Podcast transcript: Aude Barras on returning to the erotic innocence of understanding

Aude's website and Instagram:
Golden Rose Mystery
audebarras

For further research on those and topics mentioned:
Mantak Chia
Wilhelm Reich
Charles Muir
Margot Anand - The Art of Sexual Ecstasy

Xiuhcoatl
Taoist
Kali Yuga
Siddhis
Vajrayana
Shamanic Body Dearmoring
Lalita Tripura Sundari
Ganesh
Satchitananda

Watch From Shock to Awe on mangu.tv

Transcript:

Giancarlo: Hello, hi, welcome to this episode of the mangu.tv Podcast. Today, we have Aude Barras. Aude is a love teacher and intimacy guide. A deeply present, graceful, and nurturing presence. Aude works at the intersection of intimacy, feminine embodiment, and tantra. A practitioner of beauty and seeker of truth, she is immersed in a life of devotion and has studied the art of sensuality with masters throughout the world. Her work is a synthesis of tantric, Taoist, shamanic, and gnostic teachings. Focusing on intimacy, she specializes in embodiment and awakening of the goddess within. A trailblazer of finding beauty in all experiences, pleasure is her medicine. Her practice is to guide people into remember their erotic innocence, and divine essence through the embodiment of a more delicious connection with themselves and consciousness. 

So, with this kind of introduction, our listeners are in for a treat. I just want to say a few words about why you're here. mangu.tv is quite now known for exploring psychedelic medicine and consciousness, and non-monogamy. But what I think is extremely important in the sphere of intimacy and sexuality, is to learn from this ancient practice that we'll hear what they're all about. But we have two, three documentaries on tantra coming, and hopefully, more speakers. And this is why Aude is here to initiate our listener to this ancient practice.

I would like to structure this conversation, as usual for 45-60 minutes, around three main parts, and then we go with the flow. If you could give us a little bit of a cultural framework, explain a little bit all these words I just read. Imagine our listeners are completely naive about this topic. Then, we'd love to know about your personal experience, of course. And then finally, about your work, your practice, how does all this then look into practical application? Welcome, Aude.

Aude: Thank you for having me, Giancarlo. It's a pleasure to be here.

Giancarlo: Thank you very much. So, yes, if you could tell us a little bit in the order that you want, about these words, tantric, Taoist, shamanic, agnostic, eros.

Aude: Hmm. Yes. So, it seemed that in ancient cultures, there was this deep knowing of the power of lifeforce. And lifeforce was known as creative energy. Well, it is known as creative energy. It's known as sexual energy, as something which we call in tantra, Shakti. Something that the Tao is called, hmm, they call it Qi, life force. And the shamanic, they have an understanding for it also, which is this power that moves us, that is moving all of life. This power of creation. When we look at the mystical traditions, and when I talk about mystical traditions, I'm talking about these ancient wisdoms that know that there is a connection to something grander than us. And my true belief is that we are all mystical beings. And we know that inside. And that's why we're seeking for more, we're seeking for that truth. And we distracted in the world we are today. So, it's kind of difficult to get at it, but it's coming back. And just having this podcast is one of the ways that we can interact with these fields of consciousness that are out there. 

I'll just talk a bit about each one of them, and then talk about what in my view connects all of them, which is the erotic, which is the mood of love, which is pleasure itself, because we're born out of an orgasm. That is what has created us. And we've known this forever, but we got lost track of what that was, and how can we bring back that luscious connection, to find consciousness and maybe just not a quick release of pleasure. The Taoists is the mystical path of Chinese medicine. They have an understanding of the Dao. The Dao means the way, and that the microcosm is the macrocosm. Whatever is happening outside of us, is happening inside of our bodies. And they have these practices of how to connect to the universal energy around us. Mainly one of the basic practice of any Taoist is Qigong. QI means universal energy, "gong" means mastery. They're mastering the universal energy because they realize that we're not just this body. We have the power to connect with all of the elements around us and to actually feel ourselves up and communicate with it. It's just pure magic. 

The Taoist have a line inside of their teachings of sexuality, or are using sexuality, not to-- well, yes, at first it was to use power, but really to deepen their connection to consciousness. This is called Neigong, Neigong, and the internal Qigong practices. What they were focusing on, and these were very secret teachings. Now, they're accessible to the masses, but they were reserved for a certain elite at one point, because they're incredibly powerful. And it's understanding how the life force energy that we have, that sexual energy can be channeled from Qing, which is the essence of the energy to Qi, which is life force to Chen, which is spiritual energy. And by doing certain practices, they were able to channel that energy to awaken their consciousness. 

The Taoist have this brilliant understanding, that we are made of masculine and feminine energy, both men and women. And that is what we call the yin and the yang. The yin is the feminine energy, which is receptive, open, it's the dark space. The yang is the active, outgoing, it's delight space, but they function together. Yet, a woman has an infinite amount of yin energy, and a masculine in the understand of the Taoist has a finite amount of yin energy. And we need that yin. That yin energy is being calm, feeling that stability in the body from which you can actually respond and not react to life. The Taoist developed these lovemaking practices where you would make love for a very long time, because the woman would-- the man, masculine would bathe in the yin energy of the woman, learn how to harvest it in his body, fill himself up, because he has a finite amount. So, he had to go to the well and get it. So, this long lovemaking sessions, yes, were for amounts of pleasure, yes, for waves and waves of delight. But it was actually for the masculine to bathe in that yin power, fill up his cup. And at that time, well, there was a lot of wars.

Giancarlo: What is that time? We are now in China, which year?

