Puja: Erotic Worship & Intimate Presence with Evalena Rose MA, creator of “Blissfire Tantra a Women’s Erotic Pleasuring Meditation, Tantra Teacher for 14 years, and spiritual therapist.
Sex – Tantra and Kama Sutra
Francesca Gentille
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Episode 16 - Puja: Erotic Worship & Intimate Presence with Evalena Rose MA, creator of “Blissfire Tantra a Women’s Erotic Pleasuring Meditation, Tantra Teacher for 14 years, and spiritual therapist.

Francesca Gentille interviews Evalena Rose who was featured on the award winning documentary "Hearts Cracked Open". Evalena offers Metatherapy, energetic healings, and channeled readings. In this episode Evalena exposes key practices in Erotic, Romantic, and Tantric Arts including: 1) How to move energy throughout your lover's body 2) Focusing spirit & intention through Home Altar Building 3) A single's practice to draw in the Divine Beloved. 4) Steps to start a Couples Practice at home. Engage in the power of presence and soul gazing that lead to ecstatic states of consciousness.

Transcript

Transcript

Puja: Erotic Worship & Intimate Presence with Evalena Rose MA, creator of "Blissfire Tantra a Women's Erotic Pleasuring Meditation, Tantra Teacher for 14 years, and spiritual therapist.

Announcer:  This program is intended for mature audiences only.

[Music]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome to sex, tantra and kama sutra. I'm your host Francesca Gentille and with me today is Evalena Rose. Evalena Rose is a tantra teacher for over fourteen years who teaches in the Sonoma and San Francisco Bay area. She has a masters of psychology, she practices metatherapy, a spiritual therapy including energetic feelings and channeled readings. She's very well known for her cd "Blissfire Tantra: A Woman's Erotic Pleasuring Meditation" and is featured in an award winning documentary called "Hearts Cracked Open."

Evalena Rose: With tantric arts. I think the basis there is breathing. That you bring your full breath to the experience which brings you into your body, because all the pleasure is in the body. The power is in the body, it's being present in the body so you're learning to really open to your own chakras and your own life force.

Evalena Rose: The gift of being erotic is presence The biggest thing you can offer your partner is to be totally present in your own heart and in your own body.

Francesca Gentille: The kundalini; how would you describe the kundalini?

Evalena Rose: The life force in the body, it's seen as a serpentine energy or as fire. When you activate it, what's natural is for it to want to flow up the core of the body.

Evalena Rose: Sometimes when people move this energy and have moved it for awhile in love making for instance and then they meditate it will be as if they are traveling out into the whole universe.

[Music]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome Evalena.

Evalena Rose: Thank you. It's delightful to be here.

Francesca Gentille: Evalena, you are very well known for giving puja's and this is a key part of a tantric spiritual sexual practice, but it's not a common term for westerners to know. What is "puja", what does that mean?

Evalena Rose: Puja. The word Puja actually has many meanings including altar so it's a portal, a place for doing sacred ritual and in the west we tend to mean by puja a circle where there's an outer circle and an inner circle. Usually you have women in the outer circle and men in the inner circle, they are partnered and the facilitator of the puja then will guide each couple through certain breathing practices or tantric practices and complete with that person have a sacred experience and then move on to another and move on to another.

Francesca Gentille: Let me see if I'm understanding this and it's clear for our listening audience; a puja is a practice, a sacred practice a worship practice and when people go to a puja such as you might lead there's going to be almost like a ring around the rosy. An outer circle of women facing maybe in and an inner circle of men facing out or vice verse, everyone will have one person that they are standing in front of. They are led by someone like you through some exercises of intention, heart and spirit and then they move to another person and this goes on and on so they are going to be interacting with many people throughout a puja event. How long does a puja usually take?

Evalena Rose: Well, that really depends. We've done puja's in our introductory meetings that are twenty minutes long, I call them apeteasers because everyone wants longer. Mostly, my workshop courses are two hours or a puja and a party or gathering might be two or three hours and then for advanced students some of whom are tantra teachers I give puja's that are five hours. The interesting thing is, it's never long enough.

Francesca Gentille: [laughs]

Evalena Rose: Tantra is it's own energy source so when you're breathing that much you're energizing your body and you go so deeply into timelessness and into the sacred states so it's as if there is no time.

Francesca Gentille: What do people get out a puja that has them feel like it's never long enough?

Evalena Rose: I think we get deeply seen and deeply met. There's this important practice in tantra of soul gazing or eye gazing; looking into each others eyes as you breathe and you're really invited to come deep into your own heart chakra and receive that soul gazing from your heart. I think we get that need to be seen met. A lot of intimacy needs get met. In the puja we're practicing erotic arts and romantic arts within a very safe and well held container that keeps it sacred.

