I'm having an interesting correspondence with someone and I have come across the very same questions (criticisms?) that keep returning to my lap for me to pet and soothe.
It used to be mainstream Hindus who would come to me peeved that I would display images such as this, without knowing it was an original depiction of Shiva/Shakti before it was watered down by Western influence.
And it reminded me of the time when I ran a dungeon and I had images of Shiva and Kali displayed in my office there and an Indian client became very very flustered and even went a bit pale, and asked if I knew what the images were. He told me they should not be in a BDSM dungeon. I laughed and told him I was a Saiva. I even recited some Sanskrit mantras for him and told him my dungeon was the perfect place for these images. He was speechless and left stunned. I wonder if he thought about it more deeply or just decided I was crazy.
You see men have a funny habit of compartmentalizing their sexuality and the spirituality in incredibly awkward and unnatural ways. This puritanical idea that erotic energy doesn't belong in the Temple, or erotic energy interferes with meditation practice in some way is probably the most damaged and damaging thing I've ever heard. And having spoken with historians,I found out it was a British import to the Indian Subcontinent. British Christians, like many in the Abrahamic religions, have spent so much time and effort in suppressing the feminine, and with it the erotic, that they almost wear shame with a sort of pride. As if having shame is a virtue. It's no wonder rape culture exists. The energetic effects of repressing the erotic life energy leads to a kind of death drive and enhances the tendency toward violence.
The idea of "purity" in this sense is such a weird concept. And especially when purity means everything that turns you on is antithetical to spiritual practice. Where did humans get such ridiculous ideas? That the erotic spark which allows all of this to exist at all is somehow harmful? (I think I know the answer but I harp against him often enough).
It stems from this idea that body and spirit or soul are two very separate things. My darlings, body is an expression of consciousness itself.
At any rate the conversation came up because I teach mantra meditation, in the way I have done it myself for 30+ years, which I learned spontaneously without a formal teacher. And in my search for intellectual edification I went searching for more formal teaching on the practice and found Transcendental Meditation, and I studied Vedic Science as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. And when I recommend men begin meditating, I often recommend they learn TM if they are able. Because it turns out to be a nicely formalized teaching of mantra meditation that I have recognized works well for lots of people. But I was doing what they refer to as transcending (diving into subtle rand subtler levels of consciousness) before I took any TM course and I can easily teach anyone to do it. I just refer them to TM out of respect for the teachers and the tradition. It is very effective.
That said, I don't think they OWN the practice, because it is a normal function of the human neurobiology to be able to meditate in this way and reach subtler levels of consciousness. It's built right into our biology. It's just how we're born. Once you do it once, you can keep doing it.It's as natural as sleeping, chanting, breathing... I am simply a supporter of a lineage of teachers whom I think deserve to be able to keep teaching. They should be cherished. I have a deep and abiding respect for the passers of the torch.
I don't tell people to learn TM because of orthodoxy, or because I think it is the only way to learn what TM teachers teach. What I mean to say is that the TMO is dedicated entirely to making sure Maharishi's teachings are passed on exactly as he taught them. This is good, but, like all orthodoxy, prone to dogma and calcification. These oral traditions were never meant to stand frozen in place. We are meant to build upon them generation after generation. These are living practices, living traditions. TM is a great starting point. It gives you a solid introduction to how consciousness works.And as a method, it works and they make it easy to learn. But it's not the only lineage of the practice. Imagine if you will all those teachers who never made a name for themself but taught the exact same thing to 10 or 20 people, even a thousand years before the big gurus like Maharishi entered Western awareness.They were and continue to be valid.
So we have these two factors - "purity" and the strangling of the feminine erotic coming from the Abrahamic religion, and orthodoxy which is a kind of purity that leads to the deadening of spiritual evolution. If you think your guru never evolved or changed or built upon the teaching of his own teacher and that his teacher never did the same, you would have to be very naive or perhaps just not have a clear understanding of how these traditions work. We build upon a good foundation, we don't bury ourselves in it as if there is not more and more and more to explore in the field of knowledge.
