Tantric Festival, 1st - 9th of July 2006 – reportage from Bhoga Ashram
- Pictures and reportage from Bhoga Ashram

The summercamps of Natha Yogacenter have in 5 years become a successful tradition celebrating the teachings of yoga and tantra. Again this year Natha Yogacenter presented a generous and well-coordinated spiritual program with a lot of variety and new extraordinary initiations. Natha.net had their reporter in the field contemplating the vibes from the summercamps in Bhoga Ashram. The first one was the Tantric Festival.

Welcome to the Tantric Festival
The sun is merciless heating my small airodynamic survival tent, which in this condition resembles a human pressure-boiler more than anything else. Sweaty and half-nude I am rolling out in the green field under a new shinning blue sky.
It’s the third day of the Tantric Festival and the camp-site is already full of activity. People practising yogic postures naked in the grass, camp-organisers running around placing water buckets between the tents – orders from the fire-department I guess – and in the distant:  singing birds and humming bees intertwisted with human noise from a kitchen and the recognizable sounds of a woman in ecstasy. Welcome to Tantric Festival.

Celebration of the Divine Feminine
The third day is consecrated to the Great Cosmic Power Tripura Sundari: “The Great Cosmic Power TRIPURA SUNDARI represents the manifestation of Divine goodness, grace, love, beauty, truth and harmony”, I read in the generous brochure for the annual International Yoga Symposium 2006 which this year consist of no less than four different yoga camps: 10 days of Tantric Festival, 6 days of Art Camp, 7 days of Silent Retreat and 7 days of Hatha Yoga Camp.
The Tantric festival this year was dedicated to celebrate the essential tantric teachings about the Eternal Feminine, or Shakti, and each day was dedicated to study and experience one of the Ten Great Cosmic Enlightening Visions or Feminine Powers, whom together dwells like a 10-faced temple in the center of the secret tantric doctrine. (Read more about the Great Cosmic Powers. See the link in the bottom.)

Each day a new universe unfolds
So on this third day for example the participants were told to be attentive to when and where and how the essential qualities of beauty, love and harmony enter their experience of reality, and how these aspects was reflected inside their own being.
Entering the dinning hall on the third day after the morning program with a lecture and a meditation on the power of beauty, truth and harmony , everything seemed luminously more present as if reflecting a hidden power of life, passionately vibrating with dazzling beauty from deep within the atoms of my surroundings.

People around me seemed mysteriously more happy and joyful than the day before, where the study of Shakti concerned compassion and self-sacrifice, and indeed asking around, people was more happy and joyful!
 Compared to the meeting with other of the Great Cosmic Powers who was either ‘confronting us with the terrible force of time’, ‘bathing us in the grace of endless compassion’, ‘empowering us with infinite courage’, or the ‘capacity for self-sacrifice’, ‘fascinating radiance’, ‘sublime vacuity’, ‘expressive playfulness’ or ‘intoxicating harmony’ et cetera. (ed: inspired by Natha Yogacenters camp-program.)
 
The power of the eternal feminine seemed to mark some of the people in the festival forever with a deep trust, that indeed reality contains a hidden divine power colouring our entire perspective and perception of Life.

Experiences of the participants
Even people who had not participated to such a spiritual event before describe extraordinary spiritual experiences and inner transformations:
 “I felt most easy resonance with Tripura Sundari, but the day of Chinnamasta I felt big transformation happened. I felt my Heart opened towards a person with whom I´ve had difficulties to come along with. I felt transformation deep in my heart in a situation when she had difficulties and I ended up being on her side helping like best friends do. I was amazed because I had been working with this relationship for a long time before and suddenly…” (W)

“ […] All the cosmic powers made a very strong impression on me because of Mihais wonderful presentations. On the day of Chinnamasta I experienced such an anger so powerful, that I felt the world was moving around me. It was very strong and even a bit violent. I was not able to solve it in the same day, though it transformed everything. Only 2 days later these feelings desolved, like dark clouds disappear and I believe I never will experience them in this kind of tormenting way again.” (W)

“I had a ‘void’ experience for 2 days. I was extremely introverted and acted as if from the backseat. Interaction with the world demanded certain extra efforts. I could perceive my surroundings quiet well, but it felt somehow ‘two dimensional’ and not fundamental. As I write this there still exists in my being an expansion towards the void. Im extra relaxedness inside, plus a little bit of a blue feeling.” (M)
“All the Cosmic Powers produced a good day, building on each other cumulatively. Don’t really think of them as separate, but more in various combinations, as tools to help achieving the goal of removing internal limitations that would produce negative effects.” (W)

From the yoga practice in the morning and during the different activities and workshops until the end of the day, the participants were invited to stay attentive and perceive the mysterious influence of the specific energy of todays Cosmic Power.
 
