Eve! Don’t… wait… don’t eat the apple! He exclaimed.
Once they were two, happy as only young lovers could be. Alone together in paradise. But it wasn’t quite enough. She wanted a little bit more.
It was the snake! She said coyly with a glint of mischief in her eye.
And thus the great debate of the ages began. Why oh why did Eve reach for that apple?
Like Adam and Eve of the Old Testament, Tantric tradition is rich with scripture, symbolism and great epics poetically capturing the interplay between the masculine and feminine.
In several past articles, I have written about the Dasha Mahavidyas. These ten wisdom goddesses are foundational to Tantric practice, each representing a specific aspect of the divine feminine power that governs and marshals the very forces of life. It is worth underlining here, however, that while the Mahavidyas often take center stage, they each operate in relation to Shiva, the power of the divine masculine, more rarely mentioned, yet ever-present.
The mountain Arunachala (Holy Hill) in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu state, South India, is one of the oldest and most sacred holy places associated with Lord Shiva in India.
Much like in the Genesis story, where it is Eve who brings dynamism and sets events in motion, the Mahavidyas represent the dynamic forces that move us and shape us against the backdrop of the silence of Shiva. This is perhaps best illustrated by the goddess Chhinnamasta, who was the central theme of my recent tantric meditation weekend.
For those readers who have never attended a practical tantric workshop, the term workshop is a bit of a misnomer. These weekends invite the unknown and carry intensity for everyone involved. Rather than instructional sessions, they are full tantric immersions, where students can access depth of experience and levels of transformative energy not otherwise encountered in regular practice.
On this particular weekend, I sat and held the space near the front in a cozy sunlit yoga room. Seated in a circle were ten students evenly split between men and women. Beside me, on a small wooden table, an altar had been arranged with a Shiva lingam facing a bronze statue of Chhinnamasta hidden beneath a drape of orange fabric.
The drape wasn’t ceremonial as much as practical.
Chhinnamasta is the fiercest amongst the Dasha Mahavidyas, Prachanda Chandika, the blazing one. Kali’s wildest sister, or, Kali's most radical form. Her iconography can be unsettling for most people.
She stands boldly, legs apart, atop a naked couple locked in a sexual embrace. In one hand, she holds her own freshly severed head. In the other, a scimitar. And from her headless neck, three streams of blood gushing like a living fountain: one flows into the mouth of her own severed head, the other two are drunk by her female attendants flanking her on either side.
Perhaps a little heavy for the first session on a Friday night. On Saturday morning however, the veil was lifted and the goddess greeted the group so-to-speak.
Students were invited to describe what they saw and share whatever was evoked. The reactions were divided more or less equally between muted and polite. As far as iconography goes, the Mahavidyas resist any kind of easy categorization or simplification the mind might attempt. But as the discussions progressed so did the tension build as is typical in these immersions when the fierce Mahavidyas are invoked.
Beneath the initial agreeable observations, the deeper emotional undercurrents began to stir. The obvious symbolism of Chhinnamasta is around sacrifice and conception which drew the discussion towards parents. One by one, the childhood wounds surfaced. Pain. Acrimony. Enmity and sadness. Carried silently through the adult years and buried beneath the success and glitter of a fast-paced life. Subtly, the room started to take on the energy of a pediatric ward.
This is Tantra on weekend. Chhinnamasta and her fierce sisters bringing all grievances and contrivances to the surface of our awareness. And in the safety and intimacy of this shared space, their presence is an invitation to lay down arms and be with what is.
Laying down arms… making peace is the first step towards any kind of meaningful and lasting spiritual progress, whatever the lineage or faith. While love thy enemy may well be a bridge too far for many to cross, an armistice with mom and dad or their memories is a big step forward in that journey.
This is not forgiveness or any concept of right and wrong at all really, it is simply taking a moment to just be with the truth of our own lives. And that’s where the Shakti took us that weekend. The name of every father was spoken, and their stories were brought into the light. Smiles, lowered voices, tears, anguish and sometimes just silence. After that the names of the mothers, and stories with similar emotional outpourings.
A quiet weekend immersion with Chhinnamasta.
