Knocked out

Bhagsu, India.

I don’t know where to start so let me start by saying I don’t know where to start. My knee is bruised, my foot is sore, my cheekbone is swollen and I have stitches in my eyebrow. I feel confused, excited, sad, alone, strong, blessed, beautiful and grateful.

Last time I posted my hiking buddy felt better and went to Dharamkot to find out about hiking possibilities while I spent the day writing, working an meditating. He came back with a plan for a three-day trek. That evening we went for dinner and he broke his diet of white rice. Next morning I had packed my backpack and was ready to check out our hotel. Then he came out of his room. Bad news, again. For the third time he looked recovered but fell back into sickness. Poor guy, had to spend another day passed out in his bed.

My time in India is running out and after not going to Osho’s ashram, not going on long epic treks in in Ladakh, not participating in the Vipassana retreat in Dharamsala and not being able to find the inspiring connection in the community of Tibetan refugees I was ready to let go of the last dream. I sat down in my favorite coffee place (free wifi and a decent latte) to do some work (read: procrastinate). Then I saw a flyer on the door. It said there would be a 5 day tantra workshop, including yoga and meditation and it would start tomorrow. This sounded like an opportunity to make up for all the missed opportunities. I called the number and made an appointment.

To fast forward a bit: I registered. Yesterday was the first morning. I met my Israeli friend for lunch I he decided to participate too. He had finally recovered. Guess what? During the afternoon session I find myself shivering and vomiting outside. I though: “you gotta be kidding, after 7 weeks in India the bugs find me after all”. I felt weak during the session and went to bed early. I slept for 11 hours.

The course contains a lot of theory and background on tantric sex and the tantric spiritual path. The goal of tantra is spiritual union, or union with God through lovemaking. Lovemaking becomes a sacred prayer. The reason why I want to do work in this area is because I realized in Iraq that I have not developed that side of my spiritual practice. But this insight came to me with the guidance of a friend who I had asked for help when my girlfriend broke up with me. By doing this workshop I am confronted even more than on normal days with my wounded heart: I miss her terribly and wished things would have gone differently. I would be so super cool to do this together. I am so sorry we never had the chance to do something like this and I wonder what the meaning is that I have to do this alone. At the same time: I am on this journey to heal as much of my wounds as possible and I should grab all the opportunities I receive and feeling sorry for myself will not make me a more attractive partner for any woman.

One of the most important aspects of tantra is conserving the sexual energy. Almost all mystical and religious traditions agree that sexual energy is very strong and that we can deplete ourselves when we make love. Most traditions say therefore: don’t have sex or be moderate. The tantric yogi’s say: “conserve the energy by training and yoga”. What it comes down to is for women to ‘implode’ instead of ‘explode’ when they orgasm and for men to ‘injaculate’ instead of ‘ejaculate’. The way to deal with increasing arousal is to ‘sublime the energy’: when you get closer to orgasm you should ‘push’ the energy to the higher chakra’s. If you can master this lovemaking can go on forever and much, much higher states of bliss than ‘normal’ orgasm are available. Partners can experience Divine union, a cosmic ‘melting together’ and deep emotional and spiritual healing.

Very interesting but easier said then done, I would say. Also it sounds somewhat hard to believe: ‘injaculate’ and ‘subliming energy to higher chakra’s’, don’t you think?

One of the reasons to participate in a workshop around ‘chakra’s’ and ‘energies’ is that I feel pretty inadequate in this field. In some way I have never been really sensitive and am still not. So when we had to stand in a big circle, holding each others hand and meditate on ‘subliming the energy’ I felt a bit of resistance. Or actually, I felt like I always feel: convinced that nothing will happen. We had to visualize that the person on the left side would give the energy and the person on the right would receive. Yeah, whatever. But, as always. I do my best although I think I look stupid.

It is just 28 people in a circle, holding hands with their eyes closed. There is cool house music. The instruction was to step out of the circle if the energy would get too strong. This sounded quite ridiculous to me. During the exercise I thought I felt something. I wonder if it is my imagination. I start to feel nauseous. I open my eyes to see if other people are stepping out of the circle. Nobody is. I conclude that I must be exaggerating. Then white light starts to pump through my body and it goes higher and higher till it explodes out of my head.

I feel totally peaceful as a wake up from a deep sleep. I hear nice voices around me; angels are taking care of me. I am on the floor. I am comfortable and want to stay there. I hear that there is blood: I’m bleeding. I realize that I must have fallen on the floor. I have a gash in my eyebrow.

My buddy and me take a taxi to the doctor where I am stitched. I realize I am knocked out by a meditation exercise, literally. It blows my mind. Me, the big guy, the disbeliever, the insensitive one, was decked by some kind of energy that came from outside and caused some sort of cosmic explosion. Wow..

It is paradigm shattering. A new door has opened. If I am lucky I will be initiated in a whole new world of energy and healing. We don’t know what will happen and how it will happen. This trip has proven that things are extremely unpredictable. But also that things can happen to me that I held for completely impossible, totally outside my reach. This means that anything can happen, all sorts of miracles. I feel blessed and I feel hopeful. At the same time I feel scared, afraid of what the next blow will be that life will offer me. It seems that I am almost anticipating some huge disappointment to balance this amazing experience. But I feel good about myself. I have worked hard and I reached a new level and if I am fortunate enough to master it and integrate it in my life my loved ones will benefit from it.

Do you appreciate what I am doing? Please support me and my journey by recommending and sharing my posts on Facebook. It is such a small effort and really important (let me explain). And please consider making a financial, moral or relational contribution. Your help means a lot (read here how amazing it feels).