I used to think that the main
danger to the development of tantra in the West was its co-option by the sex
industry to sell its products; so tantric massage becomes almost synonymous
with candles, incense and “happy endings” rather than a way of supporting the
practice of circulating energy in the body.
This has clearly and inevitably happened and is surely unstoppable.
However, I am now wondering if
the danger isn’t greater from my own profession of psychotherapy! I have been
interested and involved in both tantra and psychotherapy for nearly thirty
years but have never seen them as more or less the same. True, tantra can have therapeutic benefits
just as meditation can lower blood pressure but it is a side effect of a
profound spiritual method or path. Much
of the tantra in the West sometimes called “neo-tantra” relies on techniques
that are squarely based in humanistic and traditional psychotherapy; Gestalt
techniques, body therapy and bioenergetic methods, psychodrama methods. None of these are spiritual practices or
particularly connected to tantra. The central methods of tantra are mantras and
ritual, mudras and yantras and the shamanic practice of becoming the god or
goddess with profound worship of Shiva and Shakti.
The West is busy doing to tantra
what it has done to yoga; turning it in to a form of therapy to further polish
the ego, perfect the body, sort out “issues” or remove past trauma. In part
this is the problematic side of the genius of the West, the discovery of the
individual so we can have a dynamic society with much variety, freedom and
change but with the accompanying danger of narcissistic grandiosity. Therapy can feed narcissism with the idea of
placing the self centrally and perfecting it; and tantra with its method of
becoming the god or goddess can give permission for grandiose excesses; “I am
Kali so whatever I say is right”.
By having tantra as a commodity
in the marketplace, it supports the bringing to tantra of a seeking for what I
can get out of it. This is natural within a Western mind-set as tantra is a
thing that is bought in workshop-sized pieces.
I need to get a return on my investment. I need at least therapy or
personal growth from it. I need to buy an exotic lifestyle (no wonder most
tantra videos feature lithe bronzed bodies on a tropical beach). I need some ecstatic
experiences, preferably some giant orgasms or visions of the divine. This
consumer culture fits with another characteristic of Western tantra as it is
seen in its most visible, (ie. marketed) form; a privileging of Shakti over
Shiva. So tantra becomes the maximum number
of “bangs per buck” and the best thing you can say about any workshop or
teacher is that they are “powerful”.
None of this is wrong but it is important to see to the bottom of the
implications. Shakti is the active power
of creation; she creates the whole phenomenal world of objects and
experiences. As we tend to be addicted
to both we become enthralled to Shakti. At its worst tantra workshops become
something between a shopping mall and a funfair. In the West this goes along
with tantra being seen as the resurgence of the feminine after a few thousand
years of patriarchy, aligned with feminism and with the forms of paganism and
Wicca which again privileges the goddess.
The core methods of most tantra
workshops are breath, sound and movement; all Shakti and designed to intensify
energetic experiences. Sometimes this is combined with loud music and
encouragement to really “go for it” in dance. When energy moves; issues will emerge and if
combined with potentially intense interpersonal exercises will put many people
in touch with experiences from the past and strong emotions. Essentially we have moved to the realm of
therapy. This is not wrong but it is a path that has been taken away from the
direction of the Transpersonal. It has gone to the Pre-personal and Personal
using Ken Wilber’s map. In which we are working on an ego which can function in
the world not realising its provisional, even illusory, nature. Having entered
the realm of therapy when we were aiming for tantra something curious happens. The
methods used are ancient! They come from humanistic psychotherapy of the 60’s;
primarily an encouragement to strong catharsis and the breaking down of
“blocks”. This approach, essentially from Reich via Lowen and bioenergetics has
a long and worthy history (Reich started writing in the late 1920’s). It is
important to note that clients that this developed from often grew up in
oppressive patriarchal families – even Victorian in their outlook. Permission
to express and be sexual was often denied.
As a result their bodies were armoured at a muscular level with much
inhibited movement and affect.
