Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / Reclaiming Tantra: How colonialism split SPIRIT and SENSUALITY

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Reclaiming Tantra: How colonialism split SPIRIT and SENSUALITY · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

• 0:00
  Something that's really resonating with me as you speak is this idea of they split in order to know each other.
• 0:07
  Can you say more about this, especially in the context of the way that the divine feminine and masculine are being spoken about?
• 0:14
  So, okay, so something that is really staying with me is this idea of the two sides of us splitting in order to know each other better.
• 0:22
  In moments where we are feeling like, oh, I don't get to be this and this, or we're feeling this inner, they call it a tug of war.
• 0:30
  How would you invite us to reframe that experience of feeling split differently?
• 0:36
  I think it's moving from this or that to this and that.
• 0:41
  And I know it's a very simple three-letter word, and, and switching it for or.
• 0:48
  But yeah, again, it's this idea that if we go back to that idea of that device which weaves threads together, rather than those threads being kind of loose and like floating in different directions, that actually they can coexist at the same time.
• 1:01
  And I'll give an example of this.
• 1:03
  I think a lot in the spiritual world, there is this idea that you can be this, but you can't be that if you're spiritual.
• 1:12
  So you can be spiritual, but you can't be wealthy or you can be.
• 1:19
  walk the spiritual path, but you can't have ambition or you can be spiritual, but you can't be sexy.
• 1:27
  These kind of ideas that seem separate.
• 1:32
  And what Tantra would invite us to do is switch that all for the and.
• 1:37
  When I first did some of my own training in the yogic system, I began splitting
• 1:44
  And so before I kind of came back to Tundra, my path was in yoga and I was finding that there was a lot of, and it's for reason, it's the reason is that the yogic system is designed for the disciple.
• 1:58
  It's designed for the one who lives.
• 2:00
  goes into the system to eventually renounce the material world.
• 2:05
  So let's say, for example, there is a concept called pramajarya, which means abstaining from sex, abstaining from accessing your sexual energy because it's seen as an impediment to spiritual growth.
• 2:21
  So then now there's actually a part of me that I'm saying, you're not allowed to be here.
• 2:26
  I'm walking on this path.
• 2:27
  And that wasn't very helpful for me living in a body that was very numb already and already completely split apart because it was just creating even more fragments.
• 2:37
  And so I think like tantra really helped me to say, well, this can exist and this can exist with the quality of awareness.
• 2:48
  And that's the distinguishing factor.
• 2:51
  So I can walk the spiritual path and I can have ambition and I can connect to my sexuality and my sensuality if with that quality of awareness.
• 3:00
  And I think that's how it steeps us in this reality as it is.
• 3:05
  The and.
• 3:06
  Because all of it is divine play.
• 3:09
  So how can I say this is and this isn't?
• 3:15
  So the and is how the loom also gets to weave together.
• 3:18
  I love how you said the difference between the integration, the holistic self, which becomes possible through awareness versus fragmenting and losing pieces of ourselves.
• 3:29
  And you mentioned your experience with going down the yogic path.
• 3:33
  And I'm curious your experience.
• 3:37
  view on how both colonialism and also patriarchy then impact how we experience each of these traditions and experience our own sensuality, sexuality.
• 3:48
  It's a very big topic, but I know that we mentioned appropriation and all these themes and just wanting to name the sort of history of where some of the shame is coming from.
• 3:57
  Yeah, let's start with patriarchy.
• 4:00
  And then we'll come to colonialism.
• 4:01
  Because I feel like they're two big, big subjects that deserve their own little peace.
• 4:06
  So let's start with the patriarchy.
• 4:09
  So tantra came around in 6th century India.
• 4:14
  And it came around in this time where the only people who could practice and share spiritual discourse and rituals would have been those who belonged to the Brahman caste.
• 4:27
  So they were the most elevated in society.
• 4:31
  You had to be born into that caste and you had to be born a man.
• 4:35
  Mm hmm.
• 4:36
  So when tantra came around, it actually was created from the outskirts of society.
• 4:41
  Those who were avarna, which means they didn't even belong in any of the caste systems.
• 4:47
  They weren't in any of the rungs of the tiers.
• 4:49
  So they lived on the outsides of the society and they were often quite feared because the city dwellers didn't really know what happens on the outsides of society.
• 5:01
  Yeah.
• 5:02
  And so what Tantra did as a counterculture to the mainstream religion that happened at the time, because Tantra is not a religion in itself.
• 5:10
  It has some threads because of where it was born that are similar or like deities, for example, that you might find in Hinduism.
• 5:21
  But the way of practicing it is very different.
• 5:24
  So you could be an atheist and be Tantric.
• 5:26
  You could be Christian and be Tantric.
• 5:27
  You could be Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist and be Tantric.
• 5:31
  But what it really did was turn this idea of gender on its head.
• 5:36
  So it put goddesses at the forefront of the tradition.
• 5:41
  And by putting goddesses at the forefront of the tradition, it said that actually those who are female can have not only access to these teachings, but are naturally bestowed the gift of being able to share these practices.
• 5:59
  Wow.
• 6:00
  So I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for the tantric path.
• 6:05
  In my wedding, I actually, instead of having a male priest, was the first person in my family lineage to bring in a female priest because tantra says this, it says that why hold it in the palms of only a few?
• 6:20
  Why could only a few people listen to spiritual teachings?
• 6:25
  And so it did this big thing of turning the gender inequality on its head.
• 6:31
  So that's the first thing.
• 6:33
  And I think the third and last translation that I'll share of Tandra is that it's a technology.
• 6:40
  So it works to un-repress what is repressed in society.
• 6:45
  So at that time in the 6th century, and probably still now, it turned that caste system and the gender imbalance on its head.
• 6:54
  And I'll come back to the technology a little bit later because I'm going to move to colonialism now.
• 7:01
  So also then in the colonial aspects of this system.
• 7:07
  So India, like many lands, is a land rich in culture and arts and dance.
• 7:14
  And the sacred was seen to live in the dancing hips of the temple dancers.
• 7:21
  Yeah.
• 7:22
  And each temple, and if you go to India today, or even a temple in London, you will see that there are these asparas, like these kind of spiritual, divine beings that are half naked.
• 7:35
  And you wonder, you know, I always wondered when I went into the temple as a child, like,
• 7:42
  And now I know people would go to the temple to witness the divine dance of temple dances.
• 7:50
  And they would sit with a question they had in their hearts, witness the dance and receive from the dance their answers.
• 7:59
  Each family, particularly of particular prestige, would have their own courtesan.
• 8:06
  So this courtesan would be of a very, very highly esteemed reputation.
• 8:12
  They would be very well trained in the arts and poetry and singing and dance and languages.
• 8:19
  And they would kind of have the ear of the most powerful in society.
• 8:24
  So they were seen as very...
• 8:26
  they were painted into the pictures of the Maharajas, like the royalty.
• 8:31
  So when colonialism came in, a lot of the practices that were happening at this time in India, the courtesan culture, the tantric system, which had these
• 8:43
  goddesses that lived in the cremation grounds, these practices that stemmed from the texts and sutras on love and sex and relating, this was seen completely as boisterous.
• 8:57
  How could something like this, these people are savages?
• 9:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:01
  And so, so much of the arts and the divinity that was found through those beautiful dancing hips were cut and the courtesans were removed from their positions as esteemed members of society and put down into the lights, the red lights.
• 9:23
  Yeah.
• 9:25
  So there's this kind of cutting and amputation of a lot of the traditional art systems that were connected with divinity through the process of colonialism.