Orthodoxy is just codified nostalgia and it can be crippling for Devi's natural desire for endless variation, evolution, and new growth. Constant iteration and evolution is the nature of the impulse of Devi - of life itself! Stopping that is the death drive. Change is inevitable. Not all of it is successful or comfortable or conducive to our well being, but luckily we can switch up the experiment and try something else when that happens. So long as we remain flexible, we will always, like a flower, grow toward more light, more creativity. Spirituality has for too long been heavily masculinized and rigid(forgetting that the the trellis is meant to support the growth of the vine,not replace it, stunts the whole human race). And even so it can't possibly sit still, can it?
When I teach someone mantra meditation, I am drawing from tens of thousands of years of teaching which I have taken into myself from the field of consciousness directly, through Shaktipat and Sadhana (sudden awakening and practice) even before I undertook my formal learning (which I did to satisfy my intellect). I consecrate and evolve the knowledge through my body as a Living Goddess. And I transmit it when a dasa undertakes the path of devotion/bhakti. Through the sound of my voice, through thought, through ritual, through touch, through chastity and edging, through intellectual discussion, through emotional alchemy... I leave no part of you behind because none of it is compartmentalized and cordoned off as dangerous or dirty. This is true innocence. No agenda, no end goal, no transaction, so intentions set... a journey and an experience that involves every part of you because you are one holistic organ in this organism called Devi. The whole reason we are here in material form is to gain knowledge through play.
And that is the ingredient that's been missing in the spiritual journey: Feminization of spiritual practices, which means embodiment, which also means embracing the erotic as spiritual. We've lived with our bodies detached as we try to reach the absolute, to reach so-called enlightenment. Time to complete the cycle and bring it on back into the body, reintegrate (noticing the word integrity in there) and see things just as they are. The idea that the animal body is base and it's impulses to be resisted is backwards. Our bodies are a sophisticated apparatus that we use toward our spiritual evolution, created by our consciousness. And especially the female body which has the awesome power to pull from the pure potential (call it the Absolute, Source, Siva) and make it take shape in the material world. We are literally the portals. Quite frankly, females don't even need meditation to know that. Men are just trying to catch up.
Is it any wonder when you mesh with women that you feel enlivened and aroused? It would be strange if you didn't. And the truth is the powerful effect of women's erotic energy is what patriarchal religion has been trying so hard to squash with these ideas of "purity." By purity,they don't mean clarity. They mean pure masculinity. Still, stoic, like stone.Like death. There's a reason Abrahamic religion reaches for the afterlife and commands you to stop enjoying the luscious pleasure of this one. The tight constrictive control - don't let HER back in, no matter how enticing that juicy life force is or how good it feels. Keep Devi at bay. She's just too much. You can't handle Her! Begone demon! Back, back!
Now is the time to a return to the garden, and I'm kicking Yahweh out this time. He's been nothing but trouble, the poor warped thought form. In the garden of the wild feminine creative life force... we are all innocent! Totally and completely innocent.
I can see the most erotic kinky scene before me and I see it for what it really is. Just energy passing between people. No different than a wave lapping the shore or the sparkle of sunlight on a moving stream. Please,become so jaded that you able to find true innocence once again. Let go the shame so deeply ingrained from those who worship the death drive. I promise you won't be harmed like they told you would.
My transgression, as explained by an orthodox meditator, is having men meditate naked and collared. Because "god forbid" (there's he is again) a person be as naked as an innocent baby or ritually display his love and devotion to a Goddess while allowing himself ease into subtler vibrations of consciousness. As if the two were incompatible and not symbiotic.It seems I will contaminate him with my icky sticky erotic feminine. Because that stuff is defiling. So impure! I can't help but giggle a little maniacally.I'm forever accused of being the corrupter when I am performing Devi's desire.
Anyway, our food literally grows from decay and shit. And it's glorious to witness the magic of that. Purity is a literal sterilization of life itself. The killer of necessary microbes. And orthodoxy, like purity,is meant to prevent movement and freeze things in time.
With love and desire,
Ms. V.