This if often not the case today;
people now in their 20’s and 30’s often grew up in families without strong
authority or boundaries. Anything could happen and freedom was
unrestricted. Chaotic and changeable
boundaries and figures are common. Parent or parents who were missing or
self-absorbed are common. The resulting issues from childhood are of a fragile
sense of self with inadequate mirroring to develop a healthy ego. Impulse
disorders become more common; such as self-harm, eating disorders or binge
drinking and substance abuse. Narcissistic and borderline conditions are more
prevalent than half a century ago. Shame rather than guilt dominates in its typically
hidden way. Two world wars physically or emotionally removed generations of men
from being strong figures in their families; the fathers or grandfathers of
today’s clients. So men lack any role models or archetypes to aspire to and any
rites of passage; remaining as perpetual teenagers as portrayed in the media
both in sitcoms and in the celebrity lives of musicians and sportsmen.
So if heavy catharsis and the
breaking of blocks belonged to the 1960’s how has therapy changed since then?
This is huge topic and I can only summarise a few of the changes. It was noticed that heavy catharsis starting
with Primal Therapy (A. Janov) and Bioenergetics ( A. Lowen) and co-counselling
( H. Jackins) far from clearing everything out so clients moved on, became an
endless cycle in some people or lead to breakdowns not breakthroughs. We now understand much more about neurology
and how reinforcing certain pathways increases addictive cycles. Adrenaline and drama are addictive to
some. Of course, for people otherwise
shut down it gives a sense of relief and more energy but relief is not the same
as growth and energy needs a direction, From the Reichian side softer
approaches developed such as Biodynamic (G.Boyesen) and in Gestalt more
appreciation of the fragile self and what it needed (Polsters) combined with
insights from Self Psychology(H. Kohut). Looking at what supported change in
therapy E. Gendlin noticed the importance of finding the “felt sense” as an energetic
shift within. B. Hellinger developed Family
Constellations work with the hidden issues and messages in the family systems. The understanding of the myth of the unitary
self in favour of a more plural approach and led to more appreciation of
sub-personalities and powerful approaches such as Voice Dialogue (H. Stone)
where the energetic shifts mark the move to a different voice or self-state. From
trauma the selves can be fragmented and lead to dissociative conditions. They
have become much more readily identified and may be common in 5 – 10% of
people. Shame, envy and regret have had to be added to primal list of anger,
sadness and more anger. Where we work
too much directly with the primal emotions we reinforce the pathways in the
limbic system and amygdala that produce the fight or flight response as well as
the dissociate and freeze responses. These further cut off access to the
cortex, the seat of consciousness. It is a sort of privileging at a
neurological level of Shakti over Shiva.
Most recently the field of energy psychology has
blossomed which started in the late 60’s and now incorporates elements from
kinesiology. It uses Eastern approaches to the body and energy, such as
meridian points and has a confusion of initials, EFT, TfT, AIT, and Matrix Reimprinting. Advances in neuroscience, primarily from
brain imaging have led to a much deeper understanding of trauma and the
neurology of trauma and its relief and again to more subtle and less
re-traumatising forms of body therapy such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (P.
Ogden) and Somatic Experiencing (P. Levine).
Even within the psychoanalytic world intersubjectivity has begun to
replace the notion of the therapist as expert and an attuned, strong, flexible
therapeutic container is appreciated.
To return to tantra, what these
newer developments in therapy have in common is an appreciation of the subtlety
of awareness that is required to really move someone on; rather than provide
relief by venting emotions or an addictive drama of catharsis. This again
brings back the centrality of Shiva and the masculine as the principle of
awareness. It is less dramatic and visible than much visible (and audible!)
energy work.
When modern tantra again
privileges; the feminine, emotions, intense experiences and powerful dramas
through its alliance with a rather out-dated idea of therapy it falls into this
modern consumerist fantasy; that the
self can be perfected and adorned with trinkets, that pleasure is the way to
bliss and that being “in the moment” with “what is”; constitutes the whole of
life and spiritual practice; that bravado and shamelessness is a sign of
spiritual attainment.
