What is Yoga, Tantra, Homoerotic Tantra, and their importance to Mascul-IN-Touch?
First of all, I must ask you to delete all you think you know about what yoga,
Tantra, and homoeroticism are. I ask you to do this because what you think they are or what you have learned they are from the media is generally misinformed and erroneous.
Most of what we in the West have been exposed to in the shape of Eastern spirituality is properly called New Age. New Age means a broad and frequently vague movement in Western culture characterized by alternative and sometimes bizarre approaches to traditional Eastern cultures, with an interest in spirituality, mysticism, religion, sex and sensuality, self-realization, etc. More narrowly, and in the context I am discussing here, “new age” refers to a range of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices that developed in the West during the 1970s and onward. New age is basically an expression of a drive, a hunger that is not satisfied by the offerings of the native tradition and a quest for satisfaction in non-native traditions, often poorly or totally misunderstood, and taken piecemeal into a “new” form, the product of cherry-picking, to fill the void experienced by the seeker or the initiate.
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| GOT FAKE GURU? |
Since the 1960s we have heard more and more about individuals leaving their jobs and traveling to some remote ashram or community in India, Tibet, Nepal, or some other exotic locale, to find a “teacher” and to find their “true” Self. After a couple of years they think that they are totally reborn and they return with a new name, and a new persona. In many cases they set up shop offering themselves as “teacher” to others who are just as maladjusted and troubled as they are but can’t afford to find a “teacher” in an exotic setting, so they have to resort to so-called workshops, festivals, and visits to local “ashrams.” It’s a pitiful situation because these unfortunate individuals do not need a “teacher” to help them heal their maladaptation and sociopathology, they need a licensed therapist who has not only a real interest in the problems of the soul-lost wanderers of the digital age, but who is an authentic person with a profound spirituality, self-awareness, and one who practices a highly developed system of ethics and personal discipline.
Regrettably, most needful individuals in the West have been tragically conditioned to want and to expect a quick fix, and they actually believe they can be “fixed” by reading a book or attending a workshop. The snake-oil salesmen, charlatans, fakes, and entrepreneurs can’t be blamed completely for their illicit and immoral, sometimes unlawful practices; after all, their customers are actually seeking them out and voluntarily submitted themselves to their half-baked programs and ministries. Thank you Internet.
I’d like to discuss yoga first, since I think it is the most familiar to Westerners. Most Westerners know yoga as a keep-fit practice that we find in various chain yoga studios, storefront yoga schools, and in places like health and fitness clubs and YMCAs. The yoga familiar to most people is a mere fraction of the Yoga taught and practiced in the East, mainly by the various sects of Hinduism and Buddhism, and has become a physical activity more than the spiritual or philosophical Yoga of Hinduism. True, in a typical yoga class you will find many of the postures described in the ancient texts, you will see practitioners attempting mudras, mumbling mantras, and discussing their latest vegetarian recipes, and you’ll see them all promptly return to their materialism and consumerism once the “class” ends. Little or no true spirituality or philosophy is taught because the “instructors” teach only the postures and titillations of Hatha Yoga, but not Yoga. In fact, Western yoga has turned into a chain and franchise business in the US, with some unscrupulous charlatans actually copyrighting the ancient
asana-s or postures of yoga, and suing established practitioners for using the postures! This could happen only in the United States!
Moving on to Tantra. First of all, Tantra is a school of Hinduism that developed about 3,000 years ago in India. Tantra is also the name of a set of spiritual texts or holy scriptures. One of the great scholars of Indic religion and sacred texts was Sir John Woodruff, who spent his life in the scholarly pursuits of Sanskrit and holy texts. About the same time as Woodruff’s scholarship, there appeared one of the first New Age groups calling itself Theosophy, defined as a system of "Intuitional knowledge or wisdom resulting from progress in Self-awareness and/or experience of one's own Transcendental ('Divine') Nature." If it sounds like it is a movement derived from Eastern, especially Tantric tradition, you are right. Theosophy was one of the first Western movements to start plagiarizing and perverting ancient Indic philosophy for self-serving purposes. The West has a penchant for [mis]appropriating anything of value and adapting — note well that I use the term “adapt” and not “adopt”— it for self-serving purposes.
