WEBVTT - Yoga, Sex and Magic 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.640 My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.920 You know we're in the studio here. We just recorded 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.880 an episode on yoga and the benefits of yoga, the 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.079 risk of yoga, a lot of the science that we 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.640 find in yoga, and in that episode we refer out 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:31.400 to an additional episode which we're recording now, Yoga Sex Magic, 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:33.680 because there is a there's a lot to be said 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.880 about about sex and yoga, about the sensual side of yoga, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:42.480 the sexual benefits of yoga and its roots in mysticism 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.360 and UH central experience. And don't worry, we're not going 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.199 to talk about stings sex life here, um, because he 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.440 has often talked about tantra yoga right as being a 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.200 part of his UH deal deal. Yeah, I was gonna 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.000 say magic sauce, but that just doesn't sound right, Um, 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.360 But we are going to talk about I guess some 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.760 people would say it's yoga's dirty little secret, but the 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.880 fact of the matter is is that it has its 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.200 roots in tantric yoga, which is associated with sexuality. As 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:15.880 you say, and celebrating sexuality and uh, and a lot 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:20.200 of mysticism too. Yeah. So let's uh, let's let's let's 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:25.200 run back the clock here. Let's let's discuss ancient history. Um. So, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.080 hindu Hinduism is the oldest of the dominant world religions 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:33.039 today and arguably the most difficult to summarize. Okay, the 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.160 roots of Hinduism stretch back a good five thousand years 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.400 through the soil of human history. And that's the soil 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:45.160 that's just right, with variations with with different important texts, 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:51.760 poetic epics, sex diversions, uh, God's goddesses, religious rituals, it's 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:56.720 just there. There is an entire rich culture there around Hinduism, 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.920 and any attempts to summarize it or would be incomplete 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:06.640 that it would be a podcast into itself. But it's 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.040 very nature. What is it proposed to do. It aims 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.320 to free the practitioner of Hinduism from something called the 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.640 wheel of sam Sara. And I feel like I've mentioned 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.720 this before in terms of Buddhism, and of course there's 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.960 a lot of crossover between Hinduism and Budism. Sam Sara 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.320 is the endless cycle of death and rebirth that sees 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:29.120 the human um consciousness or soul flow and rise and 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.919 fall through varieties of tragic, doomed, and ephemeral lives. It's 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.880 the idea that it's not the sort of vague Western 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.600 idea of of reincarnation where it's like, oh, I'm not 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.160 really gonna die. I'm gonna come back as a cat 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.840 or something that would be great. And I'm not saying 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.720 don't find some comfort in that thought. But the idea 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.800 of sam Sara is more that I'm going to continue 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.840 to live lives that are ultimately going to be filled 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.120 with pain in one way, shape or another, even though 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.520 even the loftier, more pleasant life that I of are 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:02.960 going to end in death and may end up shooting 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.400 me down to a lower level of existence. So I 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.600 might be uh uh, and I'm borrowing more from the 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.360 some of the Tibetan Buddhist ideas here, But I might 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.799 live life as a demigod in the next life and 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.840 everything it will be awesome, but I'll kind of be 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.520 awful at the same time and earn myself a position 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.040 in the lower hells in the life after that. So 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:23.760 the idea is that you want to eventually rid yourself 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.880 of this wheel. You know, it's kind of like, yeah, 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:28.560 it's kind of think of it this way. It's like 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.880 the person who's in one bad relationship after the other 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.040 and they desperately want to free themselves with that cycle 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.960 and find a good relationship. That's kind of what we 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.280 have here. And in that good relationship, that liberation from 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.280 the wheel of sam sara is what Hindus call maksha, 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:49.200 which means release or liberation. So this carnival ride sucks. 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.480 I want to get off of it. That's what That's 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.160 what Hinduism that's ultimately trying to do UM and we 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.880 might not do it in this lifetime or the next um, 0:03:57.920 --> 0:03:59.640 but we need a we need a game plan, right, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.640 so we get into something called trim Marga, which is 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.800 the three path. So we have Karma marga the way 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.400 of action, Jannana marga the way of knowledge, and Bakti 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.520 marga the way of devotion. So this is where yoga 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:19.040 gets involved here. Yoga means discipline uh or regime or yoke, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.560 and it derives from the Sanskrit route for yoke yoke, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:24.960 which also means union, you know, And we talked about 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.440 this in the other podcast. This union between mind and body. Yeah, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.200 you know, Jesus sent our example again, instead of a 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.600 mind riding the body, this man riding the horse. It 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.800 is the man horse, it is the body. Uh, the 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.960 body mind union. And this is where that intermingling of 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.120 sexuality and spirituality happens as well. This is the same 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.320 sort of yoke, and this is where we're really sort 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:52.279 of driving the path toward tantra, right right. So within Hinduism, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.240 the word yoga is often used interchangeably with marga. It 0:04:55.560 --> 0:05:00.360 involves far more than just poses, and it includes meditation, fast, um, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.080 various asthetic practices, ethical behavior, you know, intense study in 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.800 some cases, and and it's one of the six schools 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.919 of Orthodox philosophy, and often just sort of a generic 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.040 term for spiritual discipline. So just culturally, when you look 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.159 at yoga in the East versus yoga in the West, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.880 there's there there are a number of differences that arise. 