by Elodia Thallon

From 28th December until 2nd January people from all over Europe gathered at Natha’s new yoga centre to participate in a camp dedicated to tantra and in particular to the practical application of tantric teachings in the daily life. The theme of the camp was “Polarity: The secret of effective transformation in life.”

Dimmed candle light penetrates the windows of a hall in the courtyard of Nordre Fasanvej 230; passionate music fills the air, enticing you to approach. Something is definitely happening here, something which seems very different to how most people in Denmark spend their Christmas holiday. Observing this place from the outside it would appear that my expectations of how it must be to celebrate the new year in a tantric environment are met, but there is only one way to find out what is really going on…

I step inside and am greeted by two beautiful hostesses. After signing in and being guided to my sleeping quarters on the 4th floor, I hastily descend and enter the hall which had so aroused my curiosity upon arrival. I walk in to another world.

Large paintings of ethereal women and passionately entwined couples are mounted on high walls draped with red and golden fabrics, people recline over colourful cushions, yoga mats and each other, and at the far end of the room a high altar bears a huge statue of Shiva Nataraja, performing his cosmic dance above us all. In this large, high ceiling-ed space they have managed to create an intimate, temple-like atmosphere, which awakes within my being a magical feeling of possibility. My sentiments are mirrored in those around me, whose states of happiness and elation are obvious, their smiles and laughter are infectious and help me comfortably ease into this new environment.

This year Natha Yogacenter moved its annual New Year’s Camp to Nørrebro, Copenhagen, to a location which is being touted as the home of one of the most ambitious spiritual projects ever undertaken in Denmark, and maybe even in the whole of Northern Europe. It is an enterprise between a range of different spiritual projects in which the main pillar is Natha – Scandinavia’s foremost school of tantra and yoga, which has gained the trust of the public and media alike as the authority on the original teachings of tantra and yoga.

“People who are interested in yoga or tantra visit us from all over the globe to find out what it is all about. They come to follow the courses or workshops, or they come to get alternative advice concerning their relationships, their sexual problems or other personal and spiritual issues or how to cure severe health situations and diseases. Or they simply just come to have a good time and to drink a cup of tea,” explains Emanuel, a member of the project group for the renovation of Concordia, as Natha’s new location is already aptly named.

Natha’s Tantric New Year’s Camp was a test project to find out how the space could be best exploited and organised before the actual opening of the centre, which will take place in May.

A unique thing about Natha’s tantric camps is the way the ancient tantric teachings are made accessible for the modern day man and woman. The teachers, Mihai and Adina Stoian – who have many years of experience in dealing with polarity – succeed time and time again to put the tantric teachings into practice, transforming high tantric principles and ideas into a field of individual spiritual experiences.

“When we read a book presenting the tantric teaching from a feminine point of view a man will feel thrilled and refreshed by it. It could be the revelation of his life. A woman on the other hand might find it inspiring or interesting but never more than that because it is already in her nature to be like this. The path of tantra looks very different for the man and the woman,” Mihai explains.

Polarity: creating attraction and dynamism

The title of this camp was: ‘Polarity: The secret of effective transformation in life.’

After a meditation to open the event, Mihai announced that for the next two days men and women should remain separate, refraining from all forms of communication and contact in order to build up polarity. During this time of separation we were to develop polarity within our own being in order to get to know ourselves better, thus enabling us to then be better able to polarise members of the opposite sex. I got the distinct feeling that this process didn’t sit too well with some of the participants and to top it all off, we would end the separation with a day of silence. To anybody not already in the know, it was immediately evident that tantra goes much deeper than its popularly associated depictions of the iconic Kama Sutra and its sexual positions. With an objective like transformation, it was sure that this camp was going to provide us with those challenges which arise through the processes of spiritual growth.

