MY STORY
How I Became A TANTRA Dakini.....And What A Dakini Does
"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame IS lust in action." –William Shakespeare
Once upon a time, I tried out for a beauty pageant. It was during my third year of college and I believe it was Albany's Tulip Festival Queen. My mother thought it funny that I should have been interested in doing such a thing since I renounced my desire to EVER join a cheer leading team, and had just mastered the art of not looking as if I ever wore makeup through my later years spent in a French high school. This wasn't going to be the last time I tried "auditioning" for such contests as I'll soon share, but the common denominator in all of the various experiences I am about to share is this: I was never quite appropriate in my approach to any of them.
So during that first "tryout" pageant experience, I showed up with my Amy Grant circa 1990 long, curly hair, and proceeded to answer a slew of questions about what would make me an excellent Tulip queen, how I would best represent the city, and if I had any unique talents that would make me stand out from the other candidates. I proceeded to share that I was capable of speaking three languages, could make a mean, French salad dressing, mastered how to make the most believable monkey sounds(yes, I can still do it today), and I was taught the art of the perfect French kiss. The judge, a Friar Brother look-a-like, cast me in the top ten candidates but I would be later eliminated as queen due to the fact that all of my talents were not perceived to make that much of a difference to the world, or the City of Albany.
Later after college, I moved to Washington, DC with a slew of college debt and a casting call opportunity for Playboy Magazine. Under the impression that they paid this large amount of money to their centerfolds if accepted, I convinced a girlfriend and I to head on down and take a peek. We entered the glamorous DC hotel where hundreds of women of all shapes, sizes and lipstick shades sat around eyeing one another to see who would get accepted in the magazine. Once again, there was an interview process following a photo shoot. During the photo shoot, the camerawoman kept teaching us how to nip, tuck, duck, tilt, bump, squeeze, breathe, suck in, disguise, shade, and maneuver into anything BUT a goddess-like pose. Although interesting to learn how the photos are manufactured to give the impression that women sit around on their elbows and ankles facing the ceiling, I couldn't help think that THAT version of feminine sensuality was anything remotely as sexy after viewing thousands of paintings I viewed during my trips to the Louvre Museum in Paris. Frustrated that this didn't seem to represent my idea of feminine sensuality, I left the hotel that day and stopped thinking Playboy was the representation of real sensuality.
A few years later, I had entered an audition tape into the show THE APPRENTICE during the height of my Dot Com days. A few weeks later, I got a call from the producers stating I was a finalist and to come on in for an in person interview at a swanky Washington hotel. The email stated to purposely dress down, and to represent ourselves as accurately as possible. I thought this was one of their secret "tasks" to see if we eliminated ourselves by not following their specified directions. Of course everyone would be dressed in a suit, trying to impress the Donald. We already witnessed how Season One attracted the cattiest, highest-heel wearing "Business-Bitch" types that had each woman spending more time perfecting her cat-fight howl than her business skills. We need a different version of sexy this time. So I decided to wear black, skinny jeans with a black T-shirt that had on the front the photo of George W. Bush and a bottom half of a woman's legs that read: GOOD BUSH, BAD BUSH. Needless to say, walking into the hotel where EVERYONE was indeed wearing a business suit and tie that day, I DID stand out. I figured if worse came to worse, I'd simply show them my Playboy pelvic tilt and place my elbows on the floor. (wink) When asked the question what I thought I could contribute to the Trump enterprise, I replied, "I could help Trump to design buildings that do not resemble a phallic sign, thus furthering his need to satisfy his insatiate, sub-conscious desire for power and bring balance to his empire by showing him the benefits to children who indeed get breast-fed by their mothers at birth." The producers smiled and told me they would be in touch. Instead, they decided to pick some more pencil-skirted real estate agents. I sent him a thank you card and a dozen tulips to his office.
Fast forward a few years later when I am sitting at a temple in Jaipur, India and an old woman with a hundred bangles lacing up her arms notices that I am throwing pigeons some food when I am not suppose to. (At this particular temple, it is considered bad luck to feed the birds. Instead, you should buy food from a holy man and feed the monkeys and cows) She then brought me to a secret back room that had a shrine set up with the Goddess Kali. She told me to sit and meditate. She began chanting and I followed her lead. She kept getting louder and louder and told me to get louder, moving my body from side to side in sitting pose. She started flailing her arms all around madly, and her entire body began to shake furiously, as if she was in anger. She was building up a sweat on the very hot day, and I could tell she was doing a sort of prayer chant. It seemed as if she was praying her body out, repeating names of everyone she knew, and sweating out their tears through the pores of her skin. In that moment, she felt to me like the most beautiful, powerful woman in the world. She then opened her eyes and pointed to me and muttered, "Devi." She kept saying it over and over again, "Devi! Devi!" and I wasn't sure what to do. At the time I didn't know what it meant but when I asked my driver later on in the car, he stated, "It means Goddess." I didn't know it then but I had just accepted a calling to become a dakini.
