A Tantric Mistake - Consequences and learnings

To err is human, to admit is divine...

This is hard to talk about, but here it is. A few years ago, a very lovely Californian blonde in her early 40s requested me to coach her on the esoteric mysteries of kundalini, its arousal, and awakening. She wanted me to help her unleash the energy through the classical tantric ways using a variety of sensual and sexual methods. She was married, and so I felt it would be highly inappropriate for me to use the sexual approach to kundalini movement. So, I declined.

She was very persuasive, very intent, and gosh darn it, very attractive. So I finally agreed to awaken all the energy latent in her, but through the most secret of all of tantric methods, one that is usually never talked about, written about, and whose use is not looked at kindly by the Goddess - yes, Sarpa Tantra - the path of the serpent. This is the non-sexual (no intercourse) tantric approach that arises awakens and moves the kundalini wherever you want in less than 5 minutes - the time it takes to get a non-fat, single shot, decaf latte at Starbucks. The method is conceptually extremely simple - the awakener (me), embodies, models, and personifies the kundalini energy of the awakened one (her), and systematically moves through each chakra physically. As I act the part of the serpent, breathing, hissing, coiling, and striking each chakra forcefully, her energy also gets the cue and moves, and soon her body starts to shake under the assault of my modeling the serpentine kundalini, and her own kundalini rising to mimic me. It is extremely fast, extremely powerful, and extremely dangerous to directly awaken the energy.

Needless to say, I took the kundalini all the way beyond the Ajna chakra between the eyebrows and into her head. She was shuddering and said the experience was more incredible than any sex she had ever had, and it put her in a state of mind she had never been before. I felt good, and I told her that I had unleashed her great psychic energy, and it was her responsibility to take the energy safely and do good and wonders to this world. I asked her to meditate, and then left the place.

What I had not realized was that I had put great power in her hands when she was ill equipped to handle the energy, channel it in peaceful ways, and transform the great power into happiness for others. She had all the intent, but had no practice or knowhow to do any of it. The consequences were very painful as I later found out. Her sexual appetite had grown a thousand fold causing her to create deep fissures in her marriage, and her focus in her professional life had suffered. Her health, especially her digestion and stomach were totally shot, and she was in an extremely precarious condition. Her marriage was on the rocks, and she was on the verge of a total breakdown.

When I finally met her, she squarely blamed her condition, mental, physical, emotional, familial, and sexual all on me. She said 'Ananth, it is all your fault. Even if I had begged you to release my kundalini, you should not have, especially in the most direct approach you used. What happened to your sense of responsibility? Why did not suggest some gentle incremental approach, but used an approach that even the books ban?"

I agreed with her. It was my fault. I had not gauged where she was in a spiritual sense, and in my eagerness to show her the extent of her own energy, and in a desire to perhaps impress her with my ability to awaken and move her kundalini in an instant, I had erred in a very serious way. Despite my belief in my own evolution, it was obvious that when an attractive woman asked me to move her energy far beyond where it should have gone, I succumbed to my male desire to impress her, and just picked up her kundalini and just tossed it around. It ended up causing her great havoc, and her family great trouble.

So I became more convinced that the tools I know, love, and use, were just not the right ones for most of this world. I also felt poorly that despite my own strength and sense of integrity, a beautiful woman had just made to do things that as a teacher I would have frowned upon. Sarpa Tantra will probably die with me, similar to how the five point palm exploding heart technique dies with Pai Mei in Kill Bill 2. The world is better off without people using tools of tantra to cause mental and sexual havoc in othes. Being generous, kind, and loving to all can take one to everyplace we need to go, and we can dispense with the tantric mumbo jumbo entirely.

I kept this to myself, and became very reluctant to teach anybody, but I thought that this is an important experience in my life that perhaps has lessons for some. So I decided to share. Flame me if you want, blame me if you want. I think I deserve all of it.

- Ananth Tantri