I had visited Osho Nisarga about seven years earlier when the land had been purchased but building work hadn’t started so I was quite amazed to see how the place had been transformed. Everything was beautifully constructed and sparkling clean in the cool mountain air and, wonder of wonders, you could drink directly from the tap – a rare treat in India. The food was delicious and the temperature just right to eat in the open. My room had been described as being in the attic, but was actually extremely spacious and had a beautiful view of the Himalaya. The only drawback were the sloping ceilings which took me 2 days to acclimatise to and stop giving myself brain-damage as I bumped my head in my haste to change for the various meditations.

The participants arrived on the previous day which happened to be Diwali – Festival of Light – so our group started with a party and fireworks! Next morning after breakfast, we assembled in the lovingly built Mandir (or Buddhahall) and began introductions. The retreat was facilitated by Sarita and Chintan and assisted by Santoshi and Niten with help and amazing sound support from Gong Master Suraj and partner Giselle.

I had just bought a sound recording device before my trip, so I was keen to record the teachings and was doing quite well until I attempted to relocate myself with the extension lead – there was a loud bang, a smell of burning and a little pile of soot on the floor. “Oh, I thought – that could have been me.” After that, I thought I was better off just participating and focusing on dissolving my ego rather than my entire physical being!

We were introduced to a beautiful meditation which we would be practicing everyday after dynamic and before breakfast. This involved gazing at an object and allowing ourselves to dissolve in it, sense by sense. The first few minutes were accompanied by gonging by Suraj on his beautiful Venus and Mars gongs. After the first day, we decided to sit outside facing the river which was just gorgeous. After 40 minutes, Chintan lead us all in a slow Zen Walk along the river path. This was quite a challenge and took us most of the week to synchronise the entire line of 40 plus people.

More meditations were practiced covering the 12 facets of Tantra and after three days we slipped into silence to enable us to go even deeper. During this phase, Prem gave us a beautiful demonstration of Sufi Whirling and facilitated a meditation the next morning.

The silence was lifted for the final three days in time for the Shiva Shakti dance. Some of the Indian guys really went to town and appeared painted head to toe in blue and sporting a trident and cobra. The lovely Keerti was particularly generous sharing his blue paint powder with anyone who came near! And Khirad didn’t seem to mind being stepped on by Sarita who played Kali to his Shiva.

During the retreat we went on two beautiful walks in the surrounding countryside – one where we could bathe in the river and another in the forest. I particularly enjoyed seeing the villages and simple lifestyle – it seemed idyllic but was no doubt challenging in ways other than what we are used to in Europe.

The last few days flew by, and suddenly it was time to leave. Many of us were continuing our explorations by joining the Sacred India Tour which started from Delhi the next day. We were given a beautiful send off with drumming and singing and of course lots of hugging. A beautiful experience, which will stay with me a long time.

2010 retreat photo gallery by Rahi

If anyone else has some photos they would like to share, please add a comment and incude a link to your gallery.

Love

Sidika

In ancient times in the Tantra tradition, there were women who were called deva dasis, which means servant of god. In the original meaning of the word, this was a Tantric initiatress. So men who wanted to understand Tantra practise would come and they would be initiated by her, which could include sexuality. The deva dasi would be chosen from the most beautiful girls of the village, trained and then be part of the temple. For example in Khajuraho, there are places were the deva dasis would do their work – little rooms made out of stone – that were reserved for that purpose. As time went on, the term deva dasi degenerated and it became simply the temple prostitute. So men could reserve the favours of such a woman. She was trained, but it was so she could make money for the temple. In that way it degenerated, it became prostitution with a little sacred element.

Khajuraho temples

Then you have the Western goddess temples, which used to do a very similar thing. Men could come and go through an initiation process with one of the priestesses of the temple. There would be a long ritual involved, fasting and so on, then they would go through the initiation. It didn’t have that Tantric element about going into superconsciousness, it was more done to maintain harmony and integrity in the society. It was thought of as very normal that everyone would need a minimum training in the arts of love. That’s not specifically Tantra – if someone is a Tantra practitioner or initiate, they would go through other kinds of initiations that would involve very profound meditations and a long preparation then maybe they would be doing certain Tantric meditations that involved sexuality.

So there’s a difference between the temple arts for the layperson and the temple arts for the initiate – that has to be very clear. For the layperson it would be to live a happy and harmonious life and function in the society as a good lover, which was considered paramount for living a fulfilled life.

