The Secrets of Tantric
and Shaktic Yoga

Some people practice yoga or meditation, and some people practice Yoga or Meditation. I'm the latter kind of adept, interested in the strange things that happen along the path as well as in what's at the end of it. I believe now that there's a huge difference between the modern view of enlightenment and the original view, which included things either most modern practitioners don't experience or don't talk about. To me, the mark of someone who's on the true Path is the stories they have to tell. This isn't a practice where nothing happens and all you do is sit. Things really do happen, and the results have powerful effect on your course in life.

That's hard to explain to those who think meditation is about moral conduct and peaceful attitude. Those things may eventually result evolve from what happens but getting to that can be a rocky experience full of drama and trauma. Which I admit is much of what I like about the Old Path. It's exciting.

It's also tough to describe. For me it really began in 1972 when I took up kundalini yoga practice on a whim, having become rather bored with Zen meditation. For a week I practiced as one old book recommended, even though the book also recommended I shouldn't actually do the practice without the guidance of a living master. I thought it would be easy and I'd prove it pointless and go on to something more worthwhile.

Follow up:

The practice proved anything but easy, since it required a sort of self discipline I'd never actually tried before. I succeeded in sticking to the boundaries but just barely. I'd planned to live that way for only a week, but living the pure life for a couple of days set me reeling, and in meditation things began to happen which had never happened before. By the end of that week I had released the serpent power three times.

If you've done this it needs no description. If you only think you've done it, you won't be able to explain it correctly. That's puts the whole subject beyond argument, since it divides humanity efficiently into two camps. One has knowledge of both sides of life, the other has knowledge of only one.

Arthur Avalon, or Sir John Woodroffe as he was legally known, describes it well -- possibly by interpreting ancient books but more likely because he knew the experience himself. In his personal accounts he does describe it well. What caught my attention in a scan of his book The Serpent Power was his translation of someone's description of the effects of that transformation and the experiences which follow. This does describe the results clearly, and I'm able to recall events from each stage easily.

I believe this experience is important. If it's missing from your own experience of yoga or meditation, you may not be getting things right. Avalon's book is available at Scribd, as well as for purchase online. It could be the most important book you'll ever read.