Our Tantric Path: Embracing Madness & The Unknown

This is where life starts to expand in all directions. We can begin with what we know... but what about everything else? What about the things we haven't even fathomed? What else is possible that might be right around the corner? Let's explore the possibilities of a limitless world.

Transcript

So today we're continuing our series called our Tantric Path.

And today it's all about embracing madness and the unknown.

So why is this interesting?

Why is this helpful in our lives?

And what does it have to do with Tantra?

A lot of us have been given very small boxes to live in.

We really believe that we have a particular role that we're supposed to play.

And it could be something even as simple as,

I am the peacekeeper of the family.

I am the breadwinner of the family.

I am the crazy artist of the family.

I'm the black sheep of the family.

I'm the successful one.

I'm the number one son who must do everything right.

It could be something like that.

It could be our role in the world.

Or it could be that I have to be a professional.

The only kind of job that's acceptable for me is something in the corporate realm where I am important and I'm a manager or something or an owner.

Or maybe the box is that you have to have children and you have to be married and you have to look a certain way because this is intrinsic to how society works,

Don't you know?

I remember when I was traveling.

In 2018 I gave everything away and I was just traveling and people would ask me,

Well,

When are you coming back?

And I'd say,

Well,

I don't know.

I had no end date.

I was just traveling.

And they said,

Yeah,

But I mean,

Your kids are of an age that they could start having children.

Like you want to be around for that,

Don't you?

So even the concept of being a grandmother,

There's a box for that.

Here's what a grandmother does.

Here's what a grandmother looks like.

Here's how a grandmother acts.

I'll bet probably three or four people said that to me when I was traveling before I finally just looked at them and said,

Well,

What if I'm the grandmother that's always flying in from Portugal or who maybe takes the kids on fun trips?

Why am I the grandmother that lives down the road and babysits and brings pie?

So it's really interesting to look at the boxes we live in,

Even the ones that we think are fine.

Well,

I like being that grandmother.

I don't know what she's talking about.

Nothing wrong with being that grandmother,

Right?

Nothing wrong with having a pile of babies,

Nothing wrong with a corporate job.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them,

But to recognize it's a box.

And the challenge is,

It is an infinite world out there.

And again,

This is about a tantric path.

There's a million ways to live our life.

We can do anything we want.

We can spend this time any way we want.

But this talk is about living a tantric life.

And living a tantric life means to embrace our divinity and our physical life,

To embrace the infinite possibilities of life within this physical incarnation.

So then suddenly,

Are boxes a good idea in a tantric life?

Because again,

The question is,

Where did these boxes come from?

Are they yours?

And again,

A box isn't a preference.

It's not just that,

Oh,

Well,

I like reading and being quiet and having a really quiet life and I just like to be on my own.

This is a preference.

This is a way,

This is maybe part of who I am.

This is my satya.

But there's no box around it.

It's just something I like to do.

I love to paint.

I love to dance.

I love to have sex.

I love coffee.

I love whatever.

That's not a box.

But it's a box if you can't do anything else.

If you can't actually imagine doing anything else.

Even this idea of that I love to paint.

A lot of people don't do anything artistic,

Don't do anything athletic,

Don't do anything musical,

Don't do anything at all like that.

Because well,

I'm not,

I don't really have any talent there.

So now there's a box.

I can't paint.

I can't sing.

I can't play an instrument because I don't have any talent.

That's a box.

Who cares if you have talent?

That's not the point.

If you grow up in cultures like even in Eastern Canada where everybody plays something in the kitchen.

Someone's got a guitar.

Someone's got a fiddle.

Someone's got the spoon.

Someone's just beating the counter.

Whatever or somebody's singing or somebody's dancing or somebody's doing something.

It's not about talent.

It's about just expression and joy.

So we have a lot of very funny boxes that really,

Really limit us.

And so madness,

What we would call madness in quotes and the unknown,

These are the cure for these boxes.

So we're just going to go back in history a little bit about where Tantra even came from.

