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

We set off for Croydon Hall early on a crisp Tuesday morning, full of excitement for our day of filming. Myself, Sidika and Merlina; our wonderful camera woman and producer, made the 2 hour drive through the Bristol rush hour, out into the splendid Somerset scenery and finally to our studio for the day, the Zen Room at Croydon Hall.

This was a step into the unknown for all of us, another exciting adventure to embark on! We were joined by beautiful audience members throughout the day in the form of Trenna, Chaitanya and Sampurno, who also doubled up as extras for demos, helping find poems, taking pictures and generally being a wonderful help –  and what a great job they did.

Trenna - our scribe

Merlina, our fabulous camerawoman - Lights! Camera! Action!

As well as being part of the production/audience team, I was also lucky enough to be in one of the demos, eating chocolate (ah, its a hard life!) and entering into the bliss of the senses (“When eating or drinking, become the taste of food or drink, and be filled…..” – a sutra from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra)

As I was sitting there, worrying about the lighting, the sound, wondering whether Sarita’s luminance and playfulness would come across on film, it suddenly struck me how lucky I was to be getting a full day’s transmission from Sarita as part of my job! I allowed myself to really drink it in, and something deep inside me relaxed, and slipped into the flow,  knowing that whatever is, is. This experience certainly had a very deep and beautiful effect on me, something I feel profoundly grateful for. It is transforming the way I feel and am with work, so it is no longer separate from everything else I do, but one big beautiful whole life!

Sidika (left) and Malika (right) getting ready for their close up!

As we progressed throughout the day, this being a Tantric webinar, we had to change clothes, do our hair and add make-up to look our goddess best! (Check out me and Sidika doing our make-up above).

It was one long but wonderful day – we made it back to Bristol at 1.30am!! Though we were buzzing all the way home with what we’d captured on film. I feel so blessed to be part of this expansion of the School’s work. Soon, anyone in the world will be able to benefit from Sarita’s transmission of love and incomparable wisdom, and the joy that is Tantra.

With love,

Malika xxxx

……..and now some words (and lots of pics) from Sidika:

Despite our marathon filming spree above, we didn’t finish our 6 part series in one day (how ambitious was that?!), so the following week  Malika, Merlina and I found ourselves driving back to Croydon Hall to catch Sarita on her ‘day off’ between groups.

It was another glorious sunny day but freezing cold. We pulled up into the forecourt of Croydon Hall, barely registering a large van parked outside, and made our way over to Rinzai Hall (the main group room) for the day’s shooting.  I went to find Sarita – “Hello”, I said, “You look familiar!”  ”Aha!” she laughed. “You’ve been watching all the video footage from last week!”.

Technical support!

We set ourselves up for the day. We’d grown in professionalism since the previous week. This time we had a DIY computer autocue rather than a flipchart to remind Sarita of the sutras and poems.  See our tech wizard, Malika, keeping it all under control!

I was feeling quite smug – we were well away from the main house – no noises from vacuum cleaners or people delivering the vegetables this time to get picked up by the sensitive camera mic and cause us to stop and start again. The camera rolled and Sarita started presenting a beautiful meditation involving darkness and the void…silence…loosing yourself….then suddenly ZZZZZZZZZ! A dreadful noise from outside! On further investigation, this was found to be a chain saw!

Sarita checking out the chainsaw!

The van outside belonged to a tree surgeon and his assistant who had been booked several weeks before to coincide with a gap between groups. Not only that, the neighbouring property also had a tree surgeon in for the day!

There was a bit of a lull so we thought we’d try again. Sarita was presenting beautifully when once again ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. “Cut!” went the tree surgeon. “Cut!” went our camera woman. OK change of tactics. We decided to make some noise ourselves. Malika kindly volunteered to do the anger meditation. That’s her going for it down below. “OK, Malika. You can stop now!”

Malika beating a cushion

Next we thought we’d do some shots where we wouldn’t need the sound.  Out in the grounds of Croydon Hall the sun was shining brilliantly, but there was still frost on the grass in the shade. We all dressed up warmly (see below)

Preparing the shot

– all except Malika who bravely endured the cold in her flimsy silver dress. At least she had her co-star, Sampurno to cuddle up to! The Croydon Hall cat decided this looked like an interesting place to be and wandered onto the set and rolled around on the grass for the camera.

