Interview with Hanna
1.You are known for bringing humour and joy into your work. What do you feel is important about this in tantra?
It is important to remember our true nature and the natural state of being which is Joy.
We tend to confuse spirituality with earnest. The Dali Lama is a joyful being, the Buddha is depicted laughing. When we feel good when all is in alignment then joy and bliss can be felt. When things are difficult and we are feeling suffering or pain, then we are not in alignment, When something feels good, keep doing it, as long as it is not infringing on others.
People learn more when they are relaxed, and life is ecstatic and joyful. When people are happy, their whole being expands, and they are inclusive of all there is. When we are able to enjoy life fully and see the playfulness in the world we inhabit, we expand to include even more, our world grows, our experience become joyous. Playful with respect to the divinity within all of us.
We do not take ourselves too seriousely or earnestly, we enjoy life to the full.
2. What do you feel tantra offers people? If people are sensitive and loving are they being “tantric” anyway?
Tantra is a practice to help people experience bliss and know oneness or unity consciousness. Tantra is the yoga of relationships. Bringing awareness and weaving energy, and sexual energy with awareness is the tantric way.
What can be more wonderful then to worship a real living god or goddess, rather then a stone or metal statue. Your love partner is seen as a divine god/dess. Laying our egos to our love partner may be hard. If we want them to become gods, then we first must treat them as gods.
Our path is the way of the heart and the path of commitment, you can have much more meaningful and deeper relationship and bigger love by working at the relationship you are in. Just as going to the gym to flex the muscles, we have exercises / meditations that enhance your love and spiritual connection with your love partner. Tantra is about being, being in the Love, Awareness & Honouring.
3. What can tantra offer to couples or singles?
Tantra offers practical practices that transform a relationship into Divine communion.
Making Love-Partners into Soul-Mates resonating on all levels harmoniously. Our singles we work with healing ourselves, experiencing deep intimacy, working with sexual sensual energy, and the ability to transcend personality issues and being in the love and ecstasy that overflows into everyday life.
Experiencing bliss and tranquillity, feeling deep gratitude to all there is. For couples we give sexual meditations that allows both to become orgasmic not only in the genitals but also experience heart orgasms and unity in the third eyes and crowns.
Yoga is an off-shoot of Tantra.
4. Are there different ways of being in relationship for men and for women?
Yes, men and women are different, equality does not mean sameness.
We are physically and emotionally different. Even in gay relationships, one partners is predominantly more masculine or feminine.
In yoga we recognise that we have both aspects of masculine and feminine in ourselves. The masculine qualities are all that is stable never changes, the feminine is all the changes. Awareness is associated with male aspect, and energy is female aspect.
Men are associated with sight, they need to look, women need to be seen. Women are associated with sound, they need to hear the lover saying : “I love you”, texting on mobile is not enough. the male base chakra, genitals is positive and sticks out, the female base chakra is receptive.
The female second and forth chakra are positive and the protrude, women have a belly and breasts. For men they are receptive in these centres. We fit together like a zip We complement each other, together we can realise that we are one, experiencing oneness with the whole universe.
A lot of women are having to sacrifice their femininity to succeed in business. Men had to give up their masculinity due to the feminist movement, they do not know how to be masculine in their power in a nourishing way, thinking that they have to deny themselves and be feminine the modern men.
Tantra allows us to claim our true selves, to accept all aspects of who me are, like diamonds, we have many aspects to our selves. In embracing all that we are, we allow others to shine and by surrendering to our love partners we en-grace ourselves finding enlightenment in this body witch is our temple. Men aspire to emptiness, women to fullness, we complement.
5. Does tantra fire the love between people and can it bring in bliss?
Tantra re-ignites love, love is all there is under all our wounding. Unconditional love is our true state. As we experience tantra, we feel love to all around us, we let our hearts grow even bigger, it is the side effects of the practices.
The process is gentle but extremely profound. Bliss happens to us, not by grasping more, you can not have more bliss like pleasure. Bliss is a state of being that unfolds gently like an opening of a flower to some and an enlightening tranquil that trickles inside of our being. The moment is all there is, time has a different dimension, 5 minutes can be experienced as 5 hours and 5 hours as 5 minutes.
These we all experienced at some stage of life, it is easily accessible during sexual intercourse in a loving relationship, where the partners boundaries suddenly dissolve and where does your body begins and ends? An altered state of consciousness where you feel at one with the universe or the love partner.
6. Are there any steps you would recommend to people to begin to open to loving in a tantric way?
Being willing the see them as divine beings, even though they may irritate you.
Treating the others as gods and goddesses, treating everyone as divine beings changes our experience. Without judgement, when we judge others we define ourselves. We can surprise ourselves by becoming graceful and royal. Making time for each other without agenda. When we give to another unselfishly, we receive multi fold.
Giving un-expectantly without a goal, means that we are in tune with what the other really desire / needs. Then time takes a different dimension, the experience is whole.
The more we let go and surrender to being in the moment, the more new we can contain the more bliss we can experience.
7. What do you feel loving relationships offer the world?
Love heals the world. The wounds of mothers who lost family, the pain others suffered. When we open to love that is all around us, Healing is the side effect of tantra.