The relation of Shiva to Shakti
in tantra is best understood not as a divine couple which is a romantic
projection and leads to tantra as a sort of couples therapy, nor it is a
picture of symmetry, the western democratic notion of a cooperative harmonious
couple. Here is an example of this from modern India.
Neither is it the picture of Kali with Shiva lying prone in
this way where she has one foot on him and is holding his trident in. This may
well be the patriarchal nightmare of triumphant, aggressive “feminism”
trampling everything else underfoot.
This picture gives a different story. Shiva is neither
reclining nor defeated as in the one above but is in deep meditation providing
the platform on which Kali can dance.
Consciousness is the “ground of being” and everything arises within
consciousness.
The first Shiva Sutra of Abhinavagupta the foremost writer
of Kashmir Shavism (eleventh century CE) is “Chaitanyamatma”, which is translated as ‘The Self is Consciousness’
and can also be translated as ‘The nature of reality is Consciousness’, or,
‘Everything is Consciousness’. Matter
and the whole phenomenal world is danced in to being through Shakti, the
creative power of Shiva. She births all
that is. A contemporary metaphor I use for the relationship of Shakti to Shiva
is that of the pole-dancer to the pole and the floor. It is precisely the
static unmoving quality of the pole fixed to the floor which allows the
spectacular and alluring dance of the pole-dancer. Kashmir Shavism, stands as the highest point
of traditional tantra formed in the Valley of Kashmir, a crossroads of many
traditions for over a thousand years and before the decline in India of tantra
with the various invasions of “puritans”, Moslem, Catholic and then British.
I have
given some of the reasons for the privileging of energy and phenomena in modern
tantra; it is easier, it is addictive,
it fits with a western “shopping” culture of exchange, it is an easy source of
the essential empowerment of women as patriarchy declines. However, there is
another factor which should be mentioned.
Most western tantra owes a great deal to the creative fusion of East and
West that was catalysed by Osho (Bhagwan Sri Ragneesh) in India mainly in the
1970’s. This has undoubtedly produced
proportionally more widespread experiences of enlightenment than any other
spiritual movement in history. However
it needs to be noted that Osho had a great deal of feminine energy and,
particularly in America was surrounded by women. Indeed the show there seems to
have been run to a large degree by the wounded masculine within women. Tantra that comes from the Osho tradition
generally carries some of this element of the feminine using the wounded
masculine as a source of power. Thus it is virtually the norm for tantra to be
taught primarily by women who sometimes then bemoan the absence of strong men!
The marginalising and denigrating
of the masculine and of consciousness and awareness is sometimes overt but more
usually hidden behind the assumptions about tantra, spirituality and therapy
that are current. This is partly driven by the very understandable legacy of
anger and pain from women. I have three times in tantra workshops, where the
participants are charged in separate groups to produce an honouring ritual for
the opposite gender, seen the men produce sweet and beautiful experiences for
the women and the women in turn produce intimidating and abusive experiences for
the men. Also, in workshops (which
always have a hidden competitive element) it is common for the men to feel that
they are just not getting it or doing it right when the emphasis is on intense
experiences.
It is
for all these reasons it is important to look at traditional tantra
particularly Kashmir Shavism and at the long Western traditions of tantra
(including alchemy and Kabbalah) Also important and interesting is the history of tantra in the west (the
Tantrik Order of America was set up in 1905,) and practises such as Karezza. The basic
formula in tantra is that Presence plus Excitement
equals Bliss and Transcendence.
Without the presence excitement goes to chaos or becomes addictive. Presence is the supreme quality of the Shiva; the Divine Masculine. In modern tantra and sacred sexuality we have
to keep searching to find ways of really recognising and honouring the
masculine and in particular the Divine Masculine in its role of serving the
Goddess and allowing the full flowering of the Divine Feminine. I hope that in writing this brief piece I
have been able to further that.
Maha Shivaratri, the spiritual night of Lord Shiva, is considered to be the most sacred night of the year. There is fasting during the day and the puja goes on all night with mantras to Shiva whilst anointing the shivalingam with water, curd, honey, and flowers.
