June 2010 by Roxana

What can I share with you of this retreat?

Silence.  A new found depth of meditation of being.

Love. Once again being shown that this is the fabric of my existence, of existence itself.

Death. Opening and releasing a little more of the ego’s clutching.

Union. My tears flowed freely all week, waves of the relief of returning home, a home I now see that I had never actually left, a home that it is impossible to leave, where could we possibly go that is away from the embrace of the divine?

Grace. Healings, held in the arms of two awakened masters.

Community. Being with the 60 or so participants each sharing this thirst for union with God.

Hospitality. The gifts so freely showered upon us by our open-hearted Norwegian friends.

Song. Raising our voices in poetry and praise.

Dance. Of course, where Sarita leads the party soon follows!

Vincent and I will be integrating these gifts for many months so rich was the experience of this retreat, I urge you all to taste the liberation offered through the presence of this unique combination of two awakened masters. In true Tantric style they embrace so many opposites in their teaching together.  Such a profound transmission of Shiva and Shakti, yin and yang, western woman and eastern man, classical solitude of meditation and Osho’s radical richness.

Roxana teaches levels 1-3 of the School of Awakening Soulmate Training for couples, and also her own Tantra groups in London.

If you are thinking that you need ‘time out’ for quiet reflection and to connect with yourself again in these busy lives of ours then I would definitely recommend the Silent Meditation and Live Food Detox Retreat at Croydon Hall facilitated by Sarita, a beautiful and wise woman. The structure was challenging for the likes of myself who hardly meditates, however, the joy of being silent, not talking, switching of mobile and laptop and not reading any books … but replacing this with meditating, chanting and spending luscious time doing yoga exercises with the wonderful and special Ekant was indeed a treat beyond my imagination! Coupled with this the joy of dancing, listening to wonderful music both live and recorded was enchanting. Zen walking in nature along with periods of meditating outside was beneficial in remembering this connection we all have to mother earth, the simplicity of life and just listening to the wonderful sounds of nature all around us. Beautiful and full of wonderment.

Coming into silence at Croydon Hall

This retreat has brought me back to remembering ‘my-self’ again after many months of challenge and upheaval in my life affecting my overall health and well-being. It was great to live in the moment and not think, do, or be interrupted in daily outside influences. It was a relief to remind myself that I am the captain of my own life, that the choices I make are mine, the thoughts I think are mine and my actions are mine, no one else to blame or judge. Just me…. and that I do have choices … Daily individual time in counselling with Sarita was welcome and blessed in her generous words of wisdom and abundant love.

Infused with all this, by allowing the expansion of time, everything seemed perfect and natural, unrushed and unhurried. Bliss. So the crème de la crème of this experience so to speak, (ha ha), was the extraordinary raw food delights prepared by the gorgeous Niten (who has boundless energy reserves, I tell you!) … a French chef who now lives in Ibizia. His passion and flair for the culinary expertise is totally beyond words…..  I can only describe the raw food diet as being back in ‘the Garden of Eden’ (not that I remember it too well, however, some memory stirred)…

A healing session with Chintan was a very special experience; an hour and a half of cranio sacral work alongside a very gentle approach to healing some very deep wounds and painful memories that emerged.

Despite feeling exhausted from months of personal inner chaos, lack of sleep, intake of too much junk food, addictive behaviours, menopause and painful knees (not in a great heap of health, I must say!) I did wonder if I would make it to the sessions which started at 6am and finished at 10pm ish .. then straight to bed.. however, it was a totally amazing inspiring experience and a love affair with myself, that I’d forgotten.  Recommend it? Absolutely!! ..

I have been home for nearly three weeks now. I have decided to continue meditating daily, have changed my diet and been taking steps to healing my addictive behaviours and being more loving to myself. It’s working, I am just starting to feel more energy and inspired about life again…

Thank you to Sarita and her wonderful team.

In blessings, love and peace

Vera Waters

www.veritasprojects.com

Can Tantra help to transform jealousy?