Ancient goddess worship

In the Western goddess temples, the arts practised there weren’t anything necessarily to do with Tantra, more the Western style of original goddess worshipping religions. They weren’t teaching Tantra meditations, they were teaching the arts of love as a way of honouring the goddess. I believe what people are now calling the sacred sexual arts is based on goddess worshipping religions and not so much on Tantra practises from the East. In Tantra practises from the East, the focus is clearly on enlightenment – it is a path to enlightenment and it is using all the human being is –sexuality, the mind, the senses, the emotions – and sex is a part of that. But the sacred sexual arts are focused on sexuality and eroticism, so there’s a very big difference.

In ancient tribal cultures, a young person would go through a sexual initiation. Girls and boys, when they reached puberty, would be sent to someone who was very skilled in these arts and they would be taught how to make love. In ancient India also, the priest of the temple would initiate a bride before she was married, meaning he would have sex with her and teach her how to have the best possible love-making experience with her husband, so she was trained and blessed before going into the marriage. But all this has nothing to do with Tantra.

There’s a definite place for sacred sexuality in society, I think it is essential, but it shouldn’t be called Tantra because that confuses the whole concept of Tantra. People start thinking that prostitution equals Tantra – that you go for an erotic massage that has a happy ending and that is considered to be a Tantric massage. You wave a few feathers and a few silk scarves and that is a Tantric massage! This gives a reputation to Tantra that is very inadequate. Since I’ve been teaching Tantra I’ve been fighting against the common belief that Tantra is all about hand jobs! It’s been quite an uphill journey. I’ve been trying to get across that Tantra is a path of meditation that is about the path of awareness and the path of love and weaving them together, and has many, many methods of meditation that include all of the human being. I’ve been constantly putting this out over these past 12 years, and the message has been sinking in, in England, which I’m very happy about, and I’m also aware that Tantra in the United States has been taking a different orientation and that is sex therapy. American Tantra has a different vibe to what is going on in England.

When people start studying Tantra they get very curious about all different kinds of Tantra and they want to taste everything, just like bees going to different flowers, which is very healthy. As part of that process, there’s increasing curiosity about what I would call American Tantra, which is sex therapy, sexual healing and glorified hand jobs! I don’t want to put it down, but for me it’s not Tantra if it doesn’t include the path of meditation.

Love Sarita

What do you think? Let us know your thoughts below.

My upbringing in an egalitarian society with a liberal open minded education, including a great sexual education, contributed a lot to the start of my personal journey. Sauna has sacred roots in my culture, being seen as a sanctuary, a healing room, and a place where nakedness remains natural. The sex education I encountered gave huge importance to the empowerment of me as a young woman and my ability to choose when I would cross that threshold of making love. It also gave me the message from an early age that self pleasuring is a natural way to explore.

So where nature fostered an early awareness of something bigger than myself and a sense of divine, intervention introduced itself in childhood experiences: it was when faced with death and human loss in my late teens that my ”spiritual seeking” dived more deeply. It took me into meditation, personal growth work of many kinds and yoga. My earthy spirituality seemed to have created doorways that could now take me deeper.

My path took me to the Findhorn Foundation and the community in the north-east of Scotland in the late nineties and where, a few years later, I lived. That is where I also first met Sarita and Geho. Under their beautiful guidance with my partner at the time I practiced my first Tantric meditations. Much of it felt natural to me and I could see how partly nature and my culture had facilitated a sense of sacred love. Yet also I had some confusion about embracing being a woman as a shadow of the egalitarian thinking can expect men and women to do all the same things. It was a powerful time and I was touched by the teachings that Sarita and Geho were offering. Sarita’s wisdom and love especially felt very meaningful to me as a young woman. In the following years I helped and assisted on her groups as often as I could and then last year I also started teaching Tantra.

I feel very blessed to have witnessed and been part of all these circles of women and men. Thank you for each person I have crossed paths with along this time. I have so much love for our shared humanity. It is all welcomed in Tantra and all can be a gateway to the sacred. Thank you again Sarita, Geho and Supragya for the time and love you put into the School of Awakening. Under its branches new seedlings are growing everywhere.

Heidi is based in London and offers Tantra sessions and Tantric massage. She is also a vision quest guide; leading workshops of personal discovery in nature. Contact Heidi at: heidi@beloved-earth.com

As news of the dissolution of the School of Awakening breaks, a new life bursts onto the scene…

The (as it turned out) final team meeting of the School of Awakening was scheduled to take place at my house in Bristol on 15 September. The first two days were for the whole team and the final four or five, just for the Tantra teachers to prepare upcoming groups.

