Transformation of Sexual Energy and the Value of Equanimity

There are many workshops on Tantra here on the land where I live, and sometimes I meet people in the baths who have taken one workshop or another on this very subject. They are all sexually active, and Tantra for them is mostly about enhanced and prolonged lovemaking. Originally, Tantra was not really about lovemaking, but about transcending desire. I was never trained in this subject, but it always fascinated me.

I have had a lot of passion and desire in me ever since I was a young woman. It would arise so quickly and feel like fire, and I thought there must be another use for this fire besides releasing it sexually.

As I became a seeker on a spiritual path and started meeting teachers worth asking, I asked every one of them how to use sexual energy for meditation and transformation. Every teacher and master had his own answer on this subject. One of them was a senior practitioner of the Fourth Way, and he said that Gurdjieff usually told people not to try to manipulate sexual energy without knowledge. He suggested spending it instead of holding it so that it “wouldn’t become sour.”

A yoga ashram that I often went to many years ago held another view on sexuality and mostly promoted brahmacharya—abstinence from sex while practicing yoga and living in an ashram. I am not sure how it worked for those guys, but what I remember is that they didn’t look as if they had much vitality or vigor in them.

Then I met a female master who told me that I didn’t need a man at all. She said she had been celibate for ten years and desire no longer arose in her. Although she had vitality in her body, she looked very stern to me, almost like a dry twig. But one thing she said caught my attention: it was possible to “have a circulation of energy without release.”

A Tibetan Buddhist monk in his fifties whom I met a little later was more fascinated by me and suddenly asked me to be his consort. In his robes and with his big bald head, he looked like an alien to me, and I couldn’t imagine being even slightly aroused by this little man in robes. He pointed out Tibetan bronze figurines of dakinis and men intertwined in intercourse. He told me I was a dakini and that he had seen me in his dream. Tibetan monks take their dreams seriously, he said, and he explained that together we could pull the energy upward and unite in meditation. This sounded very interesting, but looking at him, I knew that I might be a dakini, but not for this particular man.

For several more years, I read classical tantric texts and books by modern teachers such as Daniel Odier and Mantak Chia. Nothing really worked for me. “Pull the energy upward” didn’t resonate with me. It sounded like hard manipulation, and I couldn’t understand how such sensitive, subtle energies could be manipulated in this way.

Then one night, while I was at a Vipassana retreat, I woke up filled with passion and desire. I lay on my bed and didn’t know whether I could make it through. Upon entering the retreat, I had taken precepts, and one of them was to abstain from sexual misconduct. For some reason, it had stuck in my mind that this meant abstaining from sexual release altogether while engaged in serious meditation at a retreat.

I just lay there, burning with desire, and breathed. The desire was so strong that it engulfed me completely, and I couldn’t focus on anything except the feeling of it ripping me apart. I lay flat on my back, my feet and hands apart, my eyes closed, in a dark room. It felt as if I would explode into orgasm if I touched my body with even one finger. I was filled with fire and emitting fire—it was scorching hot! It lasted for a long time, but I noticed that the wave of heat had begun to subside. Suddenly, it was completely gone, and it felt utterly liberating! This was the first time I hadn’t had an orgasm as the sexual energy rose. I was in awe. I realized that what would work for me was the way Vipassana works: awareness of sensations and equanimity—non-reactivity toward arising phenomena, non-doing.

After the retreat, some time passed without passion arising. That night at the retreat had certainly retrained my mind, but then passion began to creep in again. This time I knew what would work for me instead of “pulling the energy up,” as all the books said!

Since I had been meditating seriously on bodily sensations for many years, both at retreats and consistently every day, my sensitivity to bodily sensations had carried over into my waking state and even into my sleep. I always slept flat on my back, mostly without moving for the entire night. Even while the body was sleeping and resting, the mind remained aware of bodily sensations. My sleep consisted mostly of lucid dreams or a half-awake dream state that included an awareness of sensations.

One evening, I lay in bed and felt passion arising in the lower part of my abdomen. I contemplated it for a while, mostly considering which way to go with it: release it or abstain from release. I was trying to feel how strong the passion was, so I placed my attention on it and felt the wave strongly, calling me to ride it. The pull of the sexual energy was so magnetic that everything else faded in its presence. But my inquiry was a stronger force at that moment, and I managed to unglue my focus from the abdominal area and place my attention on the solar plexus.