It is up to us to allow ourselves to receive, then we would not want to inflict pain and sufferings on others. We would only wish love and healing and joy because it is the ultimate experience.
It is up to up to forgive others in pain and still send them love.
Unconditional love is when there are no conditions attached, we give and expect nothing in return, it is a joy to give, there is always more as it is in the air we breath.
Our breath connects us all. When we feel low or desperation or confusion, just remind yourselves: I am love or I embody love. I am worthy just as I am. I accept and surrender to all that I am. When we accept our bliss, ourselves, then we would let others be as they choose to be. Love is all there is.
8. For single people wishing to learn tantra are there boundaries talked about in the groups?
In our singles training, we ensure participants know when they first arrive, that tantra is primarily a spiritual path, it is about intimacy and honouring.
We work with sexual energy and awareness but NO sexual activity happens in the group sessions. We ensure participants are aware that they are here for themselves, to nurish and heal. If they need to be reflective they do not have to socialise, if they need help or a hug, then ask for it and it is always gladly given.
We find in our singles groups is they have so much playful energy and they gel as a group and have great party. They become a strong family by choice.
9. What about Tantric Marriages?
A tantric relationship is more committed then an ordinary marriage.
When the couple takes a tantric meditation they are transformed by the process, and there is no way they would choose the mediocre way after experiencing bliss and divine communion.
We offer this journey to couple who have been practicing tantric meditations with us, somehow we seem to attract committed couples, as we ourselves are the only teaching practicing married committed couple in UK and Europe . It is a process where the couples willing to commit to each other in Body, Marriage of the Body, the Marriage of the Soul, Then the outer marriage for society. Tantra is our Birth right. It is a path of enlightenment / practices of realising our true nature / potential.
To realise, is both: an awareness brought about and to make manifest. What is inherent though may be dormant – our true potential to living life in ecstatic bliss at every moment. When we are aligned, when we are in the “zone” – then everything is easy, flowing and in harmony. We feel good, joy and blissful. When we are in disharmony, finding everything is challenging, pain and suffering it is an indication that we are not in alignment, that our inner and out worlds are not in harmony.
Our feelings are indicators when we are on the right path We are born being at one with all that is, the universe, god, cosmos. We leave this world in the ultimate gesture of surrender, either resistant or peacefully. It is our souls journey on earth. We were born in this body, the temple of our souls, to inhabit, celebrate and honour this life. Life is meant to be joyous.
Bliss is the natural state of our being. Happiness and pleasure are fine, but they tend to be emanating from the ego, the grasping for more, you cannot have more bliss, it is a state of being. Bliss is a quality that contains generosity, harmony, equanimity, compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love, non judgmental acceptance, joy at all levels.
It is all embracing. Being Bliss, being Love, is a state of being. Not doing, we are human beings. Nothing to do, nothing to prove, you are perfect just as you are right now, and then changes happen, as they are natural process of evolving. In Tantra we learn to be at one with and love ourselves / others / the universe. Tantra is a relatively new world, late 18 century, it describes practices from all over the world that have been there for thousands of years. It means liberation though expansion, weaving of energy & consciousness.
Tantra enables us to be in a place of balance, where the dramas of life drop away, we suddenly have more time to enjoy life, be total with whatever we are doing, even travelling to work. Difficulties naturally dissipates. Becoming a witness, developing the witness consciousness Taking actions – Kriya means action.
We are following the path of tantra that has been based in yoga, from the Tantra Kriya yoga tradition. We are the only ones on UK teaching this way. Tantra gives us a new lease of life starting right now, without having to do good or achieve salvation. It is a science, not a belief, in fact it challenges all beliefs and their origins, i.e. being a vegetarian, I can be offered meet as part of a ritual. It is up to me to question in the moment if this is still valid to me. Do I wish or is it right for me, or was it imposed upon me as part of a cultural upbringing.
It helps us look at our choices and re-evaluate in honesty in the moment, allowing us to be spontaneous and true to our nature. Helps us reconnect with our true selves. We realise there is more to life and crave / yearn for that spiritual connection. Our memory of being connected to the source. How can we crave what we do not KNOW? It is our true nature that desires / pines for being at ONE, fully expressed. We often live in the past or the future, missing the hear and now.
The present moment is the Reality, be total in being hear and now, embrace it and it will alter your future reality. The more we let go and surrender, accepting, the more new we can let in. The more we hold on to the past, hurt, the more it holds us from living magnificently. The more you let go, the more you receive.
The more bliss we can share. 2 ways of seeing others / ourselves: 1. what we project onto others ; 2. The true essence of our being. What we inhabit and capable of. The others being our mirror reflecting to us, what we have in ourselves. If we see a goddess and desire to be like him/her, then we can only recognise this because we have it in ourselves. How can we truly know something we have not experienced? What we crave /pine for is what we truly are. Tantra Kriya Yoga = The way of the heart = the path of commitment (to the love partner / to oneself) Advaita, the oneness ( non dual)
The paradox is that The One needs to experience itself through duality, it can not experience itself as it is One!