The first day, Wednesday, brought the news that Sarita and Supragya had decided to dissolve the  School. We all felt this was a positive move and yet there were of course feelings of sadness at the thought of letting go of our wonderful creation. Most of us finished the day by dancing through our emotions at Leigh’s fabulous 5 Rhythms Class – very appropriate as Leigh is also one of our Tantra teachers.  The next morning, my pregnant flatmate Shanti (another tantrika) woke me at 5.30 to tell me that she thought her waters had partly broken and she was going to the hospital. This was VERY early – only 27 weeks and 2 days (rather than the usual 36 to 40 weeks). We went together to the delivery suite where Shanti was examined and kept in for observation for a couple of days. I left at lunchtime and got back in time for Sarita’s discourse on the difference between Tantra and Sacred Sexual Healing.

Shanti was discharged from hospital 2 days later on Saturday (my birthday) and told to take it easy as she could possibly give birth in the next two to three weeks. Next day Sunday, we were all just about to sit down to a fantastic raw food meal prepared by not one but two Tantric raw food chefs – Niten and Kamla – when the contractions started! With Shanti moaning and groaning and the contractions coming every few minutes – there was not a moment to lose! Kamla helped pack the hospital bag, I called the hospital and Chintan brought his car to the door and off we went.

Two hours later out popped little Indra – a tiny baby boy weighing only 1kg! The lovely midwife caught him, scooped him up and handed him to the waiting team of baby doctors who cleaned him up and attempted to get a tube

Indra's first breaths

down his throat to help his breathing.  ”Ooh – he’s an active one”, they said – he was kicking and mewing like a little kitten. Meanwhile Shanti delivered the placenta and was on her feet a few minutes later to look at her baby son. He was soon whisked off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and we all had tea and toast while his condition stabilised. It all felt very surreal! Half an hour later, Shanti was able to gently touch him in his incubator and so began the long process of premature baby care. I left the hospital about 3am – it was pouring with rain – very appropriate as Indra (the name which her half Indian son had given her in a dream a couple of months earlier) is the god of rain (and war!).

Front page of the local newspaper! I couldn't resist telling the guy at the checkout in Tesco's that he was my flatmate's baby - he and his male colleague were clucking over the picture and asking how long he measured as the queue built up behind me!

Today, just over 2 weeks later – little Indra has made the front page of the local newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post in a fund raising article for the Premature Baby Unit at St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol. I’m happy to report that mother and baby are both doing very well!

I couldn’t resist sharing this story  - partly as it goes to show how ‘spot on’ Sarita is when she says that Sex, Birth and Death are never far apart! What a week that was!

Shanti and her baby

Lots of love – especially to Shanti and Indra

Sidika

If you would like to support the appeal to raise £1 million to expand the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St Michael’s Hospital Bristol, please visit their appeal

There it dawned on me, and I am in wonder that, at last, this IS ordinary to me. I breathe in the memory of the magnificence of us ordinary extraordinary women sharing our inner wisdom on the beach at nightfall in Corfu.

Actually I am in wonder about it all. When I first did level 7 I was so much on my inner journey that I scarcely noticed the evolution of those around me. This time having assisted with the same group from level 4 my focus was more outward and the joy of witnessing the amazing blossoming of 15 couples has been so inspiring. The bonus is that in revisiting the meditations with my beloved we were really able to recognise the impact that our Soul Mate journey has had on our relationship. We now relate from a place of deep personal honesty and accountability, this deep stream of loving that runs through our relationship allows for each of us to be unselfconsciously ourselves and allows us to be ridiculous joyous idiots when the wind is in the right direction. I didn’t think that sex could get much better than what I had experienced in our 1st level 7, but it did. We found ourselves in a whole new dimension where our bodies totally took over from our minds and we were like dolphins tumbling together in a sea of profound knowing.

I honour the courage and expansive energy of the couples. The magnificent wild and horny energy of the men, combined with their sensitivity and their vast capacity for loving. The vulnerable openess of the women combined with their wisdom and fiery passion. My sense of my own journey is that while I steadily deepen and expand in my relationship with Edwin, it is in the alchemy of group energy that we make our quantum leaps. We are blessed to be in a time where these gatherings can happen, we are blessed that so many are drawn to do this work, we are blessed that souls like Sarita are moving among us guiding us to our ecstatic truth.

Fiona x

There was such a buzz of excitement in the air – this was the first time Osho Leela had ever hosted a Tantra Festival and Wow – what a festival it looked to be! The line up was Sarita, Suta and Tina, Roxana and Vincent, Baba Dez, Jewels, Hanna and Martin, Leora Lightwoman, Jan Daly, Joy Hicklin-Bailey and Rebecca and Rupert!

