There are few teachers as compelling as Shakti Malan, who holds a truly enveloping, luminous presence. She holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology,  and balances it by immersing herself deeply in her own spiritual practice. Based in Cape Town, she facilitates tantra retreats and workshops in South Africa. She is a student of Leslie Temple Thurston, an Advaita teacher (see corelight.com) whose processing and meditation techniques first set her on the path, and has also studied with Master Mantak Chia and Osho. Her capacity for bliss, and for leading others into bliss, is legendary throughout the tantra industry. We caught up with her for a rare interview, preceding her Northern California workshop tour.

Q: And what is your approach to transformation?

A: I am not really interested in trans-form-ing anyone, or myself. I am interested in waking up - living as the truth of who I really am, beyond any attachment to form, including any desire to improve form or personality. And paradoxically of course the way of the Tantrika is to then fully embrace the experience of form, not to avoid desire but to enter into it consciously as a gateway that can lead to the integration and disillusion of all attraction and repulsion.

Q: That's very interesting. Can you elaborate on your approach to non-duality, especially how it evolves from a practice like BDSM - which I notice you teach, which seems quite filled with "form"... and a kind of duality through which power is exchanged.

A: Yes, that's right... I'm giving a workshop on conscious BDSM. Okay, the question is: How can BDSM be used as a doorway to non-duality, especially since there is so much "form" in traditional BDSM? The way in which I use this genre is to cut right to the essence of the eroticism. I use minimal tools and outer symbols. My method is psychological interrogation combined with high arousal. In BDSM, that which the unconscious holds in the pain body (such as shame and guilt) runs parallel to that which is held in the desire body. The way I work is to arouse both experiences intensely and simultaneously, and to take this experience to the extreme, where the opposites - desire and fear - can no longer hold themselves apart. In the moment where they fuse in the client, something dies forever - and a massive veil of polarized experience drops away, together with that particular eroticism.

The method of my work is encourage what I call "totality".. Totality means saying "Yes" to all of life's experiences, and being willing to feel them deeply, without becoming identified with the story that frames the experience. Thus, the "illusion" of experience becomes itself the gateway to awakening. There are seven themes in the way I work: