Before the female buddha Tara came into being, she was a princess named Wisdom Moon, who was very devoted to the Buddha’s teachings and had a deep meditation practice. She was close to reaching enlightenment, and had developed the intention to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
Her teacher, a monk, approached her, saying, “What a pity it is that you are in the body of a woman, because of course there is no possibility you can attain enlightenment in a woman’s body, so you will have to come back as a man before you can become enlightened.”
The princess answered back brilliantly, demonstrating her understanding of absolute truth, saying, “Here there is no man; there is no woman, no self, no person, and no consciousness. Labeling ‘male’ or ‘female’ is hollow. Oh, how worldly fools delude themselves.”
She went on to make the following vow: “Those who wish to attain supreme enlightenment in a man’s body are many, but those who wish to serve the aims of beings in a woman’s body are few indeed; therefore may I, until this world is emptied out, work for the benefit of sentient beings in a woman’s body.”
From that time onward, the princess dedicated herself to realizing complete enlightenment; once she accomplished that goal, she came to be known as Tara, the Liberator.
Feminine models of strength have been largely lost, repressed, or hidden from view, particularly images that are not acceptable or are not safe in a patriarchal society. Those images of the sibyl, the wise woman, the wild woman—women who are embodiments of specific powers of transformation, magical, spiritual, and psychic—become “wicked witches.” Estimates of the number of women executed as witches from the 15th to the 18th century—primarily by being burned alive, as it was considered a more painful death—range from 60,000 to 100,000. Those were times of puritanism and sexual repression, and the women burned as witches were often independent or rebellious women who lived alone and practiced herbalism, or women who disobeyed their husbands or refused to have sex with them.
Images of the devoted, peaceful mother have always been safe. Such images have always been acceptable in all cultures, even patriarchal ones; but there’s another level of reflection of the primal feminine experience that has not been present and that both men and women long for. And this is an experience that comes from the intuitive sacred feminine, a place where language may be paradoxical and prophetic, where the emphasis is on the symbolic meaning, not the words; a place where women sit in circles naked wearing mud, bones, and feathers, women who turn into divine goddesses and old hags—who turn into the fierce dakinis.
The Sanskrit word dakini in Tibetan becomes khandro, which means “sky dancer,” literally “she who moves through space.” The dakini is the most important manifestation of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhist teaching. She can appear as a human being or as a deity, often portrayed as fierce, surrounded by flames, naked, dancing, with fangs and a lolling tongue, and wearing bone ornaments. She holds a staff in the crook of her left elbow, representing her inner consort, her internal male partner. In her raised right hand, she holds a hooked knife, representing her relentless cutting away of dualistic fixation. She is compassionate and, at the same time, relentlessly tears away the ego. She holds a skull cup in her left hand at heart level, representing impermanence and the transformation of desire. She is an intense and fearsome image to behold.
The dakini is a messenger of spaciousness and a force of truth, presiding over the funeral of self-deception. Wherever we cling, she cuts; whatever we think we can hide, even from ourselves, she reveals. The dakini traditionally appears during transitions: moments between worlds, between life and death, in visions between sleep and waking, in cemeteries and charnel grounds.
We must find the sources to access this fierce dakini power and bring it to bear on what matters to us in our lives, be it emotional, spiritual, intellectual, or political. Meeting our strong feminine energy, we will develop as women. The powerful, fierce feminine is very much a part of the psyche, but it is repressed; and when it is not acknowledged because it is threatening, it can become subversive and vengeful. But when it is acknowledged and honored, it’s an incredible source of power.
The word for “dakini” in Tibetan is khandro, literally “she who moves through space.” The most important manifestation of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism, a dakini can appear as a human being or as a deity. She is depicted as fierce, surrounded by flames, naked, dancing, and wearing bone ornaments. The dakinis are interesting in the current environment as we see the upsurge of women’s anger and resistance, because although the powerful fierce feminine is very much a part of the psyche, it has been repressed and forbidden. The dakini energy allows us to take that anger and transform it into wisdom and fierce compassion. The Vajra Dakini is one of five dakinis that correspond to the five buddha families: vajra (indestructible), buddha (spacious), ratna (enriching), padma (magnetizing), and karma (accomplishing). Each family represents the transformation of a negative emotion into a corresponding type of wisdom energy.—Tricycle #farrahnaykaashline #dakini #dakinigoddessofmarrakech #tantra #buddhism #washingtondc #marrakech
Her teacher, a monk, approached her, saying, “What a pity it is that you are in the body of a woman, because of course there is no possibility you can attain enlightenment in a woman’s body, so you will have to come back as a man before you can become enlightened.”
The princess answered back brilliantly, demonstrating her understanding of absolute truth, saying, “Here there is no man; there is no woman, no self, no person, and no consciousness. Labeling ‘male’ or ‘female’ is hollow. Oh, how worldly fools delude themselves.”
She went on to make the following vow: “Those who wish to attain supreme enlightenment in a man’s body are many, but those who wish to serve the aims of beings in a woman’s body are few indeed; therefore may I, until this world is emptied out, work for the benefit of sentient beings in a woman’s body.”
