Kundalini Splendor

Here is an interview I recently ran across from Daniel Odier, Tantric Master, translator of Spanda Karika (divine pulsation). This is the tradition I identify strongly with, since it stresses that everything is vibration, from the beginnings of the cosmos to everything contained in it. It is also the tradition that practices the tandava, a very slow series of free movements (dance) to awaken and circulate the inner energies. Although Odier includes much on tantra as sexual practice, there is much in Kashmiri Shaivism that has to do with non-sexual approaches, for tantra extends to various somatic experiences, not necessarily sexual in nature. (I follow the latter variety).

Dr. Patti Taylor: For those of you new to all of this, Tantra is an eclectic collection of practices passed down through the ages leading to the expansion of consciousness, divine bliss, and awakening. Welcome, Daniel Odier.

Daniel Odier: Yes.

Dr. Patti Taylor: We are talking to Daniel Odier in France. I understand you are in Normandy at the moment?

Daniel Odier: Yes

Dr. Patti Taylor: Daniel Odier is a Tantric Master initiated into the lineage of Kashmiri Shaivist Tantra. He has been ordained as well into the Zen Soto tradition and received transmission into the Chinese Chan lineage. As a university professor, Daniel taught both Tantra and Buddhism. Presently he gives workshops and seminars all over the world. He is a prolific author. Two of his best-selling books include Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening, and Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love.

I am pleased to have with you today. I think our listeners would love to hear what these masters of consciousness have to say about desire. I think there a lot of confusion out there: Can desire really be a good thing, or better yet be a path to bliss? And if so how can we have more of it? So today we will find out what Kashmiri Shaivist Tantra is, why is desire is considered a blessing and what happens to our lives, including our love lives when we infuse our every waking moment with desire? So let’s get this started.

Kashmiri Shaivist Tantra—Daniel, can you tell us what it is?

Daniel Odier: It comes from the sacred tradition from the Hindu valley that thrived very widely in Kashmir in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. There were many, many great masters. Then in the thirteenth century it disappeared a little bit and became more secret. This is really the tradition that seems to disappear and surface again. But it is rejoicing to see that it never disappears; in fact it just goes into hiding and suddenly reappears. The very original approach is based on the vision of Vasagupta in which he links the all desire to all movement of the human mind on the path to awakening.

So, there is absolutely nothing which is withdrawn or forbidden. We use absolutely all emotion, all desire, all tradition, very much in the world, to become more vibrant.

The whole thing is based on the idea of Spanda. Spanda means vibration. It is a little bit like a musical instrument. In order to get the vibration, which is our own nature, we have to practice very special yoga which is called Tandava, which is a dance. It is a most ancient form of pure efforts of mystical dance, very beautiful, that may look a little bit like tai chi but is completely different.

Dr. Patti Taylor: So you interpret one of the most beloved Kashmiri Shaivist doctrines, the Yoga Spanda Karika, which I might say is one of the most incredibly poetic and amazing Tantric doctrines I have every read. The principles in there could have been written on the subway yesterday. They are so relevant and crisp. Could you just tell us a few of the principles as well as the part about desire, just as a foundation for where we’re are going? Just a few more of these Tantric principles for us, perhaps from the Yoga Spanda Karika?

Daniel Odier: The main idea of the Spanda Karika is to take the whole human being as one and not to divide it into purity or impurity. And this is really the whole tradition of Tantra which is the vision of the most ancient text of yoga. Of course, to achieve this unity you have to go back and to accept all the different faces of yoga. Finality and the liberation are going to blow this finality to a state of illumination where all the choices are going to vanish into space. Space is another word for Spanda. if you reach liberation you reach illumination and space.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Wow. So the whole point of the Kashmiri Shaivist is to go into liberation and to get that we are this beautiful space, and to end the separation, and to get that we are this amazing wholeness. And these separations, that I think we all have, we see a lot of people that say well, how do I reconcile my sexuality with my spirituality? But I guess for a Kashmiri Shaivist that’s kind of a silly question, wouldn’t that be?

Daniel Odier: Yes because the practical event is completely open to sexuality. There is absolutely no contradiction, no difference. The fact is that the body is totally the integrated to the past. We have to reconcile the body and the mind and the emotion as one thing. This is the yoga, to be one again without separation, without distinction, without anything that is taken off of the body to be considered impure. Impurity is a word that does not appear in the Tantra. It is a concept that we don’t have.

Dr. Patti Taylor: So, thank you. But you do have Shiva and Skakti now and many listeners may be hearing that word for the first time. That is the essential male and female principle, is that correct?

Daniel Odier: Yes. In the constant love play they are one in every Tantric text. Most of the Tantric texts state that Shiva and Shakti are one in the knowledge and one in the body. It just divides the dialogue which is the teaching of the Tantra.

When the Tantra is explained, or shown, the sexual union is one again. The teacher is teaching that they should be regarded as one thing. This is exactly what the yogi or yogini try to achieve— to be this one thing. Not to be a male, not to be a female, not be anything but the space where everything is alive.

Dr. Patti Taylor: You tell a beautiful story in your book Desire, about an ancient legend where the gods and goddesses gave the power of divine pleasure to women to give to men to absorb all the strong male energy back into balance on the earth. And everyone was happy with this arrangement. I love that story from your book Desire. And I was wondering what does that story have to say to us today in today’s world?

Daniel Odier: I think it’s very important today because there is still a kind of struggle between the genders with each one try to get the most. If you consider the human being as the unity of both, then you can explore the path you miss and integrate the path you miss. Good yogis or yoginis integrate both parts of Shiva and Shakti and this is one of the ends that you get to—to be this one union of the masculine and feminine.

In the past it was very frequent that the male master would wear women’s dresses or a female master would wear men’s dress to express this unity that they were not really a man or not really a woman but the union of both.

Dr. Patti Taylor: So it’s more about really embracing our fullness of all of our energy. So for the woman, is it really for the woman to embrace her Shiva nature and for the man to embrace his Shakti nature? Is it for all of us to come into that balance within ourselves then?

Daniel Odier: Yes because in a way the yogi or yogini has to be sensitive to vision, and if he is not the incarnation of the Shiva/Shakti then a part is missing. The beautiful thing is that when you are one you feel that nothing is missing because you are both parts.