Because historically,

Like when I first started teaching Tantra,

I was under the idea,

Because this is what I would read in the books,

Is that Tantra,

The Tantrics were rebels.

They were mad.

They were insane.

They were always coming into towns and causing trouble and upending the apple carts and having sex in the center and eating meat and doing things that no one was allowed to do.

And they were crazy.

And I thought,

Well,

That's okay.

Because I think the world's a little crazy.

I think we live according to a lot of really insane rules that are really limiting as a human being.

And for me,

This is really personal because my tendency is to be a rule follower.

My tendency is to be the peacekeeper.

My tendency is to try to do the right thing all the time.

It's like one of my greatest fears is to do the wrong thing,

To make a mistake.

So the idea of these Tantrics coming in and doing the opposite,

Being crazy,

That appealed to me because I think my brain was so locked in these boxes,

I needed some madness to break out of it.

It was a very personal thing.

So I liked those stories.

That made a lot of sense to me.

And so I happily taught that for years.

And then I found out about 4,

000 years ago when the caste system was installed in India.

Because of course,

A lot of the Tantra we talk about began,

It didn't really begin in India,

But that tends to be where we talk about it.

It's a lot of question as to where it really began.

What was really interesting is,

All they knew was a group of people called the Aryans came out of the North.

Nobody had any idea where they came from.

But they came out of the North and they considered themselves closest to God.

So they called themselves the Brahmins.

Because Brahma,

Brahman,

Is the all-encompassing God consciousness within the Hindu idea,

Or the Vedic ideas.

And so they said,

They came in and they were like,

We are the Brahmins.

We are like the priest class.

We are the elite.

We are closest to God.

It's interesting that history books are written by the victors.

And so it's actually hard to find this because everything is written from the other perspective.

All we knew is,

Oh,

The Kiss is the caste system.

And you were born into a different caste based on what you've done in the past,

Based on your karma.

But what these people did is they came in and they conquered the local people,

Who it was mostly indigenous tribes,

People who had goddess worship,

And they were very close to the land.

This was all over the world.

This is basically like the first colonialism in India before the Brits came in.

So this came in and then they installed the second level because they needed people to protect them.

So this is where they installed the government and the militia to support them.

Then they brought in the white collar workers,

Essentially the doctors,

The merchants,

The teachers,

Whoever.

And then basically the manual laborers were the fourth caste and the blue collar workers.

And then the untouchables were basically everyone who was of no value to them.

Well Tantra had already existed before the invention of the caste system.

And the Tantrics,

Of course,

Were like,

Say what?

You can't just go along and say this person's above another person.

And of course,

Women no longer had any rights.

And the Tantrics were like,

Oh,

Nothing wrong with women.

Women are intelligent,

Close to God,

All kinds of stuff,

Just like the men are.

And the Brahmins were like,

No,

No,

No.

The women must work.

They must toil.

They must cook.

They must take care of the children.

They have no rights.

And the Tantrics were like,

No.

And so the Tantrics weren't actually crazy madmen on women.

They were simply people saying,

No,

That's not okay.

It's not okay that you've created boxes that people have to live in.

That's not okay,

Because that's not why we're here.

That's not why we're alive.

That's not why we were born onto this planet,

To live in a box like a robot.

We are infinite beings.

We are one with the universe.

We are one with God.

There are no boxes.

There are no levels.

There are no rules.

You can't impose this on us.

So the Tantrics were considered,

Of course,

And written up in history as the rebels who would go against the societal norms.

This made even more sense to me.

And of course,

This also helps us with our definition of madness.

Because what constitutes madness?

And I'm not talking about mental illness here.

I'm talking about when a society says,

Here's the right way,

And here's the wrong way.

And if you do things in the wrong way,

You're crazy.

You're mad.

They're not talking about mental illness here.

It's crazy.

Well,

Who says?

Who says it's madness?

The madness we're talking about is the madness that feels completely in line with our satya,

Our truth,

But other people consider mad.

It's so interesting.

But just to go back to this caste thing for a minute,

Because it's really important for each of us to ask ourselves,

Do I believe that I am in a particular caste?

And you don't have to be in India.

This system,

This energy,

This paradigm was installed all over the world,

Predominantly through colonialism.

But it's all over the world.

It's in the big world religions.

It's in those.

Do you believe that you belong in a certain level of the world?

Do you believe that you are a Brahmin?

I am all that,

A bag of chips.

I mean,

It's important.

I'm making fun,

But to really be clear,

Do you believe that's you and that people should serve you?

This is seen more in the elite classes and that kind of thing in the secular world.

Do you believe that you're in charge,

Like you're sort of that government militia,

You're the enforcer all the time?

Do you believe that you can only be in a white collar job?

Anything else would be beneath you.

And maybe if you're a white collar worker,

You're a doctor,

You're a teacher,

You're whatever,

Maybe you don't believe you could be anything else,

Higher or lower.

Or if you come from a family of blue collar workers,

Do you believe that you could be anything else?

I had a really good friend in high school and they had,

They were Greek and they were Macedonian really,

But they had a Greek restaurant.

My friend would fight with his dad all the time because my friend wanted to be rich.

He wanted to be wealthy.

He didn't want to just work in that restaurant.

And he and his dad would battle it out all the time because his dad would say,

No,

This is your calling.

There's nothing wrong with working hard,

Working with your hands.

There's nothing wrong with serving the people.

My friend would be like,

But I don't want to.

It never really resolved.

And my friend went on to study business in school and got his MBA and became a millionaire and did all that stuff.

But there was a real box that his dad wanted him to live in with him.

Not because he didn't love him or anything else.

It was just that this is what we do.

This is our family.

This is our clan.

And then imagine the untouchables.

Those who don't belong to any of those sort of air quote useful levels of society.

The untouchables can be considered people who can't work because they have illness or they are unstable.

It could be children.

It could be seniors.

It could be any minority that's been relegated to some fate.

Do you believe that's you?

That you could never actually rise out of that?

Because if we're born into that belief system,

That I'll never be good for anything.

I've screwed up every single thing and I just keep attracting bad relationships and I can't keep a job and I can't get my mental state clear.

I just can't do it.

I can't do it and that's just my lot and that's it.

Is that a belief?

Because the most important thing that we do in the tantric path is to get rid of all the limiting beliefs.

There is no reason that we can't achieve anything we want.

This belief,

This caste system is in our minds.

It's like,

Oh well that person doesn't have a home.

They'll never be okay.

They'll never be able to take care of themselves and they're always going to be there.

It's like,

Really?

Why can't we just float through things?

Why can't we just be in different states of being throughout our lifetime?

So theoretically,

Let's say we live up to 100 years or more.

Why couldn't we be a million things in there?

We hear all kinds of stories like Eckhart Tolle or Wayne Dyer.

Eckhart Tolle,

Like homeless and Neil Donald Walsh.

Their lives crashed and burned.

Wayne Dyer's life crashed and burned.

They didn't stay there.

A miracle happened.

They wrote a book.

They found something.

They had an aha moment.

But they allowed life to continually shift.

They weren't stuck in a box.

They weren't stuck there.

I have friends who have been financially successful.

They've been on mother's allowance,

On welfare.

They've wondered how they're going to pay the rent.

And in other times,

Had more than enough money and they were self-sustaining.

There's no boxes.

It is such a foundational principle of Tantra that we must unearth the boxes.

We must go in and say,

Okay,

Now hold on a minute.

I may like my life even,

Whether I like my life or I don't like my life.

What don't I believe I can ever achieve?

Do you believe that today you could begin a journey to being truly successful in anything you wanted?

Anything you wanted.

This is really,

Really important.

Because if you believe you couldn't be successful,

Why?

The Tantric way is every single one of us is an infinite incarnation of the divine.

Every one of us.

No matter where we come from,

No matter what's happened to us,

No matter what traumas we've suffered,

No matter what our education is,

It doesn't matter.

