On the Spiritual Awakening Spectrum

I’m reading an interesting book at the moment by Adam Phillips, On Wanting to Change. Phillips focus is on the big notion of conversion, relevant some might say to those of us on a tantric spiritual journey. What has really struck me is Phillips assertion that we only really change through staying the same, that is, by redefining in some way what it is we are converting from. So, rather than repress or sublimate, as Freud would say, our undesirable aspect (usually sexual) we reconnect to, or remember, our essential nature.

This really resonates with me. I came to neo-tantra, which focusses heavily on the sexual, with a history of sexual compulsion. I have gone through, what I would describe as a transformation (ie, a conversion) where my sexual compulsion has been redefined as a vehicle for my spiritual awakening. Some might say, where my guilt and shame, through a paradigm shift, has become presence, in line with Christopher Wallis’s thoughts around integration in his new book Near Enemies of the Truth.

Indeed, in Lama Yeshe’s book An Introduction to Tantra, he emphasises that in tantra there is no place for guilt. We use our ordinary experiences of pleasure as the resource for attaining enlightenment, ie, we use our desirous energy to cultivate experiences of calm and satisfaction that mirror the goal of peace and tranquillity awakening brings.

And yet … as Phillips notes, there also appears to be a real scepticism around conversion / transformation. In this day of trauma informed work, we seem to only believe that negative conversions are possible, and that positive transformation can only, at best, be a release and temporary. Maybe this has something to do with the instantaneousness of change brought about through trauma, while trauma release work is a long slow process. Or maybe it has something to do with the various scandals surrounding Guru’s as Anthony Storr writes in Feet of Clay.

The other thing that struck me was Phillips assertion, the opposite of conversion being experimentation. Experimentation after all is at the root of tantra. In Kali Rising, for instance, Rudolph Ballentine says ‘everything is an experiment’ as Principle number 1. For Phillips, conversion is looking for consistency, while experimentation is play and uncertainty. So, while we experiment in tantra, we do so within specific parameters, and those parameters are set by those we wish to be ‘like’.

The assertion is that we all need to ‘fit in’, even if fitting in is with the out group. This identification is essential for survival. And yet tantra is all about dis-identification (and the eventual death of the ego) for the purpose of oneness – the ultimate ‘fitting in’ one might say. It is interesting that this chimes with some queer theory psychoanalytic thinkers, such as Deleuze and Guattari, where conversion becomes a form of self-cure for early trauma, where the very act of conversion is an experimenting experience.

Bringing it all together

Conversion seems to have become a dirty word which has been polished up by renaming it transformation. And yet what is a paradigm shift of our view of Reality but a conversion? Not that my conversion or, as Phillips would say, any conversion, is instantaneous and immediately permanent. There might be a moment of awakening, an epiphany, but the actual process of conversion is ongoing. And one might say, ongoing through a process of continuous experimentation.

Even though we hear the oft repeated phrase, ‘tantra is the quick way’, our old patterns, thoughts, and ways of being seep through, as Augustine’s Confessions make clear, as reiterated by Christopher Wallis, Adyashanti and many other tantra teachers and awakened beings. However, as Wallis notes, when our view (our new paradigm), our practices (our ongoing experiments), and the impact on our life align we can see signs that we are indeed on the spiritual awakening spectrum. 

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Email me direct if you are interested in mindful, embodied, trauma-informed, or spiritually-informed coaching, or if you would like to join my new Pink Tantra Towards Awakening group for chat rooms, video channels and in-person workshops around tantra and intimacy practices robert.pinktantra@gmail.com

See my personal development / personality profiling book DISCover the Power of You published through John Hunt Publishing Ltd, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-78535-591-2

And for a bit of light reading, see my first historical fictional novel Fermented Spirits published through Austin Macauley Publishers, 2022. ISBN-13: ‎978-1398437159