Jhb October 2009 Tantric Understanding Group

An introduction into the approach, method and practice of Tantra, guided by Rahasya.

Each evening will introduce an area of the work and a related meditation or practice.

Over the three weeks, you will explore:

• The history, purpose and intent of Tantra. 
• Sexuality, magic(k)al practice and spirituality. 
• Understanding eroticism.
• Advaita and the Yoga of mind-training.
• The Heart meditation of Atisha
  

6pm to 9 pm, Tuesdays  6th, 13th and 20th October 2009

Venue: Parktown, Johannesburg.
Cost: R900.00 (yes, the whole course)
Booking: Send email to:

To ensure that you make it through our spam filter, please include the word: understanding  in your email.

Images and reflections from participants in last year's Uncoiling the Snake Women's Retreat at nau ma

" Still words of gratitude and deep thanks come oozing out... the
weekend with you and the other goddesses in N"auma has truly been a
transformative one, in deep still untold ways. "

This year:

Uncoiling the Snake Women's Tantra Retreat
22 - 26 October 2009
Nau Ma, Little Karoo

Uncoiling the snake

A women's retreat by Shakti Malan

22 - 26 October 2009
n!au ma farm, Little Karoo

On female sexual energy

Sexual energy is a tremendous source of vitality and life force. When we own and live our sexual energy, we incarnate – we come to embody the goddess within. We wake up to the moment. Through our sexual flow as women, the worlds are birthed. And yet this potential lies dormant in so many of us. The snake, the kundalini, the origin of our embodied vitality, is there, at the base of the spine, but it slumbers, and it rarely gets touched.Until the wild woman in us wakes up to who she really is.

Uncoiling the snake

In my work with Tantra, an ancient eastern tradition that follows sexual energy as a doorway to consciousness, I have learnt that sexual awakening is linked to the opening of the chakras or "energy wheels" (represented by the spirals on the front page image). When the opening of the chakras happens in the body, it literally feels like an energy snake that uncoils at the base of the body and rises up through the crown of the head. For me personally, this rising brings a soft ecstasy that ripples onto the farthest shores of my life… It also brings a deep contentment with existence.

Sexual energy becomes illuminated when the repressions that block us at each of the chakras or energy points in the body are lifted. These repressions are the result of our conditioning, our patterning and the scars that are left by our life experiences. I believe that it is possible to bring our repressions to awareness and release them by working in a sacred circle of women.



What happens on the retreat

My focus is on the awakening of consciousness, not on teaching technique or improving performance (though these things follow of their own accord). I use the following methods to evoke awareness:

• We process body memories through acting and embodiment.
• We deepen awareness of female sexuality through breath work and other Tantric techniques.
• We reflect on our stories and vision our "this-here-now" realities through creating with the earth and writing.
• We meditate and do guided visualizations to deepen our awareness of essence flowing through us.
• We use sound, chanting, movements and dancing focused on a particular expression of our sexual energy to awaken the body to its inherent knowing.
• We have strong interactions with nature and the elements to reconnect us to our being-of-the-earth, the origin of our sexual energy.

The facilitator, Shakti Malan

I have been running retreats and courses on the Sacred Feminine for many years. I have a Ph.D. (UCT) in social anthropology. For more on me, see shakti.co.za and totalitytherapy.com

The venue

The farm n'au !ma, which is run in deep respect for nature as a place of retreat and ceremony, is situated between Montague and Ladysmith, at the foot of the Anysberg. Accommodation is provided in beautiful Karoo style houses with broad verandas, fireplaces, gas stoves and fridges. There is an exquisite kloof on the farm, and some delicious dams. The night sky of the Karoo is something to experience. The farm is about 4 – 5 hours from Cape Town, and 3 hours from George.

Bookings, costs and times


My facilitation fee is R1 600pp. Accommodation fees are by donation; the suggested fee is R160 per night. A deposit of R1 000 is required to secure your place and full payment is due by 14 October. The retreat will be limited to 12 women. Banking details:

Dr S.Malan
Standard Bank current account
Merriman Square branch (02-11-09-00)
Account number: 073152811

Meals will be arranged amongst us.
I will assist with coordinating travel where possible.
For enquiries contact Shakti at 0833010399 or Shakti@shakti.co.za

The retreat will start Thursday 6pm and end Monday lunchtime.


"Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire!" – Theilard de Chardin

Tantra foundation course starting end August in CT

The Erotic and Beyond
Tantra foundation course

A course in six sessions
Monday evenings starting 31 August 2009
Noordhoek Cape Town

Course objective

This course is a first and powerful step towards the freedom that Tantra offers as a practice. It requires of you to embrace both your fears and your desires in the realm of the erotic, and to feel the feelings that emerge from here. You will be taught techniques to process the emotional and mental patters that arise from the practice. The course can offer powerful release and healing from old experiences and expectations around sexuality. Expert facilitation will ensure that the course meets each individual where they are at.

Aims

Aim 1: Lifting taboos and suppressions

In the days when Tantra was only practiced as a secret mystery tradition, one of the first steps that a new initiate had to take was to break their cultural taboos. If you were raised a Jain Hindu, you would be asked to eat meat and drink alcohol – both of which are highly taboo in that culture. Breaking your personal or cultural taboos asks of you to face your biggest fears. In this course, we will engage our personal and collective taboos in a fun but challenging way.

Suppressions are all experiences that have become unconscious in you. Most often, these were experiences that were unpleasant or frightening to you in the past – emotionally, physically or spiritually. What we are not able or willing to feel completely in the moment, becomes trapped in the body as unconscious patterns that influence everything – especially our sexuality. We will work gently at touching these places and allowing full consciousness to return.

Aim 2: Embracing fantasies and desires

By paying attention to what you desires and fantasies are, you can integrate unconscious or hidden aspects of your being. Whereas lifting taboos and suppressions is about facing your fears, this aim is about saying yes to your desires. One of our dictums in Tantra is: How much bliss can you stand? Since many of us have been raised in traditions of religious austerity, it takes some individuation to embrace pleasure as a gateway to higher understanding.

We will encourage this individuation by exploring your fantasies and desires and giving space for them to be expressed in appropriate ways.

Aim 3: Integrating polarities

One main reason why we stay stuck in limited beliefs about ourselves is that our ego structures are bound up in polarity. Polarities split experience into opposites – what is desired and what is feared, what attracts us and what we are repulsed by, what we see as good and what as evil. These polarities are mostly unconscious in us, and as with fears and desires, they govern and direct our lives.

To go deeper in awareness of who we really are, it is important to find ways of processing these polarities. On this course, you will be taught tools to identify and integrate the polarities that limit your sense of yourself. In the process, you will develop a witness – the ability to observe the story of your life without taking it so seriously.

Who is the course for?

This course for people who are on a committed quest for greater awareness and presence in their lives, and who want to include their sexuality in this journey. This is a foundation course so no previous experience is needed. You are also welcome to do the course a second time as most certainly new material will be revealed to you. Please note that place is limited to ten participants, so book soon.

Feedback from participants on previous Erotic and Beyond course

"The Erotic and Beyond Workshop was maximum growth over a short period of time...Shakti is an incredible facilitator...I felt extremely held and supported...her insight is invaluable and so accurate...I would highly recommend trusting the process."

"I don't think anything in adult life has shaken me up more than this course. It forced me to look at stuff that had lived under the carpet for much of my post -pubescent life (and even some stuff from before, if the truth be told).The ongoing effects are still bubbling up in the form of realisations (both minor and major), that are changing and stabilising the way I act, think and feel.That's the serious bit: on the other hand it was more fun than is normally legal...

Be brave: do it!"

"I had an opportunity to recover and experience previously incompletely felt feelings at the core of my life. In the space Shakti creates, of loving awareness and acceptance, I felt it possible to embrace these feelings, feel them fully without shirking from them, and love them back into my whole life, warming them with the fire of my presence, and letting them melt away, leaving me stronger and open and clear. Before the course, difficult feelings would often block me and make me withdraw. Now I sense a greater capacity for feeling, for being with difficult feelings, of experiencing them fully and moving beyond them into new possibilities."

The facilitator: Shakti Malan is a full time practicing Tantrika who has significant experience as a group facilitator. For more on her work and life, see totalitytherapy.com and shakti.co.za. She will be assisted in this course by Stephen Tredrea; see stephentredrea.com.

Course fee: R1 800
Bookings and inquiries: Shakti@shakti.co.za or 0833010399