Francesca Gentille: You spoke about tantric arts and tantric practices and now we're speaking about romantic arts and erotic arts. I'd love to know more about each one of those. Which one would you like to start with erotic, romantic or tantric arts?

Evalena Rose: Let's start with tantric arts. I think the basis there is breathing. That you bring your full breath to the experience which brings you into your body, because all the pleasure is in the body. The power is in the body, it's being present in the body so you're learning to really open to your own chakras and your own life force and to, with your partner, move the life force in your body with your breath and as you bring it up through the center of the body the central core through the heart of the chakras you're activating and energizing the chakras but you're also moving towards ecstatic states. So, in the tantric breath there's a way that you can master the eye gazing with the other and then the breath takes you onto a journey and every person is different, every time it's different. A journey of allowing the life force to move in your body and to feel the beauty of that flow that comes through to fountain around, envelop you, bathe you in kundalini.

Francesca Gentille: That sounds so beautiful, this experience of this energy moving and being seen and being met. I think your correct in that we all long for that. How is that different than or distinct from a romantic art or an erotic art? What might happen in a puja that would enhance our practice of romance.

Evalena Rose: We work with people to understand, that passion like fire needs air, so we learn through some of the practices. The practices in the puja are built upon exercises from workshops. You learn the skills in the workshop and then the puja is practice. Some of the practices are learning how to approach very gently so that you're coming into the persons energy field gently and your giving them a chance to sort of hunger for the touch. If you do touch or if you do kiss that's offered and once it's received maybe you come back and you give some air to it. You let there be a seduction. I do a practice of the kiss from afar and so quite a bit of it is the seduction before the kiss. Because, we tend outside of pujas to move into something that feels like a kiss or a touch and you just keep taking it through there but in romance it's increasing the desire for the connection and playing with that desire. So, its like erotic dance which is another very romantic way to approach someone; to dance in a way that you're offering yourself but [moaning] mmm maybe not really and it builds a bit of a tension of excitement by that dance.

Francesca Gentille: That's really almost the definition of romance or courtship is that sense of tension and building anticipation and excitement and we can forget how to do that or become a little [music starts] habitual about how we approach one another and it's wonderful that people would be able to go to a puja and practice consciously building that romantic tension and excitement and I'd love to also hear more about the erotic art, maybe some practices about that after we come back from a word from our sponsors.

Female Announcer: Listen to a taste of sex, erotic poetry reading a companion program to life in an orgasm based community. It's open mic night at one taste san Francisco, a weekly audio program on personallifemedia.com.

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[music begins]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to sex, tantra and kama sutra, bringing you the soul of sex. With us today is Evalena Rose and we were talking about the romantic arts, the tantric arts, the erotic arts; as they are expressed in the puja experience. We were just about to get to the erotic arts. Evalena would you give us a little taste, a little tease of those erotic arts that might show up in a group puja?

Evalena Rose: Certainly. The gift of being erotic is presence The biggest thing you can offer your partner is to be totally present in your own heart and in your own body. I think so often where something might feel erotic but it doesn't quite go there is where someone over extends themselves or sometimes men get into a place they are feeling "I have to do something for this woman" but when you drop into presence and you are totally giving all of your attention and focus to the connection and you're in your self then the other can be in them selves and thats where Eros has room to move. In a puja, there are many ways to be erotic, to touch very slowly and very gently and when it really seems to open people to their heart is very soft feathery touch like on the face with the fingertips, the backs of the fingers, soft and slow. Where ever you are touching, if you take your eyes there and let it be seen how much your enjoying that touch and it's a kind of touch that's about awakening the others body that can be wonderfully erotic. In the exercises that you learn in tantra, you learn how to bring energy up the legs, bring it towards the Yoni we call it for women or the lingam for men; not touching but teasing and letting it be noticed that you're bringing energy in that direction. To bring energy up the inner core of the body we call the inner flute, thats the centers of the chakras, with a slow and lingering touch that can be very erotic or too on the back just to tap right above the sacrum and slowly draw the energy right up the spine. That can open the erotic energies between two people.

Francesca Gentille: That sounds so delicious. Where exactly is the sacrum? It's on the back; where on the back?

Evalena Rose: It's right at the base of the spinal column, right above the hips. Where the hips come together is the sacrum.

Francesca Gentille: Where some people have those adorable dimples?

Evalena Rose: Exactly, right by the dimples.

Francesca Gentille: [laughing]

Evalena Rose: [laughing]

Evalena Rose: That's seen as the seat of the kundalini. Just to kind of playing with the energy there; make circles or fingernails lightly there or a little tapping can help awaken the kundalini a bit.

Francesca Gentille: The kundalini; how would you describe the kundalini?