Aude: We're not quite sure when it started exactly. I'm not quite sure of the dating, to be honest. But I would say 2000 years ago, something like that, maybe even 2500 years ago, there are texts that are dating from 1500 years. But we're not quite sure because these were secret teachings. And so, everything that has been secret has a particular date, but it's not really true, if that sense. What would happen is that these men had to go to war, but in order to make decisions that were clear, not reacting, "I need to do this and this," because that's the energy that's just too active. They would have these moments of grand lovemaking session, to be able to bathe in the yin energy and have a clearer perspective on how to make choices to respond and not to react. Not only that, the emperor was said, there's a text where he says that he had nine different concerts that was linked to the nine different planets. And by making love, they were actually balancing the energies of the universe and stabilizing, and stabilizing the universe itself. 

For the Taoist, at least, my understanding was really the feeling of connecting to the universal life force to balance the energy of masculine and feminine. First inside of our own bodies, and then for the planet itself.

Giancarlo: Yes, this is super interesting. I really resonate when you say responding, not reacting, because this is what is the language that my favorite psychologists, psychiatrists, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists use. What they mean is that when you have unprocessed and unresolved trauma, then you react in your state of trigger. When you do the work, and you address the psychological notes, then you can respond. Most of us, unfortunately, go through life reacting to life, creating misery around us, including ourselves. So, I really resonate with that. 2500 years ago, the soldiers and emperor of the Chinese empire were making love to rebalance their energy. Amazing story.

Aude: Yeah. This is for me the essence of the work. How can we respond to life and not react to it? How can you respond to ourselves? It's a great work. At least so simple, so it appears, and yet so challenging. And so that's what the Taoist, at least in my understand were doing. Today, we have remnants of these practices, and there's different teachers across the world that are teaching them. One of which they studied, his name is Mantak Chia, living in Thailand, and sharing some of these sexual teachings. But, again, they have been kept secret for thousands of years, because they were incredibly powerful, and because of the sexual repression that we've been living in, and I'll talk about that a bit later, but we're really neurotic about sex. 

Giancarlo: Completely. 

[chuckles] 

Aude: This is about returning to the erotic innocence of understanding, not sex in order to get power, but sex as love because it's the infinite source that is going to allow us to create this world. If we're not procreating, if we're not making babies, what are we doing with this energy? Then, I moved to then the shamanic. Well, the word 'shaman,' typically, if you talk about the real way of saying things, whatever real is, is that it comes from the rural mountains in Russia. 

Giancarlo: Magnolia.

Aude: Yeah, so that's where the word shaman originates. I'm not using the word in this term at this moment. I'm using this as a, as a broader code to include these practices that have a link to the connection to the earth, that we find in middle America, in South America, but also in Russia and Finland, and its disconnection to the elements, to understanding the water, the fire, the Earth, the air and how we are, we are that actually, and we can communicate with it. The one that is closest to me is the one from Mexico, and that lineage of shamanism in Mexico. We would call the curanderos, which means healers, or [unintelligible [00:12:42] were the ones that could communicate with the elements, so we can see that thread read and all of the mystical traditions. They had the power and we have that power. They were not special. They just took the time to listen, to communicate with something grander than. 

In this tradition, hidden again, because there's a practice that's called Xiuhcoatl. And Xiuhcoatl is the fire snake. Coatl is snake and Xiu is fire. And it's actually Kundalini or Shakti that we'll see in Tantra. And it is the life force energy, it is this energy that is moving through all of life. It was an understanding, is a whole path in that tradition that again was helped kept, and I have been blessed to receive some of the transmissions from some people, but it's absolutely not in the mainstream, because again, of what has happened in Mexico with colonization, and all of this wisdom being misunderstood and misinterpreted-

Giancarlo: And repressed even by the--

Aude: -and repressed and had to be hidden away. So, even the people that had that knowledge, felt ashamed of it possibly, because of the imposition of the view of the Europeans when they came, but it's still there, and it's hidden away. In that tradition, it's really understanding the use of Xiuhcoatl, of that snake fire, to awaken yourself to the universe as a whole. I'll just give you an anecdote. There was a ritual that was told to be done, and it might sound a little bit wild, but keep an open mind. Okay.

Giancarlo: [chuckles] 

Aude: Imagine the potency that you have when you're a young teenager, all of that force, vital sexual energy. It was said that there was a ritual that was happening, during the solstice of summer, which was a ritual in order to fertilize the land, where young boys and young women of coming of age that were not together, but that were picked, would make love, awakening Xiuhcoatl, awakening the snake's fire with teachers around, with curanderos, with elders around. They would make love and the elders would take that energy, rise it up inside of them and then use it to fertilize the land. What are we doing for sexual energy? I'm sorry, but most of us are wasting it and shooting blank. Again, knowledge is power. This is incredibly powerful. That's why they've been hidden because we have to approach this with a really open heart and love.

Giancarlo: This anecdote you just said that happened in Mexico?

Aude: That happened in Mexico.

Giancarlo: Which year are we roughly?

Aude: Again, we don't know.

Giancarlo: We don’t know, but same time, or--?

Aude: No, possibly for a very long time, but I think this happened just before the colonization, some of the hidden wisdom was shared like that.

Giancarlo: So, 1500?

Aude: Yeah, I would say around the 1500s.

Giancarlo: In this anecdote, this young teenager in their prime sexual peak, if you want, then the lovemaking, it was a group a collective thing, or were a couple of things or we don't know?

Aude: How I've been told, these are all stories so and how I've imagined it because we know this, we can remember it. If we go back into the erotic innocence, not into our neuroses, like, "Ooh, was it group sex." In our erotic innocence of what is the reverence of this force? How would it be held. I see it as a group, as a celebration of love, of play, of the erotic, of joy, of really understanding, we are here to celebrate life.

Giancarlo: As we see in the Indian temple, Kama Sutra. 

Aude: Yeah. Exactly. How can then with people that understand how energy is managed, and again, this energy is the most potent. And we live in Kali Yuga. I'll talk about Kali Yuga, when I talk about tantra. Kali Yuga is a dark age, where we think we know things, but we absolutely know nothing.