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.880 So let's talk a little about yoga in the path 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:27.919 because they're really getting into the tantra thing. We have 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.680 to again get into examples of of what is the 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.800 the yogi of three years ago, like versus the yogi 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.560 that you might find, Uh, you know in the San 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:40.719 Francisco Bay area. Well, I mean even like in the 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.480 eighteen thirties, Broad William Jobrad, who wrote the Science of Yoga, 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.960 brings up Rama Kashna and this was one of Hindu 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:54.520 Hinduism's great modern saints. Um, there's this idea that he 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.120 was always in such a constant state of ecstasy. And 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.640 we say ecstasy, we are sort of making a little 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:05.920 uh hat tip here to orgasm as well. Um, or 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.159 at least a sense of transcendence. Um. Well lepique more 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.880 does the French say um, which is a little deaf 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.520 right transcendence? And and again just to mention the body 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.120 mind connection. And when we're talking about body and mind 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.960 in a religious context, you can think of it, you know, 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.159 body and spirit. And so something intense that happens in 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.479 the body just by virtue of being intense has to 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.400 have a connection to the spirit as well. So it 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.479 would seem obvious then that an orgasm would be of 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.159 interest to someone seeking to understand the mind. And you 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.200 think it's weird that we're saying orgasm when we were 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.680 talking about religion or just even meditating or being in 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.040 a state of ecstasy without some sort of you know 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.760 slap and tickle involved. Well, we're going to talk more 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.480 about that slap and tickle. Yeah, you know, we'll talk 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.080 a little bit more about that later and connect at all. 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.960 But um, I did want to bring up Rama Krishna 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.560 because apparently he was in such a constant state of 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.400 bliss that he had assystance to tell him when to 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.440 eat and breathe. So this is this is intense stuff. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.720 There is this intermingling of these two concepts of sexuality 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:18.920 and mysticism or um spirituality, and in Hinduism is that 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.480 this is not unusual. We usually think about our more 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.600 western religions and how these are mutually exclusive things, but 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.840 this is not in some Eastern religions UM. And this 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.920 is this idea too, that the spiritual energy UH lies 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.120 dormant at the base of the spine until it was 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.840 activated and channeled upward to the brain to produce enlightenment 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:46.400 through the chakras, these various circles in the body through 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.280 which the energy flows. Right, So the state of ecstasy 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:54.560 turns out to be a state of enlightenment. So Yogi's 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.960 and centuries passed. UH. We mentioned this a little bit 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.600 in the other podcast about yoga. But um, they might 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.840 be poly men who would legitimately give you a little 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:09.160 more insight into the spirit. Yeah, they might be mystic 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.840 carneys who would bury themselves alive for money. They might 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.000 contort their nude ashmerrored bodies in the street. They might 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.440 smoke dope and kidnap children. They might run protection rackets 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.840 and uh and some were capable of supposedly uniting the 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.920 male and female aspects of the universe through sexual sensation. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.920 So they really kind of ran the gambit from really 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.079 holy to really uh skiez I mean it. I mean 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:35.760 that That's one of the things that Broad really does 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.160 a great job of pointing out is that yoga is 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.760 especially historically so much broader than what you would encounter 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.040 at the y m c A or the local yoga studio. 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:51.800 It runs the gambit between like just total enlightenment and madness, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:58.200 between between physical health and debilitating or life threatening injury. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.880 And uh and I mean it's just it's just there's 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.000 there's a rich world there and uh and and and 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.120 out of that also comes this uh this uh subject 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.240 of tantric yoga in tantra. Yeah, and I wanted to 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.720 bring up half a yoga, which we all if you 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.720 practice yoga. Um, this is a branch of tantra yoga. 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:20.200 And we'll talk a little bit more about tantra yoga 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.600 in a second Um. But the tan tric agenda again 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.280 was reaching enlightenment as fast as you could. And William J. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.720 Broad brings up the fact that there's a fifteenth century 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.280 book called half a Yoga Product car and it instructs 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.959 and poses but also talks about stimulating genitals. Right again, 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.080 in this this agenda to try to reach enlightenment, and 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.439 one line from the book says, press the parent paraneum, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.679 that's an orogenous area between the genitals, known as the 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:57.120 taint in some circles. Press the taint with the heel 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.440 of the foot. It opens the doors of liberation. So 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.160 I mean these this is a specific text telling people, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.800 you know, how to proceed in this path enlightenment, which 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.920 has to do with sexuality. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.840 hatha means violent and not in the sense that it 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.520 is violent um yoga and that it's like you know, 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.840 karate chaps and stuff, but more about the speed and 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.000 the intensity of getting there. Right. This is a path 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:32.800 to this enlightenment again, so tantra um sexy side of yoga, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.040 but also the sexy roots of yoga. Um. It rises 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.559 to prominence within Hindu traditions in medieval India. So this 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:44.600 is around the fifth century UM Common era, but it's 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.520 root mysterious roots may go back even even farther into 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.599 the past, into the practices and traditions of the Indus civilization, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:56.400 which would have been thirty three hundred to undred BC. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.960 So UM. The idea here is that the beliefs were 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.880 present in this earlier culture than they go underground for 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.160 thousands of years and then they evolve back up into 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:12.760 into practice in eastern and southern India. And Tantra is 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.160 based on the Sanskrit word meaning that which extends knowledge. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.560 And uh, it's the stated purpose of tantra isn't sexual 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.040 bliss in and of itself or but rather spiritual bliss 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.400 and enlightenment and ultimately uh moksha that we were talking 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.520 about early. Ultimately the idea is to uh find liberation 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.040 from this endless wheel of suffering. And I'm here's the 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.719 other thing about tantra is that it does not subscribe 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.559 to the cast system. So and it was free then 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:45.679 of the Brahmin priest that we're ruling over women's democratizing 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.080 sexuality but also spirituality. So it had a lot of 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.839 people who were very interested in being a part of it. Um. 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.160 The I guess you would say the problem mom or 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.360 as William Jay Broad puts it, is that eventually the 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:05.319 h it becomes so associated with with sex that's sort 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.719 of overshadowed by this and and people begin to think 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.800 of it as okay, well it's not just you know 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.160 this spiritual awareness or enlightenment. But you know a lot 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.920 of people are getting kind of randy here, yeah now, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.440 and and and you know, squirreling away from the path. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.480 Yeah now, now, why are they getting randy? Or what 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:28.800 is the stated reason? Well, historically you had right handed 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.840 tantra and you had left handed tantra and uh, and 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.240 that doesn't have anything to do with like right or 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.319 left handed being bad or one being dirty. That has 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.280 to do with like the position of God and goddess 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:44.720 um in a typical iconography. But right handed guy tantra 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.920 was more traditional and in terms of like worshiping the goddess, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.440 whereas left handed tantra involved the ritual use of taboo 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:59.440 items in Hinduism specifically these five ms. You had Masma 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:05.240 which is eat uh, nazia no mean mazia, fish, mudra, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.320 parched grain which was seen as an aphrodisiac, h Maja 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:14.240 which is wine, and then mathuna ritual sexual intercourse. So 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.239 what you would have happened is you would have this 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.480 this group of individuals and uh and generally these are 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.199 people that already have some exposure to to yoga or 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.680 do yoga principles. This is not just random people on 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.480 the street. They come into a sacred space in the 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.199 presence of you know, some sort of a guru or 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.520 an adept, and it will be in on on an 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.920 auspicious to day. You know, that's something that lines up um, 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.360 you know, numerologically important in m in the tradition. And 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.520 you'll have male and female participants who were called tanto 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.120 riquez ritually bathe, dress and generally you know, doll up 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:55.520 and purify through uh meditation and reciting mantras, and then 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.520 they form into male and female couples. Then they they 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.920 consume these various things ritually, have a little meat, a 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.400 little fish, a little parched grain, a little wine, and 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.240 then they will they will unite sexually say, and then 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.920 it becomes a key party. Well, no, I mean, I 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.720 mean that can certainly that can be the the charge. 