Evalena Rose: The life force in the body, it's seen as a serpentine energy or as fire. When you activate it, what's natural is for it to want to flow up the core of the body. I also think of it as the healing force in the body because it's the only energy that is so generalized it can be used everywhere in the body and it's designed to be able to pump it up this inner flute with [phone rings] [pause] what's called the PC muscle, the pubococcygeus muscle; which some think of as kegel's. It's designed to move in the body and to create these altered states through that movement.

Francesca Gentille: These kegel's, the PC, that's that muscle that stops the urinary flow. Both men and women can do this, it's not just women. We always hear women do kegel's to keep their vagina strong or to help them in certain ways but, this isn't just for women.

Evalena Rose: That's right. It's for men and women.

Francesca Gentille: Wonderful, does this lead to those ecstatic states you mentioned earlier that these kinds of practices lead to ecstatic states and what are those states? What do we mean by an ecstatic state?

Evalena Rose: We mean altered states of consciousness. When you know how to move the kundalini and it's an undulatory breath using the PC muscles, you can learn it in many of the books on tantra. When you know how to do that it takes the life force up into the head and it activates brain cells and connects right and left hemispheres. It's expanding beyond normal consciousness opening into the higher chakras, the higher centers of consciousness and activating more of a multi dimensional experience of the world. Sometimes when people move this energy and have moved it for awhile in love making for instance and then they meditate it will be as if they are traveling out into the whole universe. People who are (xx) in the stars or the planets because it opens such a broad experience of consciousness.

Francesca Gentille: That sounds really like something that everyone would want. Really, who wouldn't want their lovemaking to be so expansive that they're out in the universe out in the stars and they're still connected to their beloved it's not just like they are traveling through planets and stars there's still a sense of connection or perhaps even a deeper connection with their beloved.

Evalena Rose: I would think that if two were making love and they went there it would be a matter of first so expanding beyond their normal selves that they become one with everything. You're very connected with your beloved and with all that is. There is no separation and that's the furthest extent of the ecstatic state is that everything is in you.

Francesca Gentille: I would like to talk more about and [music begins] discover more from you about how we might do this at home with out own partner with some of these practices at home and even if we don't have a partner if this puja is something that we could do even by ourselves after a break and a word from our sponsors.

Female Announcer: Listen to sex love and intimacy a pod cast proving weekly audio workshops for your pleasure and connection on personallifemedia.com

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[music begins]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to sex, tantra and kama sutra; bringing you the soul of sex. We're still talking to beautiful and radiant Evalena Rose wonderful tantric puja teacher metatherapy counselor who does energetic healing and channels readings and is featured on an award winning documentary "Hearts Cracked Open" and has her own cd "Blissfire Tantra: Womens Erotic Pleasuring Meditation." We were talking about the puja, the erotic arts and the pujas, the ecstatic states that are available and Evalena is there a particular way that people talk a way of communication in a puja that's important?

Evalena Rose: I believe in puja's as well as in love making that you want to learn how to speak in a way that is all positive and that allows the other to know what you would like from them. If you're connecting with someone in a puja or intimately, you want to assume that they absolutely would love to please you so when you tell them what pleases you that's honoring them. When you don't tell them, it's as if you don't believe they would care, but when you do tell them it's a communication of " I know you would love to please me and here's what will do that." Then, once you've made a request, you find a way to follow it with a reward so if you ask for a touch to be lighter you might say "lighter still" and then "ooh that's it, that's right, oh, that really feels good." Whenever you're communicating we talk about making a love sandwich. You say something you like first, then you make your request, or give feedback, or whatever needs to be spoken and then something you like or you love at the other end and in that way people are able to hear it within a framework of honoring and respect and that you are experiencing. Often we give feedback not acknowledging the good of what's happened or if someone then gives us what we ask we don't let them know how much we like it. In puja especially and in tantric relationships, there's a lot of acknowledging each other, of honoring each other and saying it out loud; "I really want to honor you for asking. It means a lot to me that you would respect me that way," "I want to honor you for hearing me," a lot of saying things that support our self esteem and their self esteem. When you ask as if you believe you can be listened to, it makes you feel better about your self and it also makes the other person feel better because they're being respected.

Francesca Gentille: This is truly lovely Evalena. This is a shift. You know, we watch porn movies, if any of us watch porn movies; its very, "ooh baby" and "give it to me" and there's a raw primalness which is fun and wonderful and yet sometimes there can be a lack of this really honoring tenderness that inspires the heart to open and the spirit to open and I'm guessing that for some of us it might be a little bit different at first yet what I'm hearing is that this is that really deep place of when we say we long for intimacy, that this is crucial in providing that.