Giancarlo: Yeah. But we are at the end of that phase in theory.

Aude: Yes. In theory. According to great Siddhis, we have six years and others said 300 years. I am hoping for the six years and then hopefully the golden age will be able to live it. In that tradition, so is that, but then in neo-shamanic, and I just want to put a little because I want to talk about Neotantra as well afterwards. The Neo-shamanic is the new shamanic in that way. New, I mean, what I'm talking about right now is a school that was invented in the 1970s, 1980s, where there was this like-- and you'll see Neotantra, which is a lot of people think Tantra is was also born during that time. The Neo-Shamanic schools, some of them are doing things that I think really work because I've gone through it, and they've worked. They use the bioenergetic system of Wilhelm Reich, which is understanding that our body is made of energy, and we have orgone, which is orgasmic energy running through our bodies. We're born ecstatic, according to the theory.

When we have traumas, when we're little children, or up until we're teenagers, it creates blockages inside of this ecstatic flow of energy, which we call tape patterns of pain. And that defines your body type. According to Wilhelm Reich, which is the 1920s, there's five body types, and if you listen to the name, they're kind of like daunting, like psychopaths, masochist. But bear in mind, it's just a 1920s language. Depending of the trauma that you've had, the energy has crystallized in the body, your orgasmic energy, that is your ecstatic flow. And that doesn't allow you to have the full experience as your ecstatic self. And so that's why we have all the neurosis and we have abandonment issues and it creates a certain type of body. In some Neo-Shamanic school, what they do is they use trigger points in the body, and orgasm, because orgasm is the greatest charge, orgasmic energy, to liberate these tape patterns. So, you literally press points, use vibration that stimulates the orgasm, go into an orgasm for many days in a row, and liberate yourself from these patterns of stuck energy that has been crystallized, and you go into catharsis. 

It works, perhaps there is a softer way to go about awakening ourselves, but that's how Neo-Shamanism is using a lot of the sexuality in that way. And so, yeah, so now we can see that there's a link right between the Taoist and shamanic. They have this understanding of life force as energy, and you'll see it's She. I call her she, she's amazing, she's delicious, she's luscious, and she's very powerful. And I am of the school that you don't want to, like a Sleeping Beauty. You don't want to scream to wake her up. You want to make the house delicious, bake cake, bring flowers, make it warm and cozy, and a house is your body. And then she will awaken by herself. These are the secret essence of tantric lineage practices. 

Now, I'll move into Tantra. Tantra is the essence of my being as a practitioner. It has come from first an origin in Neotantra. So, let me just have a little bit of Neotantra before we go, so we saw we had Neo-Shamanism, the new shamanism. Neotantra is the new Tantra. Tantra, what does the word mean? Tan means expansion. Tra means techniques. So, they're techniques of expansion. Techniques of expansion of consciousness. But Tantra also means weaving. Again, yeah, I'll speak about the origin of it a little bit of it afterwards. But I want to talk about Neotantra because I feel that's what most people associate Tantra with today.

Giancarlo: Before we jump into Neotantra, maybe can you quickly cover the gnostic?

Aude: Yeah, perfect. I'll go into that. So, the gnostic, so how I understand gnostic, gnostic means direct wisdom, like direct knowledge, and it's a knowing that we all have, and so it's this connection to something grander than that, if we just go in silent, we connect deeply with. The gnostic tradition that I have been immersed in, is one that is really related to, I would say, my Catholic upbringing, but removing what the church has taught us, of having to have an intermediary between me and God, and having a direct connection to that. And so, I don't know if you know about the Cathars, that lived in the south of France. During the Inquisition, they were all burned down, because they believed about the spark of light and the direct connection to God itself, and they didn't believe in the church. And they were holding strong to straight teaching, what we say the straight teaching coming down from Jesus and for Mary Magdalene, which were teachings about love, about the unity of the masculine, the feminine, about being love inside of our body, and allowing ourselves to connect to all of life in that love without having an intermediary. So, the gnostic path is that, and their sacred secret teachings in that, and you have access to them if you ask.

Giancarlo: Amazing. Last question before jumping to the Neotantra. There is, discussed the Chinese lineage of tantra more linked to the life force, but if I understand correctly, then there is the Indian lineage of Tantra, which is more linked to healing. Like the Charles Muir, the more Veda based Tantra.

Aude: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: We don’t have to go into that if you're not familiar. 

Aude: I'm familiar. I actually studied with Charles Muir, and I've studied with Mantak Chia, and they were doing a retreat together in Thailand, maybe 10 years ago or something like that. For me, what Charles is doing is still falling into line with Neotantra, which is this new form of tantra of using sexuality, yes, for healing, and, yes, it's incredibly powerful. I would call it sexual liberation, not Tantra. Tantra, it's the most, at least I'm tantric, [chuckles] it is the most powerful way to connect to consciousness itself. It is based in the Vedas and 4000-year-old lineage that passes down through sages, that are seers, and then came into the text around the 10th century. And then you have a Shiva is Tantra and Shakti Tantra, but we can talk about that. Let me just move into Neotrantra. 

Giancarlo: Let's go.

Aude: [chuckles] Neotantra, this new Tantra, what it means? Basically, what Tantra does that other spiritual tradition don't do is that it doesn't shame sex. And so that's why, and my understanding is when it came back to the surface, it became all about sex, because most of the other tradition say, "Sex is bad, you should not be doing it. No, no."

Giancarlo: Well, at least, what’s her name? 

Aude: Margot Anand.