Love Sita x

Answer

Jealousy is a red hot topic which trips up even the most dedicated meditator. Luckily, one of the meanings of Tantra is, ‘transforming poison into nectar.’ In this sense, we can use Tantra to transform any of the so called negative aspects of our life, including jealousy.

It is good to understand that in fact, if we are jealous of someone, this feeling comes about because we are projecting some un-lived aspect of ourselves onto the person we are jealous about. We are imagining that this person is able to have a level of fulfillment that we are denied. To heal this wound within ourselves, it is wise to ask the question, “if I could do whatever I wanted to right now, what would it be?”

Once you have found out what your underlying desire is, then you can create a meditation out of living it, as consciously as possible. In this scenario, it is important not to believe you need the other in order to act it out. You can distill your desire to it’s very essence, which means you going for your core need.  A sutra from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra says:   “Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.”

By accepting our desires, and acting them out as a meditation, we will be able to discover powerful lessons and insights which will enhance our clarity, wisdom and compassion. An important key in this is to be total. The more honest we are with our core desires, and the more total in acting them out, the more clarity and transformation will happen.  When you are doing exactly what you want, in the here and now with your full passion and creativity, it will be impossible to be in a state of jealousy. You will be so fully alive, so in the flow of who you are meant to be, that you will have no need to project your life force energy on another and compare. You will be in the flow. Jealousy can only exist in stagnation.

With love,

Sarita

Sink,

Melt;

The sacred fluid

Like liquid gold you run,

Smudging,

Shimmering into my being

Light you dart

To this and that of me,

Weightless molten mercury

Sharp you pierce

And firm and full of all you are

The mightiest you give me

Dissolving fluid liquid

Into one quick swift slow deep totality:

This world

This all

This everything

Tara

How can Tantra be helpful for health?

Nania

Answer

To be healthy means to be whole. The nature of wholeness is when body, mind, emotions and soul function as one organic unity. As Osho has said, “The body is the soul made visible.” In my experience, when someone takes a quantum leap in their state of consciousness, it is essential to then take very good care of the body, so the body can catch up to where the consciousness has gone. If this step is not taken it can have dire consequences for the body. In this sense, Tantra is the supreme spiritual approach, since Tantra honors the body as the microcosm. There is a very beautiful Tantra quote from Saraha Doha:

“Here in this body are the sacred rivers

Here are the sun and moon

As well as all the pilgrimage places

I have not encountered another temple

As blissful as my own body.”

I remember in a Darshan with Osho, hearing him say to me, “Love the body. Love the body. It is through the body you reach the divine.” I have followed his guidance very precisely and have found the reality in his words.

As we move on the spiritual path, and use the body as our entry point into expanded consciousness, we have the opportunity of experiencing the five senses and all emotional states as friends on the path. The body is always in the present moment, and so is a great teacher. Opening sensual awareness brings sensitivity to all aspects of life. As we become more sensitive we can easier hear the music of the spheres, or see with clairvoyant vision, or feel the subtle truth of life situations, or see behind the illusory veil of maya.

The path of healing through Tantra supports us in knowing ourselves in our totality, the infinite mirrored in the finite. It is a beautiful, loving and supportive path of all that we are.

and become each other,

lose and find ourselves in each other,

tumbling over and over,

rolling in heather and in clover.

Let’s breathe each other

and vanish in the we-ness of existence,

flowing endlessly into being,

knowing that there is only the present moment,

extracting the nectar,

savouring the succulence,

rejoicing in the juice,

gorging ourselves on the gorgeousness of being truly present in the heavenly home that is the body,

to embody,

to inhabit

that humungous habitat,

the only place where it’s at.

Riding the waves,

breathing,

rising and falling,

trusting and surrendering,

no longer holding on for dear life

but tenderly dancing with death cheek to cheek.

Not dicing, no not dicing,

but enticing, inviting, courting

and seeking to fully embrace that ultimate surrender.

Truly to live,

fully to give,

wholly to be.

And now understand the meaning of ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’

and transcend now duality,

transcend separation,

be with what is,

accept without reservation my ecstatic undulation.