On the first evening we gathered in a packed marquee (around 200 participants I think – Osho Leela was sold out and had to close bookings a week before it started!). The teachers introduced each other and then lead us into a ritual culminating in Sarita guiding a super powerful lingam and yoni ritual – I couldn’t resist looking round at one point and seeing Sarita, eyes closed, waving her arm, intent on whipping up the energy. After that is was OK good night everyone and see you at 7.15am in the marquee for Chakra Breathing Meditation. As Sarita could only be there for just over a day before she had to leave for the Couples Level 7 retreat in Corfu, she was ‘maxing out’ her schedule. I crawled out of my sleeping bag at 7am and just made it for the morning meditation. Once again the marquee was packed and the intensity of the meditation probably surprised a few people – and all before breakfast!

Sarita at the festival

Then came the Morning Meeting where Deveraj and Neeraj from Osho Leela ran through the schedule for the day and the teachers introduced their various workshops. Some of teachers asked us to bring a partner of the opposite sex – gulp! gulp! or smug grin depending on your circumstances! Luckily it turned out that bring a partner usually meant just walk through the door with someone – it wasn’t that you had to work intimately with them or even partner them at all – just a way of balancing the genders. Later that day, Sarita led the Soul Mate Meditation and then in the evening gave a talk about Tantra and introduced a beautiful Mahamudra meditation complete with live music from the band Presence.

Next morning, it was Baba Dez who held centre stage in the Marquee – and the gaze of most of the women in the place – I’m sure it wasn’t just me! As a marketing person a thought it was OK to take a few pics for the blog etc (I did check first with Dez’s son Ryan who was filming Dez’s European tour). But did I have to take quite so many of this lanky Divine Masculine?? He is a shaman as well as a Tantrika and his magic was certainly working!

Baba Dez - one of many pics!

Unlike most workshops, this one was mainly a talk and then a guided regression and repatterning of the Divine Masculine aspect. I was in floods of tears which continued unabated as the regression ended and Dez asked us to all embody the Divine Masculine and stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and said we’d all become a men’s group. I was all of a wobble after and ended up giving a very gushing testimonial on camera to Ryan after he’d assured me I didn’t look too dreadful!

And on and on we went, riding the tantric ocean for the next four days, sampling the various delicacies available, confronting our wounding, learning to say ‘yes’ (but only when we’d learned how to say ‘no’), being caressed in the Love Lounge, exploding in ecstasy, making sweet new connections and the whole spectrum in between.

The last evening was for me, one of the highlights. Osho Leela is famous for its cabaret shows – greatly enhanced by its outrageous dressing up cupboard (actually a room). The MC for the evening was Niraj who with his usual aplomb and wit did a fabulous job of introducing some top class acts. My absolute favourite act was Meg and two friends from the Love Lounge who did a pastiche of the morning meeting with Deveraj (Deja Vu) and Niraj (Mirage) from Osho Leela (Oh so Lulu). The hilarity grew, as each Tantra teacher was introduced and their idiosyncrasies exploited mercilessly! I was rolling around helplessly by the end of it.

Finally, the end of the festival arrived – super-charged, joyous dancing in the morning meeting followed by a beautiful closing ceremony. Tents were packed up, addresses swapped, tender farewells, passionate farewells and promises to meet again.

And we will meet again – Osho Leela has already set the dates for next year’s festival…and it’s going to be longer!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Osho Leela tantric apples - enjoy!

Love

Sidika

So – were you there this time? If you were, write a comment if you will and say how it was for you.

This one-hour dance celebrates your life energy while opening your chakras. It is an active meditation, where bringing awareness to your body movements helps to create transformation.

Phase One

Dance the quality of each chakra in turn, allowing seven minutes for each chakra.

Chakra             Quality

First                     Sex/sensuality

Second                Emotions/feelings

Third                    Individual truth/egolessness

Fourth                 Love/sacredness

Fifth                     Creativity/expression

Sixth                    Psychic opening/transcendence

Seventh              Bliss/oneness

If you don’t know where the chakras are located, check out Suta’s short video “Live life fully! Learn about the Chakra system”

Begin at the first chakra, focusing on this chakra inside your pelvic region, radiating energy in all directions. Let your whole pelvis fill up with that energy, and dance from there. Then let your whole body be overtaken by the quality of the first chakra.

After seven minutes, move your focus to the second chakra and again let the energy expand as you dance the quality of that chakra, discovering what it is for you personally. Then allow that energy to engulf your whole body and become it, from head to toe, as you continue dancing. Repeat for each chakra in turn, ending with the crown chakra.

