Rudy Ballentine is a holistic physician, past president of the Himalayan Institute (Yoga) for many years and author or co-author of books on nutrition, meditation, breathwork, yoga and psychotherapy and of the recent Radical Healing, Integrating the World's Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine. He studied for 20 years with a Tantric master, and leads workshops on Tantric sexuality for men with men through the Body Electric School. He has four children and lives in New York City.

Agnes Dei is a bodyworker, musician, and radical faerie, living simply in Pittsburgh with his lover Jimmi. Together they cook, garden, sing silly songs and enjoy bringing touch to the lives of their brothers, lovers and friends. Agnes' mundane name is Timothy Kocher-Hillmer.


Rudy Ballentine: I'd have to say that my ulterior motive is to talk about Tantra. The philosophy, the approach, of Tantra is the idea that it's a doorway to other worlds. I'll have to step back and say a little about my feelings about the term "altered states." And my feelings have changed over the years. There was a time when I felt comfortable with it, in fact I used to use it more. Now I feel like it's a little parochial. I mean, what is the normal state that's being altered? Why are these variations of consciousness called "altered"? It's sort of like the term alternative medicine. Well, which is the alternative? In view of the fact that over 100,000 people a year die from taking conventional medications, properly prescribed and taken in proper dose, in the hospital. Wouldn't it make sense to start by using safer options like herbal remedies or homeopathy and if that didn't work, then resort to the alternatives like antibiotics?

There's a certain implication in using this term that indicates the everyday consciousness that we're so often immersed in is the "real" one. In the Yoga and Tantric tradition there's a prayer you say before you teach, which is: "Lead us from darkness to light. Lead us from unreality to reality." At our retreat center, people would be returning to New York saying "We have to get back to the real world." My teacher would say, "That's the real world?" Are you kidding? So, I just want to say that up front. I'm not comfortable using the term "altered" states.


I'm not sure this is specific to Tantric philosophy. It is certainly part of Indian thought in general. There is a Upanishad called the Mandukyo Upanishad. It talks about the movement from everyday waking consciousness into what we might equate with a dream consciousness, where we become aware of images and archetypes and mythical figures. It's the sort of consciousness we are in when we dream. It is also a consciousness that is accessible when we're not asleep, which we might enter in certain ritual space or in storytelling or meditation. The Mandukyo Upanishad talks about moving from everyday waking consciousness into that consciousness, then from that consciousness into the sort of consciousness that is really more about swirls of energy and experiencing energy movement. It doesn't even have images. That, according to the writings, is where we go when we're in dreamless sleep. It is also a place where people who are trained as shamans go (or others at depths in whatever the tradition) in healing, or in ritual space, or in sexual ecstasy. In this state there's this feel of energy flowing and a kind of immersion in the intensity of sensation: an opening into the power of that world.

So, those we might call "altered" states. But what's interesting, and the reason I brought it up, is that when the Upanishads were written several thousand years ago, it became the subject of a number of commentaries. Now, they're published with all these layers of commentaries, each coming 500 to 1000 years later. Over time, you begin to see these commentaries talk about everyday waking consciousness as reality. But the original writing talked about reality as being the deeper or energy awareness. The everyday waking consciousness was considered an experience of distraction, even delusion. So, they've gotten reversed and here we are in this period where we consider everyday waking consciousness as "normal."

Part of the Tantric work, I believe, is to harness the power (and not all Tantric work uses sexuality). But when it's Tantric Sex part of the goal is to harness the energy and learn to enter the world of that energy, then to begin to stand at a place where that wouldn't seem like an altered state.


Yeah. The movement. . .I'm subject to the same problems. I don't even know that "movement" is the right word. I don't even know whether you need to move. That's a kind of spatial concept. We have these time and space concepts that are really part of this third dimensional everyday waking consciousness world. And then we tend to impose them on other worlds. That's how, I think, we distort them and make them less accessible. Because we're trying to make them more like this or that. I see how much of that I do myself and I'm trying to find how to step around that. Again this is all spatial stuff. What's present in those "other" worlds is really here all the time, ready to be plugged into. It's not like you have to go somewhere, but that's how we think of it and I'm no exception.


Definitely, definitely!


That's a good question. It's sort of interesting because I didn't know that I was being taught Tantra. I just knew that my teacher was giving me instructions about all kinds of things: Foods, my body. How to sit for meditation. How to have sex. It was just one more thing on the list. The concept of not ejaculating and then directing that energy, well, all these things were about managing energy in my life. At that time I was married to a woman. So, I just brought that to our sexual connection. I began to discover, by contacting the energy and moving it with the breath, that it expanded something in my head. The point I really became aware of this we were on a sort of second honeymoon and were in bed. I began to realize that if we kept doing this it felt to me as if my head were going to blow off. I thought, oh my god, I don't know whether this is a good idea or not. But I was certainly aware of the power (and not in a theoretical way) in a very experiential, personal and immediate way. I felt, "I'm playing with something immensely bigger than me. And I have to pay attention."