Now seeing beyond what the eye perceives,

falling into the vanishing,

knowing in that moment there is only self

and knowing this,

feel the infinite variety of experience within.

For all else is an illusion

and thus embracing the paradox,

finally getting the cosmic joke,

I lie and a mandala make,

I sit and eat my birthday cake,

For on this day I am born anew

and I see all the wealth and paucity that I contain

in you and you and you and you.

Doth not thou see?

The dam that breaks in you is washing over me

and I bow down at my magnificence

I bow down to love.

Suddenly, all at once my mind is filled with a new and radiant clarity

my maker wants for me this precious rarity

and truly I am blessed

as I emerge from this crystal chrysalis

words spring from my lips

and love bursts out from my very fingertips.

My heart is all aglow

and from the back aflame,

my delicacy I wear right regally like a filigree cloak

poetry flows full worsted and unimpeded from my pen

as I whirl from pregnant rosebud to pregnant rosebud,

caressing and exclaiming,

appreciating the exquisite promise of blossom

and softly do I whisper a peal of sweet, sweet nothings

as I all drunk inhale the subtlest scent.

As my teachers one and all help me to see

we build the temple of love from moment to moment.

I love you without attachment,

I love you more deeply than I ever knew.

What serious fools we are to hem it in!

Oh slowly, softly, gently, ecstatically, like the honey bee-ing, treeing,

Evolve into lovevolve lovevolve

I reach inside and idly pluck a pomegranate flower.

Tara

Jenny

“Ahhh, a cosmic question! This sounds exactly like the kind of question which I used to ponder for hours alone in bed at night as a child. I was determined to discover exactly how the universe and all of life functions by pondering over it with burning intensity. In those days, I was like a heat seeking missile, traversing the entire universe with my powers of intuition, in search of the big answer.

Mystics down the ages have been trying to define it. Quantum physicists are trying to discover it. In 1973, I met a Mystic named Osho, who stopped my heat seeking missile in it’s tracks. I heard him say: “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.” The day I heard him say these words, I entered into the mystery. As I dive ever deeper into the mystery, there is no end in sight. In other words, we cannot hope to grasp this vast mystery with our small minds. The mind by it’s very nature is a bio computer, designed to catalogue past experiences and prepare for future experiences. Mind lives in past and future, both of which are illusory. Mind cannot understand the present moment, which is the only life aspect which is actually alive and happening. The only way to understand life is through immersion in the present moment. And of course, this moment goes on changing. What is real now will no longer be real in 10 minutes. Therefore, reality is a moment by moment changing flow, very liquid. And as everyone knows, we cannot hold flowing water in our hands. In the same way, we cannot hold flowing ever changing reality in our minds, and define it.

Having said that, I will now define it, with the clear understanding that any definition is bound to be illusory. The only usefulness my definition could serve is to inspire you in jumping beyond the small mind into the vast unending mystery.

Shakti, the feminine principle is ever changing liquid life essence, the very nectar of life, which can be summed up in one word, ‘Love.’

Shiva, the masculine principle, is the pillar of consciousness which remains unmoving.

Between these two, is the creation principle.

The whole secret of creation is in that point of meeting. It is a portal into ultimate reality, or the oneness which is beyond duality.

The elements of Shiva and Shakti and the point of union are omnipresent within and around us at all times.

In Tantra scriptures, the eternal stillness, or oneness, is that formless field of pure potential from where everything arises, and to where everything will return. It is called Brahma.

In Quantum Physics, it is called Zero Point Energy.

In Tantra scriptures, the impulse for life, arising from Brahma is prana, a subtle breath of life, which brings the impulse for creation to manifest.

In Quantum physics theory, there is a particle called Tachyon which is the messenger from the Zero Point Field, breathing life from the unformed to the sustaining aspect of form, called the ‘orbit’ or ’subtle organizing energy field’ In a sense, this is the soul of matter.

