Ben Ralston

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Aug 27 2010

New age neo-tantra bogus yogis… caught in the act!




Caught in the act.

In March 2003 I was in the Bahamas, completing my advanced yoga teacher’s training course. It was an intense month – up at 4.30 every morning; after an hour of advanced pranayama the rest of the day was spent immersed all aspects of Raja Yoga, until late into the evening.
On that course there were two people that I became friends with, (and who shall be the hero and heroine of this particular tragedy). The first, who I shall call Dave, was a fellow Englishman who happened to come from the town where I grew up. The other, who I shall call Maya, was an American woman.
Dave and Maya had quickly developed a flirtatious relationship that seemed slightly out of place in the austere atmosphere of the Ashram – especially since both of them were married…


As the course progressed, I would see them giving each other massages, stroking each other’s hair, and so on –always with an air of, well, purity.
Dave considered himself a healer (albeit without any training or experience), and Maya was a massage therapist. Both had a slightly ‘holier than thou’ attitude that I overlooked, since I was really too busy focusing on surviving the rigors of the course to care all that much. However, in the back of my mind there was a sneaking suspicion that their relationship wasn’t as ‘pure’ as they wanted everyone to believe.
One day, about halfway through the course, a group of us were sitting around chatting after lunch, and Dave and Maya started to tell us all (rather patronizingly) that Tantra was the fastest and best path to enlightenment; that they were going to set up a business together, because they were ‘so deeply karmically connected’; and share their extensive knowledge of Tantra with others in order to make the world a better place.
All of which would be fine, except for the fact that neither of them really knew the first thing about Tantra.
When I asked what this ‘business’ would entail, they told me that they would help couples and individuals attain enlightenment (using Tantric sex). Lofty goals!
Dave told me (and everyone else within earshot) that he was able to hold back his orgasm indefinitely. He authoritatively stated that that was where his ‘power’ came from.
I suggested to them that sex is not the intrinsic aspect of Tantra that many people in the West think; and that perhaps the essence of Tantra is actually nothing to do with gratification, but rather more to do with worship and celebration. I also asked them how they knew so much about Tantra without having had any formal training, but they eluded my questions whilst flirting outrageously and I let it go…
Fast-forward one year. I am back in England; I get a call from Maya. She’s visiting and would love to see Dave and I. We organize a get-together, and after a night out in London, they both end up staying at my house.
In the morning, I make tea for them, and take it up the stairs to the loft conversion where they are sleeping… and as I enter, what do I see?
Dave and Maya fucking like rabbits. I don’t like to swear, but only a swear word can adequately describe what they were doing.
Whether you call it fucking, or shagging, or screwing, or banging though: there was absolutely nothing sacred, spiritual, or enlightened about what they were doing. They were simply going at it, hammer and tongs.
I thought about tiptoeing silently back down the stairs, but you know what? I couldn’t resist surprising them! So I set the tray down quietly at the top of the steps and wished them a hearty “Good Morning!”
The looks on their faces were priceless; rabbits caught (f*cking) in the headlights.
Thankfully, neither of them mentioned Tantra all morning.

Written by Ben Ralston · Categorized: funny, love, sex, Uncategorized, yoga

Jul 28 2010

‘Self sabotage: when your best intentions come undone’.


Once upon a time, in a land not so far away…


***

… a little girl drove through the city suburbs with her parents. As they passed through the wealthiest area, her Mother pointed to the big houses and said:
“You see this – this is where the bad people live”.
That girl grew up into a beautiful woman who somehow never seemed to have enough money!
***
… There was a very young boy who thought that his Father was an all-powerful Superhero! He loved his Father so much that he lived for the moments when He spent time with him; played with him; gave him attention. Unfortunately his Father was A Very Busy Man, and those moments only came when the boy was sick, injured, or in trouble.
When that boy grew up, he was unable to see how beautiful he was: he believed that he was only deserving of love, attention and play, if he was sick, injured, or in trouble. He spent many years constantly sick, injured, or in trouble, without knowing why!..
***