We're tapped into an infinite energy source.

Even things like education and things like that.

You know how small that is in a universal wisdom base?

It is so tiny.

Man-made education.

Masters,

Doctorates,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Tiny little focuses on tiny little topics in an infinite world.

They mean nothing.

To really,

Really embrace that infinite aspect of ourselves.

And that means that every single one of us could be successful,

Whatever successful means to you.

Let's make it really simple.

Let's imagine something like fitness.

Do you believe that you could actually bring your body to a state of fitness?

Or do you believe that you will always be exactly as you are right now?

Oh,

I'll always have sore knees and I'll always be overweight and I'll always have a sore back and I'll always be .

.

.

Is that what you believe?

Or do you believe that anything's possible?

Anything is possible.

Because even that can be a box.

Do you believe that you could be healthy?

Truly healthy.

Do you believe that you could be happy?

That you could actually wake up three years from now truly happy in your life,

Loving your relationships,

Loving your work,

Loving your passions every day,

That you could wake up happy?

It's so important to ask ourselves,

Because if the answer is no,

That becomes the journey.

Then what are the boxes?

What are the restrictions on me?

Why can't I be?

And maybe it's something like,

Well,

I just have so much stuff to unpack from my childhood.

Then that's what we do.

We unpack the stuff from the childhood.

That's the journey.

No one has to do this,

But if we're on a tantric path,

That's the only way.

It's like if you say to me,

Oh,

I want to study tantra.

I want to be a tantrica.

I want to live a tantric life.

This is like imagining yourself like a hot air balloon and you're sitting in the middle of the field and you're saying,

I want to fly.

I want to live.

I want to see all the possibilities that are out there.

I'm like,

Awesome.

All right.

We've got to start letting go of these loops so that you can .

.

.

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

Not that.

That's like stuff from my childhood and that over there.

That's still,

I'm angry with my father so that we have to hold that there.

Then there's this other thing that,

You know what?

I'm actually not that good a person,

So you want to fly,

But you don't want to let go of all the things that are holding you back.

And again,

It's not a judgment of whether people do it or don't do it.

But if we're on a tantric path,

That is the journey.

The journey is to untether those things because that's what helps us heal.

Why would any of us live a life where we actually on a foundational level believed that we were not meant to be happy?

That I have to carry this baggage.

I have to carry these wounds.

I have to carry this life.

Because then if we believe that,

Then that's an interesting question.

Why do I believe that?

Why do I believe that this lifetime I'm supposed to suffer?

Is that a training?

Is that coming out of religion?

Is that coming out of our family?

Where does this belief come from?

That I am here somehow to pay off a debt?

Is this karma?

Do I believe deep down that I'm a bad person?

That I've harmed people so I should suffer?

Why do I believe that?

This is why the tantric path is so multifaceted and absolutely unique for every person.

Because we each have different hooks.

All of us.

So it's really,

Really interesting to look at all those things.

Because the tantric path says it doesn't matter where you come from.

Anything's possible.

So this enters us into this idea of madness.

Even the idea that let's say you've lived a really difficult life.

And some people really have.

I've had challenges in my life in difficult decades.

But it's nothing compared to good friends of mine.

If we want to compare stories.

Sometimes when we think of madness,

The craziest thing you could imagine is that I'm going to be happy anyway.

And I don't mean spiritual bypassing.

I mean actually holding the belief in me.

Even if I have to consider it madness.

You know what?

My life has been really horrible up until this point.

But it's not going to be like that forever.

And that alone is considered madness.

Because that's not the norm.

That's not how we do things.

We suffer,

We commiserate,

We.

.

.

It's like no,

No,

We don't heal.

We don't go on with our life.

We stay and we suffer.

So even that could be considered madness.

And so now imagine we've discovered,

Okay,

I really do have some boxes in my life.

There's some things that I believe that,

Wow,

I actually can't act outside this box.

So how do I get outside the box?

It's easy to say,

Right?

Oh,

Okay,

I'm living in a box,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

But how do I get out?

