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BASIC ATTITUDE OF PRIMAL DANCE

SHAKTI AND SHIVA: Ecstatic Meditation

As a meditative practice, Primal Dance includes and transcends personal aims such as healing or personal development, and tries to access the transpersonal levels of existence.
To make this possible, we need to develop a basic meditative attitude.
In this model, this attitude develops by integrating the male and female principles, the maternal and paternal face of God-Goddess. This dynamic of integrating principles is present in many traditions, such as Yin and Yang in the Chinese culture. Perhaps the richest and most beautiful view is that of the tantric tradition, in the union of Shakti and Shiva. According to this tradition, Shakti embodies the female principle, which is a sleeping energy in the base of the spine. While the male principle, Shiva goes down from the crown chakra to meet his beloved one in a cosmic embrace. The union of both principles awakens energy and conscience.
This idea, beyond any symbols, is an excellent metaphor of what happens in our energetic body when internal work activates the sleeping Kundalini energy.
We can perceive the female principle in creation, in nature, in the flow of existence, in life with all its colors, and we honor it in devotional experiences, in trance, ecstasy and in the celebration of life.
We encourage our practitioners to develop the capacity to surrender, to immerse themselves in the flow of life, to lose themselves in the Whole, to dilute in Shakti’s sweetness.
In our seminars, Shakti appears in ecstatic, joyful, mystic and devotional dances, in all forms of human encounters, like celebrations, hugs, caresses and glances that meet and merge.
To be able to experience Shakti, our practitioners need to learn to lose themselves in her ocean of love, to abandon ego limits until they are immersed in devotional joy, both, when they meet their classmates, as well as in their opening to the Divine, both of which go hand in hand.
In this aspect, Primal Dance is similar to many other systems that emphasize the necessity of experience, of giving in to emotion, affection and joy.
However, this is only part of the story, since together with this opening to the female principle; we foster the development of a similar attitude towards the male principle, Shiva, the Yang. 
Traditionally this principle, more than being embraced in a joyful surrender to the flow of life, is realized in the encounter with the original emptyness, the Unmanifested Source, with the impartial observation of reality from the point of view of the transpersonal witness.
While honoring the female principle leads us to ecstasy, honoring the male one leads us to silent meditation.
Due to genetic, psychological and cultural elements, most human beings develop an unbalanced disposition for one of them. This may cause serious problems.
This may get even worse, if distorted manifestations of the principles are developed.
A dissociated and exacerbated female principle might easily result in extreme romanticism or a tendency to get lost in emotional relationships without the capacity to keep healthy limits. Addictions, promiscuity, exacerbated experientialism, hyper dependence on others, emotional instability, etc. are other expressions of a dissociated female principle.
On the other hand, a dissociated and exacerbated male principle might lead to a distant, cold attitude, hyperrational and non-affectivity. This can be accompanied by a difficulty in starting and maintaining relationships, a difficulty in enjoying life or to being happy. With this dissociated male principle the acceptance of the mystery of existence becomes inaccessible. Life limits itself to its rational aspect and transrationality becomes very difficult to be reached.
Along with the same genetic, psychological and cultural reasons, which determine these unbalanced tendencies, most people join groups  - or choose methods for personal development - which have been designed by people with the same imbalances. This not only increases the dissociation but also deteriorates the personality even more. Groups that emphasize the most developed sides in ourselves make us feel “comfortable”, because there are no challenges; nothing leads us to tread into unknown or painful areas. Everything takes place inside the “comfort zone”, but true transformation never takes place there.
Romantic people love experiential workshops, where everything takes place through the body and the emotions. They desperately need contact; they need to touch and be touched, they need to feel and to give in; they need to satisfy an unquenchable thirst. Their true challenge, which is to face loneliness and to develop a calm and meditative point of view out of silence and quietness, is never met. Everything that is considered “intellectual” is rejected and aggressively disqualified. Only the dimension of the emotions is real to them, and those who do not share their viewpoint are pseudo intellectuals with no knowledge of “real life”.
Rationalist people, on the other hand, love courses where everything is centered on sitting on a chair for hours while somebody explains life to them. However, no movement takes place in their emotions, their bodies or with their fellows. Everything affective or related to the emotions is rejected and aggressively disqualified. Those who do not share their viewpoint are primitive mammals without any wit.
From all this it can be concluded that, the best that can happen to us in a seminar is to feel a bit uncomfortable, and to be able to perceive that we are getting into a space where some parts of our structure are being challenged.
This dissociation between the female and the male principles and between romanticism and rationalism seems to be so contradictory and irreconcilable, when in fact it is paradoxical. This is completely different. If we do not realize the nature of paradoxes, problems become dilemmas, and within that structure, integration is impossible.
If we looked for only one metaphor, in this case a biologic one to illustrate the manifestation of these principles, we could look at the fertilization of the ovum and the spermatozoon.
Following the ovum’s impulse, those who are inspired by the female principle seem to feel that divinity is found in a passive attitude. For them, the divine is essentially something coming to us, and like the ovum, they wait for it. This impulse can be followed in an integrated-healthy or a dissociated-pathological way. In the healthy one, we can find capacity of wait, patience and contain. Need to belong, to surrender to pleasure and be able to merge. On the other hand we find undifferentiation, addiction and hyper dependence, to name a few examples.
Following the spermatozoon’s impulse, those who feel inspired by the male principle seem to feel that Divinity is found in the future, upwards and forwards. For them, the divine is something essentially transcendent and like the spermatozoon, they long for and hope to reach it and realize it. The impulse is to search for it in an upward, energetic, lonely and at times ascetic search. Again, this impulse can be followed in an integrated-healthy or a dissociated-pathological way. It is expressed in the ability to follow a discipline, reaching a goal and keeping on track, or through stiffness, authoritarianism, competition and aggravated individualism.
Fertilization occurs through the integration of the ovum and the spermatozoon. This only happens when both of them die to their previous identities. In the same way enlightment only takes place by the integration of the Yin and Yang principles, when the old personality dies. To watch a film of the fertilized ovum taking shelter in the womb, merging into the bigger universe to which it belongs is an overwhelming experience. One feels tempted to speculate about how this memory is molecularly recorded, waiting to be updated either in a healthy or a pathological way. In adult life new inner structures are required to transform this biologic memories into mind, soul and spirit actualization, transcending and integrating these biologic ground and embracing our true spiritual nature.