Tantric Goddess Network
 

Reclaiming the Goddess Within
 

All women are born goddesses. By undertaking a personal journey to reclaim her true essence, every woman may fully realize the goddess within. We must consciously strip off the layers of shame, guilt, anger, and need, to find our naturally flowing, radiant stream of love, compassion, creative power, bliss, and nurturing within. This may sound to be a daunting task but it is possible. I am a living example.

In the morning, when I awake at 7am, my first thought is the enthusiastic affirmation: I am an embodiment of divine love. My second thought is: How may I express the many dimensions of my love today? For days at a time I feel divine bliss tingle through my being like the sensations first awakened by true love. I am confident in my purpose for living: To bring love to the world as the embodiment of Shakti. In each moment I enthusiastically create new dimensions of loving expression. I create the world around me and feel joy like a swelling orgasm in my body. This sounds wonderful, and it is, but you may be wondering how you may get there. Was I born special? Is this even possible for others? The answers are yes and yes.

Each of us is born special, with the freshness and bliss of divinity coursing through us like rivers in the springtime. So, what happened? Our environment, family and social interactions condition us to become human, causing us to lose our divinity along the way. I have not always reveled in the stream of bliss and felt gratitude to be alive, quite the contrary. It’s taken a lot of work to discover and reclaim my inner goddess.

My journey to un-become a goddess began in childhood when I learned that the Christian church holds no place for a girl’s passion for god and being godly. It was around the age of nine or ten when I realized that God was considered a man and the Christian teachings of my childhood church held no women role models with whom I could identify as a young woman with awakening sexuality. Mary’s immaculate conception was impossible for me to identify with. I rebelled against the idea that to be godlike meant that I had to be a man and as a woman I had the choice of being Eve, the cause of all suffering, Mary the virgin, or Mary the whore. I struggled with the idea of gender being related to God. I knew that being a woman/girl was just as special if not more special than being a man/boy, because we naturally express love in many more dimensions. I reasoned that because women could give birth we were actually more powerful and more closely resemble the Mysterious power of the Universe that put humans on Earth , but then I was a small child and my full divinity was not conditioned out of me yet.

While the church and the Puritanical environment of New England was conditioning me to be a second class citizen that exists to serve men and make babies, a close relative with the full confidence of my family sexually and emotionally abused me and other women in my family. Thus began my official training to un-become a goddess.

As a result of this early programming, I entered into adolescence without a healthy sense of my self or my sexuality. I found myself emotionally, mentally, and physically used, abused, raped and discarded in the meat market within which single individuals find themselves today. As a teenager already conditioned with the misogynist societal programming that women are evil and should emulate men to become wholesome, I entered into a deep depression. This programming was killing my soul.

Remnants of the feminist movement of the 60’s and 70’s seemed to be a ladder out of a dark, dank pit in which the patriarchy wrongly kept women. I took charge of my programming and put my energy into being assertive, loud, strong, fast, masking my emotions, or pretending not to have any, and being intellectual. Unfortunately this served to further confuse my inner divinity. Adopting these masculine traits seemed to be the answer to becoming popular, successful and happy. However, my nature became confrontational, which only alienated me by intimidating my peers. My dominant attitude and tom-boy dress did not attract boys, but aggravated them into becoming aggressive and cruel with me. My only understanding of strength was masculine. I thought that being a feminine girl meant I was weak.

I desperately wanted to be loved, so I thought that adopting tight, revealing or otherwise "feminine" clothing would help win me the love of a boyfriend. But it only served to make boys and young men view me as a sex object. I was trapped between being viewed as a strong butch, insensitive dike, or a weak feminine sex object. For a while I hid under baggy jeans, wrinkled oversized T-shirts, in hiking boots, and with short hair under a baseball cap. I did not want to expose my delicate, weak, vulnerable feminine self. Then I went to the other extreme, wearing makeup and carefully dressing beautifully everyday. Neither of them made me happy or helped me find true love, so I looked for more.

When I finally figured out some sense of balance with my attitude and dress I entered numerous relationships to find love and bask in it’s glory. But, after the initial hormonal rush wore off at the six month mark, arguments became more frequent and I inevitably realized that I didn’t love my partner. I felt powerless to be the person my boyfriends wanted me to be and I had even less luck changing them to be the boyfriend I wanted them to be.

My version of love was need, loneliness, infatuation, lust, boredom….but not love. Where does one learn to love today? Our parent’s never got their needs met as children, so they became needy parents, unable to meet the needs of their children, continuing the cycle of needy children becoming needy adults. Where is the love that fulfills and brings joy into life? How can we find it for ourselves?
In a high school world history class I learned about ancient civilizations that believed God was a woman, the Great Mother Goddess. I was overjoyed and shocked that others did not share my enthusiasm and thinking that understanding these ancient Goddesses was the key to our happiness. Here was proof that humans existed who revered the feminine qualities of women. Life in those ancient times seemed to be more peaceful, harmonious, graceful and women enjoyed freedom of expression and love. What the heck happened today?

