Jaya Kula Press has released its first book: Pilgrims to Openness – Direct Realization Tantra in Everyday Life. You are now free to take the teachings with you to the beach, read them in bed, and give them to your friends, relations, students and, well, anyone you think can benefit. (more…)

Pilgrims to Openness, the first Jaya Kula Press book, has a cover. As promised, I am sharing it here.

There’s a fascinating bit of background – on the background. I was searching the Internet for image inspiration, and I came across the blog of a young Kashmiri scholar, Mrinal Kaul. Mrinal is a lover of old manuscripts, and in his travels from one archive to another, he found a beautiful manuscript in a Delhi museum.

This manuscript, Abhinavagupta’s Tantraloka, is written on birch bark, as many old manuscripts are, including the bible and the Rg Veda. In fact, birch bark is still used in Tantrik practice. Yantras are sometimes drawn on birch bark, and adepts write mantras on birch bark. It is said that a yantra written on birch never loses its power. (more…)

Do you want a quick but comprehensive introduction to Indian Tantra? Did you ever wish you could send your students to one resource for an overview of what authentic Tantra is all about?

Visit the new Tantra 101 page at Jaya Kula. There you will find seven, short key articles covering everything from the history of the tradition, Shiva and Shakti, the forms and path of Tantrik practice, Guru and transmission.

Starting now with the new name –Jaya Kula (formerly Living Tantra) will be changing, just like life.

One of the bigger changes will be the publication of a book series.

Over the years, many readers have requested that the posts on Jaya Kula be made available in book form. In fact, Jaya Kula was offered a publishing deal two years ago, but it just wasn’t the right deal.

Now there are nearly 250 posts. It’s a bit overwhelming, maybe even more than a bit.

Making selections and publishing them in nice, readable chunks seems the thing to do.

The book series will be self-published through Amazon’s Createspace program and will be available for low-cost.

A bunch of juicy posts will remain on Jaya Kula, but not all. As has been the current trend, new posts will be in response to reader questions.

Here’s where you come in. I need a name for the new series of books. (more…)