As prana, (tachyon) inspires the creation principle, Brahma through this subtle messenger, is thus able to split into two, ie, duality, and in this way the dance of life and of creation can begin. The dance of creation happens below light speed, and the zero point field or Brahma is above light speed. As we are identified with the slower than light world of manifest form, we are not able to comprehend the ocean of the formless from which we spring. And yet, it is us, as the imprint of Brahma is our very essence from where we manifest. Therefore, we carry an inherent longing to know it, and to merge with this original oneness. The original oneness, or zero point field, beyond light speed, is all around us each moment. Asking if it is outside our universe is in a way like asking if the ocean is in a different place from where the fish swims.

And yet, your question is valid, because we cannot see it, or measure it, or grasp it in any way. So it appears very distant from us. The only way to know it, is to raise our vibration to a non-frequency state, which is impossible if there is identification with form. The only way to move beyond form is through consciousness. Our consciousness is unformed and can move anywhere and everywhere, according to our ability to expand into the limitless mystery. It is for this reason that the science of meditation has been developed. Meditation is the way to become an explorer of our inner universe. And there are no limits to the exploration. Great mystics come finally to the facticity of what is known as the ‘cosmic joke.’ And strangely, when you are able to be in the mystery and laugh about it, a really uproarious belly laugh, you got it! As the Mystic Kabir said, the ocean melts into the dewdrop.

It is interesting that whatever you are interested in is pulled towards you. As a child, having wanted very intensively to find the essence of life, I manifested a lifestyle where I have been given phenomenal tools to discover this essence, such as meditation with enlightened masters, Tachyon consciousness raising tools, and other forms of therapy and healing which have greatly accelerated my potential to realize universal consciousness. The School of Awakening was created to make all these tools and processes available for the benefit of all beings who are thirsty to wake up to their fullest potential.

Love Sarita x

As Sarita shared from the depth of her experiences, I rejoiced in the knowledge that these discourses would be widely available all over the planet for many, many years. We live in a speedy age of information where little attention is given to wisdom. We can gather all the information we desire at the mere click of a mouse. Despite this I often hear people wonder why, if they know and agree with a spiritual truth they still struggle to live by it. They find that they struggle to relate to others, the world and indeed their own selves through the truths they aspire to. To be informed is clearly not enough to live by these truths. Being informed is simply the beginning of a process of knowing. To actually live these truths may require a lifetime of dedication and practice, whereby these teachings are woven through inner and outer experience into bodily knowing, wisdom.

Our deeds then quite naturally arise from these embodied truths.  As a teacher in the Rudolf Steiner schooling tradition, I organized the lessons for my class always bearing in mind the oft quoted Steiner education maxim “from the hands through the heart to the head”. This served as a reminder to me that for deep learning to occur, the children firstly need to experience with their bodies, (the hands aspect). Next the material needs to be internalized into their feeling lives and be met with creativity (the heart aspect). Only when absorbed and digested in this manner can healthy full concepts rise to the head as knowing. Sarita’s webinar reminded me of this integrating direction to follow when seeking to gain knowledge.

The meditations offered by the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra are invitations to experience with our bodies, to do. Regular practise then deepens this doing to a heart felt relationship with the meditations we are drawn to. Then by engaging with the community of meditators that gather through the webinar series and Sarita’s question and answer sessions, we can raise our doing and feeling connection into deeper understanding. Hence the energy of our experience penetrates our spirit and wisdom is born!

Additionally something quite unique is available for us in this webinar series. In having a guide such as Sarita we benefit from the subtle and potent transmission of a master who is committed to this path of learning, having lived and digested it over the last 37 years, many of them spent at Osho’s side. We receive the fruits of her long practice. I encourage all of you to taste this fruit. Whether we are single or in a couple, able or not to accompany her on the retreats in Croydon Hall, India and elsewhere, we can dedicate time for our own practice and participate from our own homes in this precious work of awakening.

With love,

Roxana

You can register for the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra series with our hosts, the University of Integrated Science at www.uisca.org - not sure if it’s for you? Watch the introductory video on the UISCA site, or see the trailer here

Roxana teaches levels 1-3 of the School of Awakening Soulmate Training for couples, and also her own Tantra groups in London. Click here for her website.