Malika & Sampurno - love's young dream!! (for the camera only....)

After a delicious lunch in the restaurant, we went back to Rinzai Hall, the tree surgeons having finally departed. We were joined by Chintan who had arrived in readiness for the following day when he would be co-facilitating the Sacred Sexuality singles group with Sarita. Now it was my turn to be in front of the camera, this time with Chintan – to illustrate a meditation on sex. All I’m going to say, is that it was all done ‘in the best possible taste’ but I couldn’t help wondering what my mother would think if she could see me now! This time it was Malika’s turn to say – “Hey Sidika, you can stop now!”  I had almost forgotten we were being filmed!

(Oops, sorry  no photo! You’ll have to subscribe to the series to see what went on!)

Clothes back on, and out into the garden again for some Zen meditation in the last rays of the setting sun.  At last we were finished. What a day! We bade a fond farewell to Sarita, but not before having arranged our next filming assignment with her at the beginning of next month! Back in Bristol the next day, we began the editing process. I was relieved to see my ‘sensual scene’ was actually very tasteful and beautifull!

Over the next week, our video project began to take shape.  Merlina assembled everything into order and we all debated the cutaways, fades, transitions, added some gorgeous music by Surahbhi…and …lo…the finished product emerged….. and looks fabulous! I cried when I watched it! We’re so excited – as I write this now, the Free Introductory video is just being uploaded in California all ready for you to watch, and we’ve just done a practice run with Sarita in the chat room so you can join us whenever you are ready.  See you soon……!!!

Love from

Sidika

Check out the trailer for the series on You Tube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a-nxQ1je_Q

**Thanks to Chaitanya for the photo of Sidika and Malika**

Other photos by Sidika

Malika and Sidika (the marketing team) tell the story of our first media weekend

Malika

Inviting the media to observe and experience what you do can be a gamble – it can be a quick way to reach thousands of people, but there’s always a chance they could misinterpret or misrepresent what you do. We decided to take that gamble and invited nine members of the media to Croydon Hall in January to observe and participate in Tantra singles and couples meditations, and experience the holistic healing we offer. Croydon Hall on the edge of Exmoor National Park in Somerset have been graciously hosting our residential groups for the last 10 years, so we were very happy when they joined us in our invitation to the media.

The snow did its best to scupper us and with just a few days to go and Croydon Hall completely snowed in, it looked like we might have to cancel. Sarita, however, was adamant that we shouldn’t cancel because of the weather! Perhaps she whispered in the ear of the weather elementals – for amazingly two days before we were due to start, the temperature began to rise, and everyone finally made it in one piece. The Friday night started with a press conference, with Sarita and Suta answering questions.

The beautiful view from Croydon Hall once the snow had melted!

Saturday was Singles Tantra day – what would the media make of it?!! Much to my surprise, they all wanted to participate, which I thought was very brave of them, and I was also really happy that the journalists would get to taste for themselves the Tantra experience. It’s one thing reading (or writing) about Tantra or even photographing or asking someone how they experience it – it’s another thing entirely to actually experience it yourself. You could say it’s a bit like the difference between reading the ingredients on the wrapper of a bar of chocolate as opposed to unwrapping it, breaking off a piece, putting it on your mouth and letting it melt all over your tongue – savouring every subtle nuance of flavour….Mmmm! Only one of the journalists had done a Tantra group before, 10 years ago, so it was all pretty much new territory. Sarita and Suta planned a really beautiful group, including a meditation from the Vigyan Bhirav Tantra and the Meditation of Liberation – the stunning human yantra was captured on film at last! Well done Sidika for clambering up the ladder for the aerial shots!

Roxana, feeling herself as beauty, lying in the arms of godliness - her beloved Vincent!

We were all kept on our toes with a packed schedule of interviewing and session giving, which included our wonderful therapists giving 36 sessions in two days!!

The Croydon Hall chefs surpassed themselves on Saturday evening and presented us with a spectacular and absolutely delicious sushi banquet. The Q&A and sharing which followed gave our fantastic team of Tantra teachers the chance to share their wisdom and answer questions from journalists and the audience (including me!!), which they handled with grace and humour. An evening of spa and bar was most welcome at the end of a very busy day!

