Paul Muller-Ortega has a way of relaying information and wisdom through story telling and the use of colorful adjectives and pronouns, contagious enthusiasm and bubbling excitement about the opportunity of living life with a heightened awareness and applying that to practical use in order to live life to the fullest potential.
notes from the talk with Portland’s own, Shambhavi Sarasvati, who gave a talk to the group during the first part of the Intensive back in April. Shambhavi is the the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, and has written several books on Tantra in the Kashmir Shaivism tradition. When describing Tantra she says she is almost tired of the word, but not the practice… “Tantra is a way to find out who you really are and to live in the fullness of Reality. This is Self-realization. Nothing more or less.”
The night of the event there was electricity in the air, and prana everywhere. It felt like a concert and everyone was excited to be there for such an auspicious occasion. The place was still rough and in the raw, but had been cleaned out and decorated for the night. Over 145 people showed up and the entire place was filled with yoga mats and chatter.
I recently found myself caught in this contradiction while driving to the Wanderllust Festival for ten days of yoga bliss in Squaw Valley, Northern California. We left a day early in an attempt to reduce potential stressors– two tweens and an eighteen-month-old baby were sure to provide enough of that. In spite of our efforts, however, a drive that map-quested at 11.5 hours and started out as a conscious act of tranquility ended 38 blood-boiling hours later.