The alchemy of the room had been transformed into one of great tenderness. Like all the fierce Dasha Mahavidyas, Chhinnamasta is a pathway to a deep and tranquil love; the heart quality that emerges after the storm has passed, exuding humility, gratitude and gentleness along with the maturity of understanding, that, yeah, life can be pretty rough at times; for all beings across all of time. Welcome to the planet kids.
The room was a tiny sample of the population at large. But it’s clear that while, on one level, our societies appear terrifically successful and technologically brilliant, at the very core, we are a wounded people; children of the revolution, casualties of a war nobody remembers starting.
And the tantric approach here is not about healing wounds or correcting perceived sins of the past, but about making peace with life as it is for just long enough to glimpse a deeper truth. The one that suggests that maybe, just maybe, it’s all perfect and so are we. And maybe Eve knew exactly what she was doing when she ate that apple.
In a sense, Chhinnamasta, offers us a divine feminine Story of Job, where in his despair and anguish a man questions the will of God. And God in the form of a whirlwind answers with a question of his own.
Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Followed by verse after verse of question from God to Job that emphasize the point, if you really want to find fault with those that gave you form and that which gives you breath, be prepared to stand your ground and take responsibility for the whole thing.
The Father’s Sacrifice.
Less prominent in the Chhinnamasta scene is the male figure at the base supporting the female figures above. Shiva here, stepping forward and lying down, not as conqueror, but as the sacrificial giver. Offering his seed, his light, his presence and most of all, eternal support and devotion, to her and all what will come from her.
The Great Sacrifice of the One into the many; he gives her all that he is and all he will ever be. I asked a student of mine, also a father about this idea of a father’s sacrifice and he smiled and said: One of the men who survived the titanic, spent the rest of his life living in shame. Women and children first. It is like that. It might not be like that for all men, but I’d imagine it is like that for most.
In my version of the cosmic love story, when One became Two, he thought two would be enough for eternity. Shiva holding Shakti in his eternal embrace, not for a second believing she could possibly want more. Whoops.
In this version, Chhinnamasta represents the power of conception and all what is given into that moment. So much is given that one wonders why two lovers would ever dream of doing this in the first place. And here Tantra hints delicately at this, and perhaps even gives us a clue as to why Eve ate the apple to set a great story in motion.
Because… well, because - you.
You dear reader. Out of this cosmic maelstrom you, me, us emerged. Each of us a life so perfectly unique, destined never to be repeated exactly the same way. We are the finite so preciously held within the love and light of the infinite.
You, me, us, are the rarest of cosmic miracles. And we struggle and we fight, buffeted by ignoble winds we can never hope to understand, striving for a love we will never fully grasp. We were the glint in Eve’s eye and our very own life is what Shiva sacrificed himself for.
She saw in us life abundant in all its confused glory, the bitter and the sweet, the cruel and the nourishing and in Her infinite wisdom, knew the perfection of the entire unfolding. We are the vanguard of evolution, keeping a campfire going for the children of tomorrow.
This is what distinguishes Tantra from other great noble paths. It is less about peaking behind the curtains and attaining this or that state of consciousness and more about fully realizing the depth and wonder of our own life.
And the first step to living that wonder is to make peace with life as it is and letting go of any and all notion of the way it should be. To acknowledge and appreciate, if only for an interval, that somewhere along the way, a sacrifice was made for each of us to be here.
A few days after the weekend, one of the participants came to my regular lunchtime meditation session. There was something different about him that day, an unmistakable glow, as if a door to another world had been left slightly ajar within him. The glow and the easy smile, suggesting to me he had touched the wonder of his own being.
He meditated quietly and peacefully in a gentle midday sunlight filtered by the trees outside. And then he layed down to rest in a relaxed fetal position with his bare feet sticking out beyond the edge of his blanket. After he got up, he looked at me as if he wanted to share something.
And then he spoke:
It was a little strange Sundari. I heard a voice. It was so crisp and so powerful. And it asked me a simple question but in a forceful way that demanded a prompt answer. The question confounded me, maybe because I don’t usually hear voices, but mostly because the answer was so obvious.
Who are you? Boomed the voice.
I am my Father’s Light and my Mother’s Love. I answered.
Who else could I possibly be?
For more info on Tantric Meditation Weekend Immersions with Sundari Ma in Summer in Germany and in Fall in Dubai, email us at: info@thisistantra.com
Share this post