Tantric poetry may not be something you are familiar with but there is a long tradition of it reaching back to the 12th century in India and Kashmir. The poems in this collection stand in this tradition of mystical poetesses and seers such as Lalla and Akka,
The poems express direct, lived experiences of tantra understood in the traditional sense – as a deeply sensual intimacy and intercourse with the Divine. Though many of the poems are quite erotic the primary medium of this intercourse is not the sexuality of the physical body but that of the soul and its body. This is our body of sensual, feeling awareness, inwardly felt, shape-shifting, connecting us with the depth of the Great Mother Mahakali’s womb, with the heights of pure awareness that are Shiva, and with the universe that is the fruit of their union.
The book also gives comprehensive instructions for those who might want to engage in tantric meditation themselves.
If you want a copy and but don’t want to order from the US, you can also order one from me by e-mail (£7.90 + £1.95p&p, U.K. only).
With warm regards
Karin
When I first met Peter in 1986 at a reading of a play by his sister Sonja Linden, I could never have imagined the nature of the learning that would follow and the experiences we would share.
It was the second year of my training as a Biodynamic Psychotherapist, which I had begun in Germany. In January 86 I had come to London to continue my training at the Gerda Boyesen Centre. The training was wonderful and magical, but almost wholly experiential. That meant that much of what went on was neither explained nor taught in any theoretical or philosophical framework that would have given it structure or placed it in a larger historical and spiritual context. However, ‘magical’ does not mean that there are no explanations or deeper meaning - and I was searching.
Talking with Peter that August afternoon I realised that here was someone whose values where similar to mine, who understood my questions and had things to share that were as new for me as they were exciting, helping me to make sense of experiences that had baffled me.
Peter introduced me to the Seth books by Jane Roberts, which gave me answers to many of the questions I had thought there were no answers to which I could accept. They dealt, among many other things, with lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiencing and also with having found myself speaking in an unknown language, all of which Peter, - who called the language Sumari - had been practicing with others, and writing on since the seventies. I too, began to use Sumari to express experiences for which I didn’t have the words in English or German. However, I found, as Peter had done, that once written down in Sumari, the Sumari itself could be meaningfully translated by letting its sounds resonate within me.
Peter also introduced me to a form of pair meditation he had discovered and cultivated over many years, one which he felt it of the highest importance to share, and which we practiced together over many years. It was through this and Sumari that we came to see and communicate with each other as souls and not just as persons. I have learnt to see and feel the many faces and shapes the soul can take, to shape-shift its bodily form. Along with many other forms of meditational practices developed over the decades, and the experiences we shared through them - both together and with others - pair meditation has deepened and enriched our relationship to an immeasurable degree. Sumari served both as a medium of this inner soul-body communication and as a way of expressing it. Many a poem was written in that way and some of them had images that were most surprising to me and which, in turn, inspired drawings and paintings.
Over the decades since we met, Peter and I have shared and discussed many experiences of awareness, all of which contributed to the evolution of The New Yoga. I have often been the first to apply new principles and practices of awareness that Peter has developed in my own work as a psychotherapist – learning how to listen in a deep way, how to use my soul body to inwardly sense and respond to others, how to relate in a meditative way, how to introduce a ‘spiritual’ dimension to therapy in a rationally grounded manner - and much more. Today, ‘Education in Awareness’ is a central aspect of my work. Through it I teach clients the basic principles and practices of The New Yoga of Awareness. These have had such a positive impact on those people who are open to new ways of thinking that I hope in time other therapists will also use these wonderful and revolutionary ways of relating to oneself and others.
Little did I anticipate at the start just what impact Peter's spiritual qualities and his knowledge would have on my life, professional work and creative endeavours. It would never have entered my mind that I would also be graced with direct experiences of the reality of the Divine Awareness (Shiva) and its power (Shakti) through meditation and pair meditation; that I would come to perceive in Peter the divine face of Shiva and receive His grace through him; that I would come to feel my body shifting shape and becoming the Goddess with her serpent-hood; that I would experience the true meaning of ‘tantra’ - or that I would be bestowed with vitality, insight and healing through murti darshan – sitting in worshipful meditation before Mahadeva Shiva and Mahadevi Kali. For when I met Peter my inclination was, like others whose early ‘religious’ education was off-putting, rather agnostic.
Without Peter’s work – ‘The Work’ and its inner sources in Awareness - none of this would have been possible. Nor would the principles and practice of that work have been able to evolve in the way it did without me not only being Peter’s student but also his principal meditational partner in developing its practices. In that sense, the work is a creative expression of the relationship - just as the relationship is a proof of the work’s value in creatively sustaining and deepening all relationships.
The hard work of not only taking in concepts that are mind-bogglingly new and revolutionary, but also of continuously practicing The New Yoga has been worth it and still is –besides so often being great and playful fun. That is not to say I find it easy to continuously practice or abide in awareness. Nor do I find it easy to take in radical new ideas in a meditative as well purely intellectual way. As a result, I have probably learnt a lot slower than could have been possible. But then, besides being tenacious by nature, I have the added benefit of many years of rich experiences of The New Yoga, both from its earliest beginnings and in all its dimensions – theoretical, therapeutic, theological, political and tantric – and so myself have much to share.
I have also taken on the spiritual responsibility for an important practical dimension of the work – that of technically implementing almost all of Peter’s website designs and maintaining and managing their content so as to keep them in the public domain - not to mention preparing the manuscripts of ten of Peter’s books for publication - and there are a lot more to come!
For ‘The New Yoga’ is and never will be a ‘finished product’ but is an on-going adventure in awareness and thought, one which Peter and I will continue to follow as partners in that adventure, as well as welcoming all who join us in it. Our partnership is a medium of aware action and relating in dedication to the Divine Awareness, personified in the partnership of Shiva and Kali – Mahadev’.
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