Now I will share with you what the true meaning of being a Dakini.
In the Tibetan language the Sanskrit term DAKINI is rendered Khandroma (mkha'-'gro-ma) meaning "she who traverses the sky" or "she who moves in space"; this is sometimes rendered poetically as "sky dancer" or "sky walker". Ichnographically, their bodies are depicted curved in sinuous dance poses. They dance as they are active manifestations of energy or shakti. dakini (Sanskrit: "sky dancer") is a Tantric priestess of ancient India who "carried the souls of the dead to the sky". This Buddhist figure is particularly upheld in Tibetan Buddhism. The dakini is a female being of generally volatile temperament, who acts as a muse for spiritual practice. Dakinis can be likened to elves, angels, or other such supernatural beings, and are symbolically representative of testing one's awareness and adherence to Buddhist tantric sadhana.
According to legend, members of the Indian royal castes and the wealthy nobility brought their deceased to the far North to visit the Shrine of the Dakini (located at the foothills of the Himalaya). Other legends mention a Tibetan myth which says dakini first appeared in a remote area "pure of man". Dakinis are timeless, inorganic, immortal, non-human beings who have co-existed since the very beginning with the Spiritual Energy. In some New Age belief systems, they are angelic. This New Age paradigm differs from that of the Judeo-Christian by not insisting on angels being bona fide servants of God.
Moreover, an angel is the Western equivalent of a dakini. The behavior of dakini has always been revelatory and mysterious; they respond to the state of spiritual energy within individuals. Love is their usual domain - one explanation for dakini or angels supposedly living in the sky or heaven. Manifestations of dakini in human form occur because they supposedly can assume any form. Most often they appear as a human female. By convention, a male of this type is called a 'daka'. In Tibetan Buddhism and other schools closely related to Yogacara and Vajrayana practices, a dakini is considered a supernatural being who tests a practitioner's abilities and commitments.
When the dakini's test has been fulfilled and passed, the practitioner is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha, and often is elevated into the Paradise of the Dakinis, a place of enlightened bliss. It should be noted that while dakinis are often depicted as beautiful and naked, they are not sexual symbols, but rather natural ones. There are instances where a dakini has come to test a practitioner's control over their sexual desires, but the dakini itself is not a being of passion. Tantric sex may involve a "helper" dakini - a human female trained in Tantra Yoga - or an "actual" dakini. Both increase the level of erotic pleasure for the sexual participants by helping them focus on a non-physical state of spiritual joy and the physical pleasure of sex at the same time.
Dakini is the Goddess of Life's Turning Points. Distillations of archetypal emanations, the Dakinis represent those essence principles within the self which are capable of transformation to a higher octave. Dakinis are 'sky dancers,' heavenly angels devoted to the truth (dharma), woman consorts of and partners with the god-creators of India and Tibet. Dakini serves as instigator, inspirer, messenger, pushing the tantrika (aspirant) across the barriers to enlightenment. Dakini's wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls. Her peaceful aspect is depicted by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation. Dakini represent the sky being a womb symbol connoting emptiness, creativity, potentiality. They are objects of desire and also carriers of the cosmic energies that continually fertilize our human sphere. Dakinis bring us pleasure and spirituality. They provoke the enervating lust that brings life into being. They are poetic and cosmic souls, put here to tempt us to spirituality.
Dakinis are questing and testing agents. There are instances where a dakini has come to test an aspirant's control over his or her sexual desires, but the dakini should not themselves be construed as beings of passion and sexuality. When the dakini's test has been fulfilled and passed, the aspirant is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha and often elevated into the Dakini Paradise, a place of enlightened bliss.
So I share all of this in-depth knowledge of the technical meaning of a dakini because most people who come across Tantra think of the dakini's role as a sexual equal, a sexual replacement of sorts. In truth, the dakini's role is specifically as a guide to getting you understanding of your path to love through God. She is solely responsible for your own enlightenment and the path to true ecstasy in recognizing the divinity of love (and all of love's powers) versus the superficial manifestation of love in lust.