Giancarlo: Margot Anand, she says that in most of this philosophy and tradition, "They say don't look below the waist because it's dangerous." So, they don't even look. [chuckles] 

Aude: Yeah, Margot Anand was one of my teachers, an amazing woman. She was the pioneer of Neotantra. I'll talk about her because she's a wild woman, and she's a trailblazer. Neotantra has an incredible power, because it connects. It connects us back to our sexuality. And I really do believe that in the west at this time is something that is needed. And especially in the 1980s. We had AIDS that really traumatized us. I think there was a moment in 1960s, where there was a liberation and a return to the erotic innocence. And then it got cut off with AIDS, and we got terrified about our sexuality again. 

Neotantra is this path of tantra that was emerged in the 1980s, especially coming out of OSHA's ashram. Margot Anand, who was in the ashram at the time, which was quite new. Rajneesh saw her and people were like, "Oh, there's going to be a Tantra course in the ashram. Who is it going to be the people? There had been there for 20 years. Oh, it's going to be him." And he chose Margot, that was just newly into the ashram. And Margot is now probably 75, or something like that. I maybe not saying right age. She's a young, beautiful, forceful lady. And she just gave her room and said, "Go experiment." And she had no background at all. She just had just trust how to do this. She was always given a feminine and masculine balance. One day, she was a room with only woman, and she's like, "What am I doing here?" It was really an experiment of discovering the power of sexuality and sexual liberation. And that then was moved through different schools over the last 30-40 years, using the word Tantra to be able to discover the potential that exists in our sexuality when it's liberated. 

Neotantra focuses on that sexual liberation. It's all of these sets of practices where we look at sexuality, where we undo our sexuality, where we liberate ourselves, sexually. I think it's incredibly important in the world we are in today. It's not very linked to what Tantra originally is. Yet, it is a way to then liberate the body. So perhaps, if the tantra as a spiritual teaching comes into your life, we have gone over our sexual neurosis, and we've been liberated enough, ah, that feels good. There's quite a number of schools of neotantra around the world. There's a lot of controversy around them, because this is the most potent energy in the world. Where there is power, there might be manipulation. That's why when we surrender really, back to something grander than us, it's not about me, it's truly about an energy that is so much more potent about a lineage of people that have done it before. My belief is that we are more protected, because it's not that I don't trust the world, I actually don't trust myself. I'm doing stuff with my ego sometimes because of these traumas and things, that I wouldn't even imagine. That's the ignorance. The ignorance is protecting me from my own forgetting that we are love. 

When we forget that, we may use that energies in ways where we think it is for the greater good. I think it is for that, that's a very tricky thing. Yet, underneath that, it's coming from a shadow. I trust in lineage, to be able-- and gurus. Guru means remover of darkness. He's just a teacher, somebody that has walked before you, a true guru.

Giancarlo: A real one, yeah.

Aude: Somebody that has walked before you that can help you see what you cannot see, because I can’t see what I cannot see. I'm in it. [laughs] I'm looking at this near, there are stains on it. I just know the mirror of stains. But somebody that has seen the mirror, a little bit less stain can be like, "Hmm, look at that, not telling me what to do."

Giancarlo: That can point into the right direction.

Aude: That can point into the right direction. That's the path of Neotantra. I'll share with you how I've gone through all of these different lineages of sexuality to get to the practice where I'm in today, which is a tantric lineage. That is based in goddess worship. Just in Tantra, there's many different schools of Tantra. There's Vedic School of Tantra, and there's also a Tibetan School of Tantra. In Tibet, there's something called Vajr-- I always have--

Giancarlo: Vajrayana.

Aude: Vajrayana, my tongue twisted. Buddhism, which is a school of Tantra that is based on concert practice, not solely, but that is based on, again, on that relationship to the divine essence. And it's an amazing, beautiful school. And I'm a bit inside of it, but I'm more versed in tantra from the Vedic tradition. So, I'll just talk just a little bit about to lineage and then--

Giancarlo: And then we'll jump into your personal story. I'm sure the listeners are very curious.

Aude: Yeah. [laughs] In the tradition of Tantra, there's mainly two schools. There's what we call a Shiva School, which is Shiva, Shiva is the masculine. And Shakti School. Shakti is the feminine. And you've perhaps heard also about the left path and the right path of Tantra. The left path, having some sexual practices inside. The right path, just being purely about meditation and inward practice. And we can have a whole other podcast on that, but I'll just talk--

Giancarlo: We will.

[chuckles] 

Aude: I was talking about Shiva and Shakti at the moment because it's the key of the universe, really, it's the masculine, the feminine, coming into love, to create bliss and to create essence. The Shiva are practices that are connected directly to Shiva. Shiva is consciousness. Shiva is totality. Shiva is everything. It's actually always Shiva. Yet, how do we know that a wall is white? For me to only know a way to know wall is white if there's a stain on it, and I'm going to focus on that stain and then I'll see the white. That makes Him, that's kind of the Shakti path. Shiva's path is, everything is Shiva, everything is totality, let me connect straight to totality itself, and in that get absorbed back into that oneness. So powerful. It's one of the tastes, and it works. Everything works. It's all a different way to the mountain. 

The Shakti path, which is the path that I am devoted to is focused on Shakti, the feminine, that movement. Shiva is stillness, Shakti is the movement that is going to activate, create that vibration in Shiva. The Shakti's path is a path that it focused on, the movement, on the devotion of the goddess, and when I say goddess is Devi. Devi means the light of consciousness and we see her as feminine, as a pulsating force of life, whose taste is the erotic. We're worshipers of beauty, we're worshippers of pleasure, and we use the different phases of the goddess to awaken the consciousness that we are. And where that links to sexuality, is that it uses the erotic. The erotic is that lifeforce. The erotic is that power that has created us. What if we approach consciousness from that delicious aspect that has created us? What if we have healed or at least looked at our traumas and our issues of sexuality gone through them, so I can actually sit now in front of consciousness, in pleasure, in innocence, and awaken by her orgasmic force, into the oneness of it all, which is Shiva. We're all trying to go to Shiva, but I like beauty, I like pleasure-- well, Shiva chooses you anyway, you don't choose. That's my--

Giancarlo: Amazing. That was a great 35 minutes introduction to Tantra. Let's get personal. You, like me, grew up changing country, all around the world. There was a moment where you got interested in--share as much as you want, of course. What was your personal journey with this energy? The sexual energy?

