There are few teachers as compelling as Shakti Malan, who holds a truly enveloping, luminous presence. She holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology, and balances it by immersing herself deeply in her own spiritual practice. Based in Cape Town, she facilitates tantra retreats and workshops in South Africa. She is a student of Leslie Temple Thurston**, an Advaita teacher (see corelight.com) whose processing and meditation techniques first set her on the path, and has also studied with Master Mantak Chia and Osho. Her capacity for bliss, and for leading others into bliss, is legendary throughout the tantra industry. We caught up with her for a rare interview, preceding her Northern California workshop tour.
Q: Wow, how very nice to meet you. So let's begin... from where do you hail? What was your life before tantra?
A: I have always had a strong sense of purpose, which I directed first to social upliftment of vulnerable people, then to environmental protection and finally to waking up. I spent the first 20 years of my life working in African townships, developing in "insider's perspective" on people's lived realities. For this I used ethnography, a method that hails from social anthropology, which in my opinion must be one of the most conscious academic fields around. Where else do you find an academic field that relies heavily on the intuitive, the sensing of what is not seen, and the hearing of what has not been spoken? By my late 20's I had a Ph.D. in this field. This time was an invaluable training ground for my role as Tantrika, catalyzing the subtle opportunities inherent in groups.
Q: So what is your spiritual lineage? Who were your teachers?
A: I was initiated as a dakini by Rahasya, director of the Advait Tantraschool in South Africa (advaittantra.com). Advaita means non-dual. Advait Tantra is the fast path to awakening, as it reaches beyond all dualities such as spiritual-sexual, light-dark, desire-fear, male-female. The method for moving beyond dualities is total immersion in the experience of opposite states while maintaining a witness. My work is also influenced strongly by the advaita (non-duality) teachings of Leslie Temple-Thurston, whose clear methods for witnessing the mind's tendency to polarize have helped me immensely to embody fully.
Q: And what is your approach to transformation?
A: I am not really interested in trans-form-ing anyone, or myself. I am interested in waking up - living as the truth of who I a really am, beyond any attachment to form, including any desire to improve form or personality. And paradoxically of course the way of the Tantrika is to then fully embrace the experience of form, not to avoid desire but to enter into it consciously as a gateway that can lead to the integration and disillusion of all attraction and repulsion.
Q: That's very interesting. Can you elaborate on your approach to non-duality, especially how it evolves from a practice like BDSM - which I notice you teach, which seems quite filled with "form"... and a kind of duality through which power is exchanged.
A: Yes, that's right... I'm giving a workshop on conscious BDSM. Okay, the question is: How can BDSM be used as a doorway to non-duality, especially since there is so much "form" in traditional BDSM? The way in which I use this genre is to cut right to the essence of the eroticism. I use minimal tools and outer symbols. My method is psychological interrogation combined with high arousal. In BDSM, that which the unconscious holds in the pain body (such as shame and guilt) runs parallel to that which is held in the desire body. The way I work is to arouse both experiences intensely and simultaneously, and to take this experience to the extreme, where the opposites - desire and fear - can no longer hold themselves apart. In the moment where they fuse in the client, something dies forever - and a massive veil of polarized experience drops away, together with that particular eroticism.
The method of my work is encourage what I call "totality". Totality means saying "Yes" to all of life's experiences, and being willing to feel them deeply, without becoming identified with the story that frames the experience. Thus, the "illusion" of experience becomes itself the gateway to awakening. There are seven themes in the way I work:
- Facing your deepest fears by lifting the taboos and suppression of experience in your being
- Embracing fantasies and desires, and using eros (your eroticism) as a gateway to integrating and reclaiming energy that is trapped in your unconscious
- Processing and integrating your personal polarities and projections
- Expanding your heart capacity by taking in all the experiences of the heart
- Developing presence in the body - developing breath and sensory awareness and facilitating nervous system repatterning to release all traumas that cause us to shut down from experience.
- Masculine-feminine integration - identifying the inner relationship and clearing outer relationships
- Presence in every moment through tantric meditations; I work specifically with the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
Q: Wow, that's a lot to digest. Speaking of digestion... here's a lighter question: what are the three yummiest things you ever ate?
A: Okay, let me remember...
One, the raw chocolate cookie I received on coming out of the vision quest where I got the clear calling that my destiny is to be a dakini.
Two, my first mango lassi at Osho's ashram in Pune, India
And three, a ripe mango I shared with a lover
Q: What was the happiest moment of your life? What was the saddest?
A: Happiest: I was in a hot spring in the rocky mountains of the African bush with a lover after a day of dancing on the rocks. Some small sexual gesture initiated what I later came to understand as Kundalini awakening. That snake of vital life force uncoiled powerfully in me, and as it moved through my crown chakra, I experienced three things at the same time: There was no more separate self, my experience of love became boundless, and I was in the realm of the angels. For days afterwards I was deeply in love with everyone and everything I encountered. Since then, much of my inner work has been the clearing of everything that keeps my heart from remaining that wide open.
Saddest: I very dear student of mine recently jumped off a wall in a post- tick bite fever delirium. I was deeply saddened by this sudden and unexpected departure as he was a man with such a big 'yes' to awakening. I remember a moment where he was blissdancing on one of my retreats, eyes closed, with everyone becoming fluid. He recalled afterwards, eyes glowing with light and awe, that he had touched someone - the most exquisite touch - only to discover afterward that the person he had touched had been a man. This breaching of his taboo's and simultaneous flooding of his senses with pleasure had been so big for him that he in fact went into the same experience of the unbounded heart that I had had years before.
And what do these incidents tell me? Eros - our life force, our erotic impulse - and Tanatos - the great mystery of death - are two Tantric medicines that existence uses to assist us in waking up to the truth of who we are, and to living in unconditional love. In essence, perhaps, there is no difference between the two states. And every moment - every moment - is precious.
Q: What's next for Shakti Malan?
A: I'm delighted to be visiting the Bay area 17 June - 19 July. My visit kicks off with a free talk in Oakland on the Subtle Energy of Eros on Saturday 18 June. Also in Oakland: June 20th a workshop on Conscious BDSM, and on Summer Solstice Monday 21 June a workshop on Skydancing for women, and BlissDance in the evening for all! Then on to Marin County: BlissDance Friday 24 June, and two workshops the following days - Saturday: Beloved, the Tantric approach to love and relationship, and Sunday: a workshop on Tantric Orgasm. Finally, the cherry on top is a three day experiential introduction to Totality Therapy, which is my contemporary interpretation of the ancient mysteries of Tantra (see totalitytherapy.com). This will be the launch of an internet based Totality Therapy training course that will follow. The event is in Oakland 15 - 17 July. And in between all these happenings, I am available for sessions. For the full program, have a look at erotic-spirituality.com.
Q: Excellent! I'm sure many of our readers will be interested in learning more about your work. Anyway, we're reached the end of our time together, so we have a little game to end our interviews... please spontaneously compose a poem or haiku that expresses your philosophy of life!
A: Okay, here goes...
Dive
into the juicy depths
of life suppressed and scorned
make love to the demons there
and rise with the angels
blue flame rippling
over breathing skin
For more info, please see:
erotic-spirituality.com
totalitytherapy.com