Well it's probably going to start with a crazy idea.

I got this crazy idea that I want to do this thing.

It doesn't make any sense.

And you tell your friends and they might be like,

Why would you do that?

Like,

I don't know.

Feels crazy.

And then you do it and everything changes.

And it's so interesting.

And when I say everything changes,

I don't mean you suddenly lose your family and leave your kids and that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm saying that everything changes inside your psyche.

It's like I once had a crazy idea that I wanted to go to a naked beach.

So my husband and I went to Jamaica.

I got us a place that had a naked beach and a clothed beach.

And I was going to go on that naked beach and I was self-conscious.

I was self-conscious that I was overweight,

That I was this,

That I,

You know,

Everything,

All the junk.

I remember saying to my husband one morning,

Because he was a pretty good guy and if I asked him to do something,

He'd kind of humor me,

Especially if it was a crazy idea like this,

Like something that I was kind of holding on to.

But I think he thought I would chicken out.

And so the first morning I was like,

Okay,

I'm going to,

I know I want to go to the nude beach.

I'm like,

Do you want to come?

And I knew he wasn't really wanting to.

And he was like,

Why?

I don't think it's a good idea.

I'm like,

Okay,

Well,

I'm going so you can come with me or you can let me go by myself.

And so he had a few more rum drinks and off we went to the naked beach.

And the wild thing about that,

This crazy idea,

This bit of madness that many people might think,

There was no intention in it.

There wasn't like I was doing it because I'm going to go to the naked beach.

I'm going to heal my body issues and I'm going to learn to be expressive and I'm going to,

It wasn't logical.

That's what makes it mad.

I wasn't doing it with purpose.

I just had a crazy idea.

Bucket list.

One of my bucket lists is I want to be a nude model for artists.

That one hasn't happened yet,

But for no reason,

There's no logic to it.

I just want to do it and I don't know why.

So the wild thing about becoming naked on this beach is it turned all kinds of funny dials inside of me.

They aren't even on the surface.

They were all these little dials inside of me that got turned.

And suddenly I was just different.

I saw the world differently.

I saw clothing differently.

I saw how we presented ourselves in public differently.

I saw our bodies differently.

I saw the scars in our bodies differently.

It changed my entire outlook from this one crazy idea and it suddenly expanded my world.

That's Tantra.

But it's not going to happen because I said,

Okay,

You know what?

Let's say you said to me,

I really struggle with body issues.

Like,

Do you think it would be helpful for me to go to a nude beach?

I'd be like,

I don't know.

It's not a prescription.

It has to come from inside of you.

That person,

If they're not sure,

It's probably not their answer.

It's probably something else.

But it's some other crazy idea that they're not comfortable with that they don't want to do because it's too crazy.

The crazy thing is the key,

But it's unique to each of us.

But to really be clear too that this crazy idea,

The madness,

It's not untethered.

It's not just like,

I'm just going to rip my clothes.

Because people ask me that.

They're like,

So you're a naturist,

You're a nudist.

So would you want to just walk down the street naked?

Unless I was called to.

If something in my heart,

If my satya suddenly was like,

Today you have to walk down the street naked.

Well,

That would be crazy.

But it's tethered to a calling.

It's tethered to a truth because tantra is a spiritual path.

The only reason we're doing this is to connect with God,

With your higher consciousness,

With your expanded universal reality,

Whatever that is for you.

It is a spiritual path.

So even the crazy ideas,

They're not going to be crazy left brain ideas out there.

They're going to be something that rises up from inside of us and we just know we have to do it.

It's only other people that may consider it crazy because it wasn't their idea.

So just to be really clear that it's not just going around doing,

I'm just going to do something crazy because I'm on a tantric path.

So I'm going to do something really uncomfortable.

It's not that.

It's rising up from the inside because then it's medicine.

And my medicine isn't your medicine.

It is such an individual path,

Such an individual journey.

It's the whole boxes thing that we talked about earlier.

There might be somebody dying the death in some corporate job.