Aude: Yeah. Hmm. Less relationships, it's all about relationships. I got out of a relationship I had. I was a yoga teacher, meditation teacher. I was actually in the art world. It was always about beauty in some ways. I got out of a relationship. Oh, man, did I love that person, but I gave away my power completely. I got out of the relationship and I was minuscule.

Giancarlo: That was in your early 20s?

Aude: I was in my early 20s. And a man that I really, really loved, and very beautiful relating, but it turned a bit-

Giancarlo: Dark.

Aude: -dark, which is great, we like the darkness if it's supposed to bring-

Giancarlo: At that age, I guess. [laughs] 

Aude: -it to the light, we take the darkness. What has come out of this has been brilliant.

Giancarlo: Or, at least temporary light.

Aude: Yeah, temporary light. I knew it had to do with sex, what had happened. I wasn't sure what it was, but there was something related to sex. And it just started to understand, "Hmm, there's something that's uncomfortable around sex here. There's something that's not clear." Then, after that relating, I just needed to be cared for, another relationship came into my life, and it was an angel. We decided that we were not going to be together, but we were going to be nine months together, and then--

Giancarlo: Platonically.

Aude: No, we were going to be in a relationship. We live together, but it was nine months.

Giancarlo: It was a deadline. 

Aude: It was a deadline, because we knew we were not going to be forever together. 

Giancarlo: That's interesting. 

Aude: Yes, and it's amazing, because it allows you to really go for it. You're not scared of trying to pretend to be somebody else for the person for nine months, and then discover who you are. You're just like, "Dude, I have nine months with you. Let me just go for it." 

Giancarlo: You both agreed on that. 

Aude: We both agreed on that. And he taught me how to love and I taught him how to make love. And I didn't know how to love, I think. I think my heart was closed for many different things that had happened. Although I pretended that I knew. I remember being with Margot Anand in her first retreat in my really early 20s. She looks at me and she's like, "Drop from the mind to the heart." I was like, "What the F is that?" 

Giancarlo: It's easier said than done. 

Aude: Ah. I was thinking about what I was feeling. I was actually not feeling what I was feeling because my heart was at a very scary place to be, because it had been wounded. In that first relating, my heart was probably closed, but I was using sex as power. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know. And not sex is love because my heart was not open. Sex was always something delicious in my life, but it was actually a means to get power. Yet, when this other relating came, and I needed nurturing. He taught me how he was a poet and an Astrologer and a musician, and a Yogi. I was like, "Oh, okay. This is so lovely. Look at this." I've had lot of resistance. My heart did not want to open. I was like, "Ugh." Yet, slowly, slowly. And him, he was so sensitive, he was extremely sensitive. I would just touch him, and his sexual energy would just go all over the roof. I could definitely not use the same energy I was using with a previous relationship because he would just completely lose it. And so, I had to learn how to read the body. I had to learn how to be present with this man. I had to learn to feel how the energy was moving inside of his being. So, I could communicate, and not overpower him with sex as power. And he slowly melted my heart. And that's the time Margot Anand came into my life actually. I saw her, I was like, "Oh, I found the teacher I want to work with." And he came back the next day with book. He's like, "I bought this book three years ago, I never opened it." And it was The Art of Sexual Ecstasy from Margot Anand, "and I think it's for you." And then I went to meet Margot Anand--

Giancarlo: Sorry, the gentle, sensitive man, that was the nine months of finite relationship?

Aude: Yes. That was a nine-month finite relationship. That was a lifetime long, and all of our-

Giancarlo: And how was the separation?

Aude: The separation, we sat down and--

Giancarlo: You stick to the deadline. 

Aude: We stuck to the deadline, and it was on the 22nd of December, and we completed it. We sat and he said, "thank you," and we recognized it. And it was so beautiful. 

Giancarlo: Amazing.

Aude: It was so beautiful. 

Giancarlo: That's another podcast. 

Aude: It's a whole other podcast. 

Giancarlo: Okay, so Margot Anand?

Aude: Margot Anand. Then, at that time also, I knew I had heard about these love teachers living in the United States. And I knew I had to see them. I didn't know why. And I end up at their house. And typically, they work with couples. I end up at their house and I knock on the door. It's this 77-year-old man that's opening the door, bald of this gray beard and this tall, blue-eyed woman and I'm on last middle road in the middle of nowhere. I'm like, "What am I getting myself into?" But I was moved by Shakti, by something so much more powerful inside of me that needed to do these things. And we get in the kitchen, and he's like, "Did we tell you about the medicine?" I'm like, "Oh my God. What did I get myself into?" "He's like tomorrow morning at 8:00 in the morning, you're going to sit on that couch and we're going to do MDMA therapy." And I had done MDMA, as party, as fun, as recreation, but a therapy, my friend? I had never gone that route. 

I remember it was the first snow of November. I sat down on that couch, and everything changed. I was led by this amazing man, Don [unintelligible [00:40:23], so precious. I realized something very terrifying. That I was a fake, that I had pretended to be something. And, "Oh, my God, did everybody see that I was fake?" The humiliation that comes with thinking that you're something. I was a yogi. I was vegetarian, I had stopped smoking, and I stopped drinking. Obviously, I love myself. But the realization that you are not what you think you are, and what you really are, whoa, that's scary. 

Giancarlo: It's an awakening. 

Aude: It's an awakening. But if you're not held during that moment, and if it happens without your heart open, you can go with-- it's such a huge fall, that you can actually go into depression- 

Giancarlo: Yeah, but is it close to the-

Aude: -because you'll lose yourself.

