Why do we teach Taoist Sensual Bodywork
We made Stephen Russell's genius massage invention part of our eight-month-long retreat in Bali.
When someone books a customized retreat with us, the magic certainly happens beyond the veil of the visible.
Even if our work is called "Tantra" and sometimes looks like "Tantra," it has nothing to do with a modern Tantra retreat you can book in places like Koh Phangan - Thailand, or Bali.
People come to us to solve an unsolvable issue, something they couldn't succeed with using other methods.
How the life-changing solution, the healing, happens in the end is nothing less than a miracle. Usually, we absorb a client's problem, digest it, and expel it through another channel of our own body-mind. At the same time, we have to create a theater, giving people hundreds of complex practices and rituals from this Tantric tradition, based on private Tantric Shastras from a family tradition in Bengal. We need to fill my retreat with activities, like in every Montessori kindergarten where kids have to do something. As Ram Dass pointed out:
"All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion."
In Michael’s own words:
“However, in my case, I never invented anything myself. I was captivated by the incredible complexity and fascination of certain practices from the ancient lineage, which seem beyond the invention of the human mind. Why create something with my limited mind, which would only be a product of my own Samskaras (karmic seed imprints)?
Over the years, never actually working with massage, I realized there was a need for it. In my Shakta Tantra tradition, bodywork does not exist at all.
Since I do not work with Kashmiri Shaivism massage practices, I felt the need for bodywork practices that my lineage had not provided. Although I do not align with the entire philosophy of Tantric massage, especially working on the Svadisthana area (Upashta), which is a no-go in my tradition, I decided to include the fascinating Taoist Sensual Massage by Dr. Stephen Russell in my retreats.
I even conduct sub-workshops to train participants to perform them on their own, not just to receive them. Taoist Sensual Massage by Dr. Russell has never become as prominent as Esalen massage or Stephen Kramer's school of erotic bodywork. Stephen's invention is much more refined, subtle, extremely sophisticated, and certainly not for the average Joe visiting Koh Phangan's Tantra massage schools. It's for a select group of souls who want to use the body to dive back to the beginning of creation, for people who want to remember the beginning of time when all creation was set in motion.”
Here we are sharing a few images of Sami and Iya practicing in Bali a few years back. It has the vibe we love so much: mystical, not crowded, melancholic. You don't see bodies hugging in groups and exchanging each other's sweat. It's just sweet, slow, and etheric.