I had the pleasure to meet Shaft Uddin in Pai, Thailand at the Kung Fu Training Camp. Shaft is an expert in Tantra whose experience is quite considerable. He calls himself Sacred Sexual Jedi and once you get to know him, it’s easy to see why, since his magnetic light shines bright and strong radiating vitality and love. Shaft embodies joy and he always has a smile to share under any circumstance, making him a reassuring presence to have around, captivating anyone with his amusing sense of humor.
Shaft is the founder of Sacred Sexual Awakening, aiming to heal through self-love and intimacy, promoting joy and ecstasy through deeper connection with the creative forces of life.
When he isn’t making the world a better place, he can be found at Tantra Town, probably doing ecstatic dance and spreading positive vibes! Shaft shared with us his knowledge and expertise, being kind enough to demonstrate his levitation! We were sitting on the couch of a beautiful bar on the valley watching the sunset on the mountains as we did this very insightful interview that I am honoured to bring you:
1 – When your purpose became clear at an Hawaiin Cave during your ISTA Training, how was that experience like? How did you know that was your “life call”? Was it instantaneous or did it grow on you a few days later? Was it like a seed that blossomed or like a vulcano that erupted at once?
It was a very unusual occurrence: 20 human beings being lead down into a dark cave, all trained shamans not in plant medicine, but in sexuality, using sexual energy rather than a third party device like ayahuasca or peyote, we’re using our genitals! So we got lead into this cave, and there’s this giant eruption that looks like a vagina, the sacred space, the yoni we’re walking. And then, we were told to take off our clothes and we are told to have sex or we have to create sexual energy by self-pleasuring in front of 20 random people. And they have this huge shell where we put menstrual blood or semen or any other fluid that we create from our self-pleasure, building up the energy! Se we’re in a cave, loads of us, creating this primordial energy from the core of the Earth, this Pachamama energy, this Shakti Kundalini energy erupting from our being and from the ground itself and pouring out of us like a vulcano. I was ejaculating and when I reached that zen state, I had and epiphany and in that state of emptiness and void came the words: “heal the rich to empower the poor”. That became my life purpose back then. It was as clear as day, this was what I had to do. I left my job in advertising straight after, I was on the higher tax bracket, very successful, working with the biggest brands in the planet: Coke, BMW, Adidas, Vodafone, to then going around the world knocking on Yoga Studios saying “Hi! I’m a Tantra Teacher. Do you need me to teach tantra to your yoga students? Would you like a yoni massage?” Like it was the most outrageous flip from being someone who is the massive corporate whore to actually becoming a scared whore! So yes: it was instantaneous! Yes: it was like an eruption! And yes: it was the direction I needed my life to take to find deeper happiness and inner peace.
2 – How can people find their life purpose? What tools and/or practices and/or habits and/or activities do you recommend to reach that breakthrough moment?
Don’t listen to your Mom, don’t listen to your Dad, don’t listen to your friends and, most of all, don’t listen to me! (laughs) So, when you share your dreams, your wildest dreams, the ones closest to you will tell you not to do it! Not because they are jealous or anything, but because they genuinely care that you’re leaving something very safe that they can relate to into doing something that is unsafe, where people are truly living their life purpose rather than living the purpose that our parents told us to live, living the purpose that society told us to live. Like, my job description, I made up, the job description I once had, was what my parents wanted me to do. I was born a creative and I’m an artist, that’s all I am. I just love to create for the sake of creating. I don’t create for the millions of views, I don’t create for the huge amount of money that I get, I create for myself. My target audience is ShaftUddin! I could be a lot richer doing what I do, ’cause my target audience might have been “Gwyneth Paltrow” but I design everything for myself, which is terrible advertising, but that’s what makes me happy! So to find your life purpose is to do what makes you feel happy! It’s the hardest thing you’ll do, especially if you’re in a tight family unit or a tight friendship unit or a tight community or a tight culture, you’re gonna find it hard to let go of the conditionings that you have from that situation empowerment that you’re in. So, basically, the best way to find your purpose is not to listen to anyone apart from your heart!
3 – What are your health habits or activities? What do you do to keep yourself healthy?
