Tantric Yoga of
Ecstatic Dance

TANTRIC DANCE KRIYA
The ecstatic yoga of dance

Tantric dance is an esoteric form of yoga: fun, brilliantly unique, and surprisingly simple. Through movement, stillness, and sound, it helps us retrieve a deep reservoir of inner calm and reconnect with the power we have carried within us all along.

A return to complete yoga

The invitation to explore the esoteric side of yoga is really a call to shift from standard industry yoga back to actual yoga: complete, original, primordial yoga. Over time, the practice has drifted far from the egoless, wisdom-centered, clarity-seeking yoga of the Upanishads.

Yoga was constructed in its seemingly complex way for a reason: to flood the mind and body with an ecstasy that pushes suffering out of our being entirely. When we embrace all of its aspects wholeheartedly and with skill, something essential is restored to us.

With esoteric yoga, we take a vacation from "normal life" to savor the purity of being. This is an invitation to sample the extraordinary, and to experience true power.

The journey of a session

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Each practice moves through a natural progression:

• Shaking: Loosening held tension and stirring the body's energy awake

• Dancing: Free, uninhibited movement that lets the mind fall quiet

• Stillness: Seated or reclined meditation as the energy settles and deepens

• Toning: Using the pure tone of the voice to tune and harmonize the chakras

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The sequence is arranged as a kriya (a purposeful act) to clear mental and emotional clutter and carry you toward yoga's final stages.

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Shadow work and self-inquiry

At some point along our journey, we stop merely tolerating our imperfections and begin fearlessly pursuing shadow integration, seeking to understand life and existence on a deeper level. This is how we release blame, stop fighting the facts of life, and become a happier, stronger, wiser version of who we were yesterday.

Tantric dance offers a rich space to check in with yourself: How well is your yoga supporting your sense of self, your attachments, your worldview, your habits, and your attitudes? If we're not meditating well, it's a sign we need to take bigger portions of yoga with us into every part of daily life.

The goal: samadhi

Yoga's final stage is samadhi, the merging of the atman (the pure individual self) with the paramatman (the higher self), and ultimately with Parabrahman, the transcendent creative source of all existence.

We give this source a name so we can speak of it, but in truth it is beyond name, form, and conception. Much of the conflict between belief systems arises from attachment to names for what is ultimately nameless.

Coming into your power

Parabrahman holds all the pleasure in the universe. As practitioners return again and again to this inner ecstasy, a remarkable shift occurs: our joy begins to outgrow our cravings. The finest tantric practices are known to make us stronger than our impulses, bringing excellent self-control and a deep, lasting inner satisfaction.

Many of us have simply never learned to hold and direct our own energy. This practice teaches you how.

In practical terms, tantric dance works as a somatic practice, gently unwinding the patterns in body and nervous system that keep us searching for pleasure and fulfillment outside ourselves, until we discover that all the pleasure and power of the universe was within us all along.

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