This was the beginning of my intense research into Goddess religions and ancient goddess traditions, and I finally found my feminine role models for becoming godlike, becoming a goddess. The problem is, that although we learn the intellectual information and background relating to the nature of our developmental conditioning, intellectual learning does not serve to reprogram our minds. Therefore, discovering all of the goddesses, priestesses, queens, heroines, and stars throughout time, did not help me find my inner divinity. I found it even more frustrating when I did my best to emulate these archetypes and my boyfriends didn’t treat me like a priestess, queen, goddess. Dressing like a goddess, attending Goddess rituals, reading goddess self-help books, decorating my house with spiritual tools, and covering my car with spiritual sayings did not make me a goddess. I had role models, intellectual knowledge, a vast book collection and an assortment of possessions but no understanding how to radiate love, peace and joy or how to teach others to feel love and peace within.

So, how did I get from point A to point Z? With my 30th birthday coming closer and closer it became more and more evident that I needed to make a huge change. I suffered for fifteen years with debilitating menstrual cramps, low back pain and mood swings occurring for two weeks out of each month. I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and a general dissatisfaction with life for even longer. Understanding my self and my sexuality took top priority. I left my last relationship determined to harness the power of my sexuality and use it to heal. I knew I had to do something drastic to get rid of the pain, and learn to love myself.

Within my vast collection of books on spirituality, healing, psychology, religion, and nature I had several on Tantra. I gathered that it was a spiritual practice that involved sexuality and love but I was unsure how. I felt very strongly drawn to everything I could learn about Kundalini and Shakti, important aspects of Tantra. Understanding their power and harnessing it in my own life seemed to be the final answer to healing myself and becoming empowered. I sought out a place in India where I could spend the winter learning Tantra.

Without much difficulty I found the IFC-Mahavidya temple on the internet by entering “Serpent Goddess” into the google search engine. Their link on Tantric teacher training invites  individuals to stay in their ashram in India where Tantric Master Shri Param Eswaran helps each aspirant understand their sexuality, heal from past traumas and learn to love themselves. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was fascinated and read every page of the extensive website. I put together the funds and signed up for levels I and II to be completed in a six month stay in India.

I am now only three and a half months into the training and my life has drastically changed already spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. I have experienced the divine bliss of my spirit's natural state. I have reprogrammed my mind to think loving thoughts, which determine my emotional state. Our emotions program our physical body and thus my body has changed too. A curvature in my spine, which I have had since the age of ten, is now nearly gone. Instead of feeling the acute and unbearable menstrual cramps and spasms during my ovulation period I have actually spent the last week near orgasm ALL DAY AND NIGHT LONG!!!!!!

The individual who came to India with the name of Andrea, melted into the past and I took a new name to honor my rebirth into my true divine nature. I am now called Nagarani, Serpent Queen, and consciously work with the serpent force of Kundalini Shakti daily. To reclaim the goddess within I have had to unlearn, uncondition, and deprogram, then relearn, recondition, and reprogram my thinking to suit the embodiment of the goddess, whose qualities are love, compassion, nurturing, joy, bliss, wisdom, and spiritual abundance. I have learned to let go of the past and embrace the future with the excitement of a small child. I am learning the language of love, but because it is new to me, I am only able to babble incoherently like a baby with her first word. I am still a goddess with training wheels.

The special Tantric practice that facilitated such drastic change is Para-Tan. Shri Param received the practice and teachings of Para-Tan in meditation directly from the Mother Goddess Kali, who gifted it to bring love back into the world. Bringing love back into the world means first learning to love ourselves and this is what Shri Param is teaching me with Para-Tan.

The practice and lifestyle of Para-Tan is based on the Shakti-power of sound and sound as Shakti-power, with several crucial elements. Sound breaks up cellular memories, which contain pain and trauma, clears them out and energizes the nadi system. Nadis are channels for Shakti power/sound to travel along in an extensive subtle energy network throughout our body. These are the same as meridian lines and points used in Acupuncture. Para-Tan Sound Healing sessions, along with regular recitation of mantras opens the nadis and sends Shakti-power flooding through them. This may then be focused and directed to reprogramming thoughts, which in turn changes cellular memory and the structure of the physical body. Reprogramming the brain to think positive, loving thoughts means entirely releasing our thinking conditioned by past experiences.  Instead we focus energy on creating new loving thoughts that program our body and cellular memory, in each moment with love.