So, when I came out of “the matrix” I became very strict in my practice, very hard on myself, kind of like narrow-minded. I left one set of narrow-minded conditionings of the world to come into another conditionings of the tantra spiritual world. So I became very rigid in that, so two hours in the morning practice, letting go of all substances, letting go of bad-dietary intake to make you feel lighter to make you get closer to spirituality, more enlightened, blah blah blah blah. Hum, then I had my second awakening (I only thought we had one, so the second one was a lot harder, because I didn’t think it was gonna happen) and now I don’t give a fuck! Now I’ll have a coffee, now I’ll eat a cute little lamb, I’ll do what I like, I’m not strict to myself, I’ll have a cigarette. Hum, I’m not addicted to anything anymore. I was addicted to everything, to fun, hedonism, drugs, drinking, smoking. But now, as I’ve done so much work to be so strict and to be so clean. Now the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other extreme and now it just swings in the middle. Now, I’m truly free! Now, my practice is things I enjoy. I love making love! I love dancing! I love singing! I love eating! But I also know that I do like to feel healthy and look sexy, so eating so much isn’t gonna aid me in that. If I have nice vibrational foods, I’ll be less fat. I like not to be fat anymore. I was fat and it takes a lot of effort to get fat for me which means I’m feeding myself a lot more shit, because I’m not happy. So now when I go back into my environment, the tantric bobbles, I have no other choice other than to eat vegan, because there isn’t any other choice (laughs) and no one is drinking, no one is smoking, it’s not a crime, but also in the place where spirituality meets hedonism it’s just tantra! So everyone has sort out their shit and are in a higher vibration than most people on the planet. We are that 1%!
4 – How can we use sexuality to keep ourselves healthy?
This is the key to stay young and healthy forever: sexual energy! So when I got into Tantra I kept meeting these very beautiful powerful women, I thought they were in their 30s, but they were actually in their 50s. And I asked them how they were staying young and they said they were into Tantra, but I had no idea what Tantra was. And then the more I got into this awakening, this unravelling with my being, I kept on meeting more and more women who were super young and then I discovered what Tantra was, because I started living it. I learned that if you unlock this sexual energy that it’s between your legs and you raise it up to the heart, you’re more connected with yourself and if you raise it to the third eye or the crown, then you’re fully aligned allowing this life force energy to flow through you, up the spine wherever as long as there’s movement of energy and it’s not trapped in one place. You’re gonna be moving your body more, the way you move in your body will change and reflect how much you’ve opened up in yourself. Shakira once said “the hips don’t lie” and that’s true! The more open you become, the more you open up your heart, the more you open up your hips, and you just move differently than normal people, so when you go into a normal nightclub, you see people very stiff and rigid. That’s because they are very stiff and rigid in their essence, in their embodiment, in their views, in their beliefs. The more you let go of “the matrix” and go into Tantra, and if you go to Ecstatic Dance events, you’ll see people being very sexual, but the thing is, they are not being sexual, they are just freeing their body. The way they dance is completely different than the conventional person dances with a handbag, a drink and a cigarette. We are fully expressive, because we have let go of shame that stops us from being fully expressive. So the key is to unlock that energy and allow it to flow through you and in that way you stop worrying about what other people think, you start following your bliss. Desire is a good thing in my culture, we follow our desires and we just basically live at a higher vibration, which basically means we’re happier than most human beings, because we do stuff that we like.
(Those women that you met, what exactly did they do to stay young?)
Quite simple: they were having sex!
(With multiple partners, with only one partner, what did they do to make it so powerful and to unleash that sexual energy and turn it into youth and vitality?)
It doesn’t matter if it is with one partner or a thousand partners.
(And is the sexual intercourse needed or can the human attain that just by self-pleasuring?)
Self-pleasuring, with partner, it doesn’t matter as long as you are connecting to that sacred sexual energy. As long as you’re moving your spine, moving your hips, moving your body, so you’re not stagnant, as long as you’re doing stuff you enjoy doing and as long as you’re having a laugh! Playfulness, joy is key!
5 – What is the fine line between sexuality and love? What is the difference (if there is such) between the two? How to be aware of it? How to cultivate love and healing sexuality?
