Agama isn’t your standard yoga school. They are not so much into quick flowing stretches, branded trousers or heated rooms. It is more… well, they call themselves a Yoga university. The curriculum is very long and thorough, many steps on the path to enlightenment, or at least high spiritual Tantric achievement, where the physical aspect combines with a much deeper study of theory and practice.
I went through a really special period of my life 4 years ago. Very hard and transformative and eye-opening and very useful in hindsight but really painful at the time. I touched the bottom then and the only way was up. But I couldn’t climb out of the hole, after a very painful period at work which, eventually, made me mature the idea of an 180 degrees lifestyle transformation.
I ran to Brazil, 3 days after leaving work, to see an old friend based in San Paolo and seek some space. I couldn’t sleep properly, think straight or imagine a future for myself. A few days of binging on caipirinhas and barbeques made me realise I needed something of a retreat. Partying hard, in that state of mind, was not going to help me, maybe temporarily numb the pain, but I needed answers to questions, find respite and courage and a clear head somewhere else.
So I moved to an eco-friendly commune in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais I found on the Internet, which turned out to be a Hare Krishna camp, where I slept (little) in very challenging conditions and went to the extent of drinking cow pee, washing dishes with cow dung (for real!) and eventually hurt my back. No respite for my aching soul and I wasn’t ready to start in London again.
When you stumble upon a seemingly insurmountable wall in life, India is the place to go. Starting with ISKCON in Manipur, I then spent 2 weeks at the Osho ashrams in Pune and Kathmandu in Nepal, where I witnessed people dropping to the floor screaming in ecstatic trance. Still no joy for me though. I walked with my sore back up the Annapurna circuit for 5 days hoping the extreme nature of the Himalayas would balm my soul. It didn’t. The pain, existential and physical, with a very inflamed spinal disk triggering constant pins and needles sensations all the way to my right hand, was unbearable at times.
Iyengar yoga in Dharamkot, near Dharamshala, and a rather esoteric Siddha Kundalini workshop from the Oneness University didn’t measurably help me either. But then, eventually, there it was. A 5 day Tantra workshop with Agama Yoga. Shiva and Shakti energy, both polarities present inside of me and every human being, was awakened, through the practice of transfiguration and the principal of sublimation where energy created in lower chakras, centres of spiritual power in the human body, is moved to the heart or the third eye.
The teachings, clearly explained by the two very senior yogis Manu and Monika, were really something different, something I never heard of before.
Hours spent doing meditation, asanas kept for 4 or 5 minutes visualising telluric and cosmic energy entering the body and various polarity enhancing games tricked this beautiful, hot, sensual healing energy. Streams of red energy, hot wind, ecstatic sensations, hitting exactly the points on my body where chakras were located, totally enveloped me for an entire night, on the eve of the final ceremony. Hours and hours of joy and passion, lucid dreams of love and belonging, connection with the universe and everything in it. I didn’t sleep that night but I felt strong, positive and optimistic, full of life, beauty and can do attitude in the morning. The feeling of bliss lasted for days and I started sleeping like a baby again!
So I decided to move to Koh Phangan, where the headquarters of Agama are located, and join the First Month, an intensive foundation course into the wonders of Tantric Yoga. The rest is history. Yoga has been a very big part of my life since, with other schools influencing my studies and perception of the world but with the Tantric tradition remaining at core. I think it is fair to say I did not choose Tantric Yoga, it chose me.
I am aware there are some controversies surrounding the school, some people might not have had a positive experience and it surely isn’t for everyone. It worked for me though, yes it did, so I am very grateful for that.