I lay there for a short while, keeping my attention on the solar plexus and resting from the strong grip of the sexual energy. I felt relief, as if I had broken free from a cage! Equanimity suddenly dawned on me in that space of non-doing. In no time, I saw how the energy that just a second ago had felt sexual in the pelvic area was now fully in the solar plexus, and it didn’t feel sexual at all! The sexual flavor subsided completely, and I felt a little excited to witness what had just happened. I felt empowered. “Manipura chakra,” the name came to mind from all my yogic studies years ago. “The center where power gathers.” Now I could really feel it. I felt strong and capable. I no longer felt as if I were a slave to passion.

In that state of empowerment, I shifted my attention to my chest and lay there in equanimity. In no time, the energy traveled fluidly upward and filled my heart. My chest rose and expanded. I felt warmth and love for all beings. “Anahata—the space of compassion, the space of love and warmth,” I remembered.

As much as I wanted to remain with this warm feeling, I shifted my focus to the throat area. I felt love in my heart, but my attention was already focused on my throat, and I lay in this seeming division of attention for just a short moment. The energy rose. I felt myself in the space of expression. I felt inspired to share this. There might be other people looking for what I had been looking for all those years. Now I had found it, and I wanted to share!

My journey continued. I placed my attention on the area of my forehead and waited patiently, equanimously. I could see the difference between waiting with an agenda and resting in equanimity. An agenda creates a little tension, almost microscopic, but it is enough resistance to create a wall that prevents the energy from rising. Trying to “let go” of the agenda was also a form of “doing” on my part, and it didn’t work. Only complete equanimity, non-doing, created a space without resistance where the energy could flow freely.

As soon as equanimity established itself, even for a split second, the energy immediately rose in a distinct movement. It traveled through my skull from my throat to my forehead, following an orbit that encircled the space inside my head. It felt like a very focused and visionary state of mind.

My attention traveled from my forehead to the area above my head and rested there. I felt a shower of high-vibrational energy over me, consisting of very tiny oscillations. I was engulfed in sensations of bliss and rested in their beauty, innocent and natural.

For a couple of months, I practiced this meditation almost every day, until I noticed that the energy began to rise by itself. I started experiencing it in my dreams too. In daily life, I completely lost interest in sexual encounters and became naturally celibate for several years.

Until the next chapter of my life...

Dakini of Space by Alma Dankoff

Personal Development and Enlightenment. What's the difference?

Most of the work we do on a spiritual path is the work to  improve the character, what we call personal development.  We step on what we perceive as a spiritual path out of dissatisfaction with ourselves and life as it going for us. We start with trying to change others for some years, then we move to another long period of time when we start to fix ourselves. We do all kinds of personal development workshops and we go through tons of self help books. We move into the world of chakras, yoga and we become vegetarians. After some years we move into more hard core stuff like serious meditation, retreats or some shamanic practices of strong mind altering herbal medicines, and etc. 

The whole spiritual search  is based on dissatisfaction with what we are and how we feel at the moment, and we seek a relief, we seek resolution. We secretly feel that the resolution will be what we call an enlightenment. We don't really know what enlightenment is, but we think it is something that will fix all our dissatisfaction, and we reach for it. We strive on the path, trying to accumulate more and more knowledge, insights and trying to become less reactive and more mindful. We think that the more spiritual practices we will do, more knowledge we get - more chances we will arrive to that place where enlightenment is. 

If we look at the phrase "personal development", we see that it is some work that pertains to the person. Person is a dream character that works on him/herself in a dream that Consciousness dreams into existence. Enlightenment is realizing that there is no person, that the world, inner and outer is a projection, there is nothing to strive for in a future, it's already is all complete as it can be.

Of cause, for the dream character personal development is the only what he can do to try to relief the discomfort that he feels. Enlightenment in a dream won't fix our discontent, it would be dream state enlightenment, and as any dream, it is imaginary. Personal development and personal enlightenment are some of the possibilities of Consciousness to mask itself as a dream to explore itself in endless varieties. 

There is no chance for a dream character to become enlightened. Enlightenment is a disappearance of the dream character by waking up from the dream completely. There is no one even to wake up. The dream just stops projecting itself, and the enlightenment, Consciousness itself is revealed to itself. 

After a while the dream constructs itself again, and the dream character continue to exist, but the dream become lucid. The dream character and all its adventures and troubles  are not taken seriously anymore. The striving for personal development falls away. The striving for improving oneself or fixing the circumstances falls away. The striving for spiritual experiences, insights, revelations, and enlightenment itself falls away. What is left and what is driving the dream to continue is a joy of exploration. 