I think that's the experience I remember most vividly. After my marriage ended and I began to explore my interest in connecting intimately with men, I brought that training along with me. I didn't really know where I could make such connections. So, I looked for listings that advertised erotic massage. I decided to go. And I'd say "I want erotic massage, but I don't want to ejaculate," and they'd look at me like I was from some other planet. I'd be very embarrassed and would just want to leave, you know? Until I happened upon this guy who, when I said that to him (and I waited for his reaction), told me "Oh, that's what I do." "Who taught you this?" I asked. And he told me about Body Electric, which was the beginning of my connection with them.


I was just talking with Don Shewey about the big gay men's health summit in Boulder, where I led a workshop two years ago. I was very frustrated. It seemed nobody would talk about this. They're all talking about grants for money for AIDS and medications. And I'm ready to scream because I feel like the real issue for health in gay men is to get in touch with your mission. What did you come into this world to do? Not that it's the same for everybody, but what is your role here? What is your agenda for this lifetime. Gay men and women most often come with some sort of special offering that grows out of the fact that they're not identified in the same way as the population at large. It gives you a different kind of perspective, or fluidity, or distance, or ability to see. As the Native Americans used to say, "those who walk between worlds." This is an incredibly privileged place and it's also a difficult place in which to live. But it brings the opportunity to offer something that's really extraordinary, which is often what the world needs. Especially right now, gay people, transsexual people, lesbians, bisexuals. . .all of us who are not "normal" are the ones who bring something fresh. This can be tremendously important and I think it's a contribution to the spiritual development of the planet.

What I'm trying to get at is that we come with this to offer. And we somehow get distracted, or because of social pressures our self-concept becomes so damaged and condemned, and we aren't in touch with our agenda, the purpose we came here for. Then, of course, our health is going to collapse. We come here with a physical body that is designed for our mission. We're issued this vehicle on the basis of the agenda we filed for this lifetime. The body is designed to live the life that we're coming to live. If we don't live that life, the vehicle begins to rust and doesn't work, and health collapses. So, I was ranting and raving about this health summit, saying I hesitated to speak next time. So, I think that, well what was the question? I forgot what you asked.


And how do we get people to collaborate with us in going there?


I think this is the issue: that we're so distracted by what seems like this huge hurdle of owning who we are. And we need to do this in order to consciously and deliberately enter into that world that is accessible to us. Even though society says it's impossible. But, like the Flirtations sing in that wonderful song, "We're gonna do it anyway!" I think that is the true spirit of those who walk between worlds. That's the power and dignity of the gay person's role. In order to really take that on fully, we have to go consciously into the experience of sexuality and the energy of sexuality and the power of that. We need to explore that, and play there, and discover stuff, things that probably nobody ever has. Well, definitely not in the way we're doing it, because we're doing something new. We're bringing our intellectual, critical faculty. On, the downside this can certainly distract us, taking us away from entering the worlds of imagery, archetypes, and swirls of energy. Yet, at the same time, if we can bring it with us, it helps clarify. This is a great asset if we don't let it overwhelm us. This is the incredible possibility we have today. Queer people have this unprecedented opportunity to explore these worlds and meld with them to create a whole new world.


Yeah, and that's when I think we really begin to give up this idea of "altered" states and we begin to regard it as home. It's not a place we visit, it's a place we live. Tantric tradition and Indian thought is leading modern philosophy and thought in this way. This idea that there's something beyond the serial experience. Instead of experiencing these "altered" states sequentially, we can hold the experience of them all transparently; at once, in the present. In the moment I can be in that experience of energy. I can be in that awareness of archetypes and imagery. I can also be in the fullest possession of my critical faculties. They all coexist in this present moment. When this happens (and we're all moving toward this and glimpsing at moments) we create additional or "new" states. This is an integral state, integral consciousness. One aspect of this is that when we do this, we are outside time, space and causality. These terms are characteristics of "normal" everyday waking consciousness and don't operate in this sphere of energy. Here you don't make something happen, it just happens. You can allow it to happen. So, causality isn't a part of that. And it's beyond time. And it's not a spatial thing.

The implications of this are very large because it means we can do things we have considered not possible. As we do this, the whole way we exist on the planet changes because we've shifted. What we've thought was important, isn't. Time ceases to constrain our lives. From the point of view of Tantra, time is something we've created. We can be in it or we don't have to.

Here we see the sort of consciousness considered "normal" is not particularly up to the tasks that we need it to perform. We can learn to set it aside and move into a larger, more encompassing consciousness. It's a whole way of thinking, as you said, that we're called to begin to move into. This is what spiritual teachers have been talking about for millennia. We can, by this sharpened intellect, make this state accessible to more people. This is part of the huge shift that is happening on this planet. And queer people, people who walk between worlds, have a huge contribution to help facilitate this shift.