With pleasure, I write articles for you in which I try to convey how Tantra can transform your life on many levels in an accessible way. I do this from the position of a Tantra teacher and therapist. This time, I would like share with you something really personal and to stand in front of you “naked” as Me, an ordinary girl who spent 40 years of her life fulfilling others’ expectations. As a girl, who did not know where she was heading. A girl, full of fears, frustrations, and constant dissatisfaction. And Tantra? She had no clue about it!
My life was simple and ordinary. Studies, many years in a corporate world, one son, divorce, second son, another unsuccessful relationship, engaging passions that were coming and passing, friendships, those fake ones and real ones, occasional vacations, dreams I never pursued because of fear. In other words, I was energy of fear. I flowed on the river of life, carried by its whirl, crushing with rocks I could not avoid because the force of the river made me helpless. I had no control over anything, certainly not over myself. I did not know who I was or what I exactly want, what I desire.
I can divide my first year with Tantra, into three stages…
STAGE 1 “CHILDISH ENTHUSIASM”
Heading to my first tantric course, the only thing I knew for sure was that I would learn something about energy, mainly sexual energy. Like you, I had heard about full body orgasm, I had seen movies where the bodies of people writhed in ecstasy, and I had read about tantric sex, a lot. Of course, I wanted to experience such an orgasm; I would lie if I said that from the really beginning, I wanted to grow spiritually. No, I did not. I did not even know that Tantra can help me to find my true self. Sex and spirituality are two different worlds, right? I can tell you now, definitely these two realms can be merged. I can also confess, that my beginning with Tantra reminds all my beginnings with other passions I have had before, which I approached with childish enthusiasm but eventually simply abandoned over time.
I landed at the Tallinn airport on March 9th ready for my first adventure with Tantra. Spring was approaching in Poland, but there I met with harsh winter. The place we arrived looked like a winter wonderland. The snow was sparkling in the sun, crunching underfoot, long icicles was hanging from wooden roofs. Forest, small wooden houses, and us, a group of forty people. I left my suitcase in a tiny room with two bunk beds and went to explore the surroundings of the house. I reached the small wooden cabin with sauna, a lake nearby covered with thick ice, and a gazebo in the middle of the lake with a huge stone statue of Shiva. As I stood there, I heard an unfamiliar sound; it was Shiva moving towards the sun on a metal platform. Little did I know that this picture and sound will accompany me along an unexpected and extraordinary path.
When I think of the first days, about my companions who came perhaps for the same reason and perhaps with the same knowledge as mine, I remember clearly that I was very focused on myself, on how others see me, on my look, whether the red lipstick on my lips hadn’t smeared, whether my belly sagged too much during the yoga. When I talked to them, I did not talk from my heart, but about everything I have: “I have a partner, I have two sons, I have a cat, I have, I have, I have.”
It was third massage I received, in exchange with a colleague, as a part of our learning process. The previous two massages were like any other massages I had tried in my life. I did not feel anything extraordinary, just a feeling of deep relaxation. “Where is this energy, this powerful orgasm I saw on the YouTube video?” – I asked myself. Others’ bodies reacted so vividly; I heard them making sounds of ecstasy, relief. And me? Like a stone! I wondered if my colleague, who was massaging me, would not get blisters from the hardness and roughness of my body. I remember him leaning over my chest, his black curly hair tied in a ponytail. Suddenly I felt a tremendous, overwhelming love flowing from him to me, entering my body. Then pain, as if was tearing apart my chest and paralyzing sadness. After a moment, that pain and sadness moved to my throat. I felt as if a wet, icy cloth had stuck in my throat. I could not catch my breath, like I was drowning. And then this pure light, bright blue, which I saw with my eyes closed, tears, an ocean of tears. One of the teachers came to help me to catch my breath. It is not too much if I say – it was my first breath on a new land.
During subsequent massages, practices, I was feeling more and more. It was as if my body was learning to feel. Every night I had nightmares, everything I had accumulated throughout my life was coming out. My body was cleansing itself. Everything I was experiencing, had nothing to do with orgasm, I was so into before. The blockages in my body were melting slowly like a sugar cube in warm tea. It was something much more significant, profound and transforming that I could expect. I already knew that Tantra was not just about orgasm and sexual pleasure and that it can offer you limitless growth and uplift your life.
STAGE 2 “CRISIS AND LONELINESS”
Months passed, and I was immersing myself deeper and deeper in the world of Tantra. Training after training, more knowledge, ancient powerful wisdom. My body absorbed everything like a sponge. Like a dry, pale coral, I regained color, juiciness, and flexibility. My femininity flourished; my gaze sharpened, my mind like a three-hundred-year-old tree, deeply rooted, was no longer swaying as it did before by any gust of wind.
Suddenly, in this beautiful blossoming time of my spiritual growth, on the wonderful path to the truth, darkness came. Returning home after the last course, to my family, to my kids, was like stepping out of a spaceship after thousands of years of travel onto a land I did not know. I felt terribly lonely. There was a lack of understanding from my close ones. I felt torn, I did not know how to blend my old life with this new path that I was on. My awakening soul wanted and craved something completely different. The more my soul awakened, the harder it was for me to bear the environment around me and all the duties I needed to fulfill.
There comes a moment during the journey into true self when instead of moving forward, you stop in a black hole that sucks you in; you know that everything you created before no longer matters and is just an illusion, yet at the same time, you don’t see that the most beautiful thing, the truth, is opening up in front of you. It lasted about 2 months. Now I know that it was a test. In everything, in life, in relationships, in sports, in work, there comes a time when we are evaluated, our will and strength are being tested. There are two ways, either we give up, or we roll up our sleeves and move forward. In other words, like that moving Shiva on the lake, I moved towards the sun, and although night was approaching, I was still moving. Awakening is not eternal sunshine, joy, and ecstasy; awakening is also loneliness, darkness, and confusion. But when you endure it, the vastness of the ocean opens up.
STAGE 3 “UNITY, FREEDOM, CONNECTION”
For years, I stared at a mirror full of scratches, dust, other people’s fingerprints, in some places broken. How could I see my true self in it? Tantra wiped that mirror, glued it together, washed it, so I could look at my pure, true reflection. My life before Tantra and this New Life merged. I let go, and when I did that, the environment accepted it and nourished me; beautiful people appeared who still support me on my path to this day.
I am sailing on the ocean without shores. Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? But it is the most beautiful journey and zone of being you can find yourself in. I no longer seek a harbor, an anchor desperately, I do not have to moor or grab a lifebuoy, or swim in fear to the shore. Carried by the ocean, I am not afraid anymore, I trust its waves. Tantra is like an ocean without shores; it gives me freedom, I never even dreamed of.
I believe what I am sharing with you right now will help you if it is your time and your path. Although, as you can see at the beginning, it may be roller coaster, it is worth it! Moreover, is a one-way ticket journey. Once you taste this freedom, you will never go back to what was before.
In Sanskrit language, Tantra means a NET, a WEB. When I looked at my old life, I realized that Tantra was part of it from very beginning. It was there, when as a child, I was writing poems about death and angels. It was there, when as a teenager I was experiencing astral journeys during a nap after school. It was there when I was studying the Torah, the Quran, the Bible. It was there when I drafted an essay in high school about Buddhism and Hinduism. It was there when my family was calling me oversensitive. It was there when I was fighting for my life after my second childbirth. It was there when I was reading „The Power of Now” by E. Tolle. Tantra was slowly and gently guiding me, until finally, it grabbed my hand and led me on this remarkable journey.