The Animal Pūjā
A Radical (?) Rite of Left-Handed Tantra
Recently I was invited to perform one easy-to-explain left-handed Pūjā for a private group in a secret place somewhere in Costa Rica. We invited some single people and some couples—and here are my reflections on it. The pūjā event was private and there was no photography, so I share here videos of previous private retreats where you see the pūjā booked by one client and placeholder actors as co-performers.
Now, these rituals, often called “pūjās,” are more aptly described as upāsanas. The word upāsana is a rich tapestry—it means “sitting close,” a devotional act of proximity to the divine, and is far more nuanced than its casual use as a girl’s name in India.
Among the many rites in my portfolio, one stood out for the beautiful chaos it unleashed: the Paśuvat Pūjā, the so-called “Animal Pūjā.” In Kriya Yoga circles, calling someone paśu is a mild insult—an affectionate slap to those half-hearted in their spiritual discipline, who dabble without diving.
• paśu (पशु) = animal
• vat (वत्) = like, having the quality of
• paśuvat (पशुवत्) = like an animal
It’s often used for people who begin their sādhana with great fire, only to lose momentum and fall back into lazy patterns. But here, the term paśuvat—meaning “like an animal”—is turned on its head. In this context, it’s playful, ironic, and deliberately provocative. The ritual invites participants to shed civility and drop into their primal, untamed layer.
When my hosts asked if we could include the Animal Pūjā in our program, I casually agreed. Only later did I question the wisdom of that decision. Not because the ritual is flawed—far from it—but because for the first time, I had allowed couples to participate.
In Forbidden Yoga, I usually work one-on-one or, occasionally, with couples under strict framing. When more bodies are required, I bring in what I call “placeholder actors”—not professionals from the stage, but placeholder humans from diverse walks of life: psychologists, porn stars, writers, homeless wanderers, aristocrats, or billionaires. Some participate freely, some are paid. Their purpose is to reduce the emotional noise so that I can focus entirely on the main client without the strain of juggling everyone’s inner weather. It’s logistical. It’s strategic. It works.
The Animal Pūjā, on paper, looks like the easiest of the lot. So easy, in fact, I thought it could be opened up to a wider audience with minimal preparation. And yet it turned out to be one of the most challenging rituals I’ve ever facilitated. That night, for the first time, we had couples blindfolded in a shared space, playing out animalistic archetypes—through voice, scent, movement—without seeing each other. And what happens then? The mind starts its attack.
You don’t see your beloved. You don’t know who is brushing up against whom. You don’t know what your partner is doing. And worse—you imagine. You spiral. The primal body is fine. It growls, it play-fights, it senses and reacts. But the mind—trained by monogamy, fear, jealousy, and the theater of control—starts to crack. You wonder: is someone touching her better than I do? Does he smell more intoxicating than I do? And once those questions surface, you are no longer an animal. You’re a ghost inside a beast.
Animal Pūjā in an undisclosed location a few years back
I learned again that night why I usually split up couples. It’s easier for people to experience raw truth alone. When partnered participants enter the field together, few can endure what the ritual reveals: that most of our romantic lives are flukes. Falling in love is random. Having children is random. Choosing to build a life with someone is often not the product of deep knowing, but proximity, comfort, cultural expectation. And paśuvat Pūjā cuts through that narrative with surgical sharpness.
Make no mistake - the ritual is not an orgy, but it can eventually become one. It’s not a neo-Tantric lovefest. It’s not a swinger night with incense. Participants are blindfolded and guided to embody an animal rising from their subconscious. They move, breathe, and vocalize from that place - not to seduce, but to be. Sexual penetration is either forbidden or only permitted in specific groups who have agreed upon it. In this case, there was none. Everyone present was a friend. Boundaries were set. Still, the psychology ran deep.
And that’s the trick: the challenge isn’t physical. It’s mental. People sit on the sidelines crying, singing, breathing, or simply watching from within. Some hiss and retreat, others scratch and bite to protect their energy. Everyone is allowed to be exactly who - or what - they are. You can opt out completely, or dive into full embodied chaos. But once your partner is in the room, and you don’t know what they’re doing, your system floods.
