Pink Tantra Towards Awakening

Pink's Journey

I came across Tantra in 2018 in the form of Tantra 4 Gay Men when I was looking for some form of self-development, personal growth; a way to find out more about the truth of me. But what initially drew me in was the sexual aspect, alongside a yearning for something more. I’ve always had this pull to the ‘spiritual’ and yet an aversion to any form of organised religion and sectarianism. It has taken me a long time to recognise the separation between the two.

My first direct experience of something bigger than what I could perceive was as a child in a barrel with a friend doing ‘naughty’ stuff. The sense of connection was surreal afterwards, and due to the dysfunction I was living with at the time, and the guilt that came from this, there was no one to confide this experience in: certainly no one I would have felt safe with. I put it aside as an aberration.

The next conscious moment for me was at Art College. I was heavily influenced by Colin Wilson’s Outsider and so my ‘peak experience’ seemed only natural. But at the time there was a real anti-spiritual, anti-metaphysical strain in the art world. So, again, I suppressed the moment and focussed instead on the formal aspects of my abstractions.

But in 2018, I came to realised that the sexual was in-fact a large part of the journey, and that I could let go of the stories I had created around sex and spirituality; the guilt, the shame (and possibly as a consequence, my sexual compulsion), the anger, the suspicion, the fear.

Tantra has introduced me to a more considered and reflective, relaxed and yet expressive sexual stance, that has fed into my self-confidence, self-worth and self-expression. I no longer feel the need to justify (or intellectualise) that something I am an interconnected part of; something I can access via sex and spirit. I can have it all. And why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that the journey towards awakening; to have it all, to transcend it, to bring that something back to heal or lives, or at least to find out where it takes us.

Lineage and Experience

Connecting to something bigger, consciousness that transcends the individual me, my vital energy, the divine me and oneness, have enabled me to access and experience things that go well beyond anything I could have imagined prior to coming into contact with tantra; ecstasy, orgasm, bliss. Immersion is key for me. The Tantra Diploma and Teacher Training programmes through T4GM have been instrumental, as has the Diploma in (Classical) Tantra, connecting as it does to works of Christopher Wallis, Adyashanti, and Rupert Spira. This combination enables me to connect knowledge and experience.

The Naked Practice sessions I ran on the T4GM Tantra Love Academy App helped bring these aspects together. This, I feel, really offered me a grounding that is helping a deeper shift in my mindset and practices. Practices I have taken from Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Lama Yeshe, OSHO, and Daniel Odier. Odier’s approach is very different to someone like Christopher Wallis, but they both descend from the Shaiva Tantra tradition, crystalised by Abhinavagupta, which I now recognize to be very much related to the left-handed stream (the Kaula Lineages) where we are all innately divine, able to attain liberation in our lifetime, and is transgressive.

Indeed, it is interesting to note that tantra is similar to Advaita Vedanta, in that it is a union of two aspects: awareness and energy. Awareness is generally symbolised by the colour white (of semen and Shiva) and energy by the colour red (action and Shakti) resulting in Ananda (Joy, often these days referred to as Bliss). This union is, partly, where Pink Tantra derives from.

The left-handed stream in classical tantra, the Kaula Lineage, is seen as a form of Red Tantra. Red tantra is considered impure, focussing as it does on sexual pleasure. However, irrespective of whether I take a Tantric stance based on the Kaula lineage, or connect to my Celtic cultural roots, or Iberian generic roots, or a more Neo-Tantra / Neo-Celtic approach, what they offer, for me, are four key common factors.

1.     Our non-dual nature. This concurs with most thinking on ancient and indigenous spiritual traditions, the left-handed lineage in Tantra, neo-traditions and practices, and Deleuze and Guattari’s take on Queer Theory (oneness with all).

2.     The place of direct experience in Tantra and Neo-tantra, where oneness is to be experienced rather than intellectually known. This is reflected in most ancient, indigenous, and contemporary practices of altered states of consciousness where we come to listen to our own inner truth.

3.     The place of the body, and how this relates to embodied and ecstatic practices as a form of spiritual practice (losing the ego, going beyond the mind, connecting to the divine within). There are strong connections here to ancient sexual practices that revelled in the natural beauty of orgies as a conduit for expanding our life energy.

4.     The place of transgression. This can certainly be seen in the left-handed stream of Tantra, and in Queer Theory, and through non-mainstream readings of ancient and indigenous practices, such as homoerotic elements. For me this would allow us to shift from the individual body to the social body (which again resonates more with ancient and indigenous cultural practices).

Tools and Techniques

For me then, spiritual practices work through action, through technologies and practices that are prescriptions for action. This is very much in line with the thinking behind Kundalini Tantra Yoga, and is important for people like me who spend so much time in their heads. You DO tantra. It evokes psychosomatic forces (interactions between the mind and the body) through the doing of things like breathwork, mudras, meditation, visualisations and sexual interactions, supported through the utilisation of rituals and devotion, while incorporating things like mantras and sound, and movement and dance, to encourage patters of vibration, and yantras to enhance our visualisation that can help produce ‘fields of energy’ and enhance physical sensations. We do this through tapping into our life force (sexual energy) as ‘spiritual rocket-fuel’.

From a tantric perspective, if we tie our powerful sensations and emotions (energy in motion) to our sexual / life energy we can start to bring wholeness (healing). This aligns to an embodied trauma informed approach. Pleasure is the raw material for our transformation; the steppingstones on the journey towards awakening; ultimately shifting from pleasure to joy (Ananda). Pink, then, for me, is more celebratory and fun, a spiritual and authentic place for where and who I am. Not only this but it chimes with the association Pink has with gayness or men-who-love-men-ness; same-sex attraction, same-sex love, and same-sex soul to spirit. In our pinkness we can aim for something better. We can take steps towards awakening.

This is a place I can imagine bringing ‘That to This’.

Bio and CV

Pink Tantra is a multi-disciplinary practitioner bringing together over 20 years’ experience in leadership and personal development with coaching, psychometrics, mindfulness, stress management, creativity, Reiki, tantra and kundalini yoga. Pink is passionate about bringing healing to our men-who-love-men tantra communities. To this end Pink founded Pink Tantra Towards Awakening where the vision is to be the go-to community for men-who-love-men in Scotland seeking awakening, supporting all men-who-love-men to integrate their mind-body-spirit to live a meaningful life.

Qualifications, Awards, Certificates, Publications and Exhibitions

Healing and Spiritual Growth

·       Undertaking the Mukta Kundalini Tantra Yoga Teacher Training Programme (200 hrs over 21 days) through the Mukta Kundalini Tantra School in India, during April 2024

·       Diploma in Kundalini Yoga, Centre for Excellence, 2024

·       Diploma Tantra and Tantra Teacher Training Programmes, Tantra 4 Gay Men, 2022 (started in 2019)

·       Trauma Informed Certificate for Coaches, The Centre for Healing, 2022

·       Reiki Master (L1, 2 and 3), The Infinite Healer, 2022

·       Somatic Therapy Masterclass, Centre for Healing, 2022

·       Hakomi Intensive Workshop (Presence), Hakomi Lancaster, 2022

·       Certificate in (Classical) Tantra, 2022

·       Spirituality Coaching Diploma, The KEW TRAINING ACADEMY; Accredited by CTAA  (Complementary Therapists Accreditation Association), 2019

·       Certificate in Stress Management Training, The Stress Consultancy, 1999

·       RSA Certificate in Counselling in the Development of Learning, RSA, 1998

Change and Personal Development

·       Crucial Conversations Delivery Award, Vital Smarts, 2021

·       Online Action Learning Facilitation, 2021

·       Change Management Practitioner Award, APMG, 2019

·       People Personal Assessment (PPA) Award, Thomas International, 2019

·       Master Mindfulness Practitioner, The Academy of Applied Psychology, 2019

·       Coaching Diploma, The Academy of Applied Psychology, 2018

·       DISCover the Power of You: How to Cultivate Change for Positive and Productive Cultures,  my organisational / personal development book, published in 2017 through John Hunt Publishing Ltd, ISBN: 978-1-78535-591-2.

·       Licenced DISC Trainer, The Coaching Academy, 2015

·       Prince2 Registered Practitioner, Axelos, 2014

·       Including a range of non-accredited in-house training, such as the LSDA coaching programme, during the 1990s and 2000s.

Academic

·       MA in Diversity, Culture and Identity, University of Hull, 2010

·       MA in Education, specialising in Leadership and Management, University of Brighton, 2005

·       Post-Graduate Certificate of Education in Further Education, University of Greenwich, 1998

Creative (Visual and Written)

·       Fermented Spirits, historical fictional novel was published in April 2022 through Austin MacAulay Publishers Ltd. ISBN-13: 978-1398437159.

·       Winner of the Stanley Wilson Monologue Competition for ‘Gavin’s Revenge’ through the Scarborough Writers Circle in September 2018, subsequently published through The Selkie in December 2019, https://theselkie.co.uk/gavins-revenge-by-robert-adams/

·       Published short story ‘The witches of the wood’ in an anthology ‘Terror Tales for a Winters Eve’ through Phantasm Press, December 2018.

·       Published flash fiction ‘Time to think’ in Reflections magazine, Autumn/Winter 2018 Edition.

·       The Bench, and Myths and Moral Action - Virtual show in 2020.

·       Drawings and Paintings. Westgate, Brighton and Hove, 2006.

·       Drawings and Paintings. The Studios, Bristol, 2001.

·       Published short stories prior to 2000, in Queer Words (quarterly paperback of new lesbian and gay writing); ‘The Protégé’, ISBN 1900950022, ‘Client/Transcript’, ISBN 1900950057, and had a short piece of prose published and displayed on London Underground, ‘The Wait’, as winner of the GlaxoWellcome Write for Life competition. See Here for my short stories.

·       Exhibited extensively prior to 2000 in Edinburgh, London, America and Italy.

·       Master of Fine Art in Painting, ECA, 1993

·       B.A. (Hons) Degree in Drawing and Painting, 1st Class, ECA, 1991

Connect on Twitter / Facebook / JustFor.Fans

Email me direct if you are interested in mindful, trauma-informed, intimacy or spiritual 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