Picture of Roxana copyright Amano Samarpan – www.amanosamarpan.com

One of my favourite topics is male and female energy – particularly how both have become out of balance in our times. This is a really urgent subject and I see us at the threshold of great transformation. I am doing my best to help support a positive transformation for individuals, relationships and society. As well as my passion for Tantra, my work with Uezu-San on our Aisho retreats brings the perfect balance of male and female, sun and moon, which has been so lacking in our culture for so long.

Power of the goddess

Anatolian (modern day Turkey) fertility goddess from 6000 BC

In ancient times, the mother goddess was the focal point for worship. In some cultures, it was not known that the man played an important role in the creation of new life. This gave women a very powerful position.

Unfortunately, she abused her power, offering men in human sacrifice, asking for him to castrate himself in order to serve in her temples, and so on. Finally men got sick and tired of this and grabbed the reins of power. What followed has been 2000 years of men abusing their power, and suppressing women through myriad ways. The most prevalent ways were to suppress her powerful orgasms, and to blot out the ancestral memory of her inherent gift of intuition. She was burned at the stake as a witch because she practiced intuitive healing and she was kept enchained by ownership through marriage.

In the new dawn which we can begin to sense on the horizon, men and women need to learn to live together as complementary opposites, gods and goddesses who are custodians of earth’s resources rather than her rapist. Tantra offers master keys for helping men and women to find that place of resonant fusion where opposites meet and merge. One of the important keys is to help men and women to live their true nature.

When a woman is in her natural flow and man is in his pillar of consciousness, there will be magnetic attraction. The bottom line is, we should not expect men to be like women, nor women to be like men, but rather, learn to respect and even cultivate our differences. We can learn from each other yet not be consumed by the other.

Containing the contradictions

Shiva, the fire of awareness

The secret of a powerful man is that he is a pillar of consciousness who is able to contain all the contradictions of life and remain centred. This begins by him accepting his power and his vulnerability together in the same moment. He accepts his animal instinct as well as his intellectual refinement. He is thus able to hold a woman who is the very embodiment of contradictions. She is Shakti, containing all the varied and liquid forms of feminine nature. Ruled by the moon, she changes with the ebb and flow of the tides. Her orgasm catapults her beyond mind, into transcendent reality. The greatest gift for the man happens when he is able to be the pure fire of awareness, Shiva, holding Shakti as she lets go into multi orgasmic splendour.

The secret of a powerful woman is that she is fully alive to her loving, devotional, emotional and psychic abilities. She is fluid like water, and is therefore able to accept change easily. Going with the flow, is the way of yin. She craves nothing so much as finding a man, or a god to whom she may abandon herself to in fullest surrender. Letting go and being possessed by the divine masculine is her deepest ecstasy. She is able to let go, because her throne is the heart, the seat of love. And every woman knows deep down, that God is love, and that love is God. Since the very essence of divinity finds its abode in her heart, she can afford to be sweet, giving and nurturing.

Now imagine for a moment what an amazing world we would be living in, if men and women lived their true opposite and yet complementary natures, with integrity. Imagine a politician who was in touch with his vulnerable inner child, while at the same time was able to remain rooted in his pillar of consciousness, nourished by deep meditation. Imagine a politician who was able to offer his beloved a night of multi orgasmic union, and was then able to give a speech to the nation on the necessity of caring for the earth as we would care for our own mother. He is both strong, and vulnerable, and this is what makes him eminently attractive. He has learned the art of loving a woman and this has ignited the desire to love and care for his country.

And imagine, how it would be, if a radiantly loving multi orgasmic woman were to work in a corporate setting, and had the power to run it her way. Her office is full of plants and flowers, she offers holistic healing to her workers, and her company has the feeling of a loving family. All her customers are encouraged to love and nurture themselves and she has a unique system of profit sharing and a clear intention to give back to the earth whatever has been borrowed. The building she works in has been designed to honour the undulating contours of nature, and is ecological and self sustaining.