Facilitating this ritual is brutal. Afterward, I am exhausted for days. Not because I’m emotionally drained by participants - I’ve solved that by using placeholder actors - but because I must sense, track, and subtly correct every energetic thread in the room. I watch like a hawk - not just for inappropriate contact, but for the moment someone’s psyche begins to unravel. And I need to know whether they’ll come through it - or whether I need to pull them out.
Which brings me to this: Paśuvat Pūjā is not for everyone. But I do believe everyone should experience it - once in their life. It would work best at a Sensual Liberation Retreat, after two weeks of rigorous practice, or in a special retreat for single people only.
The structure is precise. The preparation begins with āsana , followed by Nirmanyu Nadī Śuddhi - a breathing and visualization sequence using the vāyu yantra to cleanse the inner winds. Participants then enter śavāsana , where they await the emergence of their inner animal. At the peak of the ritual, everyone plays. They embody, interact, express. But they remain in control. You can defend yourself - through hissing, scratching, biting. You always have your boundaries. And at the end, you return to śavāsana , where the voice of the facilitator reminds you: “That was all a dream. Take your human form again.”
You also prepare with a full snāna - a bath or cleansing - and by putting on specific vastra (clothing). This is not street theatre. It is an ancient rite from the night-time ashrams of Bengal and Odisha, where no one would dare practice it in daylight. I doubt it is done today anywhere in India. And that’s why I recommend watching Cat People - yes, the Bowie film - before attempting it. It shows the tension between the animal body and the human conscience. And maybe, just maybe, this practice offers a key to healing the strangest afflictions of our modern society: not just shame, repression, and jealousy - but all the passive-aggressive diseases of unconsensual behavior, too.
At this point, I have a thought about Osho, whom I deeply admire. Animal Pūjā resonates closely with one of his now largely forgotten experiments, which he termed “Encounter.” I won’t delve deeper into it here, but the resemblance is striking. Both are raw, boundary-breaking, and designed to shatter illusions rather than provide comfort.
Osho wasn’t a Tantric in the classical sense. He was born into a Jain family—Jainism being an ancient Indian religion emphasizing nonviolence, asceticism, and deep internal discipline. However, Osho was no ascetic monk. He was a Jain kid with a sharp tongue, a library fetish, and a libido that wouldn’t sit still. He didn’t inherit any lineage. He didn’t belong to a temple. He didn’t even believe in tradition—unless he could twist it into his own shape and ignite it anew.But Westerners were choking on their own shame, and here comes this grinning brown man in robes telling them that God lives in the orgasm. They ate it up.
No Pařuvat Pūjā in his program. No left-handed source texts. What he did was invent. He riffed. He jazzed Indian philosophy like Coltrane blew the sax. Half the time it was bullshit - brilliant bullshit. The other half cracked people wide open. His most iconic practice, Dynamic Meditation, came from tantric kriya yoga, but he stripped it of its Sanskrit skin and turned it into a revolution of sweat.
He told people they could fuck like gods and love like children. That jealousy was a disease. That guilt was fiction. That marriage was a myth for cowards. And he tried to build a utopia to prove it. Pune was the playground. Oregon became the fortress. Rolls-Royces. Machine guns. Love communes. Collapse. You know the story.
And yet, it mattered. Because Osho proved something Tantra has always known: most people aren’t ready for freedom. They want to be told what to do. He showed the West its own reflection in the ugliest mirror possible. And even if it all burned down, the echo stayed. His message still growls in the dark corners of modern spirituality: wake up. Take your clothes off. Look at who you really are.
He didn’t have left-handed rituals. He didn’t need them. He was a left-handed ritual in motion - no lineage, no permission, just improvisation in real time.
I am a dreamer. Perhaps if these practices like paśuvat Puja were embraced at scale, they could do what religions have always failed to do - prevent war. Heal minds. Transform culture.
But to get there, we still must walk a long, devoured road.