Awakening of the Serpent Energy through Tantra

by Beena Sharma

In a unique cross-cultural dance event ‘Awakening of the Serpent Energy’ danseuse Beena Sharma opened a dialogue between her Kathak dance form and Australian Aboriginal dance form as a living art. Tracing similar metaphysical concepts in the Indian and Australian Aboriginal cultures, Beena retraced the Primordial Energy as a life giving force. In the two traditions, she compared the primeval force as Kundalini or Kulini in meditation and Chakras or the Dots as movements in Pitjantjatjara Rainbow Serpent painting of Australia. Conceptualising spiral patterns Beena expressed the ancient Tantric symbol Bindu as ‘Prana’, thus representing the ambiguous Ardhanarisvara, and Bindi as ‘Wang’ in Rainbow Serpent, as the creative and destructive forces of nature. Beena transcended the Suriya Namaskar through her body or the Yantra text, with the narrative verse as the mantra text on one hand and the performing act as the Tantra text on the other hand and in Yog Samadhi got vision of Sri Krishna. Her caption ‘In Samadhi Attain Karma Yoga’ got cognised across continents, across genders and beyond gods and goddesses themselves as the ultimate goal in Gita backed by her orientation in Savikalpa Samadhi. Grounded in teacher-disciple discipline she traced the ebb and flow of ParaShakti through Sahaja Samadhi. The ‘open’ kriya (dance recital) and ‘closed’ jnana (spiritual intunement) knowledges transmitted kinetically to the audience at their own level of perceptions. The awareness process enabled Beena to recognise the universal origin as her birthright. As Bindu or Dot it belonged to human, nature and superhuman beings and the never-ending cycle got acknowledged as the Eternal Truth. On reflection, her story and its performance wove a tantra tapestry celebrating the reconciliation and independence of all people. By diffusion and fusion of male-female energy symbolised as Shiva-Shakti or the Rainbow Serpent the concept ‘two sides of the same coin’ became established as ShivShakti, the one and same featured in Tantra. Finally, Beena decoded the principles of the spiritual ideas that she found in the Rainbow Serpent, in Shiva-Shakti and father-mother concepts; that the Primordial Consciousness ShivShakti as Prana and Wang is the Unity in Diversity, the spiritual truth that surpassed past, present and future into Oneness.