Tao Semko's Tantra Tips fromUmaaTantra.com "Learning from Lions..."

Tao Semko's Tantra Tips fromUmaaTantra.com
"Learning from Lions..."

Dear Santiago,

I don't care how you walk the spiritual path - as a lover, a warrior,
a monk, a yogi... you can learn a lot from lions...

Most spiritual seekers get nowhere fast for one reason, and one reason
only...

Boredom.

Nobody is going to do a practice that's boring.

But there is a better way of practicing.

Just look at the lion cub...

Watch lion cubs play. On TV or on youtube, it doesn't matter. Watch
them play. As you watch them in your screen, you'll become absorbed in
the expansion of their awareness, as the cubs stalk, pounce, hide,
chase, frolic, posture, vocalize, seek solitude, negotiate their
surroundings, and each other...

It's fun for them. It's filled with emotion. It's playful. It's
relentless. It's realistic. Their kind of playing requires intuition.

It never stops. It pushes limits. They need stillness and motion,
quiet observation and rapid action. They build timing, awareness of
distance, self-awareness and awareness of the others of their tribe.

Their practice is motivated by primal drives - hunger, reproduction,
social pressures, the need for fun! It builds focus without tunnel
vision. This is the kind of practice that creates expansion (TAN-otti)
to liberation (TRA-yotti)= TANTRA.

What are we talking about here? Learning games... Lion cubs take each
skill they need to perfect in order to survive and prosper, and turn
it into an ever-expanding game.

The game never stops.

Even when they're sleeping, you can see them playing in their dreams -
chasing, hunting, sniffing, listening.

They play alone with their environment. They play with phantom "prey."
They play with their food.

They chase and stalk their brothers and sisters.

They play with (and on) their mother. They learn to hunt, to fight, to
find the best places to eat and sleep, they learn what plants to chew
to settle an over-stuffed stomach. They learn conceal themselves from
each other and their prey...

The cubs constantly create, making more and more elaborate games. They
learn to use all of their senses and emotion to intensify and remember
these useful behavioral memories.

They learn to trust intuition. They learn the effects of facial
expression, posture, roars and whimpers, on themselves and those
around them...

They learn to always observe and be watchful, but to mind their own
needs... To be both social and solitary.

They learn that a lion who manages his surroundings out-competes the
lion who merely reacts...

For lion cubs, practice is never boring. It can't be.

If a cub does something obvious, boring, or repetitive, the other
lions quickly swat him in annoyance...

The more a cub seeks new skills, and the better a cub makes this game
a fusion of creativity, aquisition, intensity, repetition, efficiency,
variation, sensuality, emotion, intuition, and letting go at just the
right time, the more that cub prospers...

Come out of the program for a moment....

This lion's game is in itself more than most people grasp of the
powerful learning process during their whole lifetimes....

Successful tantrics begin here, just like the lion cubs in the
program, acquiring new skills by becoming simultaneously absorbed in
themselves and in the world outside them. They use all the methods the
lion cubs do, but with the goal of discovering their place in nature,
but also their conscious relationship to the Absolute, the Universal.

Tantrics seek one-pointed absorption in the Absolute, while enjoying
their lives in this world... liberated while in this body, constantly
playing (leela) with passion, creativity, sensuality, and intuition...

How can you achieve this feeling?

Pick one tantric practice...

Playfully integrate a that practice with your everyday life. Make it a
part of eating, shopping, watching tv, working, relaxing, loving, or
exercising. Then, all week, play with variations. Just like the lion
cubs, practice constantly while giveing yourself the freedom to have
fun, to play, to enjoy, to improve, to integrate.

Connect your practice with extraordinary experiences, emotionally,
intuitively, sensually. Make it a part of your daily life... Keep
playing and growing.

Soon everything becomes a sadhana (spiritual practice)...

Eating, sleeping, making love, cleaning, negotiation, going to the
movies, everything...

It's simple when you play our way, a little at a time, relentlessly
and joyfully...

The Dalai Lama smiles at every person he encounters. If they don't
smile back, he smiles again. It's simple, playful, powerful, without
attachments...

Smile, breathe right, and keep your tongue up!

Your Friend,
Tao Semko of UmaaTantra.com

P.S.
To "get" the principles and techniques of the tantric path, look
here: http://umaatantra.com/products/secrets_of_laya_yoga.html