Well, there’s different types of love, isn’t there? The universal love: wow I love this sunset! Wow, I love my friends, I love my family, I love sitting here chatting with you, talking about me! (laughs) I love Thailand! Universal love! Then, there’s a deeper love that you have towards people a little bit closer to you like your parents, your siblings, your family. And then you have that falling in love with the special one, your twin flame, your soulmate, which I don’t believe in. But people do! And that’s great! People need to believe in something. So people wait a life time waiting for the one, this single person who will love them, save them, rescue them, all their emotions, sexual, financial needs will be met by this one human being. It’s a lot to live up to! (laughs) But this one human will do it! And if it doesn’t work out, obviously then what you’ve invested, your perceptions of reality is falling apart and that perfect one isn’t the one anymore and then you’ll see it as a waste of time and healing and you find another one. And you find someone with whom you can have this sexual enlightenment tantric encounter with with sexuality and love and then it falls apart again. And then with the grace of time you heal and then you think… And then you find another one! And the cycle continues and continues on and on! And you’re delusional to the idea that there is this just one! (laughs)
Once upon a time, in the age of less options, we did have the one! Now we have things like airplanes, internet, cars. Now we leave our villages and our family and friends and we can travel and have more options. Now we can share our sexuality because of our expansion in technology, our beliefs, our cultures. We will no longer get killed or burnt for expressing our sexuality. That’s a good thing! It also means that we could share who we want to be with whenever we want to do that. The only way this works properly is: if you create a safe container for that one person that you want to be with, or those people, or the constellation. So love and sexuality for me goes hand in hand, they are the same thing! This is why we make love! The extension of love on a physical level is genitals that meet each other, or else you’re just friends. And you could have friends every single day. But the true drama comes from when the genitals meet, that’s what makes everything different, that’s why people go to war, that’s why people suffer for an eternity and lifetimes and have to heal traumas in themselves and their past lives because of some kind of sexual story that they’ve made up, revolving around love. I could go on about this. There is no right or wrong answer!
As long as you have two people in the same page, then that’s gonna work.
6 – What do you recommend for people who are starting with the Tantra? What should they focus on? What should their daily practice be?
Visit my page Sacred Sexual Awakening and sign up to my program and I will show you how to be truly free in your sexual desires and how to be a sexual bad ass! (laughs)
Number 1: I think my video explains what is tantra!
Secondly, just have that intention, that curiosity. The beautiful thing about this universe is that you create your own reality, so “Oh, I don’t know what Tantra is!” Check online! I don’t know anyone who knows Tantra: Social Networks! It’s up to you to navigate though all the shit and all the good, your heart will know which teachers to go with.
So when I was on the journey I would ask questions wherever I went. How did you do this? Who could do that? In the end, what happened to me was I don’t read that much, I’m not a reader when it comes to facts and words, I’m a dancer so I embody everything so I went to the authors of the books. Urban Tantra by Barbara Carella, she’s one of my teachers and a dear sister of mine and one of the biggest inspirations in the LGBT Community around non-dualistic Tantra, so it’s for everyone. So my invitation to women and men alike is: ask questions, YouTube, Layla Martin (she’s amazing actually!), let the web just unravel. I mean Tantra is very expensive, so it’s a high middle class thing, but that’s another subject all-together. But yes: I’ve trained with the best teachers that are alive today!
Practices would be: ecstatic dance, singing devotional songs and then just going to Tantra festivals, Tantra workshops or learning about mindful masturbation, learning how to love yourself, learning how to see yourself in the mirror naked and being ok with to be in the skin that you’re in and really loving yourself and taking yourself out in dates, becoming the best lover that you can posssibly be for yourself and then you’ll be surprised how it works the other way around. Embody the arquetype that you want to become, so I want to be a Sacred Sexual Jedi. What is that? I have no idea. What role models did I have? None! What type of man do I want to be? I’ll make it up! So the male role model that I want to become is the Sacred Sexual Jedi! I’m just basically trying to become a Super Hero! (laughs)
8 – What can we as human beings do to awake and honor the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine?
Education! Understanding, forgiving and accepting those aspects within ourselves first. What does it mean to be a Shiva? What does it mean to be the embodiment of Shakti? We need to understand what it means to us! My belief system says if you’re a Shiva you’re present, if you’re a Shakti you surrender. People’s perceptions who don’t understand that language will think “I’m not going to surrender to no man to be a Shakti! That’s a position of weakness.” or “To be present? How boring!”. So we need to understand the language that works for us. Educate ourselves about the languages we use, about the different belief structures around, what is it to be a Divine Masculine, what is it to be a Divine Feminine. Are we talking about the immature aspects of each divine or the mature aspects of each divine? So, the key is to basically embody and understand and educate and get clear on what they mean for us. And then once we have it in ourselves, then we can support other people. It’s like the airplane going down: do you save everyone else or do you save yourself? You put the oxygen mask first, because it allows you to survive, you need to support yourself first, and then you can help others. As a practitioner I need to be my number 1 priority, I need to feel safe around all these people that come into my reality. I don’t know who they are or what they’ve been through, but as long as I am solid in my Shiva and in my Shakti, I know I’m in a position to be in service to the community. So my Shiva is strong due to my corporate strong. My Shakti is even stronger due to being born an artist and having an amazing Mom. So, I support women in embodying these aspects, because it’s healthier for us to come back to our own natural essence which is the same essence as everyone else, which is just being enlightened. We are all enlightened or we were born enlightened and we will die enlightened, but everything in between is a bit of a fuck up (laughs) due to the conditionings of our parents, the first people who loved us to our siblings that conditioned us too, the schools, and societies that domesticated us and then we break free. And then we go on another journey where we are conditioned again by another belief system and then we are cracked open again and then we are able to let go of the first one, the second one we’re a little bit free and I’m not sure what happens after the third one because I’m not there yet, but I’m sure something else happens.