Polarity can be defined as the relationship between two terms which have the highest degree of opposition possibile and at the same time they condition each other, like the poles of a magnet, and it is one of the laws upon which the universe is built. As such, it is a cornerstone in the successful understanding and application of the teachings of tantra. Personally, I had always taken this notion for granted, considering it only insofar as those opposing forces of plus and minus, positive and negative, yang and yin, etc. What unfolded for me in the next six days far exceeded any expectations I had ever had of exploring this topic. I have quickly come to realise that the law of polarity is grossly misunderstood and wrongly underutilised by today’s society, which is the direct result of its being kept secret by few who have understood its importance in the life of the human being. Hence my seriously skewed view upon the subject.

By creating the right circumstances and by helping people to focus on the details of a subject, the participants seemed to open up to this new ‘tantric’ way of experiencing themselves, in accordance with their own pace and abilities, of course.

Here’s how newcomer, Peter felt about his experience: “Being a total beginner in this new world of tantra, what I learned most from this camp is how polarity between the genders really works. A person like me coming from the street is used to hearing all the time about equality between the sexes, but I realised that tantra goes beyond these preconceptions of our society and goes into depth with how things are in reality. After I gave up my own limited understanding about polarity I realised that when we appreciate the differences and specific qualities of being a man or a woman we create power, dynamism and attraction between us and not discrimination and conflict. This was a big revelation to me.”

One of the people involved with running the camp, and a seasoned tantric practitioner, Mironel , “The camp was very practical and straight as far as building polarity, both in the couple relationship, but also inside your own being. It was more about the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ about polarity compared to previous camps.”

To experience with awareness

During our time of separation the women had their lectures in one location while the men had theirs elsewhere. Amongst the many aspects about femininity which were discussed, the women learnt that even if they are incredibly curious about what is being discussed amongst the men, it is, quite frankly, none of their business and a curiosity as such only serves to their detriment, because, as Mihai explained, women have to stop their unconscious process of scattering themselves by being more interested in what’s going on in the lives of others, and instead they should focus their energy on themselves, getting to know themselves intimately and honestly.

These statements resonated strongly with me, bringing to attention the ease with which I get distracted by the external world, and how much energy I waste living other people’s lives. A shocking revelation to say the least! Fortunately there is a remedy for this innate tendency of the woman, to polarise herself through awareness. Mihai enlightened us on the subject, by explaining that women have the tendency to live their lives through experience, while men tend to live through awareness. This sounds all very black and white, but looking closely at the reality, I began to understand that this is indeed true. I could see how women embrace reality more through emotional involvement – experience - whereas men have a tendency to stand back from situations and observe them – awareness. Given that we are looking at these aspects from the point of view of polarity, the point is then to harmonise ourselves by balancing these two aspects within our being.

Lisa shares with us her experience of this: “During the camp I became more and more aware of how my unbalances are due to lack of polarisation and how simply by putting awareness on the problem – which is what women have to learn mostly – things are changing immensely. I feel very intimate with myself when I become aware that I am, and this greatly affects my connection to others. I feel more centered and secure and I can meet them from the heart. I feel that when I step out a bit I become more calm and can contain the whole situation intimately in my heart. And also the experience becomes more rich when I am not passionately rushing along with my feeling of it without really being aware of it.”

Holger explains further: “We were told how the masculine nature functions compared with the feminine one. Basically it is all about the ability to become aware and the ability to experience. For women it’s easy to experience life, it’s simply in their nature, but it is more difficult to become aware of what they experience and to remember it afterwards. As for us men we are naturally endowed with awareness and the ability to remember what we are about, but we are challenged when it comes to the art of experiencing life through our senses.”

One of the exercises for the men was therefore to experience their physical body and their breathing. Holger: “I have begun to notice how I very often put myself in bodily position which I honestly do not like or do not find comfortable. Or food which I usually consider delicious was not that delicious when I focused on the taste of it, instead of being in my mind! I learned somehow to become more intimate with myself and with the experience of myself.”