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.280 But it's not just like, all right, we're done with 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.600 the We're done with the meat and the fish. Let's 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.560 let's get down to business. There's also a lot of 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:24.880 the mantras continue and the meditative aspects um uh continue 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.520 and U and the in fact, it's the pronunciation of 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.280 the mantras. Uh supposedly turns the female partner into an 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.239 embodiment of the goddess and the male becomes an embodiment 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.400 of the gods. So on a mythic level, they're enacting 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:43.120 the cosmological union of Shiva and shotkey of Deva and 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.960 Devi and uh. It takes on this larger cosmic proportion. 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.720 And and again it involves you know, intense meditation, intricate 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.920 yogurt postures, the visualization of these yantras, which are kind 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.400 of like a mandala that represents divine female energy, kind 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.400 of this um geometric design that you envision in your 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.600 head um and the attempt to stay immobile and to 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:12.480 facilitate mental processes in the prevention or delay of orgasm. Well, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.280 and and this is something we'll talk about a little 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.520 bit to this delay of orgasm, which is also um 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.800 extending the Enlightenment period right this ecstasy. So this is 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.360 when I brought up staying. I brought up this idea 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.960 that you could do breathwork, you could do meditation in 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:32.280 order to um, to stave off the inevitable yea, before 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.240 you get that lapite mort um. And they're generally talking 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:37.440 not about like imagine a race course with a start 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.840 in the finish line, with the finish line being orgasm. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.800 The idea is not to slam on the brakes before 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.880 you get to the orgasm, but to slow things down 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.920 to the point to where you're in a continuous, in 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:57.720 a continuous state of the almost crossing the line. Yeah. Um. 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.960 So here's the thing. In the West, tantra really becomes 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.840 synonymous with sexual debauchery. And this is where Broad in 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.920 his book says Tantra reaches a natier with um, an 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.800 alleged cannibal sect of Yogi's the a Gory who quote 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.240 eate the flesh of human skulls, drank urine liquor from 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:22.080 human souls, lived in cremation grounds and dunghills, and defiled 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.680 all social social convention supposedly to court public disapproval as 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.760 tests a humility. And none of those things are wrong 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.640 in and of themselves. But I mean now I mean that, 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.400 I mean there are you could you know, drinking urine, 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:39.920 drinking like or even drinking from human skulls. I mean 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.600 that's you see, these things occur in various traditions. Well, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.320 the problem is is that India in nineteen twenties starts 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.200 to realize that you know, they have a political agenda 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.520 right there. They want to become independent, um, they want 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:55.480 to rise up. So they can't really have this whole 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.680 light cannibalist yoga sect representing them because what's coming out 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.720 of India, Um, you know, one of the exports we 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.960 see is this idea of yoga. So it sort of 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:10.760 gets this history of the sexuality particularly gets whitewashed because 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.720 you have um Indian nationalists like Gunang we talked about. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.560 This is someone who really started to try to research 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.920 yoga in earnest in the nine twenties, and he began 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.360 to distinguish half a yoga from tantra, sanitizing yoga's association 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.880 with its roots. But the interesting thing here is that 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.000 you end up engaging in the duality of oh, there's 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.800 the good, there's the good yoga, and then there's the 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.000 bad yoga. It's like the here's the here's the the 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.080 law abiding yoga, and here's the road yoga. But and actually, 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:43.760 when we talk about the road yoga to we're talking 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.000 about something called kundalini, So we talk about contra yoga tantra. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.720 This is one of the branches Kundalinia is practiced today. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.000 Although as far as I've never been to some sort 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.600 of orgiastic class in it, I've just been We've talked 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.919 about the metaphors of the snake and the energy cooling 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.800 up through the spine. Yeah. Well, um, it's it's interesting 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.720 when you look into like why are they engaging? Why 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.800 would a ton trick um yoga prented practitioner engage in 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.080 the consumption of these five ms? And you know what 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.120 does it all get down to. Aside from just this 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.720 idea of well, let's use sexual sensation body sensation to 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.479 to you know, channel the spirit. Um, it's this idea 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.480 too that you have these things that are forbidden, their taboo, right, 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:32.440 So there you're human, these temptations are going to be there. 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.879 These things are there in your life. So you can 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.920 either run from them, um and try to deny them, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.600 or you can take them and try to do something 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.359 spiritually beneficial with them. So that's that's part of it, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.440 taking these negatives or potential negatives and spinning them into 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.719 a spiritual positive. So you're saying with within the Hindu 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.440 tradition that that not one thing is entirely good or bad. 