“There is a fundamental psychological law none can escape: descent is commensurate with ascent. One cannot descend farther than one has ascended, because the force necessary for descent is the very same force needed for ascent. If, by accident, someone descended lower than his capacity for ascent, this would immediately result in some serious accident, possession or madness, because the corresponding power would be missing.” Sri Aurobindo

Deprived of innocent bliss, our culture resorts to illicit highs. Ecstatic spiritual rapture belongs to the priesthood. Orgasmic ecstasy was relegated to silence, a woman’s disease… lunacy. Once the rites of Beltane were subsumed beneath the pogrom of the Burining Times and Victorian bondage had its way, we lost our collective ability to transcend innocently. So then we got it secretly, via substances. Today substance abuse is an earner second only to war weapons in the shadow GDP.

We need to get high. Naturally. Ping off each other’s mirror neutrons in sacred union of lover, earth and sky. Cultivate our kundalini until we fly, sky dancing towards liberation. A coming together cutting edge sensation.

Getting high does not mean getting lost in a headcentric illusion, a spiritual ego trip or a psychedelic party season. These poor replacements, hand-me-downs, are also earnest attempts to cross the bridge between the mediocrity we are born into and the psychospiritual prowess which is our birthright.

Spiritual transcendence is a practise of clean living, clear thinking and discernment. It means as we ascend so we descend, as descending without ascending leaves us lost in a whirled of shadows. Hold on to that high light of pure potency – divinity. Losing light/information results in animalistic degradation. Turn on the TV news any night and you will see what that looks like.

Sure, get out of your head and into your animal. Dress up, get naked, use mud, don’t brush your hair. Eat wild boar. Scream and shout and beat a pillow. Do this as a path of transcendence, don’t make it an excuse for sex and excess.

When we misuse the excessive nature of our animal selves, the gravity of our animality takes over and we get lost in a dense desire body. Our genetics, our flesh, our proximity to beast and matter, sucks us into realms which become quicksand for spirit.

White tantra goes with (and before) red tantra for a very good reason. As high as we can go is as deep as we can get. Complimentary polarity. Going deep requires mastery. So first, yoginis trained themselves to go high, stay high, and discern the path of return to Spirit. Navigating without this ability is only a pretence of mastery.

On Conscious Sexuality retreats people have confided in me – “I got lost in this until I did Vipassana,” or “I’m so glad I did Buddhist meditation before I did this or I would have been consumed by my libido.”

Are you drawn to the deep side of your nature? Want to get wild and get dirty? Be aware that you are taking a serious journey of twists and turns that can land you in places you never meant to be. A balance of white and red tantras is a very potent key.

For this is the law of polarity. It’s Tantric Leapfrog. From the deep to the light, take a leap, take a flight. Get into your animal self but don’t get stuck there. Learn how to jump from animal to human.

Know what is human is truly divine.

Know that your pursuit of divinity gives you your humanity.

Pic: The Stellar Man by John Baines

“Violence is pure impotence. To be conscious of his power, a man must first come to recognize his femininity. In the same way, a woman who represses her natural power doesn’t find equilibrium within herself or accept her own capacity for wonder. This is how we define the virile man in Tantrism: ‘He who retains the capacity for wonder.

“Ascetic exercises in a hidden cave are yoga only if the ascetic can descend to beg for his grain in the town and cross through it in full consciousness. Otherwise, they are only vain austerities. Anyone who can’t immerse the entire body and consciousness in life without being thrown off by it is on a sterile path. Continuity is everything in Tantrism. Continual ecstasy, continual divinity, continual life.

“There comes a day in the practice of yoga when the entire reality of the world, all its forces, all its antagonisms begin to run together and to have a single taste and smell. The absolute smells wonderfully good, and its most fetid components are part of this divine perfume.

“Practicing this way is practicing without interruption but with extreme care for punctuation. Practicing intermittently, returning to the ashram after work, is a way of refusing the continuity of mystical experience. The continuity can never be experienced that way, since only a part of the Self returns. Nothing can be divided. There can’t be a box for the pleasures of the mind, a box for the pleasures of the body, a box for the divine, a box for violence, a box for those without social standing, a box for the privileged.

“The real way life works is that everything communicates and everything transmits a charge. Fragmentation leads to explosions on the individual and social levels. Everything separate is destined to die out. To be alive is an act of ultimate courage, since to live is to realize how immaterial these divisions and boxes are, and to throw oneself into the great maelstrom. Contrary to what most people think, there is no risk in throwing oneself into the maelstrom, but one can know that only after having jumped. And that’s the difficult part, to jump.

“To jump! That’s the Great Yoga!”

Lalita Devi – from Tantric Quest by Daniel Odier

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