Embodied Mahavidya Immersion

What this actually is

The arc

And it starts three weeks before you land.

Why this is rare

• The practice. For this kind of work you need teachers who have received the mantras and the methods through a living lineage, and guides who know the rules of yantra, fire ceremony and sadhana from doing them rather than from reading about them. That combination is not easy to find anywhere, and it is why this is sixteen days rather than a weekend.
• The dance. Classical Indian dance for the goddesses — the forms, and the mudras belonging to each of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses — is taught almost nowhere outside the tradition. Most people who work with the Mahavidyas will never learn a single one of their mudras. Here you learn them with your hands, over two weeks, from a dancer trained in both Bharatanatyam and Tandava who has spent her life inside a living Tantric lineage in India, and who does not treat the dance as performance. Women and men both dance, each in the form the tradition gives them.
• The chanting. Bhajan and kirtan led by someone who practises these archetypes and carries the transmission. He did not pick up the repertoire and learn to sing it well. You hear the difference by the third evening.
• And the translation. Taking something this esoteric and making it usable in an ordinary week — so you can find the magical inside the daily, at home, long after Bali. That is as rare as the rest of it.

Who this is for

What you will practise

• Classical Tantric sadhana. Mantra, given properly and practised daily. Yantra — sacred geometry, built and used rather than admired. Yajña, the fire ceremonies. Kriya and vocal kriya, to clear what is in the way.
• Dance. The way to meet an energy through the body, in traditional form rather than free movement. Two classical sources: Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of South India, and Tandava, the dance of Shiva. Traditionally women work from the first and men from the second — and yes, men dance here. Along with the mudras belonging to each goddess.
• Bhajan and kirtan. Devotional singing here is a practice rather than entertainment. Led by someone who lives it, it aims at an altered state — no guarantees, because that part depends on you. Each goddess has her own dedicated bhajan and kirtan, so across the sixteen days you move through all ten by voice. The final Mahakirtan, at the festival, opens to people from outside the group.
• Closing the divide. Strong spiritual practice often opens a gap: the sadhana on one side, your actual life on the other, and a quiet sense that the two do not belong to each other. Closing that gap is the work here. Altars, symbolism, and learning to recognise these goddesses in the middle of an ordinary day — at your desk, in a difficult conversation, in whatever mood you woke up in. The mantras you receive stay with you and keep working long after the sixteen days are over.

Who is teaching

Everyone teaching here has practised within the same tradition, done the same sadhanas, and knows one another's work from the inside. That is unusual, and you will feel it: the streams meet rather than sit politely side by side.

• The lineage. The traditional teachings, ritual, mudra and dance come from a teacher with more than two decades inside a living Tantric lineage in India, raised from childhood among mantra and ritual and initiated into the Mahavidya path as a young woman. She is a classical Indian dancer in both of the forms taught here. Much of what she carries has never been translated into English, and very little of it is taught outside the lineage at all.
• The method. The Mahavidya sessions, the Goddess Method, and the arc holding the sixteen days together come from a teacher of more than fifteen years, who received the transmission of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses within that same lineage and has built this body of work across years of teaching. Her work is translation: making something this esoteric usable in a contemporary life.
• The devotion. Bhajan and kirtan are led by a practitioner of a classical devotional tradition of India, who has spent years leading kirtan immersions and coordinating devotional practice within an established school. His premise: in fire there is heat and light, and in the names of God there is purification as well as ecstasy.
• The daily practice. Yoga, meditation and ritual support come from a teacher with fifteen years of practice and more than twenty years of facilitation, trained in classical Tantra within the same lineage that carries these teachings.

Add-ons

• Meal plan — $511 for the full stay

  Three meals a day, plus dinner on arrival. Strongly recommended. The days are full, the breaks are short, and going off the property to eat is not realistic.

  Recalculated for 16 days — to confirm

• Accommodation — from $555 to $2,655 for the fifteen nights, basic to luxury

  Tell us your standard and your budget and we will come back to you with the options.

  Figures to confirm

• Airport transfer

  Arranged on request.

• Flights

  Flights are your own.

About the tradition

For anyone who wants the background.

Dasha Mahavidya

the Ten Wisdom Goddesses — are a group of goddesses at the heart of Shakta Tantra: Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Chinnamasta, Tripura Bhairavi, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamalatmika. Each has her own mantra, yantra and sadhana, and together they cover the whole range of experience.

Classical Tantra

the practices as they are held in living lineage: mantra, yantra, ritual and sadhana.

Sadhana

structured personal practice, done daily over a sustained period.

Yantra

sacred geometry, the form of a deity, built and used in practice.

Yajña

fire ceremony, offerings made into flame.

Bhajan and kirtan

devotional chanting, call and response.

Mahavidya Puja

ceremonial veneration of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses, each embodied by a practitioner who has prepared for her.