Holy Smoke (1999)

This is an interesting and complex film by Jane Campion which explores spirituality and sexuality. It stars Kate Winslet as Ruth a young beautiful woman from a pretty dysfunctional Australian outback family who goes to India and meets a guru in an ashram and falls in love with that spiritual, peaceful life. Her family trick her in to coming home and then hire an elderly American to de-programme her from the cult (as they see it). Most of the action on the film takes places over three days with the two of them in an isolated house in the Australian desert. It is intense, emotional, erotic and very charged.

The turning point comes when he awakens to the flames of her burning her white sari. This is also symbolically the fire of kundalini awakening in her. He goes out and she is completely naked in the desert. She pees standing, showing she is letting go (water also symbolises the Svadisthana, the second chakra) and then she seduces him. He is not able to meet her powerful awakening sexuality. She realises that she can't get close to people and he shows her something about the need for simple kindness. It gets more complex still when she puts lipstick on him and dresses him as a woman not just to defeat his machismo but to open him to deeper sexuality than conquering. She initiates him into deeper spiritual sexuality and he sees her as a goddesss. It ends a year later with her back in India with a more grounded spirituality which includes sexuality.

Tiruvanamali - what dies?

In January and February in Tiruvanamali, it is the satsang season. Some great teachers come, including the lovely Mooji (www.mooji.org) and the very skilful teacher, Miranda McPherson (www.awakeningwithmiranda.com). It draws many hundreds of Westerners to the sacred mountain of Arunachala with the ashram of Ramana Maharshi at its foot. Indians don't seem to be that interested in these satsangs. The Westerners range from some accomplished practitioners of meditation and self-enquiry (Ramana's method), via many earnest seekers after Truth; to the seriously lost and confused. Some have come mainly to party, avoid their life and drift around India for as long as possible.

I met a beautiful, intelligent young French woman who had been living for several months in a cave high on the mountain. She came to Arunachala to die and seemed a little disappointed that she hadn't died. I believe that as a teenager she attempted suicide a few times and that wouldn't be surprised if that didn't include the slow suicide of anorexia. I suggested to her that La petite mort est mieux que la grand mort (orgasm is better than death) in the hope that she would wake up to the difference between physical death with its wish to separate from the body; and the letting go of the small controlling ego which knows only fear. Surrender into the body, into life and into love is what is appropriate for women in their 20's not trying to kill themselves. Ego death and physical death are very different and the confusion is behind some suicide attempts; whether the exotic spiritual ones, or the more usual attempts. Tantra is clear on all this - practice letting go into the life of the body, the sexual life of pleasure and bliss. Do this with great with great awareness. Tantra is as old as Advaita and not opposed to it. So much of the spiritual teaching of India, including Advaita Vedanta and yoga teachers are only interested in the top three chakras of the body; heart, throat and third eye!

Arunachala is very connected to Ramana Maharshi's life giving Advaita teaching and his powerful method of self enquiry (Who Am I?). The problem with this is that it is only one method and doesn't suit all. It tends to the ascetic and non-relational. If I am consciousness without any limits then there can be nothing outside to relate to. Ramana's main relationships (apart form his mother whom he tried to get away from but she came along anyway) were with Arunachala, the mountain itself and with a cow! The 20' and 30' something people; particularly the women, need to connect to their bodies, their senses, their sensuality and their sexuality and celebrate life. Most will be in relationship and have children. The only method their are being taught - self enquiry, doesn't acknowledge or relate in any way to that and by omission gives a life of asceticism and internal enquiry. They also don't realise that in India many of these spiritual practices were for men over 50 who had already had a career and brought up a family. Tantra teaches methods which embrace life, relationships and the world as part of a spiritual practice. See (www.tantra.uk.com). Perhaps we should run some tantra taster workshops near Arunachala next satsang season!

Happy Shivaratri and Chinese New Year

Mahashivaratri is one of the four biggest festivals in India. It is the night of the new moon when Shiva and Parvarti got married and a celebration of Shiva and consciousness. In Arunachala, the sacred mountain of Shiva in Tamil Nadu near the huge Shiva Temple at Tiruvanamali, many people practised giriparadakshina, the 14 km walk around the mountain. Around midnight we came to the 28 storey tower at the main entrance to the temple. It was not as crowded as we had expected. There we learnt that earlier that afternoon, some pandits or priests had announced that Mahashivaratri was postponed and would now be celebrated a (lunar) month later! It could only happen in India, which gives such wonderful opportunities to let go of expectations and of control and to surrender to the glorious chaos of it all. Happy Chinese New Year - the year of the Tiger. At least they didn't cancel that.