Well, Theosophy was one of the first movements to have “adapted”
Tantra and the Tantras and the insidious plagiarism reached its height in the 1960’s and 70’s with the free love movement, the social, political, and religious upheavals of those decades, and the arrival of so-called Neotantra, sometimes known as sacred sexuality. Neotantra has little or nothing to do with traditional
Tantra as a sophisticated spirituality, except for the fact that practitioners and so-called teachers of neotantra/sacred sexuality have appropriated some of the terminology of traditional orthodox
Tantra, in order to color their illicit plagiarisms with some nuance of authenticity and credibility. The attempt is scurrilous but it has been successful in attracting the maladjusted, the obsessive and compulsive, the lonely, the sociopathic, and the pervert to the neotantric festivals, workshops, and private “sessions.” It’s become big business to sell “sacred sexuality.” Ignorance is fertile ground for self-indulgence and for the unscrupulous entrepreneur.
So what makes yogic Homoerotic Tantra different and how does that difference relate to the Mascul-IN-Touch program? That’s the core question I’d like to answer in this article.
While traditional orthodox Yoga is more of an ethical and philosophical system and, in fact, an atheistic system in that it does not teach a “god” as such, leaving it up to the individual to choose whether to practice Yoga as a purely ethical or philosophical discipline or to companion it with a theistic system or tradition. Yogic Homoerotic
Tantra teaches the ethics and philosophical content of orthodox Yoga as a companion to a Tantric system of doctrines, practices, and models. The traditional Yogic
yama-s and
niyamas-s, the Yogic
astanga (eight limbs) form the ethical and social core of yogic Homoerotic
Tantra.
Practicing yoga studio yoga is practicing postures; practicing the yogic principles of Homoerotic
Tantra is learning a fuller lifestyle.
I rely heavily on the
Yoga Darshana of Patanjali for my yogic teachings and their responsible and sensitive adoption and adaptation to contemporary applications.
When discussing
Tantra it is important to emphasize that there are various schools of thought even in traditional, orthodox
Tantra, but all of the schools of Tantric teaching rely on a basic canon of holy scripture. One of the doctrines of
Tantra is to take from holy scripture that which is most useful and to lay the rest aside. I have condensed that teaching into my motto of “Take the best of everything.” But that does not mean what it appears to mean; as in all things, we have to go deeper than the words and find the meaning. The core meaning is the same for everyone; the way the individual practitioner of Homoerotic
Tantra incorporates that core meaning into his day-to-day life activities and relationships can be very personal and individual, but is always one that is subject to review and supervision.
Tantra as I teach it consists of a triad of interrelated interoperating components: physical, mental/emotional, spiritual. I’ll briefly describe each of these below.
The physical aspect is important because the only existence we know and the only modality of relationship we have is our physical body. That’s one reason why we stress the body as a temple: it is the physical structure that houses the divine and the spiritual. It is also the container for the more subtle, esoteric aspects of being what we call a human being: the mind and emotions, the divine spirit (consciousness). The physical body is also the first component of our identity and our appreciation of other human beings. How we venerate or abuse our physical body is an important consideration in Homoerotic Tantric practice, and that consideration extends also to other bodies, particularly the physical manifestation of our Tantric Lover or Tantric Partner(s).
The physical aspect of Homoerotic
Tantra includes not only the body as a manifestation in the physical but also as the recipient of myriad stimuli from the outside. One of the most important are the sensual and sensuous stimuli we give and receive through our six senses, particularly the five physical senses. We use those senses to enhance our perceptions and interactions and engagements with other physical bodies through
sadhana-s and rituals.
With the opportunities offered by guided rituals and exercises using the tool of the senses in a respectful, compassionate and sensitive way, and by introducing participating gay and bisexual men who, for the most part, have been traumatized by the Western asphyxiation of the male spirit and the bludgeoning of masculinity by feminists and politics, the participating man will likely awaken new confidence and self-awareness, self-knowledge, that will transfer easily to every aspect of his life. Simply the study and implementation of the Yogic
yama-s and
niyamas-s in one’s day-to-day life activities will produce unanticipated positive effects.
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Awakened Masculinity - The Western Model
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With the openness of the physical component and the awakening of the mental and emotional components, the dedicated and conscious homoerotic
Tantrika will experience personal awakening and individual states of ecstasy and spiritual awareness not otherwise available to him. The spiritual transformation will emanate from the physical and emotional processes.
Too many neotantra “teachers” and entrepreneurs indifferently and indiscriminately abuse the term “enlightenment” in their promotions. Enlightenment is not something that can be achieved so easily and the promise of enlightenment or even the possibility of enlightenment through the routines of neotantra are highly unlikely, if not utterly impossible.