From that time onward, the princess dedicated herself to realizing complete enlightenment; once she accomplished that goal, she came to be known as Tara, the Liberator.
Feminine models of strength have been largely lost, repressed, or hidden from view, particularly images that are not acceptable or are not safe in a patriarchal society. Those images of the sibyl, the wise woman, the wild woman—women who are embodiments of specific powers of transformation, magical, spiritual, and psychic—become “wicked witches.” Estimates of the number of women executed as witches from the 15th to the 18th century—primarily by being burned alive, as it was considered a more painful death—range from 60,000 to 100,000. Those were times of puritanism and sexual repression, and the women burned as witches were often independent or rebellious women who lived alone and practiced herbalism, or women who disobeyed their husbands or refused to have sex with them.
Images of the devoted, peaceful mother have always been safe. Such images have always been acceptable in all cultures, even patriarchal ones; but there’s another level of reflection of the primal feminine experience that has not been present and that both men and women long for. And this is an experience that comes from the intuitive sacred feminine, a place where language may be paradoxical and prophetic, where the emphasis is on the symbolic meaning, not the words; a place where women sit in circles naked wearing mud, bones, and feathers, women who turn into divine goddesses and old hags—who turn into the fierce dakinis.
The Sanskrit word dakini in Tibetan becomes khandro, which means “sky dancer,” literally “she who moves through space.” The dakini is the most important manifestation of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhist teaching. She can appear as a human being or as a deity, often portrayed as fierce, surrounded by flames, naked, dancing, with fangs and a lolling tongue, and wearing bone ornaments. She holds a staff in the crook of her left elbow, representing her inner consort, her internal male partner. In her raised right hand, she holds a hooked knife, representing her relentless cutting away of dualistic fixation. She is compassionate and, at the same time, relentlessly tears away the ego. She holds a skull cup in her left hand at heart level, representing impermanence and the transformation of desire. She is an intense and fearsome image to behold.
The dakini is a messenger of spaciousness and a force of truth, presiding over the funeral of self-deception. Wherever we cling, she cuts; whatever we think we can hide, even from ourselves, she reveals. The dakini traditionally appears during transitions: moments between worlds, between life and death, in visions between sleep and waking, in cemeteries and charnel grounds.
We must find the sources to access this fierce dakini power and bring it to bear on what matters to us in our lives, be it emotional, spiritual, intellectual, or political. Meeting our strong feminine energy, we will develop as women. The powerful, fierce feminine is very much a part of the psyche, but it is repressed; and when it is not acknowledged because it is threatening, it can become subversive and vengeful. But when it is acknowledged and honored, it’s an incredible source of power.
The word for “dakini” in Tibetan is khandro, literally “she who moves through space.” The most important manifestation of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism, a dakini can appear as a human being or as a deity. She is depicted as fierce, surrounded by flames, naked, dancing, and wearing bone ornaments. The dakinis are interesting in the current environment as we see the upsurge of women’s anger and resistance, because although the powerful fierce feminine is very much a part of the psyche, it has been repressed and forbidden. The dakini energy allows us to take that anger and transform it into wisdom and fierce compassion. The Vajra Dakini is one of five dakinis that correspond to the five buddha families: vajra (indestructible), buddha (spacious), ratna (enriching), padma (magnetizing), and karma (accomplishing). Each family represents the transformation of a negative emotion into a corresponding type of wisdom energy.—Tricycle #farrahnaykaashline #dakini #dakinigoddessofmarrakech #tantra #buddhism #washingtondc #marrakech
MY STORY
Vajrayogini: The Trauma Goddess
I am the diamond maiden, the player of games
The yogini is one of my forms
Showing that I am beyond earthly attachment
I am the shining revelation to the ascetic
The women in silk and roses
I am the harlot in black net and leather,
who gives enjoyable punishment
I am the glass bead master,
creating universes of form
And a spark of me is in each bead,
for I dwell in karma.
I am the Trauma Goddess,
the Lady of Pain
In return for devotion
I pull thorns from the heart
In return for obedience
I untie the knots in the belly and the head
I hold the vajra,
which gives and receives
I reshape family karma.
The Trauma Goddess is called for people in painful situations
Where anger and hatred block the path of the soul
I evaluate the benefits of revenge
And give better suggestions for spiritual growth.
I am not suited to polite society
To social striving, upward mobility, and making good impressions
I am radically honest, sensitive, brilliant, and blunt
I hold up a mirror to the best and worst facets of human life.
The Lady of Trauma is the mirror of pain
I reflect the disastrous ways that human beings interact
Then the reflections are stretched and distorted
With irony, and humor, and sadness
Loosening their grip on the heart
So that the person who seeks freedom
Can get a taste of being free.
My devotees pray:
Lady of Trauma, Lady of Pain
Ascetic and bhairavi and sannyasini and mistress
Pull me from the disaster I have made of my life
Save me from the evil machinations of others.
This is their prayer and I hear it in their hearts
As they chant my mantra.