Giancarlo: -imposter syndrome?

Aude: Yeah, I guess it might be that, but you don't even know, because you're actually protecting yourself. I just had this huge fall. And, yet, thanks to the medicine and that openness in my heart and this amazing man, it was like my grandfather taking care of me. The humiliation transformed into humility very fast, because my heart was open, thanks to the medicine. If I wasn't that, I think I would have gone into depression. I don't think I know, and the humility was, "Oh, my God." 

Giancarlo: Empowering. 

Aude: I don't love myself. Exactly. I don’t love Myself. "Oh, my God, I can become my own best lover? What does that look like?" That was the journey. I left that man and ended up in Thailand and studied with Mantak Chia.

Giancarlo: Sorry, I can't help, a little ad here. 

Aude: Go ahead. 

Giancarlo: For our listeners, that we have a beautiful documentary on our platform called Shock to Awe, where this family of veterans, they heal their posttraumatic stress disorder with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. So, here with old story, we have just another example on how this medicine is not just the medicine, is the MDMA assisted psychotherapy, where the therapist can have the help of the substance to access the subconscious material. 

Aude: Yes.

Giancarlo: Thank you.

Aude: Yes. It's so precious. And if we find somebody that we can trust to open our hearts in that way, wow, what a relief. But, again, these are grand, grand shocks. So, you have to be really well held. And I think that's one of the key things to find a good practitioner. And so that brought me to realizing I didn't love myself, and I wanted to become my own best lover, how exciting? What does that mean? Woo-woo. Maybe it didn't have to rely on a man. Woo, what a liberation. Phew. 

I went to Thailand and studied with Mantak Chia, and it was actually with Charles Muir, who was a teacher from the United States, and they were co-teaching. I went into that field and started understanding and studied sexual organ massage of the Tao's, they have the whole practice. And then I ended up in the South of Thailand in an island called Ko Pha Ngan, where there was a school that was of yoga and tantra that now has closed itself that was around, and it was something strange about it. So, I was just looking around, but I was not in that school. But I met a mentor. That mentor touched my body every day for three months. When I say touch my body, he touched my body with honor and reverence, taking care of it. And every time I would have pleasure, I would fall asleep. I was like, "What is that? Why am I dissociating when I'm having pleasure? What is that?" It was a traumatic response. He would so gently bring me back into my body. He's like, "Get back in, get back in, get back in." And we trained the body to stay in pleasure.

Giancarlo: I'm fascinated by that. The traumatic response was the sense of not feeling worthy. So, why would your body shut down from the pleasure? Because it says that you don't deserve that?

Aude: It could be that, and I think it is that for a lot. I think we come with a lot of traumas from lineages bag of abuse. In our own life, that that happened. For me, I didn't know something had happened. It was so deeply hidden inside of my body, that nothing had happened to me. It's only four or five years into exploring that, that the memory came back, and I was ready, my body was ready to receive it without putting myself into a shock again. And then I started tracing back, I was like, "Whoa. I make love, but I forget what happens during it." There were just these little cues, they this little ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, and then it made sense. But whatever the story is, we don't care. It was just always Shakti, it's always the goddess leading us to discovering more of our like. Ultimately, that's what it is. And you can do it through pleasure. It's not always pleasurable in that way, but it can be done in pleasure. 

He brought me into my body in that way, and he's the one who suggested for me to go to this training in Sweden. That's called the Shamanic Body Dearmoring, which is this newer shamanic school, which uses trigger points and vibration, to release the tape patterns of trauma through orgasm. It's not really pleasurable. It's work. It's 15 days where you are working. She said, "Put on your working clothes," aka, "get naked. And let's do this." And you do this practice to literally liberate these patterns in the body. It does something. Does it work in the way it's supposed to? I believe that if you believe it does, it does.

Giancarlo: I think that it works, but it's temporary. Like the neuropsychopharmacologists, they identify this default mode network that get weakens when you take tryptamines. So, DMT, psilocybin, LSD, and they say that it's like shaking the snow globe. For a moment, everything is up in the air, and you can reinvent yourself. But eventually with gravity, it goes back to your default mode network. So, you get a glimpse, but then you have to do the work.

Aude: Yes. It's exactly that. So, it shakes the globe, and it led me to, which is the Tantra lineage, which for me, at least, it's the way I believe that I can sustain these states of consciousness over time. It's not a one-shock experience. It's an everyday embodiment. But it was a little time to get to that. Then, from there, I ended up in Mexico, [laughs] crazy life, sometimes I think about everything. And there I discovered the moon dance, which is a shamanic path of four years where we dance under the full moon, and we're actually recreating Kundalini through the nights. We are creating that Xiuhcoatl, that snake, as we dance. So, the moon dance is a ritual for women that happens for four nights at a full moon. And we do sweat lodges, which are temezcals which you go inside of a sweat lodge, and you do prayers, which is basically the womb of the feminine. And then, you go out and you dance all night in circles with a group of other women, praying with the [unintelligible [00:48:21], which is a tobacco. Over the nights, at first, you're just a group of 20 women dissociated. But at the fourth night, you have built the energy together and you have made a coherent Xiuhcoatl, nobody tells you these things, but it was there. And that was the connection to the moon in that way. The opening to a subtle form of the sexual energy. It went from gross to subtle. It went from going through my trauma, having to heal my trauma, realizing I had a trauma, liberating that, opening that space, entering the body. And now it was like, "Here, what happens when you are in the heart? What happens when prayer becomes part of that pleasure?" And then I really discovered that pleasure was my prayer. And that's when I met my current guru, and I met her in Mexico. She's from India from a Brahmin family in India and is a Tantric lineage since she's four years old. I met her in Mexico. I think it was all to lead me there. She is in the lineage of Shakti Tantra, which is called Sri Vidya. Sri means auspicious. Vidya means wisdom. And it's the wisdom of auspiciousness. And it's the goddess herself. 

