A rose by any other name….?
Ganga Nidhana, my co-presenter for the Juice workshop this month, is no more. Or at least, her name isn’t. For the second time in as many months, she’s changed it, and has asked me to tell everyone that she’s henceforth to be known as Roxanaah – which, interestingly, is more-or-less the name she started out with.
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Strange all this name changing stuff that goes on in certain spiritual circles. I was at Osho Leela last week, and a significant number of people who go to this well-known Dorset retreat centre are sanyassins (for the uninitiated, this is traditionally a Hindu spiritual disciple, but more specifically in the Leela environment, it’s a devotee of Osho, who’s chosen to live a life of totality and conscious awareness), and the path of a sanyassin entails changing one’s name to a new moniker given to them by their particular guru, as a mark of their transformation from their ‘old’ lives to their awakened status as a conscious, free individual.
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And, much as I respect Roxanaah’s decision – and indeed, anybody else’s choice to be known by any name they wish – I was rather amused to come across this quote by Osho himself :
“Don’t be deceived by the names. You are always hankering to catch hold of something, to make something big out of nothings. The names I give you are just like lovers’ sweet nothings. Don’t make much fuss about them.
A name is just a name. You are nameless. No name confines you, no name can confine you. They are just labels to be used – utilitarian, nothing spiritual in it.”
Osho, The Diamond Sutra, Number 10
So, it seems that Osho and Shakespeare (“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”) perhaps have something in common after all….?!
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‘Tantra’ is another word with several, widely diverse interpretations, signifying anything from a very high and pure spiritual path to a dodgy ‘massage therapist’ [and everything in between], and indeed that was something that was quite rightly addressed very swiftly last week at Osho Leela’s amazingly beautiful Tantra festival, and it was interesting just how many so-called experienced ‘tantrikas’ nevertheless continued to insist it’s all about intimacy, and male and female relations…..which, of course, it can be, but it’s so much more than that.
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Tantra, sacred sex, sexual healing….they’re all phrases laden with taboos and all manner of misconceptions, and I entirely appreciate this is a difficult service to accurately place and promote. Hence, I entirely sympathise with Baba Dez’s decision to market his wares to the tantra world, but my feeling is that what he’s actually doing isn’t so much tantra as shamanic healing of sexually-related traumas, as well, of course, as his totally shamanic ‘sex magic’ ritual, but of course, most people wouldn’t begin to comprehend the differences (or, indeed, the similarities) of those terms, and more importantly perhaps, most of them wouldn’t give a damn. And, perhaps, if I adequately considered Osho’s wise words I wouldn’t either, but it’s an interesting dynamic.
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But however you describe Dez’s work, the event I hosted with him in Kent last week was great, and as I guessed, he was the undisputed Superstar of the Osho Leela festie, and his workshops there were absolutely awesome….particularly the work about reclaiming the inner masculine, which was incredibly powerful.
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And an amusing little postscript to my last blog is that my daughter actually met the man whose movie had precipitated her quip about needing therapy, as she kindly agreed to be his taxi service from the station, and when I later told him the story, he said what a pity it was that she didn’t stay for the workshop….and he was right. His work is sacred, respectful and if enough of us get behind it, it could change the world. Really.
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But to get back to the ‘rose by any other name’ analogy, I understand that there may have been some surprise – offence, even - by the inclusion of the C-word in one of the responses to my last post.
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Lizzie, a grandmother and probably our oldest Juice participant, chose to use that word instead of the more acceptable spiritual description ‘yoni’, and I was taken to task by a couple of readers [...and far from being affronted, I was over the moon that I even had any ‘readers’...! - but I digress...] for including such an ‘offensive’ term in my blog.
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Interesting one, this. I remember watching an interview around eight years ago with Knights of the Realm Michael Parkinson and Sean Connery, in which the latter used the ‘C-word’, and as my daughter was – at the time – an ardent fan of Mr. ‘C’, I was furious. So furious that I did, in fact, don my best ‘outraged mother’ hat and penned a letter of complaint to the BBC. They did reply, but to all intents and purposes, their response was basically ‘Bollocks’.
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And I apologise to anybody who might be offended at that particular word, but why is it that we have created such a rich language of derisory, degrading language to define the sexual organs of both genders? And, ultimately, who is it that decides whether a word is ‘acceptable’ or ‘offensive’…? Clearly the BBC considers ‘cunt’ to be a socially acceptable post-watershed term, and so I decided it would be okay to post Lizzie’s comment without censoring it.
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Percy Penis balloons being sold alongside those of Nemo and Spiderman....wonder what the good folk of Brighton would have made of Veronica Vagina balloons...?
And why is it, that with both genders’ organs being derisory terms, it is the female anatomy that is still considered the most taboo. Radical feminists in the 70’s (of whom I suspect my blog respondent might have been one) sought to eliminate disparaging terms for women, including ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’, and feminist luminary Germaine Greer has dared to suggest on national TV that there is something precious about the word, in that it is now one of the few remaining words in English that still retains its power to shock.
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So, if anything in my blog shocked, good readers, then I refuse to apologise, but would instead ask you to consider one question : Why? What is a word, after all, but a vibration, and ultimately, the only person for whom that vibration will have a resonance is ourselves.
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And to return to where I began this little ramble, a beautiful and very experienced Tantrika by the name of Roxannah Cayrri Grainge (hitherto known as Ganga Nidhana) and I (Lynn Jackson – no alternative derivations that I’m willing to share here…) will be co-presenting a workshop called ‘Tantra Transcendence’ at Juice this month.
We’re going to create a very safe, juicy space for a beautiful and blissful exploration of this sacred path, and we’ve got everybody from complete tantra virgins, to those with tons of experience joining us – and would love to invite you along too.
I think you’ll find that whatever you call it, what we’re doing really is rather lovely – essentially the formless being reached through form…. and that, actually, this is a rose that will smell very sweet.
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Juice is this Sunday, 22nd August, from 3pm – 11pm.
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The ‘Tantra Transcendence’ workshop will be followed by a bonfire ceremony and a live performance of sacred soundscapes by ‘Anima’ (kindly sponsored by Diviniti Publishing) as well as lots of other beautiful, experiential magic.
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The online booking facility will be open until Saturday at 6pm.
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