Evalena Rose: It is because, it helps you be seen deep within. In tantra we're seeing the other as the divine beloved and even if you're in front of someone you don't know well, they're the representative of the divine and especially with a partner or a beloved. If you will drop into your heart and let your heart expand and your really sitting in your heart, you're going to see the divinity and by seeing that, you reflect it to them. We're actually helping each other evolve by witnessing what's divine in each other It's a much deeper intimacy, at first, it feels very vulnerable and then it feels so nurturing. It's like a deep drink of something we've waited for all our lives of being witnessed at such a deep level.

Francesca Gentille: When we say "honoring the divine" it's not like we're suddenly seeing our beloved wearing a toga standing on Mt. Olympus, in a way we're saying that we're seeing both their beauty of their soul but also that tenderness and that vulnerability. Is that close?

Evalena Rose: Absolutely, and that we're noticing that they are underneath their personality an eternal being. That somewhere under everything that's happened to us, it's part of us that can never be wounded. It's always pure and innocent and whole and so we're acknowledging that. When you acknowledge it, it does go to deep tenderness, just a deep sense of almost awe; to be in the presence of the divine. So, when two people connect, they will often begin before an altar and light candles, say prayers or intentions. It takes them into that place of feeling there is something bigger here than just your personality and my personality.

Francesca Gentille: By an altar, we're not saying that, I was raised Catholic, we're not saying that we're sneaking into church late at night. [laughs]

Evalena Rose: [faintly] "Oh, no."

Francesca Gentille: You're meaning it in a different sense; a home altar. What might be a home altar? How would our listeners create their home altar?

Evalena Rose: It's actually a beautiful experience for two people to do together. You start with any small table, small surface, a beautiful cloth that you both like. What's lovely is to each bring a few things that represent something important to you. It does not even necessarily have to be something that you think is sacred, you want some things that represent sacred; whatever that means to you, and things that are important. Maybe, a little frog figurine that represents the time in high school you achieved something amazing and you were given this figurine, whatever it is, something that reveals a piece of you and usually candles. Then together you can set this altar and share what these pieces mean to you and that's a deep heart sharing. Already, you're closer and more connected and one of the points I think of doing ritual, setting an altar together or doing a ritual with the altar when you start is it helps still the mind. It helps signal the subconscious; this is an ordinary life, something different is happening here. I think what spiritual practices aim at is somehow, getting between the thoughts and quieting the thoughts of the rest of life enough that you can get in now and step into that now because that's where the timelessness is. You light candles, you either set an altar or you honor the altar; say prayers or set intentions. It doesn't matter what your belief set system is, you do whatever feels like it invokes that sense of something larger than self for the two of you.

Francesca Gentille: This creating a table, an area, that's a focus for spirit, for joy, for peace; that cues us that we're entering into a different state of mind, a different state of being. This is wonderful for two people at home in their bedroom. Is this something that a single person to do who maybe doesn't have a sweetheart yet or a regular sweetheart yet?

Evalena Rose: It's a beautiful thing for a single person to do. If you're single and it's a time in your life when that's the most appropriate way to be, you make an altar in a sense to yourself and to the beloved that you are, that honors you and honors your beloved relationship with the universe; whatever that means to you. Perhaps, images of beings, spirits, or teachers that are important. Images that represent; if your a man, a man that's really in touch with his heart and his sexuality. For a woman; images that help you come to really honor and appreciate your femininity. If you're at a place and you're single and you'd like a relationship, then you can do an altar where you bring images of two people, of couples, of connection; whatever represents relationship or sexuality. You can use the altar to empower your prayers and your desire for a relationship, to help to energize that desire. As a single person you can sit before this altar and do your intentions, light candles, do some of the breathing practices that are in tantra. sometimes, it's nice to put a mirror on the altar and do some self loving. Stroking of your body and witnessing yourself enjoying touching yourself and pleasuring yourself. That can be beautiful tantric exchange with yourself at an altar as an alternate.

Francesca Gentille: Evalena, I love the way you think.

Evalena Rose: [laughs]

Francesca Gentille: These are such beautiful ideas for individuals and many things that you said for couples, an individual could do and what you said for an individual a couple could do, or in front of one another be so intimate, so beautiful and I'd love to hear more and I know our listening audience would as well. How can people find out more about you, your workshops, your pujas? Whats the best way for them to get a hold of you?

Evalena Rose: They can find out through my website which is anchorwomen, tantraforwomen spelled out.com. I originally was teaching only women because, there weren't many peolpe teaching women tantra and now I have one community that is women, including many lesbian and "bi" women and another community that is mostly heterosexual "bi" men and women. They'll find information there about the pujas I offer and also workshops that I do with men and women.

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Francesca Gentille: Evalena, I want to thank you so much for joining us.

Evalena Rose: Your most welcome.

Francesca Gentille: If you want to learn more about Evalena, her workshops, her cd "Heart Cracked Wide Open" documentary, you can find all that information and more and for a transcript of the show and more of our shows at www.personallifemedia.com, that's www.personallifemedia.com.

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