I have just finished reading Daniel Odier’s “Tantric Quest” (in French: Tantra, L’Initiation d’un Occidental à l’amour absolu), a book I’ve had on my bedside table for a while. It supposedly relates his initiation by a female Tantrika – Devi – living as a hermit in Kashmir, some time in the late 1960’s or early 70’s. Odier today teaches tantra around the world, primarily in Europe (www.danielodier.com). His books are appealing and there is a lot you can get out of them. But in my opinion something is wrong. That was already my impression when I attended a weekend workshop of his in Paris about 18 months ago – but now I can say what concerns me more precisely.
A while back, I read on a tantra forum a critique of the book on the grounds that the account he gave of life in the Himalayan forest was incompatible with reality – for example, that you would get bitten by insects, devoured by wild animals, stuff like that. A pretty reasonable critique I would have thought.
A deeper critique, however, concerns whether the book is compatible with psychological reality – and, by extension, whether Odier’s whole approach is.
Odier and his defensors want to set themselves apart from what they disparagingly call “neo-” Tantra; by which they mean (I think) everything that derives from Osho, although what we can now experience as tantra in the West has multiple sources. By doing so, Odier appeals to authority – the authority of a spiritual lineage, and, as regards his inclusion in it, one to which he appears to be the sole witness. Odier presents himself as an enlightened master, although the event of enlightenment, for reasons which are brushed over, is said to have happened only some twenty years after his encounter with Devi – he had (conveniently) been forbidden to talk about his experience with her until then.
The particular aspect of the book which strikes me as least convincing is the process by which Odier qualifies to receive the transmission from Devi.
We have few clues in the book to his pre-existing state of mind, but we have some. Thus, he is described as having had a rather closed, religious French Protestant upbringing. Before meeting Devi, he studied under the Tibetan tantric Buddhist teacher Kalu Rinpoche, who later became well-known in the West, officially an exponent, of course, of “right hand” (non-sexual) tantra who nonetheless took a Western lover who later denounced the hypocrisy and machismo of Tibetan Buddhist practices (http://www.anandainfo.com/tantric_robes.html). Odier is also an accomplished scholar of oriental religions and systematically adopts, for example, hypercorrect transliterations throughout the book.
Odier describes in the book, essentially, a traditional Buddhist spirituality, complete with masters, meditations and lineages. This is also how he approaches the union with Devi. The testing events he is made to go through all relate to primal fears – fear of death, disgust in the company of lepers. None of these events, though, directly addresses his sexuality, his way of relating to women sexually. This is entirely omitted. His feelings for Devi make little sense from this standpoint. His natural sexual urges seem completely and immediately sublimated in her presence. He does not confront and overcome anything in this respect, nor does her femininity give him anything specifically female, emotional and human; and her presumably surprising approach to sexuality doesn’t cause him any turmoil whatsoever. Love and passion are not even discussed. Perhaps it is just prurience, but then it is very surprising in such a context. The overriding impression is of a constant concern to underpin his own legitimacy and teachings by reference to an authentic source – in a purely didactic, even catechetic genre. The book takes the form, in fact, of something like a gospel according to Odier.
Personally it seems to me that Odier must, by virtue of his upbringing, have been at least as subject to sexual and relationship neuroses as the rest of us, which none of what he describes is obviously apt to address, and which in any case is entirely left in the shadows. His spiritual quest is nourished by this experience. Yet what happens to it, how it is transcended, is entirely unclear.
A lot of Odier’s “theology” is appealing, as are elements of his practice. Yet, fundamentally, he contradicts himself. He is unable to reconcile the role of Master and transmission with the masterlessness and immediacy which tantra presupposes. He has nothing else to offer than meditation to overcome spiritual obstacles, and overcoming these is a precondition for tantric practice.
In this, I believe, he is all wrong. The power of tantra comes from encountering now, in our “fallen” state, the sexual power of the other, this sole force powerful enough to awaken us to the reality of who we have been and can be. Walks in the forest don’t cut it. They are great, they can awaken us also; as can meditations and other things. But this is not tantra – this is absolutely not the point. Tantra has a power to cut through obstacles and to point out others which derives from exposure to sexual intimacy, it is not just an add-on for the last mile of the spiritual journey. In the end, there is no doubt that work on oneself – including therapeutic psycho-physical work, which Odier never dwells on – is necessary for completion and for sexual relating to achieve all its potential as a gateway to transcendence. But there is a synergy and interplay – obvious to any of us with direct experience of the work – that Odier does not appear to understand.
In the end, Odier appears to offer a counsel of despair quite akin to that offered by traditional Buddhism. Mindfulness is the key, but mindfulness is very difficult to achieve – and Odier offers no shortcut to it, unless it is the miraculous bestowing of grace (it may be, but that is unfortunately in short supply). “Neo-” tantra offers, on the other hand, a counsel of hope. It offers an actual path you can take, here and now, as you are, to live better; to deconstruct and demolish failed ways of being and renew them. The way forward, as Odier both acknowledges and seems to contradict, is completely organic, completely individual, completely present in the here and now in all its potential. Opening to love, not just to nature, is the key.