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:58.159 Everything everyone contains both. Yeah, because on one on one 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.320 level again the direction of otherwise dangerous desires into acts 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.760 of devotion. And then there's this idea too that it 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.240 awakens participants to the non duality of the world. Okay, 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.119 the idea, there's this important idea in Hinduism. The world 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.640 is a single, indivisible reality uh known as Brahmin. And 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.919 to see it uh and to see the world as 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.800 anything else than that, to see it as anything that's 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.560 divided and composed of parts, is illusion. And you want 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:26.760 to see through that illusion and see that a glimpse 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.119 and understand experience the reality of Brahmen. So if you 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.119 see the world as oh, eliminates good and wine is bad, uh, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.679 you know are not. No, sex is great and sex 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.640 is bad. And destructive. Then you're you're seeing a divided 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:43.880 vision of the world, and you're not going to sing 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:49.000 brahmin or or even yoga yoke right, the union of union. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.480 It's not about division. So I find that that very fascinating. No, 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.680 I think it's a it's a wonderful context to talk 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.720 about this. Um, we should take a break. When we 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.359 get back, we're gonna get down to the science of 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.199 sex and yoga, or as I like to call it, 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.360 the yoga beast with two backs. Yes, so, UM going 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.440 to pigeon post, listen to this message. And when we 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:19.320 get back, look all right, we're back in. Come out 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.520 of pigeons and go back into child's post. So let's 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.000 let's continue. We've we've covered a lot of ground already 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:33.240 talking about the the roots of yoga, the basics of Hinduism, Uh, Tantra, 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.240 the five ends, why you should do them, um, what 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.960 spiritual good they can do in the long run. Yeah, 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.000 I wanted to talk about Cundolini for a second, because 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.200 we talked about this. We're talking about tantra, its role 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.920 in tantra, the idea of the snake coiling at the 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.560 base of the spine, this energy that rises up um 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.520 and and actually cundalini um is sanscrit for coiled or 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.920 she who is coiled, and it really is a metaphor 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.800 of rebirth because of it's the snake's ability to to 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.280 shed its own skin, right, and it has a high 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.240 status in Hinduism. Um. But I wanted to mention that 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:14.600 Swiss psychiatrist Carl Young was really intrigued by Kundalini and 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:16.680 he wrote of a twenty five year old woman whose 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:20.480 symptoms included a wave of physical turmoil that rose from 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.919 her paraneum. Would you call it the taint to her uterus, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.720 to her bladder and then eventually to the crown of 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.520 her head? Okay, this is classic Kundalini imagery right here. 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.440 And so he found it really curious that instead of 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.280 her fearing um what was happening these physical manifestations, she 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.720 actually really enjoyed it, and he came to understand it 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.720 though in terms of of an induced psychotic state, he 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.360 thought of it as a very destructive force. And in fact, 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.600 if you ever pick up or thumb through his book 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:55.959 called The Red Book, which is a bunch of illustrations 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:59.080 by him but of his dreams, you'll see the snake 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.560 in there as this sort of destroyer or this this 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.800 menacing um symbolism in his own dreams. But I wanted 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.080 to bring that up because it's so close to what 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.359 we've talked about before, and it's this idea of thinking off. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.800 We've discussed this in the Female Orgasm podcast, but it 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.000 was called the Orgasm Wars, and um, we talked about 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:23.919 this woman named Barbara Correlli's who claimed to have trained 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.080 herself to climax on demand, okay, without any sort of stimulation, 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:31.720 and uh, she's been thinking herself off for a number 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.479 of years and she actually demonstrated her ability to do 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.479 this when she went into an m R I and 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.560 then she came to climax several times while researchers at 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:44.520 Rutgers University studied her brain patterns and they saw, indeed 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.760 that it was matching the types of brain patterns that 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:51.600 you see in in orgasms people who actually have had 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:53.320 sex with each other and undergo m R at the 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:57.240 same time. It seems a little awkward, but UM, so 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.240 I bring this up because William Abroad also talks about 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.960 thinking off, but he also talks about this idea that, um, 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.120 the same thing is sometimes happening in yoga practitioners brains, 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.520 particularly when they're meditating, and meditation and yoga of corpse 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:15.680 go hand in hand. Yeah, And he he talks about 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.840 the Anonda Margot sect which was studied by James C. 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:23.560 Corby UM. This is a sect of UM yoga practitioners 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:28.359 and they underwent this this study at Stanford University, and 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.280 he had a control group of nonpractitioners all meditate, and 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:36.240 then he had the Anonda Market sect also meditating. And 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.520 just so you know, Anonda Market totally hardcore. We're talking 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.600 about three and a half hour long meditation sessions daily, 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:47.080 very rigorous. So what happened is that they had the 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.960