When I started Tantric Massage I was convinced – like many of my colleagues – that there were two kinds: the sexual kind (not ours) and the spiritual one (ours!). The were really easy to tell apart. The first kind involved ejaculation, whereas the second kind didn’t.
Today, I have an inner list of people who I would like to apologize to, both clients who I made uneasy when they expressed the wish to ejaculate, and colleagues who I bluntly told it was prostitution what they did (I still cringe writing this. Sorry sorry sorry.).
Suffice to say, I’ve since experienced what it’s like to be labelled this way. My friend asks if I’m doing the sexual kind of massage now, and curls her lips. “For me”, she says, “Tantra is a SPIRITUAL path.” It DOES hurt, if people don’t understand. I was the same! Last weekend, I poured my heart out to another friend, who advised me to just take people as they are, and acknowledge where they are at. Very wise, but easier said than done. A shaman lady, who I love and admire, lectures me that tantra does not have to do with massage oil.
Sometimes I really tire of all the rejection and prejudices and think I should really spend more time with sex-positive people, whether they are spiritual or not. Why is everybody so terribly afraid of sexuality? Where did that come from in the beginning?
But what I wanted to talk about are judgements. Think back of what you once believed true, and have changed your mind about. What you thought was really BAD, in a big way, and then ended up doing it yourself, surprising yourself. I’ve got to add another example myself, concerning naturism. What a silly thing to do, I once thought. Then I went skinny dipping for the first time, and was hooked. What else? Shamanic dancing looks silly from the outside, go and do it, and get into the trance. Try hugging a tree, why not? Be surprised…. Challenge yourself with the silliest thing you can imagine, and go, and try it out, wholeheartedly. Make it a habit to challenge your beliefs. I recently facilitated a mindfulness group at a probation center, and, you know, what they are like there. Don’t we all? Fact is, they are just people like you and me. Vulnerable. Normal. Loveable. I’m still wracking my brain what could have possibly got them into a probation setting. I read Byron Katie recently, and I really recommend her books, because she developed a method that challenges our core beliefs.
Can you absolutely know that it’s true what you believe? Can you? Try to say the opposite of what you’ve just said, how does that sound? – Think back of the time when you were a teenager. What did the world appear to you then? Have you altered your core beliefs? Can you see the bigger picture now? Would it be conceivable that one day you look back to what you are and believe now, in much the same way as thinking back to the teenager you once were? I honestly and really hope that this will be the case for me. A recent client told me a sexual fantasy, and wanted to know if it’s bad to have a fantasy like that. Please be honest with yourselves and acknowledge your sexual fantasies, they are a source of strength and development. NOTHING is intrinsically good or bad, or at least it’s not us who may say so. I recently read that we have been invited to this wonderful drama of life as ACTORS, not as DIRECTORS or CRITICS. Really breathe this in, and feel how you can relax. How unkind you have been to yourself, how you pushed yourself forward how you struggled to achieve to be what you aren’t, all the while staying true to your core beliefs which have become so much more important than – YOU. You as you are, a divine and precious being, worthy to be seen, interesting, human, loveable. My friend has recently discovered a fantastic Danish film director, Susanne Bier, who plays with our notions of who is the goodie and who is the baddie. Her film “Brothers” starts of, and you already like the hero, a generous and broad minded loving family man and good and passionate husband, as opposed to his jailbird brother. And then, everything suddenly seems very different. A crisis turns the hero into someone you are afraid of, whereas his brother suddenly appears in a very different light….
Remember the women who sacrificed themselves for their sick husbands, a role sanctified by society? And then you look at the secondary gain, and at the patterns between husband and wife, and you wonder why the poor chap got sick in the first place. It makes you shudder to look deeper, and yet, this is what a life is all about, to look beyond first appearances, and then still love humanity, and shake our heads, and have a big belly laugh together, in the face of real suffering, and be empathetic at the same time… Relax. All we can do is be alert, be aware, and admit that things may be very different from what they seem to be.
And love your Self, and others.
A hug, and namaste to you all,
Sarani Premanjali
healingandblissnow.wordpress.com 