And then this goddess, Devi, consciousness appeared to me. We call her Lalita Tripura Sundari. Lalita means she who plays, and Tripurasundari means, the three states, which are the three cities, which is waking, dreaming, dreamless deep sleep state. She is the one who plays with light in the three states, and her mood is Sringara. And Sringara means the erotic. We approach her through the erotic. We approach consciousness in the lineage through not the understanding of sex, per se. But through the mood of love, through erros, through life force, through that pleasure that life is creation. And that's mainly my devotion today. 

Giancarlo: Yes. I want to discuss, to go much more in depth about that, because I had for a while a [unintelligible [00:50:53] practice. I never did the sun dance, but I did a lot of sweat lodge and working with this shaman, that was adopted by the Lakota Sioux. So, I want to keep on drawing parallel. I'm even thinking that maybe we should do like an animation about all these different lineages. 

Aude: That'll be amazing.

Giancarlo: But we have 10 minutes left, and I want people to know, what can you do for them? What kind of people should reach out to you? Not what kind of people, in what kind of state or what kind of desire, a typical client reaches out to you? And then, take us into a typical journey. I mean there's not typical-- everybody's different, and it's different journeys for everybody. But maybe you can tell us what will be-- if you can make an effort of standardization, what is--? [laughs] 

Aude: Let's standardize, yes. I think we can make an effort. So, what was the first question did you ask? Sorry.

Giancarlo: How does your practice work? 

Aude: Okay, how does my practice work? 

Giancarlo: Yes, in terms of how do you interact with your clients? 

Aude: Who comes to me?

Giancarlo: Who comes to you? In what state? In what state they leave if you're successful?

Aude: Yeah, it's not me, if the goddess is willing, right? 

Giancarlo: Of course.

Aude: If there's energy awakens in us, that’s what happens.

Giancarlo: Yeah, facilitating. 

Aude: Typically, again, it's typical, the people that come to me for work are people that know there is something more, because we all know that, but they don't know how to get to it. It's people that have worked with consciousness, that have had experiences. It's not necessarily that they have a problem, or they want to fix something. Rather, it's people that know there is something but they want to approach it from a place of plenitude, not a place of lack. Not focusing, "We have an issue, we have to fix it." No, we all have traumas, we have to work on this, but let's go back to the fullness. What does it mean to be in our fullest, delicious potential? And how in that space will it resolve itself? I work with women, I work with couples, and I work with men. To really tune back, to retrieve that erotic innocence at first. So, what does that mean? Reconnecting to our heart, reconnecting to play. Lalita is play, she who plays. Reconnecting to that pleasure and that sensuality, in a way that is relaxing, not so serious. 

Then, as we build that trust in our bodies, and if it is, what comes? Perhaps, we move into deeper, not deeper, but into more traditional practices, which are mantra based, which are practices that are connecting to mantra, which are sound vibration, that are going to descend a field of consciousness, inside of our bodies, and allow that to be in place, rather than, me myself. So, connecting to the I am that I am, through pleasure. 

First, we work on, on our neurosis, and on the play, but in a playful way, in a joyful way, and on pleasure, and awakening that pleasure through understanding, "Yes, how to manage your orgasm?" But your orgasm, it is not just a physical orgasm, your orgasm is actually your connection to all of life. And so, how to rewire that? And then as we move along, how we can then use mantras and field of consciousness to be that. So, for example, we would start with Ganesh. Tantra, we start with Ganesh. Ganesh is the Lord of multitude. He is an elephant head Lord. We say that he removes obstacles, but He brings way more than that. Ganesh is actually gravity. And before you can rise to consciousness, what do we need? Gravity. It's not about all being high up there, traveling up in the cosmos all the time. It's fun. But it's about doing this here on Earth. And that's where I feel the essence of my work is. It's deeply grounded on the earth, all the while being elevated to higher fields of consciousness, because Tantra is about being a householder, which means living here on this planet, doing your everyday chores, and finding that bliss, Sat-chit-ananda. Beingness, consciousness, bliss. 

The union of the two coming together. And so, if I work with men or women individually, it's about slowly finding that union inside of themselves that they know to be true. It's not about being a better person. It's not about trying to achieve something. It's actually about removing everything that we are. So, we remember the essence, which is light itself, love itself, pleasure itself, living inside of us.

Giancarlo: But ultimately, if I may just be a little bit more concrete. Ultimately, I think you attract people that want to improve their sex life, and have more pleasure, more connection, that they feel that sexual energy can be harnessed in a more successful way in terms of giving them connection, fulfillment, and also mostly for couple, maybe after 10, 20 years of marriage, when that desire might have been soften a little bit. Am I right?

Aude: Yes. And that's the entry point. It is really important to find back that playfulness in our relationship, because that's the play, and we go there, and we find playfulness, and we reconnect to that. It's also about knowing that there's something not more in wanting something for. It's not about success, actually. It's about releasing that idea, and meeting each other in the field of intimacy. I am you, you are me. I am the divine, you are the divine. Whatever that means for you, but we are beyond our bodies. How can we release all of our nagging stories, because I'm showing up with you in bed, but I'm coming with all of my baggage for the last 20 years with you, and I'm actually not seeing you? Oops. [Giancarlo laughs] So, how can we like look at that, laugh at that, and then together as a couple choose, that we're going to truly see. But that starts with the individual, that starts with us individually doing that work to remember who we are. If I do my work, remember that I am loving light, and my partner does his work to remember that he's loving light, when we come together, we are full, and we can meet in that place. And so that's also part of the work in a complete way. 

Giancarlo: Without the insecurity and the shame and the guilt, and focusing on maybe on the other person. But just to simplify even more, they are ultimately some physical exercise that people can do.