"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame IS lust in action." –William Shakespeare
Once upon a time, I tried out for a beauty pageant. It was during my third year of college and I believe it was Albany's Tulip Festival Queen. My mother thought it funny that I should have been interested in doing such a thing since I renounced my desire to EVER join a cheer leading team, and had just mastered the art of not looking as if I ever wore makeup through my later years spent in a French high school. This wasn't going to be the last time I tried "auditioning" for such contests as I'll soon share, but the common denominator in all of the various experiences I am about to share is this: I was never quite appropriate in my approach to any of them.
So during that first "tryout" pageant experience, I showed up with my Amy Grant circa 1990 long, curly hair, and proceeded to answer a slew of questions about what would make me an excellent Tulip queen, how I would best represent the city, and if I had any unique talents that would make me stand out from the other candidates. I proceeded to share that I was capable of speaking three languages, could make a mean, French salad dressing, mastered how to make the most believable monkey sounds(yes, I can still do it today), and I was taught the art of the perfect French kiss. The judge, a Friar Brother look-a-like, cast me in the top ten candidates but I would be later eliminated as queen due to the fact that all of my talents were not perceived to make that much of a difference to the world, or the City of Albany.
Later after college, I moved to Washington, DC with a slew of college debt and a casting call opportunity for Playboy Magazine. Under the impression that they paid this large amount of money to their centerfolds if accepted, I convinced a girlfriend and I to head on down and take a peek. We entered the glamorous DC hotel where hundreds of women of all shapes, sizes and lipstick shades sat around eyeing one another to see who would get accepted in the magazine. Once again, there was an interview process following a photo shoot. During the photo shoot, the camerawoman kept teaching us how to nip, tuck, duck, tilt, bump, squeeze, breathe, suck in, disguise, shade, and maneuver into anything BUT a goddess-like pose. Although interesting to learn how the photos are manufactured to give the impression that women sit around on their elbows and ankles facing the ceiling, I couldn't help think that THAT version of feminine sensuality was anything remotely as sexy after viewing thousands of paintings I viewed during my trips to the Louvre Museum in Paris. Frustrated that this didn't seem to represent my idea of feminine sensuality, I left the hotel that day and stopped thinking Playboy was the representation of real sensuality.
A few years later, I had entered an audition tape into the show THE APPRENTICE during the height of my Dot Com days. A few weeks later, I got a call from the producers stating I was a finalist and to come on in for an in person interview at a swanky Washington hotel. The email stated to purposely dress down, and to represent ourselves as accurately as possible. I thought this was one of their secret "tasks" to see if we eliminated ourselves by not following their specified directions. Of course everyone would be dressed in a suit, trying to impress the Donald. We already witnessed how Season One attracted the cattiest, highest-heel wearing "Business-Bitch" types that had each woman spending more time perfecting her cat-fight howl than her business skills. We need a different version of sexy this time. So I decided to wear black, skinny jeans with a black T-shirt that had on the front the photo of George W. Bush and a bottom half of a woman's legs that read: GOOD BUSH, BAD BUSH. Needless to say, walking into the hotel where EVERYONE was indeed wearing a business suit and tie that day, I DID stand out. I figured if worse came to worse, I'd simply show them my Playboy pelvic tilt and place my elbows on the floor. (wink) When asked the question what I thought I could contribute to the Trump enterprise, I replied, "I could help Trump to design buildings that do not resemble a phallic sign, thus furthering his need to satisfy his insatiate, sub-conscious desire for power and bring balance to his empire by showing him the benefits to children who indeed get breast-fed by their mothers at birth." The producers smiled and told me they would be in touch. Instead, they decided to pick some more pencil-skirted real estate agents. I sent him a thank you card and a dozen tulips to his office.
Fast forward a few years later when I am sitting at a temple in Jaipur, India and an old woman with a hundred bangles lacing up her arms notices that I am throwing pigeons some food when I am not suppose to. (At this particular temple, it is considered bad luck to feed the birds. Instead, you should buy food from a holy man and feed the monkeys and cows) She then brought me to a secret back room that had a shrine set up with the Goddess Kali. She told me to sit and meditate. She began chanting and I followed her lead. She kept getting louder and louder and told me to get louder, moving my body from side to side in sitting pose. She started flailing her arms all around madly, and her entire body began to shake furiously, as if she was in anger. She was building up a sweat on the very hot day, and I could tell she was doing a sort of prayer chant. It seemed as if she was praying her body out, repeating names of everyone she knew, and sweating out their tears through the pores of her skin. In that moment, she felt to me like the most beautiful, powerful woman in the world. She then opened her eyes and pointed to me and muttered, "Devi." She kept saying it over and over again, "Devi! Devi!" and I wasn't sure what to do. At the time I didn't know what it meant but when I asked my driver later on in the car, he stated, "It means Goddess." I didn't know it then but I had just accepted a calling to become a dakini.