To find out more about what was going on in the arena of the masculine, I asked Mironel. He said: “The highlight of the advice for the men was to learn to live really by principles. This is what is building up polarity inside men. To orient every action that you take towards a fixed principle, this will build up a strong centre inside,” When asked what could be such a principle and what is your principle, he explained, “Well I even asked Mihai about what was his principle to get an idea myself. And he said that now he lives by the principle of love and that every action he takes should come from the heart, from love, but it had not been like that always. He had other principles before, like self-improvement and that then every action he took was to improve himself. By this I understood that the principle has to be practically applicable in your life. So right now my principle is self-giving and to help others. That every action I take must be to help other people in one way or another.”

Developing intimacy with ourselves

On the fourth day of the camp we did a technique for developing the state of intimacy. This involved sitting opposite another person, preferably of the opposite sex, and with eyes closed to awaken a state of intimacy within ourselves and then to take this state and to expand it in order to experience intimacy with the one before us and with our surroundings. A seemingly simple technique, this experience awoke a very profound state of consciousness inside of me. Afterwards I perceived a strong feeling of being unified with everyone in the room, quite literally as if we were one. I could then see from this new perspective how my usual state of consciousness is so full of illusion, how I am living with a false sense of separation from my environment and from everyone else. I could see how all my confusions, doubts, problems etc arise because of this false sense of separation. In these precious moments following the technique, I felt that we are all united in one sphere of consciousness which I knew then that this is really all that exists.

About admiration and adoration

Another way in which the game of polarity was explored in the camp was through the game of admiration and adoration. On the final night of the camp we performed a simple tantric ritual which was created to help the men learn to adore the women and the women to adore the men. The natural tendency is for men to admire women and women to adore men, therefore in order for each of us to better polarise ourselves and others we need to find the balance between these two aspects by learning to embrace that aspect which doesn’t come so easily to us. Therefore the ritual focused on the men’s adoration of the women and the women’s admiration of the men. Through the specific spheres of force of the Mahavidya, the 10 fundamental aspects of God, who are also known as The 10 Great Cosmic Powers, we were able to explore these notions of adoration and admiration. The women dressed themselves up as goddesses and then proceeded to select lots to decide which Maha Vidya they would be supported by for this ritual and also for the coming year. Then the men selected the same lots to decide which goddess they would adore, and they took their place before Her. After performing the ritual of adoration the men stood in a circle facing outwards and the women stood before them, and the practice of admiration took place.

Bibiana explains her take on adoration and admiration: “Sometimes the woman steals the initiative from the man, simply because he is too slow,” she laughs. “We as women have to learn to admire the man much more, which means giving him compliments, reflecting and consciously seeing the nature of his actions. We naturally adore him more than we admire him by following our first impulses blindly, and even though it looks beautiful from the outside, we are like flowers, not very aware of what we are doing!”

Mironel sees the situation like this: “My lover obviously adores me a lot. She’s the one cleaning and preparing for me before I arrive home, or putting small letters in my shoes. Very beautiful. It’s not so often though that she gives me compliments about things and so on. I on the other hand obviously admire her more than I adore her. Like telling her, ‘you really transformed from what you did there. Or since you started that action I see you changing very much in this and that way’. Yet there is nothing which makes her melt more than when I bring her chocolate and flowers or some other small surprise.”

From the outset it was obvious that my new year’s experience in Concordia was going to be something extraordinary. Personally I don’t believe that words can do justice to such an experience. The age old adage that tantra adheres to, ‘a gram of practice equals a ton of theory’ comes to mind. It doesn’t matter how much you hear, see or read on the topic, only by becoming involved and putting tantra into practice do you begin to understand what it’s all about. So, what really goes on at a tantric new year’s camp? There’s only one way to find out…

The future of a tantric school

What about the future? How does the future look for a school which is somehow challenging some basic belief systems and values in our society? I asked Sahajananda Porslund the PR executive of Natha Yogacenter about the future of a tantric school:
“The school (Natha) is developing rapidly. It is going through a period of expanding transformations and as such following the enormous growing interest for yoga, tantra and spiritual knowledge in our society. I think we will see ten times as many people active in our school within the next five years alone, and if it is so I am very happy that we have now got a much bigger place to serve this need.”

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