My Amazing 4-year Tantra Yoga Study Experience in Thailand

May 30, 2017 by stas | 5 Comments | Filed in Inspirational, Sexual, Spiritual, Transformational

Tantrik Yogi at Banaras 1958

This is my story of studying Tantra Yoga during 2009-2012 at Agama Yoga on Koh Phangan, Thailand. I wrote it to inspire others to explore the subject of authentic Tantra in a full immersion environment, which makes a huge difference to the impact it creates on the life of the practitioner, as compared to doing same back home on “low fire”. At the end of this article I share tips for those who dare to take a similar path.

From Sex to Spirituality

Until age 35 I was suffering from premature ejaculation. In year 2008 I decided that I can’t continue living my life with that handicap and resolved to overcome it. After a quick research the term Tantra popped up, which promised to fix any sexual problems and make the processes of sex into a divine experience. I said: “Amazing! And thank you!” and embarked on taking any and all workshops and trainings that had anything to do with Tantra.

My first training, happened to be a Tantra massage, which was mind-opening from one angle, as far as working on sexuality in a group, yet it was very unsatisfying in the theory and practical matters that were taught there.

Luckily, my second attempt was of a totally different caliber and it put me on the path of transforming my whole being, which started with my sexuality, and  later opened me to the divine in all aspects of my life. I stumbled on a training offered by Swami Vivekananda Saraswati in Vancouver, BC, where he was invited to be a guest teacher at a local yoga TTC.

Over the years of studying with Swami, I talked to many of his students.  Some resonated and comprehended his teachings and the mindset better than the others. For me his teachings were very easy to absorb, integrate and accept. Perhaps this is because both he and I are Electrical Engineers by education. Jumping ahead, his system offered zero solutions of working with emotions, other than transforming them into energy and sending them to your higher self, but otherwise completely bypassing the human aspect of emotions. At that time it was just what I needed and what I was open to. Only recently I felt the need to go back and dig into the raw emotions and feelings and not use a spiritual bypass to reduce suffering (which works oh so well if you know what to do!). The beautiful thing was that Swami has always been very authentic about his offerings. He always said:

“I teach you what I know and my mindset is the mindset that I live, and some of you may or may not resonate with some or all of my teachings and my ways of being with you. And you’re very welcome to go and find other teachers that work better for you.”

There are quite a few cults out there, this isn’t one, because it failed the most important rule of cults, where the head of the group does everything to make you stay.

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Experiencing Oneness Robert Silverberg-style

May 25, 2017 by stas | 1 Comment | Filed in Spiritual

Both authentic Tantra and Neo-Tantra include practices that ask the practitioner to experience oneness with your lover, those around you, your village, your city, your country, the whole planet and the whole universe.

Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, which Osho called “the Book of Secrets”, includes several such techniques. In particular Dharana 081 (Sloka 104) presents a very advanced type of meditation, which calls for a state of mind that realizes “I’m everywhere”. It’s not an easy state to put one’s mind in, but sometimes a helpful support can be found. I am always on the lookout for such expressions that just appear one day in front of me and I tremendously rejoice in finding these, as they help me to practice this incredibly blissful state.

It happened when I was listening to Robert Silverberg’s “The World Inside“, which is a fascinating masterpiece of science fiction. While listening to the last segment of chapter 3 of that book, I have experienced a proximity of this state, attuning myself to the vibration masterfully depicted by the author. The following excerpt is about one of the main characters, Dillon, who is trying a unique multiplexes drug and as a result experiencing oneness with 881,000 people, which is the population of one building some time in the future. This particular book explores a model of taking 1 million people, putting them all into one “box” and modeling how they might go about it. And here is the relevant excerpt:

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How and Where to Study Shaiva Tantra

May 19, 2017 by stas | 6 Comments | Filed in Spiritual

At times, when I talk to people and share my passion of authentic Tantra, while waving my hands and getting goosebumps all over my body, my collocutors often get interested to learn more and ask me for suggestions on how could they also learn this very unknown in the West, very amazing life-transforming science. This article is for all of you, who may have heard about Tantra, and would like to educate yourself a bit, in order to give yourself this simple and powerful gift, hiding in plain sight.

It’s very likely that you encountered the term “Tantra” in the context of Tantric Sex, and if that’s what you’re after, please see my article: How Tantric Is Tantric Sex?, where you will learn the differences between traditional Tantra and Western Tantra (Neo-Tantra). In the current article I will discuss teachers and teachings, related specifically to the authentic Tantra, some of which may integrate Neo-Tantra (Tantric Sex) as well.