Aude: Yes. There's a set of physical exercises. The first thing is, again, it's a lot through play, and through connection in that way. But for a man, for instance, one of the key ways-- Okay, let me just put it this way. Let me talk about sex now. Ah. A typical, but a typical woman to get an orgasm takes 30 to 45 minutes. 30 to 45 minutes. What is the typical sexual interaction time?

Giancarlo: Five minutes. [chuckles] 

Aude: Eight to nine minutes. So, hello, this is where we already see.

Giancarlo: Disconnection.

Aude: Disconnection. Do you remember Taoist at the beginning of our conversation? What do they want? They want to bathe then that energy of the woman relishing in her pleasure, full of delight because that's what is going to give me their actual success for the rest of their life, whatever success means. I'm not thinking about the term success, but going to give them the capacity to respond to life, rather than react to life. So, you want to make love, you want to give the orgasm to your partner, be it a woman or a man for a long time, there's practices to do that. Solo practices and practices together. Learning how to retain your ejaculation is one of the key practices in Taoism and Tantra. And yes, it's for better sex at first. And as we move along, it's to arrive to higher states of consciousness and then your body and the body of your partner melts into a field of infinity where everything goes back to Shiva itself. Totality. It's an amazing trip without substances.

Giancarlo: I feel I'm really barbarizing or vulgarizing your teaching, but how do you recommend men to delay their ejaculation? 

Aude: Yay, we go back. 

Giancarlo: [laughs] 

Aude: Hey, guys, please, if you give yourself the opportunity to practice this, you're going to be so happy because actually, your ejaculation is your life force, and you want vitality. It's not just to have longer orgasm, especially over 40, you really want to start doing this, because you want to be a strong seventy-year-old. You don't want to have a low life force. Your seed is your life force. So, you want to learn how to retain it. So, little tips. Tip number one, when you go pee, pause the flow of urine. Don't contract. This is another key. These are soft teachings. The subtilty comes when we go softly. The masculine way will tell you contract, contract your perineum muscle, like, boop, it will work. But if I contract, I'm blocking energy. I'm building more tension. There's already so much tension in our sex. I don't want to build more tension in order to have longer orgasms. No. So, if you gently pause, again, think as the softest voice that is telling you this. Think it's the most erotic voice that is telling you, gently pause. And what does that do? It's not what we do, is how we do it. This is the secret. So, the quality of how you're going to pause that flow, rather than like I have to block it, different. You don't want to block your pleasure when you're making love with your partner, you want to gently pause, sustain it, circulating in your body, and we go again. So, you can train that while peeing. And that's one of the key ways at first to do it by yourself. And then there's practices when you caress your body, and you bring yourself to pleasure. 

Giancarlo: To take away from the erogenous zone just from the genital, right?

Aude: Yes. To remove the goal. It's funny, we have a goal right now, but we're trying to remove it. Yes, remove the goal. 

Giancarlo: The goal is to remove the goal.

Aude: The goal is to remove the goal, exactly. The goal is to remove all of this neurosis that we have of trying to achieve things. The primary tension in life is the desire to be somebody. But why be somebody when we're everything? In French, we call the orgasm, "a little death," "la petite mort." What happened? Typically, neurosis what happens at your breath when you're having an orgasm. [gasping] "I'm holding it, and I'm dying." What happens if you keep on breathing? Perhaps you just become immortal. So, this is another tip, when you are having a self-pleasure practice, different from masturbation is self-pleasure practice is not about a quick release. It's not about a fast like, "Ooh, I want to release my stress." It's about allowing yourself to honor your body and fill up your body with that energy. Your sexual energy is the most powerful, so how can you use that power to charge your whole body from head to toe. 

What we do is a practice which is called edging, which you're going to build up your pleasure and say 100 is your orgasm. Well, try to figure out what 90 is. And you'll notice, we know 85, we know 90, but do you know 91, 92? Do you know 98? And then can go back to 95.

Giancarlo: And communicate with your partner.

Aude: And communicate with your partner. And can your partner read your body, and that's where presence is. That's where, at this moment, we have to release all of the stories that we have, and be fully with each other. So, we can read each other and be in that field of presence, and expand our pleasure. And then melt into the light of what it means to be Satchitananda.

Giancarlo: Amazing. We're going to leave our listener wanting to know more, and we will give it to them. So, now you're going to India for two months? 

Aude: Yes. 

Giancarlo: And then when you're back, we'll continue this conversation.

Aude: That would be brilliant. I'm just going to give you a little snippet. There is actually something in the making, is a game for couples, which is going to be called Golden Leela. Leela means play. It's a divine play. And it's going to be a divine play for couples looking at inquiries, questions about to deepen intimacy, acts of love, because we need acts of love and then sexual mastery. So, little keys on how to bring that in, not just through like conscious sexuality, but also play. Just play, guys. Let's just be playful and have fun, because this is what it's all about. 

Giancarlo: And this is going to be online or in person?

Aude: No, it's going to be a card deck. So, it's a card deck that is in the making. And that's a whole other story. I will tell you where it has emerged. It actually emerged from a 20-day love retreat that spontaneously came into my life. But that's for next podcast. [chuckles] 

Giancarlo: For next podcast. Tell our listeners how they can find you.

Aude: I've been hidden away for a little while. And you can have a website, that's called the Golden Rose Mystery. And you can reach out to me right there. Slowly this year, you might see a little bit more of me.

Giancarlo: Yes, yes, yes. I think people need your knowledge and wisdom and experience. So, we will put the Golden Rose Mystery, and maybe Instagram on the show notes. And thank you very much

Aude: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, have a delicious week everybody.

Giancarlo: Thank you. Have a great trip to India, and we'll reconnect when you're back.

Aude: Brilliant. Thank you.

Giancarlo: Thank you very much.

[song]