And so some very kind person might say to them,

Well,

You know,

Maybe what you need to do is go and work in a restaurant and serve people and just have a different kind of world.

Make less money,

Live a different life,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Because we kind of think,

Oh,

Well,

That must be the answer.

If you're like all caught in the corporate world making six,

Seven figures,

The answer then is to take a blue collar working job or whatever.

But that's not an answer.

Unless that person wakes up in the middle of the night and they see themselves driving truck,

Caring for children,

Sweeping the high school.

If that person sees themselves doing it,

Then it's the right medicine.

It has to come from within.

Just very interesting to listen to the little voice inside.

For me,

I know that there is going to come a point in my life that I am going to be serving coffee.

I'm going to be a barista.

I can almost see the cafe and I'm going to be so happy serving coffee to people.

This is so deeply in my truth.

And I'm going to be a naked model in the evening.

And I don't even know why,

But I think there's something important about it.

Because it's there.

It's a truth.

It's an intuitive vision.

This is the madness.

It doesn't have to be crazy.

I don't have to be naked with orange hair.

It could just be something that you wouldn't normally do.

We've talked before about in Tibetan Buddhism,

In the tantric discussion there,

They often have a level before you go into the tantric part of the Buddhism,

And they call it the sutric path.

This is the path of renunciation.

Because they believe in karma,

And not necessarily karma like the caste system used it,

Like you did something wrong,

Therefore you were placed in this level of society,

Like that kind of thing.

Not like that.

But that karma is simply the endless cycle that we get caught in.

Because for some reason we have almost an addiction to something,

A compulsion to do something.

And it could be one of these boxes.

It could be that every single,

No matter what,

I always have to make more money,

And I always have to have this level of prestige in society.

So I'm going along,

And every time I make a choice,

I make it based on that,

And I cycle back.

And I cycle in this constant need for more money,

More prestige.

Sometimes we even have negative cycles that leave us unhealthy.

Unhappy.

Because we actually have what they would call them self-sabotage programs.

That I'm going along,

I'm doing fine,

I'm doing fine,

And then all of a sudden it's almost like I am so familiar with the box of pain,

Unhappiness,

Victimhood.

This box is so familiar to me,

I'm going to get to that point,

And I'm going to make a choice based on that,

And I'm going to cycle back.

We have all kinds of funny things that keep us circling.

It could be something like in relationships,

Being a people pleaser,

Or never wanting to rock the boat.

So no matter what happens in all my relationships,

I'm going to get so far,

And I'm speaking my truth,

I'm speaking my truth,

And then all of a sudden something happens and it's like,

Oh,

It's too much.

Okay,

Forget it.

And then I start the cycle again.

So part of this journey also is to really recognize that if I'm looping,

It might be hard to embrace crazy ideas because I'm looping.

But at the same time,

So that's just an important part of the work.

Sometimes the crazy idea will pop us out of a loop.

It could be something like,

Let's say you're addicted to being in relationship,

Like you just can't fathom not having a partner at your side.

And you,

In meditation,

Not a counselor,

Not a friend,

Not other people,

But you suddenly have this idea that,

You know what,

I'm going to take a year,

Fully celibate.

That feels really good to me.

It's going to be hard,

But that's what I'm going to do.

And you do it.

And so suddenly this crazy idea,

Because that is a crazy idea for anyone who always,

Always,

Always wants to be in relationship,

Needs to be in relationship.

That crazy idea could be the best medicine you ever had.

And that will expand our lives.

So then we look into the unknown.

And the unknown is a really interesting thing to think about because for the last few millennia,

Whatever we consider masculine rules,

Logic over intuition,

Male over female,

Also known versus unknown.

What we understand about the world is more important than the mystery.

Well,

If you imagine the box of all the things that you know and all the things you understand,

And then you place that in the whole galaxy,

I'm picturing me floating in the cosmos between planets or something.

And I have this little box of everything that I understand and everything I know for sure.

And it is so small compared to everything else.

