Dakini

From Thelemapedia

Categories: Buddhism | Buddhist terms | Tantra | Tantric terms

1. A dakini (Sanskrit: s. pl. "sky walker, witch, imp") is a Tantric priestess of ancient India who "carried the souls of the dead to the sky." According to legend, members of the Indian royal castes and the wealthy nobility brought their deceased to the far North to visit the Shrine of the Dakini (located at the foothills of the Himalayas). Other legends mention a Tibetan myth which says dakini first appeared in a remote area "pure of man."

2. Dakini are timeless, inorganic, immortal, non-human beings who have co-existed since the very beginning with the Spiritual Energy. In some New Age belief systems, they are angelic. This New Age paradigm differs from that of the Judeo-Christian by not insisting on angels being bona fide servants of God. Moreover, an angel is the Western equivalent of a dakini. The behavior of dakini has always been revelatory and mysterious; they respond to the state of spiritual energy within individuals. Love is their usual domain—one explanation for dakini or angels supposedly living in the sky or heaven. Manifestations of dakini in human form occur because they supposedly can assume any form. Most often they appear as a human female. By convention, a male of this type is called a dakin.

3. Tantric sex may involve a "helper" dakini-- a human female trained in Tantra Yoga-- or an "actual" dakini. Both increase the level of erotic pleasure for the sexual participants by helping them focus on a non-physical state of spiritual joy and the physical pleasure of sex at the same time.

References

• Wikipedia (2004). Dakini (http://www.wikipedia.org/Dakini). Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.