… A sensitive, emotional boy wanted nothing more than to play and enjoy his childhood. His Father didn’t want a sensitive, emotional boy – he wanted a tough, hard boy, because he thought that the world was tough and hard. So he told his son all the time that he was useless, and he didn’t let him play – his boy had to work all the time so that he would become tough and hard. So guess what? That boy grew into a man who always felt useless, and only ever wanted to hide, escape, and play!
***
… A curious 5 year old girl was at kindergarten. It was rest time, and all the children were laying down under blankets to have a nap. Our heroine lay on her belly, and began to feel a strange sensation in her abdomen. It was her first experience of sexual energy, and it felt wonderful! She wanted to explore this new gift. Under the blanket she pulled her pants down and began to play with that energy.
Unfortunately the teacher saw what she was doing and whipped the blanket away to expose and humiliate her in front of the whole class.
That little girl grew into a woman who found it very difficult to enjoy sex…
***
These are true stories which I use here to illustrate how our underlying attitudes are sometimes ‘ruled’ by subconscious beliefs and associations, which in turn dominate our lives. This is what I refer to as a ‘subconscious blockage’. To be clear: the above four people came to me because they had problems in their life with wealth, health , self esteem, and sex, in that order. Clearing people’s subconscious blockages is part of my work as a healer.
Other examples of very common blockages are those towards success; failure; and change.
A blockage towards success might manifest itself as persistent ‘bad luck’. You might always be just that one step away from achieving what you want – but never quite getting there.
A blockage towards failure might look the same as the blockage towards success (never achieving the results you would like) but it happens for a different reason: because you are afraid of failing, you never really commit yourself fully. Perhaps life without success is simply more ‘comfortable’ than the possibility of failure?
In 3 months, I will be a Father. I am delighted and overjoyed, and have been since my wife and I found out. However, the impeding BIG CHANGE also helped me to discover in myself (and heal) a BIG FEAR, which you can read about here. 
I once saw someone wearing a T-shirt with the words “Your parents fuck you up. They may not mean to, but they do,” printed on the back.
There’s some truth written on that T-shirt!
However, it’s not our parent’s faults – on the contrary: they inherited their issues from your Grandparents, who inherited them from your Great Grandparents, and it’s just a pattern that goes on and on, far back through our ancestors. It’s also not only the parents that do the damage… it can be teachers, other family members, neighbors, and institutions (such as a church.
The fact is that our society is really in a big, big mess.
It doesn’t value the heart. It doesn’t value spirit. It doesn’t value value!
Our society does value power, sex, and fame. It values quantity over quality; history over truth; appearance over reality; drama, controversy, and sensationalism over harmony. It has been doing this for a very long time. The result? Corruption, greed, and ignorance at the very root of our daily experience: at home, at school, and in the media.
So it’s not our parent’s fault at all. If they were mis-educated themselves, how could they know better?
In fact, the real issue is not whose fault it is, but what WE are doing about it.
It’s time for us to really look at the situation honestly. We owe it to our children to do so.
Can we afford to continue repeating the same old patterns again and again? The same patterns of abuse, aggression, fear, corruption…
Or should we think a bit more deeply about what could be – about our potential as a species – about the possibilities for humankind?
My purpose in writing this is not to frighten the hell out of you, nor is it to make you introspect to the point of gazing at your navel!
The real intention behind all my work is to inspire and motivate people towards the kind of profound, lasting healing that I know is possible.
I have found that there is a new paradigm of alternative healing  emerging, based on the unprecedented new relationship slowly being formed between science and spirituality. Those two age-old enemies have begun to realize that they have actually been saying the same thing all along, only in different languages.
Slowly, they are beginning to speak in the same tongue, and the results are really quite astonishing. For example, various spiritual traditions have spoken for many thousands of years about body-consciousness. Science has recently found that the cells of our body carry memory (and therefore consciousness). For a remarkable example, read this article on epigenetics  from Time magazine (It also explains very well what I mean when I say that very often, our blockages are inherited).
This merging of the boundaries between science and spirituality has led to a revolution in healing, that means it is faster and easier than ever before to let go of these old blockages and patterns that hold us back.
We are innately perfect. We are pure consciousness. You are pure, perfect, divine consciousness. You were born that way, and you will always remain that way.
The reason why you sometimes don’t feel perfect and divine is that mankind has forgotten it’s essence – it’s divine nature. But the truth is, as is written in the bible – we were created in the image of God.
So, if we’re really perfect, all we need to do is let go of all that is blocking us from our experience of perfection, and remember our essential nature!
That is what the new paradigm of healing is all about: simply letting go of the blockages.
It means that the old paradigm – which said that healing was hard work; took a long time; and could only be done by ‘special’ people – is redundant. It is now possible to transform limiting blockages into unlimited potential.
My belief is that we will not change the world into a more peaceful place until we do this work on ourselves. All the anti-war protests, angry environmentalist blog articles, and political posturing do very little to support real, lasting change.
I believe that is why Mother Theresa  said:
“…I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations… as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”
We need to free ourselves from the violence, greed, and selfishness that is within, before we can hope to see our love manifest outwardly.
What do you think – have you experienced letting go, or healing, of subconscious blockages? Please feel free to share your experiences, thoughts, and ideas by leaving a comment.

Written by Ben Ralston · Categorized: consciousness, health, love, sex, Uncategorized

May 11 2010

FREEDOM


What is real freedom?

Is it a physical condition (not being behind bars)?
Is it being free to do or say or think what ever you want, no matter what?

I created this blog today having never ‘blogged’ before, and had to choose from a range of ‘templates’. I chose the only black one. Why?

I used to have an aversion to the color black. I used to think that it is a negative, or ‘unspiritual’ (whatever that means!), color.
Then I realised something. Something very profound.
Nothing is negative!

Time for a great quote:
“Nothing is all good or all bad, except that we make it so“…
Whoever said that, and I’m not sure who it was – perhaps it was Shakespeare, or Abraham Lincoln? Like i said, no idea – but whoever it was, really understood that nothing is negative; nothing is bad.
For example: my aversion to black cut me off from a whole range of clothes and other choices. I was not FREE to choose. My choices were limited by the idea, ‘black is bad’.
So today, I chose the black template just to acknowledge and celebrate my freedom from a limiting idea.

What other kinds of things limit us?
The other day, I had a client whose Mother used to say, whenever sex was portrayed on television: “look what the pigs are doing”. I am sure that the Mother never enjoyed sex, or knew the beauty of meaningful physical contact with another human being. How sad.

So often, we judge the world around us. Those judgements limit us. They interrupt our freedom.
Given the choice: to be absolutely non-judgemental behind bars; or physically free but trapped in a cycle of judgement, I would choose the first option. Why? Because I know that, as Jesus said: “the truth will set you free“.
When we judge, we do not see things as they really are! We super-impose an idea onto what we are looking at. Actually, we don’t see at all – we just look.

When we stop judging, we stop looking for what we think we already know. Instead, we see things as they really are. We see the truth. And that is freedom, because in that moment of honest and open experience of truth, of reality, we know. We see, and we know, and we are free to choose.

That is real freedom.

ps – As you may have noticed, I changed the template from black to white – it was hard on the eye!

Written by Ben Ralston · Categorized: freedom, honesty, reality, sex, truth, Uncategorized

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