Imagine you wake up lucid in a dream. Would you be devastated to loose your job there or your house to a fire? 

Lucidity in a dream gives a different perspective. It is not less or more suffering, it is no suffering. Pain can be a part of the dream if you stepped on the nail there, if you lost your loved one; suffering is only part of the dream if the dream is unconscious, and one totally identifies oneself with a dream character and a pain. 

Lucidity is the ability of Consciousness to participate in a dream as a dream character and at the same time know itself as a dreamer, the dream itself. 

Lucidity is enlightenment, and it is not the property of the person, a dream character,  it is a property of Consciousness itself. When Consciousness is ready to peek through the character, we get some insights into true nature of being. When Consciousness ready to stare through the character, we get revelations and spiritual states that open up the new perception. 

There is nothing really to strive for. We do not exist apart from Consciousness, and we are Consciousness itself. To realize this nothing needed from our part, only continue to live as we are, doing tons of personal development or none of it. When the time is ripe, the dream reveal itself before it's own eyes...

I am not ready!

Sometimes I would be asked to help with inquiry to realize selflessness, but I would feel that this was a misplaced asking. I would probe if this person is really ready for realization of no self, because they are totally exhausted of the spiritual search, or they are looking for improving their quality of life.

Several years ago I received a letter from a professional golfer who was saying that his life is, in most part, what he dreamed of: family, relationship, career. He does what he likes the most: plays golf, and gets paid for it. The only issue in his life that made him write to me, was his teenager son. He was having much stress from communication with his son. The golfer asked to be guided to see no self, expecting it to fix this problem. 

"This inquiry leads to total shift of perception, and there is no garantee that what feels good in life now, existing structures that are working well, will stay for you to feel good, and what is not working, will be fixed", I wrote to him. I asked if he is ready to dive into unknown, trusting life to re-arrange itself. I received the shortest email I ever got from anyone: "No". "Wow, that was easy", I thought. I appreciated the clear evidence of the example of  Consciousness not ready to see itself yet, it's enjoying the game of being hidden, enjoying exploring itself in a way of a life it's living.

Dan The Man

Get your shit together first

Human life design is very efficient. Everything that is needed to sustain life and procreate life embedded in this design by very strong conditioned thoughts/believes and therefore, certain energetics. These conditions motivates one to do what one needs to do for their own survival and also for coming together, making family, building a structure around that and taking care of it. This full load of human responsibilities seems to be necessary for most of us before we step on the transcendence path. If we fully dipped our toes in a householder life, the wish for freedom arises strongly in some of us, since householder's life based on so many structures that are rigid and limiting to the human's mind possibilities. If we never tasted it in it's fullness, how we can have a wish for something else? We always will be doubting what we really want and be pulled in all the different directions with our attention. For the path of transcendence one has to be completely ready, with all the attention gathered together in all its fullness. 

Sometimes it is happens that we dip into different perception, then we are back into the world of our responsibilities. The perception change, and energetics relaxed.  Now we are back to our job, 3 kids, a wife, and a mortgage. We lost motivation for pushing forward with all that "human stuff", and life start to slip under our feet. This is exactly what is happening: ungroundness, loss of motivation, loss of interest, nihilism toward life, when one actually is not ready to release the ground yet. Our family and responsibilities: old parents that need care, young children that needs food and grown ups that needs us to pay for their college, wives that needs attention, and jobs that needs almost all our daytime time and focus - all are roots to keep us stable and going as a good householder….until our garden is fully grown, the harvest time is done well, and now we can sit by the hay bail and close the eyes...In the East people recognize these different stages in a human life, and don't really mess with them, or play unresponsively, out of curiosity.  There is a time for a family life, human responsibilities life, and there is a time when one can renounce it all and "leave to the forest". 

There was a famous teacher of Vipassana meditation in India who's life can illustrate this perfectly. Her name was Dipa Ma, she was a teacher of many, including some of known western teachers. When she married her husband she was a teenager. She always was interested in meditation, but her husband suggested to have a family first, and then she can go and learn meditation. He was supportive of her, but he was that ground that kept her stably rooted in life first. Years passed, and there she was: sitting in deep  meditation right in the middle of her kitchen between making meals, with her grandkids running around, and people from all over the world coming to see her, learn from her, and pay respect to her. 