In this way the camp program was somehow on-going 24 hrs, since all actions – also the social activities: trips to the beach nearby, football games, enjoying the sunset or sunrise, lovemaking, the vegetarian meals, individual meditation, partying or intimate talks around the evening fire - was deeply affected by the spiritual field of the camp.   

Generous and multi-colored activities
The presentation of the Ten Great Cosmic Powers was surrounded by other supplementary activities related to the Cosmic Power of the day: Every day there was workshops with different themes such as “Awakening of the senses” and “Worshipping Shiva, the supreme Consciousness”.
There was arranged different entertainments and shows such as “Tantric Talkshow” where the teachers of Natha Yogacenter had dared to set up a thorough presentation of the fundamental tantric teaching about ‘sexual continence’ as a daring and entertaining talkshow, with erotic shows, live music and interviews with a variety of dancers, musicians and tantra-teachers about their experiences with the tantric way of life.

Playing with the erotic energy
On special significant moments the participants was also invited to try out the practical implications of erotic tantra in special synchronised lovemaking sessions, where couples met in their own private space (tents or rooms) and made love at the same time and in this way creating a special tantric field of energy.
Also the tantric technique of the avalanche effect for sublimating the erotic energies, where the men gathered and went to the beach, while the women met in the garden, was a great success:
 “In the lovemaking during the camp, I felt deep states of surrender and opened to feel overwhelming states of dynamic harmony between Shiva and Shakti.” (W)

“In the exercise on the Tripura Sundari day in the garden during the ritual with mudras, I felt with my partner more elevated, close-connected and lifted than for a long time, even more powerful than in lovemaking.” (W)

Several times  I felt close connected to my husband… just spontaneously…also I felt he showed me with his eyes that he loves me. (W)
"My most intimate meeting was the meditation with the Shaktis (women) surrounding the Shiva Lingam in the garden after the first synchronized lovemaking." (W)

The miraculous workshop
One of the most popular workshops was the “The law of miracles – a practical application of Divine Grace” which had to be extended with an extra workshop the last day due to many requests.  Many of the people which I spoke with after was deeply touch and excited about the law of miracles and found here a profound spiritual experience:

“The miracle workshop was very good. I consecrated very carefully and I got ‘answers’”. (M)

”It was wonderful to understand  the mechanism of miracles, and to have clarity around it. In the meditation I perceived everything as light, it was amazing…These two subjects [the other: the art of giving] touch me most because I felt in my Soul that these are ‘urgent’ and inspiring and something to put into practise right a way…” (W)

”I was able to let go of a pain I had carried with me for a long time. I felt completely melting and my heart became alive, for real! This was overwhelming; nothing was the same anymore. Such a letting go, and the miracle started to realize immediately…” (W)
”The applied miracle technique gave me results: 3 hours after the technique, as my wish for a miracle started to unfold in a very obvious and clear way. I wished for a cheap apartment in Cph, which could be a spiritual base for me and those I love. At the dinner Maria asked if anyone was interested in an apartment in Cph!!! And it is very likely I will get…” (M)

The Brahmarandra Spiral
In the last weekend the Tantric Festival opened up for newcomers as the annual Brahmarandra Spiral Meditation and the final celebrating party took place. Natha Yogacenter is famed for these spiral meditations and also this year the spiritual field which had been build up in the festival during the past 9 days reached its spiritual climax in this event.

“The Brahmarandra spiral was for me the most profound. I felt transformed to a closer union with the absolute and a resonance with the entire universe.”  (M)

 “Inviting God into our hearts before the Brahmarandra spiral and the void meditation: After this it feels like God stay behind me, and is there to advice me and speak with me all the time.” (W)

“The Brahmarandra spiral was a great experience for me. I felt in the beginning a inner spiritual struggle where I was confronted was the lord of all darkness. I was staring into his eyes and around me was his kingdom, it was very frightening and I started to emit a special mantra (Phowa mantra) and after few attempts he disappear. It was like I went up into a very elevated state and was absorbed by the divine light where I stayed the rest of the spiral.” (M)

Reportage by Sahajananda,  natha.net.

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