Divine Sex
Mr. Broad opens this chapter by stating that sex was never a topic discussed early in his yoga experience. That same has been true for me. I knew that in early yoga some sects were completely devoted to the ultimate orgasmic experience. That was a part of the roots of Tantric yoga and where the Kama Sutra came from. But that was never a part of the hatha yoga I knew and practiced.
That’s not to say that there weren’t sexual interactions happening between yogis, or between yogis and their teachers. Is that because yoga heightens sexuality? Or because people are sexually attracted to each other? It may not have anything to do with yoga.
There is often an interesting power dynamic between students and their teachers that is especially true when a teacher reaches “guru” status. A charismatic teacher naturally gathers followers and some devotees go to great lengths to win the favor of their guru sometimes giving up their own agency and powers of discernment to get ever closer to that teacher. Often this power and adulation corrupts the “guru”. I’ve seen this happen in Anusara Yoga, I heard it happened at Kripalu and you can watch how it happened in the recent Netflix movie about Bikram.
Mr. Broad mentions that the topic of sex in yoga has become more prevalent recently, again not in my experience, and touches on the science that describes how yoga can induce relaxed states by influencing the parasympathetic nervous system and how that can lead to states of arousal. While I found this information interesting, it is not something that I find useful for teaching my public classes.
He makes references to a text called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, is a classic fifteenth century manual of hatha yoga. The work consists of four chapters that include information about purification (satkarma), posture (asana),breath control (prāṇāyāma), spiritual centres in the body (chakra), coiled power (kuṇḍalinī), force postures (bandha), (kriyā), energy (śakti), subtle/gross bodily connections (nāḍī), and symbolic gestures (mudrā), among other topics. The other topics refered to are esoteric practices like drinking urine and those practices related to enhancing sex. This text is an interesting reference, but not something I recommend that my students go out and buy.