Now I will share with you what the true meaning of being a Dakini.
In the Tibetan language the Sanskrit term DAKINI is rendered Khandroma (mkha'-'gro-ma) meaning "she who traverses the sky" or "she who moves in space"; this is sometimes rendered poetically as "sky dancer" or "sky walker". Ichnographically, their bodies are depicted curved in sinuous dance poses. They dance as they are active manifestations of energy or shakti. dakini (Sanskrit: "sky dancer") is a Tantric priestess of ancient India who "carried the souls of the dead to the sky". This Buddhist figure is particularly upheld in Tibetan Buddhism. The dakini is a female being of generally volatile temperament, who acts as a muse for spiritual practice. Dakinis can be likened to elves, angels, or other such supernatural beings, and are symbolically representative of testing one's awareness and adherence to Buddhist tantric sadhana.
According to legend, members of the Indian royal castes and the wealthy nobility brought their deceased to the far North to visit the Shrine of the Dakini (located at the foothills of the Himalaya). Other legends mention a Tibetan myth which says dakini first appeared in a remote area "pure of man". Dakinis are timeless, inorganic, immortal, non-human beings who have co-existed since the very beginning with the Spiritual Energy. In some New Age belief systems, they are angelic. This New Age paradigm differs from that of the Judeo-Christian by not insisting on angels being bona fide servants of God.
Moreover, an angel is the Western equivalent of a dakini. The behavior of dakini has always been revelatory and mysterious; they respond to the state of spiritual energy within individuals. Love is their usual domain - one explanation for dakini or angels supposedly living in the sky or heaven. Manifestations of dakini in human form occur because they supposedly can assume any form. Most often they appear as a human female. By convention, a male of this type is called a 'daka'. In Tibetan Buddhism and other schools closely related to Yogacara and Vajrayana practices, a dakini is considered a supernatural being who tests a practitioner's abilities and commitments.
When the dakini's test has been fulfilled and passed, the practitioner is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha, and often is elevated into the Paradise of the Dakinis, a place of enlightened bliss. It should be noted that while dakinis are often depicted as beautiful and naked, they are not sexual symbols, but rather natural ones. There are instances where a dakini has come to test a practitioner's control over their sexual desires, but the dakini itself is not a being of passion. Tantric sex may involve a "helper" dakini - a human female trained in Tantra Yoga - or an "actual" dakini. Both increase the level of erotic pleasure for the sexual participants by helping them focus on a non-physical state of spiritual joy and the physical pleasure of sex at the same time.
Dakini is the Goddess of Life's Turning Points. Distillations of archetypal emanations, the Dakinis represent those essence principles within the self which are capable of transformation to a higher octave. Dakinis are 'sky dancers,' heavenly angels devoted to the truth (dharma), woman consorts of and partners with the god-creators of India and Tibet. Dakini serves as instigator, inspirer, messenger, pushing the tantrika (aspirant) across the barriers to enlightenment. Dakini's wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls. Her peaceful aspect is depicted by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation. Dakini represent the sky being a womb symbol connoting emptiness, creativity, potentiality. They are objects of desire and also carriers of the cosmic energies that continually fertilize our human sphere. Dakinis bring us pleasure and spirituality. They provoke the enervating lust that brings life into being. They are poetic and cosmic souls, put here to tempt us to spirituality.
Dakinis are questing and testing agents. There are instances where a dakini has come to test an aspirant's control over his or her sexual desires, but the dakini should not themselves be construed as beings of passion and sexuality. When the dakini's test has been fulfilled and passed, the aspirant is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha and often elevated into the Dakini Paradise, a place of enlightened bliss.
So I share all of this in-depth knowledge of the technical meaning of a dakini because most people who come across Tantra think of the dakini's role as a sexual equal, a sexual replacement of sorts. In truth, the dakini's role is specifically as a guide to getting you understanding of your path to love through God. She is solely responsible for your own enlightenment and the path to true ecstasy in recognizing the divinity of love (and all of love's powers) versus the superficial manifestation of love in lust.