9 – What are the top books and/or resources that you recommend for people who want to learn more about this topic?
My answer to this is: do you give a child all these books, all these DVDs, all these things to teach how to ride a bike or do you just give the child the bike? So, I don’t read, I forget everything! My body doesn’t forget anything! Our bodies remember everything! It’s up to us to instal our body with information: practice, embody, live it! Live and be in communities that support you!
It took me 3 years to read Urban Tantra by Barbara Carrellas, an amazing book on the topic
The Power of Now (he actually brings up women’s menstruation), which I call Tantra for Dummies is literally Tantra.
But everything is Tantra, the key is to live it rather than bugging down your brain with knowledge. There’s nothing wrong with knowledge, but the best is to live it. And I really don’t like reading! (laughs)
10 – Would you like to say a few words about Women’s Menstrual Cycle?
I found you women amazing! The next time you guys feel insignificant, unworthy, lonely, just look up at the Moon! And realize that the moon affects the water on this planet. The world is made up of 70% water or something like that. The Moon has a gravitational pull and affects the water in this planet. The Moon and the Earth are connected to the Sun which revolve around together in perfect harmony in a bigger universe, in a bigger galaxy and in a bigger whatever, whatever, whatever, it’s exponencial! But women, and men, you are also 70% water and it affects your cycle, your moon cycle, your menstrual cycle. So you are connected to the Moon, you’re connected to Nature, the moon is connected to the entire galaxy. So your body is galacticly connected to the whole universe. So there is a sense of honouring when it comes to understanding your menstrual cycles, understanding that there used to be Red Tents for women: for 5 days, the were looked after, in tribal communities (it still happens in some), but also being ok with your menstrual cycles, knowing that this menstrual pain only comes from a disconnection with your body, a disconnection with your sex, a disconnection with your yoni. Once you learn to connect with your yoni, once you learn to hear her, her infinite wisdom, once you’re able to feel her fully, you’ll be able to let go of these menstrual pains and cramps that you get. You shouldn’t have any of these pains! There’s a reason why women get all these pains, there’s also a reason why women in my community don’t have menstrual pain, because they are connected with their vaginas, their connected to source, to nature, to the galactic entity that is the Universe through their wombs, where life comes from. It’s a big thing! (laughs)
10 – Can you share with us a little bit more about the Conscious Community Coravida and its expansion? What’s its mission?
Coravida created by James Coravida who has a Ted Talk about this and his beloved Zenith and myself! We created it together, many moons ago in Costa Rica. It’s basically a (He)Art Inspired Wellness Center, getting out of “the matrix” and creating your own reality, a place where people who come and be-home themselves, finding their purpose, healing themselves from the heart. It’s a beautiful space, it’s something that is forever growing and changing and it’s something that everyone should do by themselves: create your own reality, create your own ecosystem, create your own economical system. Get yourself out to creating what you want to live in. My biggest gift on this planet is become your own God/ess by creating your own belief system! So Coravida is a belief! It’s something that I travel around creating anywhere that I go!
11 – What’s your vision for the world? How would you like future generations to be brought up?
So, basically it’s what Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world”. It’s hard! It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, because no one likes you changing. Once you change, you loose all your friends. (laughs) I lost all my friends.
For sure, I see myself teaching Tantra at schools. They already teach Meditation at schools. They already teach Yoga at schools. They need to teach Tantra at schools. Then, you’ve got fully liberation. You’ve got people who are not built up on shame, you’ve got kids that are good at defining boundaries, expressing their desires, they learn about consent, they learn about bringing consciousness into sexuality and it’s not about fear, it’s about love! It’s not about disconnection, it’s about connection! It’s about intimacy!
To connect with Shaft Uddin:
Website for Sessions or Coaching: www.sacredsexualawakening.com
Online Course: https://app.coursio.com/store/schoolofselflove/
YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/shaftuddin/
Facebook:
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Wow, that was really interesting. Thanks for sharing it!