Rather than promise the impossible or even suggesting the improbable, I teach awakening and awareness; that’s all folks. And I teach awakening and awareness only if the practitioner has the sense of commitment and dedication, and he puts forth the effort to take the discipline seriously.
Take as an example the chakras as taught in Homoerotic
Tantra. I deal solely with the first three chakras:
Muladhara,
Svadhisthana,
Manipura, and the fourth transition chakra,
Anahata. These are the chakras of primary interest to us In Homoerotic
Tantra. The three higher chakras,
Vishudha,
Ajna, and
Sahasrara may be accessible and positively influenced in the course of the practitioner’s discipline but that depends on the practitioner alone, and his dedication to cultivating and opening the lower four chakras. Enlightenment is possible only in the rare practitioner and only after the subtle energies are awakened and rise to the level of
Sahasrara. Real enlightenment in Yogic or Tantric terms much more complicated than just paying a fee, attending some workshops, and receiving a worthless diploma or certificate. The very thought of enlightenment in neotantra is ridiculous.
A sucker's born every minute.
Since most Neotantra gives short shrift to the emotional and spiritual aspects of traditional
Tantra and focuses on the profane "sacred" sexuality that appeals to the animal aspect of the human being, and the neurophysical phenomenon of the orgasm, assigning some bizarre spirituality to a purely profane occurrence, it may be useful to just list some differences between neotantra and traditional
Tantra:
- Traditional or orthodox Tantra does not focus on sex. I attribute this erroneous association to the lack of descriptive terminology in the English language to adequately describe such concepts as “love” or “sex” In Homoerotic Tantra, I do teach Tantric bodywork techniques that include genital stimulation techniques and I refer to this as “erotic,” a term taken from Eros, a deity representing creative power. Unfortunately, the English language has thrown sexuality, sensuousness, and erotic into the same profane bucket but that is one of the afflictions that Homoerotic Tantra attempts to conquer: ignorance.
- Traditional Tantra relies on classical holy scriptures and their interpretation or exegesis; Neotantra relies on New Age publications and self-help books.
- Homoerotic [read: neotraditional] Tantra emphasizes the role of the Teacher and of Initiation and Study; Neotantra relies on a masseur and occasional meet-ups, workshops, and trysts, generally of a physical sexual character, either individually or in groups.
- Homoerotic Tantra combines a trinity of focus and is comprised of rituals and practices that co-operate fundamentally as a total spiritual discipline; Neotantra emphasizes physical sex and orgasm as the gateway to “enlightenment,” a term hijacked from orthodox Buddhism and Hinduism but misused and abused while remaining virtually undefined.
- Homoerotic Tantra is based on what is called the Left-Hand Tantra (Vamachara), which includes meditation and other practices shared by orthodox Vedic practice but in contradistinction to the orthodox Vedic practices of Right-Hand Tantra (Dakṣiṇācāra), involves practices that may be considered transgressive in the orthodox Yogic or Vedic views, such as erotic sadhana-s . Homoerotic Tantra practices sahaja, a Sanskrit term that means, “recognizing everything as spirit and matter, subject and object, spontaneous, neither sacred nor profane.” Neotantra does not have traditional or orthodox practices and includes anything and everything.
- Homoerotic Tantra emphasizes subtle energies and visualization practices, which are also fundamental to traditional Tantra. In Homoerotic Tantra, the Tantric Lovers, visualize the divine ShivaShakti in each other and work towards identity with the divine masculine in the Tantric Lover. Neotantra, in contrast, talks about visualization but means simply sight. In neotantra, there is no mental, metaphysical visualization of the divine in the Tantric Lover nor is there identity with the Divine Masculine Spirit; in neotantra, the participant physically “sees” or “gazes” superficially upon a physical body, the session partner(s).
- Homoerotic Tantra is not a commercial enterprise and does not charge for services; participants receive the benefits of participation as a gift. Any gifts received by Homoerotic Tantra or Mascul-IN-Touch are voluntary donations at the discretion of the donor; any gift does not represent payment or compensation for goods or services of any kind whatsoever. Neotantra, on the other hand is for profit and “teachers” charge for their services and participants pay to participate in neotantra events.