If I was to even sit here in this talk today,

And I was going to say that,

Here's all the things that I understand,

And here's all the things I know about,

And here's all the experiences I've had,

And here's all the wisdom I've gained from my life.

And then we took everybody here,

And you took all the amassed information,

Experience,

And wisdom of all the people here right now.

Do you know how small my little box is?

It's so small because it's just my experience.

So imagine how limiting that is in our world.

Again,

The goal is a tantric path,

A tantric life.

So imagine we could actually embrace the unknown.

As much as we know that,

Well,

I know this,

But what I don't know is so vast,

I kind of almost know nothing in comparison,

Like mathematically.

But the key here is that this isn't depressing.

It's funny,

I was watching a little video of Richard Feynman,

And Richard Feynman was one of the greatest quantum physicists,

Physicists,

Teachers,

Philosophers ever.

He is just one of my all-time heroes,

No question.

And there was this talk,

And he was actually talking about religion.

He was saying what he didn't like about religion is that they had answers for everything.

And he says,

But the answers were too simple.

He said,

There's no way the world is that simple.

And he said,

I would much rather have questions that are unanswered than answers for questions that might be wrong.

But he made a really strong point that he goes,

But I'm fine with that.

That makes me comfortable.

I'm more comfortable not knowing the answer to something.

He says,

Because then I can keep growing.

I can keep searching.

I can keep expanding.

I can keep asking questions.

And he says,

Maybe tomorrow I'll know.

Maybe in 10 years I'll know.

But this is a more comfortable place to live than being surrounded by answers that could be wrong.

This is living in a tantric way.

That we know that if I sit in this moment and I ask a question,

Direction will come,

Answers will come.

And I don't mean answers like some trivial thing.

If I ask a real question in my life that has real meaning,

There's always a what do I do about it?

The answer will always come.

It comes back to this tantra being a spiritual path,

A path of true faith.

Because it's about connection.

It's about whatever that means to you.

It's about connection to the divine,

Connection to the cosmos,

Connection to the consciousness.

That I am not separate from the world.

I am not separate from the universe.

I am an integral part of that weaving.

That's it.

I don't need to understand the whole weaving.

I just need to play in my lane or my world that I have the energy of the whole cosmos flowing through me.

That's fun.

That's exciting.

But of course it also asks us to get rid of our ego that wants to believe that we have any idea what's happening.

We have to get rid of this idea in our head that well,

But then I don't know and then I'm just not sure.

And it's like,

How could you know?

Tantra brings us back to reality.

This is reality.

We live in an infinite universe with galaxies and planets and people and beings that we can't even fathom.

That's reality.

Any belief that we could actually understand everything there is to understand is foolish.

And that causes great suffering.

It goes along the Buddhist lines that life is suffering.

But the number one reason we suffer is because we think it's actually our ignorance of reality.

And we cling to that ignorance.

We cling to this alternate reality that has no bearing on what's really happening around us.

And as soon as we can let that go,

Suffering will end.

So then all of a sudden,

As long as we can actually look around the world and say,

Wow,

There is more that I don't know that I do know,

But I'm good with it because I am fully connected to all of it.

And I'll discover it as I go.

And I'll listen within.

And I'll follow my guidance.

And I'll make choices.

Even if other people think I'm mad.

I used to always think that if my in-laws approved of something I did,

I was probably on the wrong path.

I had probably,

I was probably doing something to make them happy instead of following my truth.

As opposed to,

You know,

Opening a dance studio in 2006 or buying a train station in 2009.

That's madness.

Who buys a train station?

That's crazy.

But what an experience that no one could understand except for me.

And the real key is there's another tantric tenet or tantric belief or teaching that says that we must be open to anything.

This teaching has been bastardized and misunderstood because in a very neo-tantric sexual perspective,

Which is what a lot of what we call,

You know,

Air quote tantra right now,

It's been interpreted as you have to be open to anything sexually.

You have to be open to kink,

You have to be open to this,

You have to be open to that,

You know,

You should be polyamorous or monogamous.

And there's all this stuff in there.