Savior, Lady, Mother Goddess, bodhisattva,
Love me as I love you
I am desperate and bound
Free me by your grace.
I will give freedom,
but not without realization
Those who have been bound, bind others
Those who have suffered, cause suffering
I let them know how they have been affected
But also how they have affected others.
I do not wear bones because of death
I wear them because they represent what is beneath the surface
The blood that I drink is the evil karma of those that I save
And the karma is then halted and does not pass to others
I appear wrathful as I take on anger, hatred, fury, and the desire to destroy
Which are destroyed within me.
I am a dancer upon the pain of all mankind
I destroy the dark and corrupt
My compassionate side is hidden
But for those whom I love
Who have taken on my dark grace
I open a path of shining light
Let it be known
I worship the Goddess
The one with tangled hair where insects nest
The one with blood soaked thighs
The one who crushes my concepts
With her razor teeth
And spits my mind into the wind
She shakes her belly to the beat
Of primordial passion
And feasts on the meat of ignorance
She wanders in the garden with a basket
Woven with the chaos of stars
She is naked
And savoring
Every petal and thorn
She churns the wheel of time
And casts the seeds of manifestation
Without rhyme or reason
She is senseless and crazy
Innocent and free
Her skin is the color of heart break and
Her eyes the sound of laughter
She takes no prisoners
She can not be contained
Or rationalized
She wont conform to my ideas of
What reality is
Or how things should be
Just when I think I have her under control
She takes me down
She will not be dominated
She always wins
She stomps to the beat and throws her hips
She is the prowl of the panther
And the leaping deer of supreme delight
Her hair smells of tobacco and pine
She carries a knife in her pocket
And holds a lily in her hand
She is pure in heart
She is the darkness of thunder
She is the undercover agent
Of divine madness
Whose ruthlessness is the compassion
That severs my arrogance and
Undoes my separation
So that I may know her deeply
And drink in the wild radiance
Of her holy mess
With all that I am
I submit to her
With all that I am
I prostrate before her
Insane beauty
She demands the death
Of all my control
When I am humble and true
She comes to me
“Dance!”
She says.
“Why aren't you dancing!”
I surrender all reason
She will not be tamed
My submission is my devotion
I have tried to control her
In 10,000 ways
Tried to seduce her into
My happiness
Yet she is the Grace
That smashes all hope
And opens up the blessed wound
Of living
When I am exhausted and weary
She brings me to my knees
Her muddy feet
Are the altar of worship
The palace of freedom
Where Joy is born
I love Her
This feral beast woman
Spinning chaos and tenderness with her
Fingertips
Whose tongue speaks no meaning
Whose laughter is the rose
Of shameless beauty
Whose smile is the sword
That slays all striving
To the one who can never be possessed
Or contained
I submit
To the one who is drenched
In the nectar of Love
To the one who demands
Nothing less
To the Goddess of Reality
I dance with her because
There is nothing left
To do...
I worship the Goddess
The one with tangled hair where insects nest
The one with blood soaked thighs
The one who crushes my concepts
With her razor teeth
And spits my mind into the wind
She shakes her belly to the beat
Of primordial passion
And feasts on the meat of ignorance
She wanders in the garden with a basket
Woven with the chaos of stars
She is naked
And savoring
Every petal and thorn
She churns the wheel of time
And casts the seeds of manifestation
Without rhyme or reason
She is senseless and crazy
Innocent and free
Her skin is the color of heart break and
Her eyes the sound of laughter
She takes no prisoners
She can not be contained
Or rationalized
She wont conform to my ideas of
What reality is
Or how things should be
Just when I think I have her under control
She takes me down
She will not be dominated
She always wins
She stomps to the beat and throws her hips
She is the prowl of the panther
And the leaping deer of supreme delight
Her hair smells of tobacco and pine
She carries a knife in her pocket
And holds a lily in her hand
She is pure in heart
She is the darkness of thunder
She is the undercover agent
Of divine madness
Whose ruthlessness is the compassion
That severs my arrogance and
Undoes my separation
So that I may know her deeply
And drink in the wild radiance
Of her holy mess
With all that I am
I submit to her
With all that I am
I prostrate before her
Insane beauty
She demands the death
Of all my control
When I am humble and true
She comes to me
“Dance!”
She says.
“Why aren't you dancing!”
I surrender all reason
She will not be tamed
My submission is my devotion
I have tried to control her
In 10,000 ways
Tried to seduce her into
My happiness
Yet she is the Grace
That smashes all hope
And opens up the blessed wound
Of living
When I am exhausted and weary
She brings me to my knees
Her muddy feet
Are the altar of worship
The palace of freedom
Where Joy is born
I love Her
This feral beast woman
Spinning chaos and tenderness with her
Fingertips
Whose tongue speaks no meaning
Whose laughter is the rose
Of shameless beauty
Whose smile is the sword
That slays all striving
To the one who can never be possessed
Or contained
I submit
To the one who is drenched
In the nectar of Love
To the one who demands
Nothing less
To the Goddess of Reality
I dance with her because
There is nothing left
To do...
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.