Kashmir Shavism and Shaiva Tantra

There existed multiple branches of Tantra over the last 15+ centuries. Since 2008 I have been studying a particular branch, that’s is the most known and studied nowadays in the West and that’s of Kashmir Shaivism, which is a sub-branch of Shaiva Tantra, coming from the masters who lived in Kashmir, India. It’s one of the most known in the West because we had Swami Lakshmanjoo, the last of the masters in the Kashmir Shaivism lineage, share his knowledge with a group of Western disciples, who kept the flame alive after his passing in 1981. I traveled to his Ashrams in Shrinagar, Kashmir and New Delhi * and sadly the local disciples of his don’t really practice the full range of Swami’s teachings, but primarily meet to sing bhajans, and do an occasional conference. It’s the Western disciples, who received the direct transmission from Swami during 70s and 80s and couldn’t help but to continue transmitting the light to the rest of us, who missed that opportunity. I’m very grateful to those few persons who made the preservation of this knowledge their life’s purpose.

footnote *: I had an amazing spiritual experience spending a very brief time at Swami Lakshmanjoo’s Ashram in New Delhi, but I will share that story with you in another article.

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How to Fall Asleep When Your Mind is Racing

May 8, 2017 by stas | 1 Comment | Filed in Health

“a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow” — Charlotte Brontë

While browsing though the books in the local this title stood out for me: Quiet Your Mind and Get to Sleep: Solutions to Insomnia for Those with Depression, Anxiety or Chronic Pain by Colleen Carney and Rachel Manber. The “Quiet Your Mind” part stood out as I have been in the process of researching practical solutions for my often hyperactive mind, which prevents me from falling asleep and getting a good night rest. The book has a dedicated chapter specifically addressing my quest. After skimming through it, I thought that they are others like me, who are looking for ways to consistently fall sleep night after night when their mind is racing.

This article discusses practical methods for helping you fall asleep when you just can’t stop thinking, exploring some of the proposed solutions in the book, and other solutions I have found elsewhere.

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Self-Healing Principles from H. Spencer Lewis, Ph. D.

May 4, 2017 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Health, Metaphysical

Self-Healing

By H. Spencer Lewis, Ph. D.

Published in 1950.

(This is a little old writing I recently found in an old book. Scanned and OCRed for your reading pleasure.)

After twenty-five years of experience in metaphysical healing work as an individual practitioner, and in connection with the Council of Solace of the Rosicrucian Order, I feel that I can greatly assist many of our members and their friends by outlining some of the important principles that each may apply for himself in the healing or curing of many mental and physical conditions.

I suppose that each one of you who has ever had any treatment at the hands of a metaphysician realizes that such a physician always insists that the patient aid in the cure or the relief of a condition, if the most efficient results are to be obtained. Truly it is possible to work many marvelous changes in the physical body without the knowledge of the patient, and, therefore, without the patient’s cooperation. But it is equally true that such a method takes a longer time and is surrounded with many difficulties and problems.

The thing that astonishes even metaphysical practitioners is that the patient often waits too long or delays too long in bringing his case before the attention of the physician and thereby complicates conditions. The patient might have started the treatment processes himself before coming to the physician and thereby saved time and the aforesaid complications. In the cases of those living at long distances and who write or telegraph for help, there is often a delay of several days or many hours before their case can be given proper attention. During such time the patient is doing nothing to help himself but is allowing the condition to become exaggerated, or at least so developed that a longer time and a more difficult process is required to bring about the relief desired. And, in many cases, we know that had the patient attempted to do something for himself at the very beginning of the condition, he would quickly have found that there was no necessity for asking for outside or distant help.

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I’m Tired All The Time! How To Boost My Energy Level?

April 14, 2017 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Health

Over the recent years I have been going through periods of chronic fatigue. This article is to share with you what things I have discovered in the process and perhaps some of those will help your situation as well.

There are always two things that need to be done about any given health condition:

  1. Deal with the cause.
  2. Deal with the symptoms.

If you only deal with symptoms you will be stuck forever depending on whatever solution you’d find to keep the symptoms at bay. Unfortunately our medical system is primarily interested with symptoms, and of course those who monetarily benefit from it don’t really want those symptoms to go away completely — otherwise they lose easy income from your dependency on their solution.

While both need to be taken care of — sometimes taking care of the symptoms first is important, before one has the strength to deal with the cause.

Following are different solutions that I have found helped me a lot with alleviating periods of chronic exhaustion and fatigue and replacing those with long periods of not being tired and feeling full of energy and life zest.

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Stop The Madness – Make Your Own Kombucha Without Buying A Scoby

April 14, 2017 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Food, Health

Stop the madness – companies selling kombucha scobies for $30+! Ouch! And people buy because they are misinformed.

This article assumes that you’re already convinced that you want to brew kombucha and you’re trying to figure out how to get going. You’ve probably been researching whether you need to buy a kombucha scoby or not and that’s how you have arrived here.