Kumbh!

Right now in Haridwar in Northern India the Maha Kumbh is on, sometimes called the Kumbh Mela. It happens every three years and is a huge religious fetival of bathing in the sacred Ganges river to remove suffering and karma. It is huge - think a hundred times the size of the Glastonbury Festival. I am fortunately a long way away in South India.

A Kumbh is a pot which in Hindu mythology contains the nectar of immortality. It was in the depths of the ocean and when they stirred the ocean to try and retrieve it, the waters started to release many treasures as well as evil elements. Some poison escaped which threatened to contaminate the entire universe. At that crucial moment Shiva stepped in and swallowed the poison with one large gulp. He held it in his throat and as a result his whole body turned to a deep shade of blue. The waters of immortality from the Kumbh in the Ganges cleanse the soul and body on the ten ritual bathing days of the festival when many millions immerse themselves in the Ganges.

So why write this? Kumbh is a pot or container which holds the netar of immortality. Also in India there is a fire ritual done in a Havan Kund a fire pit where the sacred fire is honoured through mantras and offerings. The word we have from Medieval english which comes from these two words? Cunt! In tantra we often use the word yoni which in Sanskrit means sacred place or altar but we could well be reminded that the Old English (I think it is found in Chaucer) conncects directly with the ancient traditions and myths being honoured now in Haridwar. There are tantric texts which say that a man can become enlightened just by meditating on the yoni. You could start by meditating on it for one lunar cycle - 28 days. Now you didn't get homework like that when you were at school! Namaste from Tiruvanamali.

Whats Really Real

December 25th is not a particularly significant day for me since my children grew up. Christmas, at last the shopping is over and for most shop workers they can have a day off before the next shopfest of the sales. It is a rather arbitrary day other than that an a hugely elaborated Christmas story. The Winter Solstice a few days earlier is significant for me; the longest night and then the slow ascent of the sun as warmth, light and consciousness. In our tantric temple, at the exact time of the Solstice, I got out the homa, the inverted copper pyramid, and did the agni hotra ritual of chanting and offerings to the fire and the sun for its return and its gifts.

Its the same with New Years eve. Its just the calendar changing; arbitrary numbers - a totally human construction. Except this New Year's eve was different; it was a full moon and a partial lunar eclipse. I went to a ritual where we meditated to music for the ten Wisdom Goddesses.

About a week ago the date was 10/01/10 which some found significant. I don't. Its just numbers! And in a couple of years we have 2012 when so many seem to think a great change will come as the Mayans or someone said the world would end. My prophecy for 2012 is that it will be followed by 2013. Since calendars were invented people have been fascinated by the end of time. It blinds them to the present moment. Time unfolds, there is only the present, everything is important and nothing is really significant. Be here now.

Satyananda Saraswati Founder of the Bihar School of Yoga has died

Yesterday Satyananda Saraswati, the founder of the Bihar School of Yoga died. He was born in 1923 and founded the School in 1964. His book on Kundalini Tantra is a classic. The Bihar School is the closest to a large tantric teaching foundation that was possible in modern India with its puritanical dislike for some of the aspects of tantra. In reality his teachings cross between tantra , and Vedanta. They are actually very different teachings, with opposing principles but sometime a blend is as close as we can get. He gave us many practices to do with energy and was a great yogi. His mahasamadhi can remind us to find our own inner, and perhaps outer Gurus for we need all the help we can get on the path of tantra.

Surrender

To the military and in common parlance, "surrender" means you have been defeated and have to give up. In spiritual practice it means to let go and to allow something other than our usual selves to guide us. The difference between giving up and letting go is huge. Letting go is of course all about trust. Trusting in something to look after us, or that the process is benign. Such trust and surrender is a feature of the higher chakras in the body. The first three chakras (the base, the sexual and the belly) are mostly to do with survival in the world. To do that in evolutionary terms it is better to fight, never surrender and not trust anyone or anything very much. Moving up the body, the heart, as usual is the transformer to higher states and connections to others, nature, the universe and the divine. For all of these we have to let go of some control, we have to allow in the other or even immerse ourselves in it. The raindrop surrenders to the ocean.