What is TANTRA?

An edited excerpt from LOVE IS UNDER MY SKIN: Explorations in Living Yoga by Ateeka

yogaSOMATICS is a modern exploration of ancient tantric ways.  To practice tantra is to devote yourself to discovery rather than certainty.  It is a practice of surprises. Just when you think you know what Tantra is . . . it shows you yet another face.   Tantra is a teaching that comes most authentically through practice, through direct experience, again and again and again.   Our body is our tantric temple iand we experience directly through its sensations, perceptions and feelings.

The word Tantra has Sanskrit origins.   Because Sanskrit is an ancient vibratory language, each “word” is really a resonance of a feeling, a sensing, a becoming.  It is a sacred language that was always transmitted through vibratory chanting.  Sanskrit is hardly translatable into our choppy modern intellectual language.  So try to just feel into the Sanskrit offered to you in this book and enjoy the resonant and metaphorical meanings. 

With that in mind, sound the word “tantra”.  How does it feel in your mouth, upon your tongue, in the cavities of your body?  Grant your rational mind a rest from judging or naming, for just a few moments, to feel the vibration.   This is the very beginning of feeling what IS the practice.   The word tantra is derived from the Sanskrit “tantram” which implies a “loom” or place on which things are woven. The root tra suggests “a technique” or a “way to practice’. In tantric practices, we are experimenting with all the possible experiences that the living world offers us to weave ourselves in with Existence.   So here you are, a cosmic weaver with an infinite supply of experience threads and sensation yarns . . . weaving an ever-changing tapestry of life.   Don’t worry if you don’t know the skill of the loom, the know-how is inherent in the threads and comes with practice!

One of the ancient texts of tantra practice is the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.  This lyrical text recounts a "lover's conversation" between Shiva (masculine principle) and Parvati (Shakti - feminine principle).  Each aphorism is a world in itself . . . each a doorway to know the "delights of this wonder-filled universe".     Several beautiful translations and commentaries of Vijnana Bhairava Tantra exist, with the most extensive being Osho's masterpiece, The Book of the Secrets. 

Vijnana Bhairava tantra meditations continue to be the foundation for Yoga Somatics teachings, again and again bringing us back to life process . . . daring, difficult or delightful.

An aspect of Ateeka's meditative practice includes playing with and writing commentary on these beautiful sutras.  Forthcoming will be her book with the 112 sutras revealed as accessible and alive everyday practices.  Below are a few for you to enjoy now.

There is a moment ! Sometimes short.  Sometimes long.

Between your inhalation and your exhalation

Where your breath turns the corner upon itself

And smiles in its own lovely face.

VBT #25

Choose a vowel . . . any vowel A, E,O,U,EE

And sound that vowel.

Watch it emerge from deep inside of you. . . 

And watch it disappear into the silence of its origins.

VBT #40

Observe inky blackness in front of your closed eyes.

Swim in that darkness where you cannot look, but you can see.

Give your inner eye time to adjust.

Fear not, great cosmic diver, all forms are born of this sightless sea.

VBT#62

 EROS: THE EFFICIENCY OF ECSTASY

an excerpt from LOVE IS UNDER MY SKIN: Experiments in Living Yoga by Ateeka

The tantric experience includes and goes beyond all time, space, words and descriptions. It is at once, extra-ordinary and oh so very ordinary.  The tantric way can evoke a state of ecstasy.   Ecstasy comes in many packages and can be an everyday experience. I call this “ecstasy-in-action.” We have been led to believe that ecstasy is an “extra-ordinary” experience reserved for a privileged few who dedicated their lives to intense practice. That IS one way to know ecstasy . . . and the other is to simply accept that nearly every experience your life has an ecstatic component ready to be discovered.   It is a matter of perception.  Are you coming from a space of acceptance or suffering? In any moment, it is possible for you to accept WHAT IS and be HERE in connection with all life processes within and outside of you.

This is not to say that you will not experience suffering in your life.  We all ride waves of great highs and great lows.  Ecstasy is a path of riding the waves with a profound acceptance. Even accepting . . . if even a little bit . . . that we might accept . . . or let in or at least let a bit of reflection be around what is happening in this moment. We can even be open to feeling closed. Living in “every day” ecstasy means opening up to all the feelings, sensations, emotions, experiences with which we engage.   We choose to feel, go deep, expand and abide in the change.  We can be curious about gently opening instead of habitual contraction. We let ourselves explore the cycles and rhythms of opening and closing which come naturally.