I have been brewing/drinking Kombucha on and off for the last 40 years. Where I was born Kombucha has been around for hundreds of years, unlike it’s the case in the North America, where it was first introduced in 1995, didn’t quite make it, and it became a run away success some time in the first decade of this century.

FYI you don’t need to buy any scobies to grow your own kombucha. You can buy a cheap bottle of unpasteurized kombucha at your supermarket, pour it in a glass, cover with cheese cloth and in 1-2 days you will have your own scoby for free. $30+ to sell you a scoby is a ripoff, especially since the so called scoby is not the kombucha culture, it’s the byproduct of it and kombucha also uses to get oxygen through. Kombucha culture is the liquid. So you buy a lie when you buy a scoby. Note that they don’t sell you just the scoby, but it’s immersed in the kombucha liquid culture, which is what you buy for just a few dollars when you want to drink it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Love and Felt-Sense in Brazil

October 25, 2016 by stas | 1 Comment | Filed in Emotional, Sexual, Transformational

Head Stand on DunesRecently I have spent a whole month at the Osheanic retreat centre (Fortaleza, Brazil), participating in Levels 1, 2 and 3 of Tantra Training by Homa and Mukto.

I didn’t know anything about the training, other than that it was supposed to be amazing. And amazing it was.

First we need to clear out the confusion about the term “Tantra”. In the west it is used most of the time to indicate Sexual Tantra. Whereas Tantra itself is a huge science of all aspects of life in relationship to spirituality, and sexual practices are but a very small part of it. So whenever I see Tantra in the title of a book or a training I’m never sure what it might imply. In the particular training, this article is about, luckily, Tantra meant “all of life”, and sexuality was a part of it.

The core of the training is comprised of learning to be with one’s feelings. The approach is not to try to resolve or escape from those, but to feel “what is”, not do anything about “it” and allow the feeling to find its way out of the body when it’s ready to do so, or often transform into another feeling. It’s somewhat a variation on the “being in the now” method, except it’s specifically about embodying this state. The 3rd level introduced a more advanced process called “felt-sense” (the term coined by Eugene Gendlin), which I will discuss later.

Homa and Mukto facilitate like very few others do – they have no agenda and every new group gets a very unique experience, as they constantly feel into the energy of the group and choose the next things to do based on that, rather than following a predetermined sequence. So if you were to repeat the same training several times, it’d be different each time. As they shared during the training, they only ever plan 5 minutes into the future. This makes for a very unique experience, as the group gets exactly what will serve it the best.

The training includes almost no theory and pretty much hands-on practice all day long with occasional breaks for verbal check-ins and issues resolution when the latter raise at times. At times many issues raise for the participants and then those take a priority and then other practices are postponed until the issues are resolved.

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The Magical Visit To John Of God in Brazil – A Concise Guide

September 24, 2016 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Health, Metaphysical, Spiritual

john-of-god-triangleI have recently spent a week in Abadiania, Goias, Brazil with and around John of God at the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola.

João de Deus (John of God) is a medium who channels a multitude of dis-incarnate beings who used to be healers during their life on this Earth. Some of those include St. Ignatius Loyola, Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, Dr. Augusto de Almeida, Dr. Jose Valdivino, a many others. Apparently even King Solomon comes in at times.

3 days a week, twice a day he surrenders his body to one of the entities who takes over and performs all the diagnosis and healing activities, with many other entities supporting the process. He sees about 1000 people daily.

There is a lot of skepticism about this place and his work on the Internet, and being a skeptic myself I decided to spend some time here, since I was already in Brazil.

Since I have been working with energy through yoga for many years it’s relatively easy for me to tell when I’m in an energetically powerful place. Let me tell you – this is an amazingly powerful place. I’d recommend anybody who likes working with energy to visit here.

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End Migraines & Headaches using Holistic Therapies

June 13, 2016 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Health, Physical

Headaches Begone!

This chapter is an extract from book: Headaches Begone! A Systemic Approach To Healing Your Headaches.

Chapter 11. Holistic Therapies

The following therapies require you to work with a professional practitioner. While you could be trained in any of those and go DIY-style, when someone else treats you, you often get a better outcome.

Access Consciousness Bars suggests that a certain kind of headache happens when a certain aspect of life force is blocked. This can be an issue with abundance, sexuality, control, awareness, etc. This modality can release the block and allow the energy to flow and thus almost instantly eliminate the headaches. The practice is of a gentle touch of 32 special points on your head. It can be performed by a certified practitioner or can be done by yourself. Gary M. Douglas, the founder of this modality, wrote several books on this subject.

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian science of healing. It identifies two causes of migraines: excess of Vata and of Pita in the body. As a treatment, an Ayurvedic practitioner may prescribe a special diet, Ayurvedic herbal oil massage (Abhyanga), pouring herbal oils on the forehead (Shiradhara), and other traditional treatments. Read the rest of this entry »

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