On Sunday, we experienced Couples Tantra. I took part in this day, and the presence of love and intimacy was so beautiful and so strong, I was blown away. We did such gorgeous meditations as the tea ceremony and Satyam Shivam Sundaram – with the women feeling themselves to be beauty, the men feeling themselves to be godliness, and the two meeting as Truth.

We ended the day with an extremely touching and beautiful candlelit ceremony, where we passed the flame of Tantra round our circle. All the journalists were without exception extremely touched by what they had experienced and all ready to go away and write movingly about their time at Croydon Hall.

Vibha lights the flame of Tantra

It was so wonderful to experience what an amazing team of therapists, teachers and organisers we have at the School of Awakening. This weekend was a complete unknown for us, but we all pulled together so well and gave the journalists a taste of the beauty and power of Tantra, which will really raise its profile in such a positive way. We felt we went some way to redress the stereotype of Tantra that is commonly portrayed in the media.

The weekend was filmed for the Holistic Channel and for Ambient Productions, and we will let you know when the documentaries and promo pieces are available and also when the articles come out.

With love,

Malika xxxxxxx

And a bit from Sidika too….

Wow…what a weekend! I was particularly touched on our first evening just before the press conference when we invited the film makers and journalists to introduce themselves. Robert shared that he and his colleague Nicola from the Holistic Channel were making a documentary about how Love transforms Consciousness – he gave a very moving and impassioned talk as to the necessity for this in our war-torn world. (I think Sarita wanted to adopt him as part of the Tantra team!) Then Merlina from Ambient Media shared about the documentary she would be making – a piece featuring original artwork and visual poetry based around her personal journey of discovery, exploring what Tantra is and how it relate to her own experiences. Finally the journalists introduced themselves, the publications they were writing for and a bit about their particular interest in Tantra and their writing angle. Although everyone who had been invited to participate in this media event had agreed in advance that they were very happy to be photographed, filmed and interviewed, it was good to hear that these journalists and film makers were here to support us in spreading this amazing work.

Verica receives the Chakra massage from Feri

As I wasn’t participating in most of the meditations, I was able to feast my eyes on the beauty around me as seasoned Tantric participants mixed with journalists and underwent the alchemy of Tantra. For much of the time during the Couples Day, I was happily behind the camera lens as Merlina had entrusted me with her camera so that I could film her participating. Years ago, I’d dreamed of making a beautiful, inspiring and transformative film and now I was getting a piece of the action. Some of the couples meditations had me misty-eyed – they were so beautiful and intimate. I really hope that the tenderness and love I saw between couples is conveyed on the video and allows viewers to get a real feeling of how powerful and beautiful this work is.

In between filming the group meditations, our valiant film-makers, packed up their gear and headed off for the Zen Room where we had set up a sessions clinic to allow the journalists to experience the various healing arts that the School teaches. A few choice shots with some willing models and then off to the Study (or should I say, Studio?) for filming interviews with teachers and practitioners.

Sarita and Supragya at the team meeting

We’ll be putting some video profiles on our website for the teachers and organisers so that people can get a better sense of who we are and what we are offering – and generally what a lovely bunch of people we are! There were some butterflies beforehand as for most of us this was our first time on camera. Lots of last minute coaching going on and questions such as ‘Is my hair OK?’ and ‘Do I look alright in this dress?’! You’ll be able to judge for yourself very soon as the clips will be appearing on our ‘About Us’ page.

On Sunday night, after we waved goodbye to the last of the media and some of the other participants, most of us retired to the spa to enjoy the saunas, steam room and flotation tank before flopping into bed.

Top row from left: Sidika, Malika, Islam, Suta, Tanja. Second row from left: Supragya, Sarita, Chintan, Roxana. And those on the floor from left: Verica, Vibha, Qiming

On Monday, as most of the School’s team were uncharacteristically assembled in one location, we had planned a team meeting. We tackled a very ambitious agenda including a review of the weekend, future plans for the School, marketing and business ideas brainstorming and a spontaneous photo shoot (see left)! Lots of ideas came bubbling up including other media events and all kinds of weird and wonderful offerings which we’ll be revealing to you in our newsletter, blog and website over the coming months…Watch this space!

Love to you,

Sidika