20 Years of Tantra Has Taught Me This

This will be my 20th year as a practitioner of Tantra.

It’s been 20 years since I bought a one-way ticket to Asia…

Spent a few months partying hard and cracking my teeth up on too many drugs…

Then was brought to a “secret” jungle beach where I learned my first Kundalini meditations from the Tantric tradition.

It’s been 20 years since I wept in gratitude to have found what truly felt like the secret of lifetimes…

And the key to being so fully alive.

I have a harder time writing to you about my spirituality and my devotion…

Than I do about my romance drama or cosmic anal sex…

Because there is something so sacred about this path that it’s challenging to capture in words.

You see, I was raised Catholic.

I always felt the Holy Spirit in church…

So I made a commitment at the age of 10 – to be a nun and a missionary.

But I felt the tear in my body and my soul…

That to be with God and have a “right” to the intimacy that I felt with spirit…

I’d have to give up on my human desires and pleasures.

I swore I’d never have sex before marriage – I’d never say cuss words – and I’d always be loyal to the one true God.

Since spirituality meant so much to me…

And I was told that in order to deserve spirituality I’d need to give up all the temptations of life…

I agreed.

I didn’t know there was another way.

And listen, I don’t know what the truth is for anyone else…

Surely, in some times and some places, for some people, that approach makes total and complete sense…

To simplify your human experience in order to make space to hear the transcendent.

But for me, it didn’t feel true.

It didn’t feel true for me to cut off the part of me that felt the wild heartbeat of music…

The longing to make epic love in the jungle…

The part of me that could die in devotion while eating an organic olive…

All so that I could know the divine.

When I first encountered Tantra, a whole new perspective was presented…

A teaching that said God (and Goddess)…

Well, they are the heartbeat of music.

They are lovemaking in a jungle.

They are the devotional love affair with the taste of an olive…

Just as much as the offering on an altar…

And the silence of prayer…

And the compassion of forgiveness.

Because God and Goddess were all these things…

They could be found in all these things.

So…dancing…lovemaking…eating…

Could be portals to the divine….

Just as much as worship at the altar, meditation, prayer, and compassion.

My soul began to feel healed and whole.

My path to God and Goddess didn’t need to consist of denying huge parts of myself…

But of embracing all of myself.

My wholeness was what led me to enlightened realizations.

My wildness opened ecstatic joy and was my prayer.

I could celebrate my way to divine realization…just as much as work my ass off.

The teachings said God wanted truth…

And if God is truth, then my truth is God.

So my bisexuality is divine.

My passionate sluttiness is divine.

My deepest heart’s longing is divine.

Truth is what leads us home.

Tantra is so deep and so vast…

And yet, in some ways, it’s the path of ultimate truth.

The truth of you, the truth of the moment, the truth of what is.

No changing it or fixing it or trying to pray it away.

But having the courage to live the truth of the moment…

And what you are.

Perfect.

Exactly perfect.

Just as you are.

This devotion to Tantra is why I can chant Sanskrit mantras and spend days in bliss in the darkness…

And also why I post Instagram reels about how to spank ass masterfully.

It’s all divine to me…

So long as it’s true.

And my spirituality doesn’t make me want to be here less…

Or to shame my humanity.

Instead, my spirituality makes me more intimate with everything.

It makes me want to dance and fuck and make magic…

Just as much as offer flowers and chant and sit in silent meditation.

What is devotion if not embracing all of creation with the deepest of gratitude?

And what is more grateful than making the most of this gorgeous creation?

Living our humanity…

Going all the way….

Is it devotion to deny ourselves and our lives and the magic all around us?

Or to be so in love with this creation that we can say we wasted not a moment, not a drop, of its magnificence?

To me…this is Tantra.

To cherish every heartbreak…

To laugh with death…

To orgasm in total shamelessness while still knowing that shame is sacred, too…

To love every moment with my whole damn heart…

And to embrace the moments when my heart is slammed shut…

This heart that beats as God…that is God.

And this heart doesn’t just sing choir hymns (although it does that too ;))

This heart writes erotic poetry…

And sweats with secret desires…

And revels in the fantastical drama of it all.

This heart came to live.

Because this whole world is a temple…

And my life – your life – our lives…

The ultimate offering.

To offer my aliveness…

In devotion.

That is my spiritual practice.

To live the magic of this altar each and every day…

And my prayers are made of secret delight and cosmic laughter.

When I say “I’m a Tantrika…”

I mean that I practice Hatha Yoga and chant Sanskrit and work with the chakras.

I mean that I am in reverence to the masterful cultures of India, Tibet, and China that channeled and then preserved and transmitted this wisdom down through generations…

But what I mean, more than anything else…is that I’m in a love affair with life.

And anywhere I’m not in love…

Anywhere I can’t surrender…

Well…that’s where I go and I do the work until I can fall in love…

Until my devotion and my romance are unconditional.

That’s what makes me a Tantrika.

And whether you come for the orgasms and stay for the spirituality…

(as many in VITA™ Coaching say ;))

Or you’re here for the best blow job tips…

Or you’re here because you can feel the Tantric transmission and you love it….

The permission I carry…

The magic I weave…

The delight in it all…

Well.

I owe it to Tantra.

I’ll show you how to suck cock like you wouldn’t believe…

And how to prostrate yourself before your own divine magnificence.

It confuses people sometimes.

It makes it hard to make a simple Instagram reel sometimes.

But – look – I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s the way of the Priestess…

This magic is woven from pussy juice, saffron, and tears.

As we step into the magic of this holiday season…

May we fall a little more in love…

With ourselves…

With whoever is in front of us…

With the moment…

And with a God and Goddess that would make 100 billion galaxies…

And put a secret key to your spiritual awakening in your cervix or prostate…

And then let the world scare the shit out of you to even go there…

Until you one day find the courage to say, “to hell with what everyone else thinks or says…”

I want to know myself.

And in knowing yourself…

You find out that you are even more magnificent than 100 billion galaxies…

Happy Holidays…thank you for being here.

Love,

Layla