It's like,

No,

That's not what it meant.

What it meant was that no matter what comes our way,

We'll meet it.

We won't run away from it.

We'll meet it,

We'll sort it,

We'll process it,

We'll embrace it,

Whatever it is.

That if it's on our path,

We will step into it.

Because of course we're stepping into it with like full power.

Because again,

This is a tantric path.

So I'm stepping into it in the power of the divine,

In the power of the universe that I'm connected to all the time.

So whether or not we can do it right now isn't really the point,

But that's the goal.

Like I remember I did a tough mudder and a tough mudder is a brutal race.

It's not really a race,

But it's a challenge course with 20 some odd obstacles and,

You know,

Jumping over fire,

Crawling underground,

Jumping off of huge things.

Like it's just jumping into ice water,

All kinds of things.

And it's for raising money for wounded veterans.

And again,

I had this crazy idea that I had to do this tough mudder.

I am not an athlete.

In the land of my limiting belief systems,

That's one of them for me personally.

And that's part of my journey these days is what if you could be perfectly fit?

If you could be athletic,

And I don't mean become something I'm not,

But this is a limiting belief for me that I am working on.

And so here I go to do this extreme challenge course.

You actually have to sign a death waiver that if you die,

They can't be sued.

And so people had t-shirts.

It was really funny.

People had t-shirts,

You know,

And you're climbing up.

We had to climb this mountain,

This ski hill six times.

Plus all the obstacles.

And people had t-shirts that said,

I signed a death waiver to do this.

Like it was madness.

But my goal was to be able to go up to every obstacle and jump in without fear.

That was my goal.

I wanted to finish the course.

I obviously didn't care how well I did or how quickly I did it or something like that.

But I knew,

Like for example,

The most scary one,

And there were a lot of scary ones,

But the most scary one was,

They called it the Arctic Enema.

And it was this huge dumpster filled with ice water.

Like there was two feet of ice floating on the top,

Like chopped ice.

And you had to get up on the edge,

And you had to jump into the dumpster,

Swim across it and get out the other side.

That was the scariest thing.

I am a complete wuss when it comes to cold water,

Or even warm water,

Because I'm just a complete wuss when it comes to,

I don't like being cold.

And my goal was to walk up to that dumpster,

Stand on the edge and jump.

Because if I knew,

If I stopped,

If I hesitated,

I wouldn't go in.

And that was my only goal,

Was to do every single obstacle no matter what.

That's like this.

Even if we're not there right now.

Because it was really interesting,

Like when I agreed to do it in December,

I'd seen it come across Facebook that one of my friends was doing it.

And this little voice,

Something inside of me went,

You have to do that.

And I was like,

What?

And then the friend called me two days later to say,

Hey,

Do you want to be on our team?

And I'm like,

Oh,

Man.

Then the race wasn't till May.

And so I had five months to train.

And I did do some training.

But essentially,

It was my psyche amping up to getting to that place and sorting itself so that when I got there,

I could just do it without fear.

Imagine that in our lives.

That we just simply said,

You know what,

Whatever comes my way,

I'm going to step into this without fear.

And it could be anything.

This is that embracing the madness,

Embracing the unknown,

Stepping into it in full faith.

It's very exciting.

It's a very,

Very exciting,

Expansive way to live.

And very applicable and practical.

It's super fun.

But of course,

There's a lot of work and journeying to do to help us release the things that don't let us jump in.

So thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Yes! I also enjoy embracing the madness, and I frequently swim in the ocean nude at a clothing optional beach. ⛱️ Thank you for bringing me a smile!

Wow ~~~ if this isn't a WAKE UP! call. I would give it 10 stars if I could. I will be listening to this eye opening 'sermon' again, but taking notes this time.
It's not that I haven't come to this epiphany many times before, I just would like to see my self follow through instead of continuously going back to my box. Married at 16, and am still raising children at 66. There is crazy for sure, but I am dreaming more of the mAdNeSs you speak of here! I'll get there yet! Thank you, Katrina 🙏