Aside: One rather conspicuous sex tantra site actually has a former "international porn star and now tantric masseur" going by the name "Greg," who in his promotional blurb on Tantra4GayMen writes, "I have worked as a sex worker now for over 12 years." He describes himself as a "sex worker" and is now providing "tantric massage" as a collaborator with Tantra4GayMen. Another collaborator "Antonio" provides "gay male massage" services and on his Tantra4GayMen description, assumes obvious "rent boy" poses. You can't make this stuff up. But then, I get the pure rubbish from Jason Tantra, the organizer of all this sex-for-sale, who plays Lilly White, Pure Love. What? We don't have orgies! We don't have sex! When every other word out of his mouth in his videos is SEX, cock and fuck being the second runners up. But he's not selling sex services. Oh No!
In the Homoerotic
Tantra I teach, I encourage the
Tantrika to reach out to other meditation and yoga practices, to live in the world but not necessarily be of the world. In Homoerotic
Tantra the
Tantrika is not encouraged to live solely traditional
Tantra or Yoga but to carry both with him as companions on his journey and to converse with them frequently and regularly.
Finally, the term “homoerotic” as used in my program may need some explanation. While the term “homosexual” is a rather recent coinage, homoeroticism has been around since ancient times, and has found expression not only in lifestyles but also in art, music, literature. Homoeroticism is an attraction to another of the same gender, it can be physical, spiritual, or emotional, or it can be all of these. There is a mistaken notion that makes homoerotic a sensual attraction between two male individuals but that is a mistake that takes the Latin term for man, “homo”, and incorrectly combines it with the Greek term, “eros”, the avatar of “physical love” or “creativity.” The correct origin of homoerotic is etymologically, two Greek terms: “homo” or same, and “eros,” the avatar of “physical love” or “creativity”; hence, homoerotic means a sensual attraction between two persons of the same gender; in the case of Homoerotic
Tantra I specify that it is a program for gay and bisexual men.
Mascul-IN-Touch℠ is a service mark created by Gay
Daka Karuna for the homoerotic
Tantra program designed for gay and bisexual men. The term has a superficial impression that it involves masculine touch, that is, physical contact and stimulation between two or more men. While that is in part correct, there is a deeper connotation to the term: it is masculinity in touch with the divine. In line with the Left-Hand Tantric orientation of Homoerotic
Tantra the program is for gay men and does involve physical erotic rituals and practices but the essential element is that of awakening, becoming aware of, and experiencing the divine masculine spirit, and further, visualizing the divine ShivaShakti in the Tantric Lover, and the ecstasy of sacred
Maithuna, or union with the Divine in the person of the Tantric Lover.
While
Homoerotic Tantra and Mascul-IN-Touch℠ are highly spiritual and include religious elements such as ritual and liturgical practices, and are facilitated by a
daka with an advanced academic degree in theology and experience in interfaith ministry and the delivery of interfaith psychospiritual support, the program does not violate any mainstream faith or belief traditions.
Homoerotic Tantra:Mascul-IN-Touch℠ is not at odds with any Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other tradition, and the adherent or observer of those traditions need not “convert” to any spiritual, religious, or social doctrines in violation of his conscience. Homoerotic
Tantra and the Mascul-IN-Touch program were created to heal, not to compete or to traumatize the male spirit.
For more on this topic, please read my related article, "
Homoerotic Tantra: Spirituality, Religion, Church?"
Gay
Daka Karuna
May 15, 2019
Disclaimer: Homoerotic Tantra:Mascul-IN-Touch℠ is a spiritual movement and program based on the spiritual, religious, and philosophical tenets of traditional Yoga and Sanatana Dharma adapted and adopted in the service of gay and bisexual men and awakening of the divine masculine spirit. Although participants and practitioners may expect benefits, even substantial and significant benefits from the programs and practices, neither homoerotic Tantra nor the Mascul-IN-Touch℠ program are to be construed or interpreted to be intended primarily, directly or indirectly to provide physical or psychological therapy of any nature whatsoever. While some of the rituals and practices of the program may involve physical contact or “bodywork” the program does not intend to provide physical relief of any disease or physical disorder by way of therapeutic manipulation. Any physical or psychological relief of any physical or mental disorder or dysfunction is purely coincidental. The movement is fundamentally psycho-religio-spiritual and intended for the self-development of healthy, mature, adult males of a gay or bisexual orientation, who voluntarily enter the program and accept its offerings on an at-will basis. Any gifts received, whether in kind, goods or services, or money, are donations made at the discretion of the donor and do not represent compensation or payment for goods or services received; donations are given and received solely on that understanding.