Our deeper potentials

In our present time, it is unfortunate that men have forgotten their deeper potential. They tend to be either at the extreme of testosterone, going amok on a power crazed rape of the earth and her resources, or in the opposite extreme of feeling so deeply apologetic for being men that they become effeminate and cut off from their masculine resources. And women, ahh, sisters, how sad it is to see you turning your back on feminine grace and trying in vain to compete with men by acquiring masculine qualities! You will be able to help yourselves and the world much more, by opening up your true feminine glory. The Goddess is back, and this time, she seeks balance of the sexes. Like two banks of a river, we appear separate, and yet in the middle of the river of life, we meet, and experience being one in essence. How rich is the union of opposites!

Union of god and goddess

I see the future as that of love, joy and celebration. I sense that in the new dawn of humanity, Tantra will find its true place, offering as it does the alchemy for the meeting of sex, love and spirit. When our animal nature is recognized as divine, and when our spirituality is fully embodied, we will then know the fullness of our potential. We will discover wholeness, and healing. We will realize God as male and female in perfect union.

Love and blessings to you all,

Sarita x

If you would like to delve more deeply into experiencing your true masculine or feminine nature – and becoming part of the new dawn –Tantra-Man Tantra-Woman in June is the ideal group for you! It was designed by Sarita and the Tantra team specifically to address the imbalance in male and female energy in our times, and to help people relax into the gifts of their own sex, meeting the opposite sex from a place of empowerment and joy. Click here to start your path to fulfilment!

You can read the full text of this article in Kindred Spirit’s Mind Body Spirit festival special May/June edition – see: www.kindredspirit.co.uk.

Picture of Shiva copyright Kalyan

Picture of fertility goddess copyright Zigomar

Being on a raw diet has given me many different and surprising benefits. For example, it has increased quite drastically my sensitivity on all levels, including a deeper respect for all living beings on earth.

Walking in nature has become a profound experience that one could describe as spiritual. Not that the yellow of the lemons hanging on the tree was not there before, but it would suddenly turn into a glowing, surreal fruit, as if to reveal its glory, its eternal joy to be alive! Its fragrance would be almost intoxicating,  and I could still smell it even from far away… Eating “Living Foods” meant, for me, re-connecting to the spirit of the earth….In a very tangible way……A direct experience of what can be described in books as esoteric or mystical.

In fact, at some stage, I realized that raw foods not only helped me to deepen my meditation but it brought a totally new perspective:  you don’t  meditate any more, you  simply ARE in a state of meditation: a peaceful, contented and insightful Being, allowing yourself to be carried away by Life… So in this way, Living Raw Foods are tremendously supportive for meditation because it harmonizes body, mind and spirit.

I’ve become less prone to physical sickness, emotional turmoils and mood swings, and there seems to be a subtle harmony that has settled within, just like the perfect equilibrium found in nature. It brings a new joy in your life, an enchanting process…Becoming a totally new person…Eating raw means: reclaiming  our natural state of being. In other words, a new birth. Your eyes see more, your ears hear more, your hands touch more, your body feels more, your heart loves more. Everything becomes “more”, not in the sense of quantity but in the sense of quality.

You can have a communion with Existence now, entering a very intimate conversation.

Life becomes colourful and you become a rainbow. Embracing the whole spectrum of Life.

Life becomes richer, multidimensional.

It has depth, heights, beautiful valleys and beautiful sunlit peaks.

You start expanding as you reclaim your Self.

This is the miracle of combining a Living Raw diet and meditation!

Love Niten x

If you’d like to experience some of what Niten is talking about, then join him, Sarita and Ekant on the Silent Meditation and Live Food Detox Retreat from 19-23 May. Eat delicious raw food, go deeply into silent meditation and Mantra chanting and detox your body, mind and soul, all in the beautiful surrounds of Exmoor, at Croydon Hall – a perfect way to Spring clean! See: www.schoolofawakening.com/detox-meditation.php