In this abiding, you stop making things happen and shift into receptivity.  For certain periods, your living system can dwell in a state of suspension where life processes are following an effortless flow.  This state can be called eros and is a deeply regenerative, highly efficient state.  Eros is a wide field of pleasure and open receptivity.  It is the most efficient state of a living system. It is abundance, acceptance and YES. Our living systems become receptive to new input.  We are nourished.  We are reborn.

The word eros has been misunderstood and often relegated to the ranks of the erotic.  While eroticism has its natural place and healing and creative benefits in our human expression, eros is a much wider state of being.   When we are in a state of eros, we live in the world from a fertile space of possibility. We are creatively stimulated, innovative and need not get our bearings from the status quo. In a state of eros, we experience connection, deep relatedness, new attitudes, ideas, creative impulses and a wider spectrum of emotional presence.  Eros is essentially the somatic integration of deep connection and relating. 

So how then, do we evoke eros?  Eros is a psychic energy that can be stimulated by liberating the body’s tissue and letting it be bathed in a sensation bath of fluid freedom. Psychological and emotional responses follow the tissue release. When the fluid of our bodies is freely flowing, it becomes the uniting medium that puts us in a state of global belonging, inside and outside the body.  The efficiency of eros arises because of deep connection, where we do not have to take it all “upon ourselves.”  Our needs are met.  We feel at ease.  This is our most natural state.

When we deny eros due to societal pressure, we are signing up for a slow decline. How often have we been told to “sit still”, “be quiet” not move, not dance, not take up space (embodied presence). How often have we held in our stories, our truths, our bellies for fear of prosecution.   This control and repression of eros renders us dry, contracted, controlled and denies us our greatest health, physically, mentally, emotionally spiritually.    

The opening to eros is not indulgent. Its expression is healthy and naturally respectful to the life process of all living beings.  It is a like gentle rain that moistens the earth. It is the sweet sounds of morning birds at the first rays of dawn. It is the constant movement of a great ocean.  It is the feeling of warmth that emanates from your heart, when you recognize yourself in the other. It is choosing to feel.  This is eros. This is nourishment.

Our yoga practices evoke eros.  We inquire upon ways to move into pleasurable receptivity and allow new information, vibrations and signals into our mind-body field.

not a training but a discovery and deepening. . .

Tantra for Women ONLINE

14 week ONLINE deepening into sensual self-care with Ateeka

You will be guided by Ateeka in a very safe and sacred space towards coming home to your and unique female beingness . . . including your body, emotions, heart, life energy, creativity and mind. 

Awaken a tantric practice of arousing, channeling and expressing  your life and sexual energy in a way that lets you move into life in an integrated, empowered and sensitive way. 

Ancient meditations from the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra as well as Inner and Outer Taoist and Tantric practices are combined with modern somatic awareness to guide from the inside out . Discovering new nuances of yourself, your body, your emotions, your very human-ness. The relationship that you cultivate with yourself directly reflects upon the relationships you have with others.  

Our tantric meditations can include organic yoga movement, breath-work, dance, safe self-contact , sitting meditation, sacred sound, art and creative expression, ritual and verbal sharing. 

All of our practices and meditations will lead toward deeper awareness of your inner self and will help you to cultivate trust in the intelligence, power and flow of your own sexual and life energy.

We will explore:

• The Path of Softness: Where Flow is more powerful than force.

• How to “come home” to your body through movement and sensing  

• How stimulate , channel and refine  the inherent creative power of sexual energy in your own body

• Womb Wisdom :the sacred anatomy of the pelvis and woman’s genitals and how to recognize and free held tension in these areas=

• How to create safe boundaries in which to explore your sexual energy

• Creative expression (through art and movement) and writing exercises that help give meaning and release taboo-tension around sexuality

• Develop personal rituals of self-care and self-touch including some sensual “home-play” exercises including breast massage and yoni egg practice.

• The healing power of pleasure and and orgasmic energy

• Suggestions for bringing inner tantra practices into an outer tantric expression with a partner.

• The heart’s role in sexuality: awaken your desire for love and intimacy and sexuality 

• Accessing meditative presence  by contacting and refining sexual energy 

• Explore how sexual energy can lead to deep inner stillness.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?   TANTRA FOR WOMEN is open to women of all backgrounds, erotic-sexual preferences and levels of yoga/meditation practice, even complete beginners.  This is a gentle and non-pressure introduction into the ways of a woman.  

Tantra for Women is a personal development course to help women move deeper within themselves.  

If you are not sure if this course is for you, please feel free to send an email to Ateeka personally  (ateekayoga@gmail.com) to inquire about the appropriateness of the material. Most women find the work liberating, joyful and respectful.