Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tantava, the Dance of Shiva
For many years, my practice has consisted of standing virtually still while allowing the arms and other parts of the body to follow their own slow movements, resulting (now) in quiet and soft sensations of bliss to flow throughout the body, most often in hands and arms, but sometimes including other areas. I came to this practice naturally, for it evolved over many years--but even from the beginning, I did not attempt to direct my process (even when the sensations were extremely intense) but rather followed the energies themselves, as the "Beloved Within" made love bringing sweet bliss.
Earlier, I had found a passage in a book on Kashmiri Shaivism (from Daniel Odier) that seemed to describe what I was doing, and so I began to think of myself as following this tradition. Today I came upon this description of the Tandava, the Cosmic Dance of Shiva, and indeed the "Shiva Dance" seems to be what I do in my "practice."
The description comes from the website of Nathalie Delay, a follower of Daniel Odier, who offers workshops in Berkeley, California:
Tantric Shaivism of Kashmir - The cosmic dance of Shiva
The Tantric Shaivism (Shivaism) of Kashmir, and particularly its Pratyabhijñâ School, are living traditions of unbelievable modernity and rare sobriety. This is the lineage of my master, Daniel Odier, from whom I received the transmission. Direct and non-dual, Tantric Shaivism reveals to the intuitive intelligence, and this from the very first contact, its ultimate secret: "You are what you are looking for".
The founders of the Pratyabhijñâ school invite the seeker spontaneously to recognize her or his own pure and free heart, a heart forever perfectly identical in its essence to the supreme principle of the universe. One of the particularities of the tantric teachings, which makes them so contemporary, is their total immersion in reality. In unison with Mazu, a famous Chan master of the 8th century, they declare there is "No trace of the absolute outside of the reality".
These teachings don't propose complex practices of high technicality or formal rituals, but instead a direct and incessant diving into the source of all our emotions and bodily sensations, so we can taste Spanda, the primordial vibration underlying all of our actions. Among the various practices that Kashmirian Tantrism proposes, Tandava, the Shiva Dance of Totality, is an ideal tool for rediscovering the original, primordial energy of the body, pure and vibrating. This dance fine-tunes the body, like a musical instrument, so that it can vibrate in harmony with the pulsations of the universe.
The dance begins with a tactile listening to all the regions of the body and to the rhythm of the breath in a seated position. During this listening, little by little, a soft subtle movement will arise. After this first phase, the arms will begin to participate in the movement and then, in a standing position, a very slow and continuous dance will emerge.
In order for the dance to blossom, you have to totally abandon your will to "do" and surrender without any constraints, to this tactile listening to the body and the breath. The breathing itself will take root very low in the pelvis, and will be like an unending wave which will come to caress and untie our tensions and our restrictions. In this deep and tactile listening to the whole of our being, our fears, doubts and thoughts will softly melt.
This simple practice can be taught in a few hours because it does not require the memorization of sophisticated positions or complex sequences but it does take hours of practice to taste its infinite and subtle variations. Subsequently, over years, the whole of our body and mind gets liberated from their restrictions and pure presence infiltrates all our gestures. Then, liberated from all our references and the entirety of its psychosomatic memories, the mechanism of our body will be in harmony, and coincide with a reality which is perpetually new and vibrant.
The Shiva Dance bring us to a discovery of true spontaneity, and a capacity to surrender deeper into life's continuous multiplicity of movement.
Nathalie
(Image found at Nathalie Delay's website, listed above)
