.
Result?
Panic: “My arm will fall off, half my face…” I thought. But at the end of that day, I had freed myself from my fear!
Is that what it is about?
To be free, to allow all emotions to flow, enter and leave us, without fear! I learned. And when everyone shunned the HIV positive, I hugged them.
Tell me another teaching.
Lalita Devi asked me: “Tell me about your first experience of waking up.” “I haven't had it, and that's why I'm here,” I responded. “If you haven't had that experience, I can't do anything for you,” she said.
You.
And he ordered me: “Search deeply within yourself”, he placed his right hand on my head... and then I clearly saw an image.
What did you see?
I saw myself as a child, aged eleven, one summer in the Alps: I went out to the mountains one night, looked at the stars... and dissolved in them.
...
Yes, for a few seconds I melted into the starry sky, I was one with the sky.
What did your teacher say about that?
Which had been my first awakening. We live it, but we forget it. And tantra cultivates it. The tantric definition of “virile man” is “he who is capable of wonder.”
The sensitive man.
Tantra refines man's sensitivity, extremes your emotional fluidity: you will enjoy everything more... even absolute love.
And the tantric woman, what?
The woman is naturally tantric. Tantra honors femininity and the Great Goddess, relegated in all religions.
And what about orgasm without ejaculating?
Lalita Devi, in her forest, under the moon, guided me to waves of orgasms without ejaculating: I lived a maithuna with her, I experienced the Great Union, which is a global pleasure.
Finally, Daniel.
Tantra incites harmony between man and woman, teaches that Shiva and Shakti dance, and their touching of hearts creates beauty.
Very beautiful.
Let me share one last lesson: if you make any “mistakes,” don't blame yourself!
OK. Argue why not.
You call “error” what is just a logical and natural strategy of the universe to rebalance itself and preserve its harmony.