Phase Two

Lie down for 15 minutes with eyes closed, simply witnessing your breathing, your mind, and your emotions as a detached observer. You may become aware of all seven chakras vibrating simultaneously.

You can buy a CD to accompany this meditation from the Shop

I had a wonderful time at the Osho Leela Tantra Festival last week (10-15th August), even though I was only there for a day – watch my video blog and hear all about it!

Love Sarita x

Much later as a rebellious eighteen year-old two very significant spiritual experiences occurred which were to cast their mark upon my entire life.

The first was a sudden dropping away of my faith in Islam as it was taught to me. This happened during a conversation with a fellow student where I simply realised with intense suddenness and amazement that I no longer believed in the faith I had grown up with. What further surprised me was that nothing had been taken away from me that my inner mood of reverence to the source of life flourished yet had lost its outer form.

The second experience was that before I ever heard of it, Tantra claimed me! Zen mind, beginners mind, they say – indeed this was the case for me. One of my first sexual experiences took me into the most intense and cosmic orgasm; an experience so expansive and pleasurable beyond anything I had ever anticipated. I could make no sense of it until a few years later I came across a book by Osho and upon reading about Tantric practices I exclaimed yes! This is what happened to me. So how could I not take up this scent and walk the trail to Tantra? Fifteen years later in 2004 I met and fell in love with Vincent, within months we were on retreat with Sarita and Geho. I had found my way back.

Now six years on having begun to teach Tantra, I look back and see that mysterious hands have guided me each step of my way to this path that all my life experience adds up to this quite naturally. And yet I was the last to know.

Since 1994 I have nourished myself with spiritual practice. Early on it was meditation and Qigong, then Shiatsu and Rudolf Steiner Pedagogy. This was supplemented with my then “bible” Louise Hay’s –You Can Heal Your Life, as I began the journey of helping myself recover from the raging violence and emotional neglect that also characterised my childhood.

This process of healing led me to the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. The four-year training was to become a healer but the path was to be healed. From the depths of my being the woundedness, pain and misconceptions of reality emerged. Yes it was chaotic and extremely challenging yet I could feel myself come back to life.

During this time I was teaching at St. Paul’s Steiner School in Islington, London. To be immersed in a community where the care for the child was so impeccable and imbued with reverence was a balm to me. Five years into this part of my journey I met my husband Vincent and this relationship, combined with Tantra, took me deeper into layers of my being I had been completely unaware of.

Today, nourished by a further three-year study in Non-Dual healing with Jason Shulman – a study which is informed by Zen and the kabbalah and is deeply Tantric, I feel surging creativity and joy as I mould new life from all these experiences.

Roxana runs a healing practice and teaches Tantra workshops in London with Vincent. From September she will be holding a fortnightly women’s sacred circle. From next year she will be teaching levels one and two of the seven level Soul Mate Tantra for Lovers.

To learn more about her work take a look at www.healingwithroxana.com

This is a meditation from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, the sutra is:

“Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the centre of the lotus.”

This meditation is using the heart principle, which transforms everything into love. It is very important in terms of not only life but also death, because the heart principle is trying every moment to transform any unfinished business into love. Whatever is not fully lived will be purified in the fire of love in the heart

You can use this meditation to awaken the maximum experience of the senses. At any time of the day when you are having a sensorial experience, you can close your eyes for a moment, absorb that experience in the heart and see how it feels. You can also do it as a specific meditation, with a partner:

Step 1

Blindfold your partner and stimulate their senses in turn: smell, taste, sound, touch and sight.

Smell: using natural scents such organic essential oils or flowers, wave them in front of your partner’s nose and allow them time to drink in the smell.

Taste: using different foods, offer all the tastes to your partner – salty, sweet, bitter, pungent, sour. If we use all the five tastes this will be very empowering for our life, because a rich and full life contains all these tastes.

Sound: you could use very soft music, or tinkling bells, a soft flute, or so on, simply murmur sweet nothings into your partner’s ear, or sing to them. Make sure you give them an experience of sound, then silence, sound then silence.

Touch: for this you can use caressing, massage, drape a silk scarf or a peacock feather over your partner – whatever comes to mind, be creative!

Sight: put on some wonderful music, remove your partner’s blindfold and do a dance for them. They are simply visually connecting with what they are seeing – you dancing!

Once you have been through all the senses with your partner, exchange. If you are doing this with a lover, it is a really beautiful prelude to love making.

For the person receiving all of these different sensorial experiences, just absorb all of it into the heart, each time.

Like to try more meditations like this? Then join Sarita’s Vigyan Bhairav Tantra club! < http://www.schoolofawakening.com/vigyan-bhairav-tantra-webinar.php>