Before telling him I could not accept him as a client, I reviewed several yama-s and niyama-s with him, particularly those that concerned doing no harm, truthfulness, and reality. I told him that he should never deceive or lie about anything, because it could come back with disastrous consequences. I continued that I had serious reservations about his character and maturity. If he were indeed married, why had he married? And if he were married to such a person as the wife he described, how could he live in such an oppressive situation. I told him further that I would not conduct my affairs like a fugitive or a criminal; that was impossible. Nor could I participate in his deceptions. In short, I could not work with him under such conditions.
One thing to this guy’s credit: he was tenacious. He asked if we could drop all the spirituality stuff and just be friends with benefits. I couldn’t believe my ears so I asked him to clarify.
His answer was no less surprising than his previous statements: “We can meet and have sex.” Then he suggested the coming Saturday, because his wife would be out “apple picking” and there’d be time and a place to meet.
He texted me that evening with a couple of provocative statements: “I want to talk to you dirty” and “I want to f**k you when we meet next time.” I told him to think about what I had said at our meeting.
Two days later, I received a text: “I thought long and hard about this. I don’t want this relationship and I don’t want to commit adultery. I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with you but I just don’t want to be an unfaithful husband to my wife.” A bit late for that, I’d say.
So, that is the story of a young “bicurious” man, who is between a rock and a hard place: he does not want to be unfaithful but wants sex with men. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?
He doesn’t want a structured “relationship” that requires openness because his wife might find out and “not understand.” Reasonable? Why not? Makes sense if you’re bicurious, I suppose.
But again, he was missing the point: It had everything to do with me. I refused to participate in his deceptions and his paranoia. I would not, could not accept him as a client because he was violating just about every ethical and behavioral principle ever taught! To have accepted him and his lifestyle would have made me a hypocrite of the worst sort.
One can only hope that my “bicurious” friend is sincere in the statement that he did not want to be unfaithful to his wife. Perhaps. But my gut feeling is that he will continue deceiving himself and his wife, and continue his casual trysts with men until he’s found out, beat up, arrested, or worse. That’s the tragedy of such situations but they are not uncommon at all. The young man’s toxic cultural conditioning has made him a paranoid, a sneak, and a liar. He’s doing nothing less than ruining his life and his character.
He reached out because he felt he needed some outlet to express his true nature but circumstances and challenges he was unwilling to resolve set him back. I can only hope that my mini-lectures and pep talks might have awakened him to some of the issues obstructing his path to self-awareness and self-realization. One can only hope.
This encounter was perhaps instructional for us both. For the young man, he received what I would hope was valuable counsel, and a second person’s insights about what he was, what he was doing, and what he might become. For me personally, it awakened me to the fact that such men are out there and pursue an alterego in the shadows, without making the call as this young man did. The incident also served to remind me of the many courageous and outspoken gay men who, like Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, to name two particularly highly visible gay men who hurled their complaint against homophobic society right into their readers’ laps, and accused them for anything evil they made of homosexuality. Indeed, writers like Hoshang Merchant, India’s most outspoken gay poet.
This experience taught yet another lesson: The young man, despite coming from a culture that shared in the birth of traditional yogic Tantra fell into the evil spell of neotantra and the promise of easy “sacred” sex. There are several practitioners in my area who offer “tantric massage,” and as I explained to my young friend, they are masseurs who do erotic massage, nothing to do with Tantra, at all, and they know nothing about yoga philosophy or Tantra science. You book time, you arrive, hand over your credit card, lie on the table, get poked in the right spot, jerked in the right place, spew, clean up, and leave. Tantra?
The take-home is this: Western culture has done a stellar job of creating a population of psychospiritual nut cases, men who are desperately seeking to become whole, to become awakened to their true selves, to express their true nature. Regrettably, they have acquiesced to being imprisoned rather than traveling the warrior path to liberation. The result is the tragedy of a young man who did what society expected him to do and now is paying the tragic consequences for his acquiescence: he lives a doubly deceitful life in a state of paranoia. He risks tragic outcomes. One of those tragic outcomes is that, if he continues on his current path, he will also do harm to his wife, an innocent bystander.
Quite frankly, it is not inconceivable that he may have demonized her in order to spare his own ego the pain of admitting what he is. That is the epitome of irresponsibility.
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