As much as transcendence states looks alluring, they are also dangerous in a way that they take our attention and energy away from the human responsibilities. Unless one lived life fully, one needs to be careful, and not go with the hype to renounce it, and be free like someone else he admires. This renunciation will not be complete, and there will be no freedom, mostly confusion. 

Let's see our families, our jobs and our engagements in everyday life as a gift that gives us natural groundness, stability, that focuses our attention in the way it is perfectly natural at this moment. Even though mind can say to us that we want something else, but the whole weight of our being right now is in the groundness of our human engagements. Notice that weight, and instead of resisting it, thank it for keeping you on the path of beautiful human rite. This whole article comes down basically to one phrase: "First, get your shit together!". When the time is right, the weight of life engagements will be lifted, and you can fly! 

Her Beautiful Old Story

The dance was freeing, it was a celebration. Yesterday first time I returned to 5 Rhythms  with Lucia. I was dancing with Lucia every week in Brooklyn, where she and her partner started to have their own themed version of the dance that her half brother's mom Gabrielle Roth invented couple of decades ago.

The dance felt like home, like New York City, like vitality, joy and community years ago. Same Lucia, same lightness, same freedom and heart opening. Sweat was dripping from my forehead just like before. My tank top, my skirt, my bra and my panties - all familiar wet. I don’t remember I ever sweat anywhere else so profusely. The breeze from the open door touching the wet skin, the almost giving up feet travel through the dance floor, wet hair sticking  to my face, long silk skirt in the constant circular movement, and the overflowing joy in the whole being...wow...I am not sure where I am really...I am traveling through time... and space... I am spaciousness itself.

Stillness. The last of the 5 Rhythms. I slow down. I open my eyes. There is a framed picture of dancing Gabrielle and her simple chain necklace lay there. Suddenly I feel overwhelming sadness and I stop, fixed on that necklace, tears rolling down already wet face. I feel drowning. The feeling came down on me like a waive crashing the shore. The body totally open to receive slides down to the floor and melt. I am floating in the pool of my own tears. Very quietly I make it outside and in the darkness of the night, feeling safe and held by the land, I wail. The sound of deep grief merges with the sound of the ocean.

I bow to the ability and willingness of the human being to dive deep into the raw feeling to allow complete alchemy.

Last time I was dancing with Gabrielle I was with my husband, in my city, living in my house, with my son, my cat, my creek, my backyard. Walking in the darkness of Big Sur I wailed in grief and loss for my life. My house and my cat gone to the fire, my husband gone to the other woman, my city and my son I had to leave, my friends, my family as I knew it - all gone.

Life is a cinema. The movie has ended and the new one continues: a sensing woman in her late 40th in a long silk skirt walking in the darkness of the Esalen land, in freedom and clarity of the ground of her being, leaving behind her beautiful old story.

Photo from Esalen by Denae Thibault

I am an introvert!...The stories we tell ourselves.

Morning just started to reveal itself through some splashes of light across the sky. Stars still so bright over the darkness of the ocean. Water crashing the shores in the melancholic movement. Even birds still sleeping. Slowly I walk down the gravel road. Quite. This is why I love to wake up early and tip toe in the dark through our small room, careful not to wake up my roommates, pick up my backpack ready from the night before, slip in my boots and head to the baths. I probably look too exotic for some, little crazy for others, or totally normal Esalen-ish for the old-comers in my blue and pink flowers pajama and cowboy boots. I like my little routine where I head first to the dining room where I pick up a cup of freshly made coffee by some compassionate soul who gets up before everyone to make us our morning fix, I say hi to the community cat and walk down to the baths. At this early hour most of the bathers are those who work at Esalen, guests have luxury to sleep a little more before breakfast starts. I love the quite and pristine view from the baths at this hour. I appreciate neutral faces here and there in the water, just like mine, unable to speak at this early time. So we sit in the hot water like snow monkeys, silent and motionless, peering into the waters of Pacific ocean and some light on the horizon. It is the morning just like any others, except there is unusual noise from the baths. I go there, in my morning zombilike way, sit in the water and I hear the dialogue from the neighboring tub in a full daytime voice: “ I come here for 30 years several times a year, but it’s so much talk here for me, so much conversations, so much just everything. Believe me, I am an introvert, yes I am an introvert, and I really like silence. I like quite. I like to sit in this very corner and just be quite”. “For God’s sake, just be quite”, I say to myself, but he is on the roll, and he is laud like a thunder, so my snow monkey rise and go dress herself to head to work in the kitchen.