The practice is simple and immeasurably effective, however I would not have gone far without Shri Param’s patience in guiding me again and again to address my human conditioning and less than divine qualities. Without his supervision I would not even be writing this article, for I would not know the presence of the goddess from within. I now understand why the Tantric teachings are always preceded by the warning that no aspirant should attempt to raise Kundalini on their own but must find a competent and available guru to assist them on their journey. I may have practiced Para-Tan and effectively increased my power but it is unlikely that I would have successfully reprogrammed my brain. The increase in power accentuates the consequence of thoughts and emotions. If the aspirants thoughts are anything but loving and positive the alternative thoughts cause madness rather than ecstasy. Shri Param tirelessly pointed out my variety of issues so that I may understand what needed changing. Had he not, I would have gone mad.

 Another important aspect of the difference I feel is a result of the amount of energy with which my body resonates. While I’m here I have the opportunity to massage Shri Param’s feet, which transmits an incredible amount of Shakti power to me. His energy field is so strengthened with the constant Para-Tan lifestyle that his energetic and vocalized resonance is as powerful as the mantras reverberating throughout the ancient granite temples in South India.

The ashram is located in a rural setting on the outskirts of Killankulam village, with very low environmental and mental pollution. Therefore I have been able to assimilate the teachings without having to fight my way through traffic and spend my energy bracing against the onslaught of consumer driven, trauma based mind control of the United States media. Shri Param regularly performs a powerful agni (fire ceremony) that clears the aura of the individuals participating and the surrounding 25 or so meters. Daily Puja in the temple aligns us with the deities, planets, gurus, and divine forces that assist us on the spiritual journey. Shri Param is also a four star chef, so we eat healthy vegetarian meals, which keep us free from the negative emotional, physical, and hormonal influence that meat creates in our body.  We respect our bodies as living temples for the divine.

IFC-Mahavidya temple and ashram is much more of a family setting than what I know of other ashrams.  In other ashrams it is common to find a large number of students, some of whom do not even get to speak with their guru, but must stick around long enough to be honored with the opportunity.  When the teacher does appear it is frequently only to deliver a lecture and possibly assign a reading from the Vedas or Upanishads.  When I arrived I was the only student.  Shri Param's loving wife and student Devanayagi met me at the airport, answered a million questions I had buzzing in my head, gave me a tour and showed me to my room, assuring me that if I needed anything I could ask her anytime.  It was only a matter of an hour or so after I got settled and had a nap to recover from the three day journey that I met Shri Param.

His brilliant orange veshti caught my eye across the yard, contrasting with the swaying green grass, as he directed several village men in the affairs of cows and field.  I immediately knew it was him from the grace and power with which he moves, visible even from a distance.  Soon he took a seat beside me on the kitchen steps where I was attempting to eat a pomegranate.    "So this is the Nageshvari lady," he grinned at me with a sparkle in his eyes I have come to know and love.  I looked at him blankly, having no idea what he was talking about.  "The Serpent Goddess," he prodded my jovially.  " Ah, yes!", my first lesson began on the spot.                                 

Shri Param and Devanayagi have a two month old daughter named Yogeshwari, adding to the cozy familial feeling here.  The reasonable tuition from students such as myself provides rupees to employ local villagers who staff the compound, and serves to pay for the living expenses and education for the teenage boys who live here.  They range in age from twelve to seventeen and call themselves the seven star boys.  The village functions as a large extended family in a structure that has been maintained for thousands of years.  The boys, the village ladies that work in the kitchen and fields, the driver and the cow man all form a family unit.  ON more than one occasion I have had my lesson with Shri Param on the veranda with the IFC cows graze nearby, the boys play cricket in the field and ladies from the village stream in with their colorful saris to visit the new baby.

This is not like any school I've previously attended, removed from family life, feeling more like an intellectual laboratory than a home.  The Goddess is Mother and Mothers function within a family and community.  Devanayagi has become like my sister.  The village women and the seven star boys call me auntie.  Each of them won my heart with their different ways of loving expression and have become very dear to me.  The simplicity of village life in Killankulam may not supply a lot of comforts with which I am familiar, but the beauty, love, grace, and open heartedness they each display is a powerful affirmation and a great lesson in living.  In coming here to India I have the opportunity to live with a Tantric Master and his family, where the learning takes place 24 hours a day.

All of these things have helped me transform my life in a four month period. I may not be levitating yet, but as I stay on this path I will inevitably grow from a baby goddess babbling the language of love, to a radiant adult goddess, embodying love, and becoming a living role model for all those who have not yet found their inner divinity. I have already planned to come back next winter for levels III and IV. Upon coming here I did not really know what the different levels entailed. As I near the completion of level II, I will enthusiastically say that in the first half one learns to reclaim their inner divinity. In the second half I can only hope that I will learn to assist others in their journey to reclaim their inner divinity and become a Para-Tan teacher.

by Nagarani ( from Harrison Maine USA)