The Yoga Sutras were passed down orally until they were written down around 2000 years ago by a man named Patanjali. People believe he is a human incarnation of Ananta, the Naga serpent with 1000 heads. I’ll bet his hypnotherapist shook his head over that one when he did past life regression, eh? Tantra is considered the teachings of the Nagas, which are hybrids of a Reptilian race and humans. They aren’t generally known to be kind to humans, so this is a bit of a mystery.
The Sutras describe the 8 steps of meditation and Divine communion, which is the basis for Yoga, including Tantra Yoga.
I was taught the Dance of Shiva, and the Dance of Shakti by Luke Pearson, in 1986. He had discovered them by studying Patanjali’s Sutras.
Tantric Liila
I see these as a kind of Tantric Liila (Divine Play.) Our brains tell our bodies consciously what to do most of our waking hours. Our bodies are pushed around without much say in what they want from the moment we hear the alarm clock, rush to get ready for work or school or activities we want to do, but our bodies may not particularly want to do. Our bodies are treated as servants, or machines. Sometimes we are able to dance, and let our bodies move however they want to. That is a wonderful thing. But still, our minds may be thinking, the music may be not the best vibration for our bodies, we may be trying to look good to others or “pick them up.” We may have learned ways of dancing and stick to some semblance of routine movements. These dances are a form of meditation but they don’t require sitting in the lotus position. It is a type of dancing meditation that does keep Tantric discipline in that we quiet our minds and merge into the infinite while being mindful of how our bodies are being used.
The Classic Hatha Yoga Pose to Begin With
To begin, stand in the horse stance, a classic Hatha Yoga pose. Your feet are planted firmly on the floor, wide apart as your shoulders, your knees bent slightly, your hands in fists, resting on your thighs. Look forward, ground and balance yourself, and breathe deeply. Make sure your mind is free of mental chatter or clutter, and that you are in the moment completely.
When you are ready, let your body begin moving slowly, in a way possibly similar to Thai Chi. You will bend, lunge, raise your arms in various directions, twist, curl up, maybe move onto the floor, in a smooth, trance like way. Once you give your body permission to move as it wants to, it will take you up on it, no problem, and begin moving. At times, you will come into positions that your body wants to stay in for a good while. If you start thinking, anything at all, about what you are doing, other than just witnessing, you are no longer doing the Dance of Shiva. If you are in one position a long time, and start thinking you should be moving in, you have broken the flow, and it is time to go back into the Horse Stance, and ground yourself again. If you think someone else doing it with you might think the position is a funny one, start again. If you think you should bend, because it is good for your back, start again. If you start thinking you want to move more gracefully, or should be moving more on the left as well as the right side, or whatever, start again.
Simply go back into the Horse Stance, and once you are grounded in the Shiva principal of Absolute Consciousness, rather than your own ego, begin moving again. Your body will thank you, and the movements will have benefits similar to Tantra or other forms of Yoga, in which the charkas are being aligned and massaged, the astral pathways tweaked, the aura healed.
Teaching such methods has given my students in workshops the most joy. They become like children afterward, laughing, relieved, alive. Their bodies are able to come out and enjoy themselves, and they are revitalized.
I like to take The Dance of Shiva a little further and introduce modern elements, like going from ballet to modern interpretive improv dance forms. I recommend, personally, that you incorporate sound as well as movement, and that you let your movement become more and more free, fast, jerky, athletic, moving all around the floor, rather than staying too much like any practice you may have seen and imprinted on, like Tai Chi. The more you get out of your head, even away from acting out memories of what spiritual movement is like, the more you’ll be able to be in the true flow of Lila.
And let yourself make spontaneous sound, freeing your throat chakra, not making your voice a slave to your language, but freeing it to be your teacher. I call this progression from traditional Tantric exercises to spontaneous movement and sound LucidPlay. I’ve seen this work well with many people, transforming their lives.
