Hieros Gamos
"The world is regenerated every time the sacred sexual act is consummated."
'hieros gamos' 'sacred marriage', 'union of opposites', 'alchemical', 'real' marriage 'unio mistica' or 'sacred union' or ying yang, body and soul, heaven and earth, sun and moon, active and receptive, male and female.
In antiquity, there was no division between the sacred and the profane; ritual practice was part of life together.
In Ҫatal Hüyük, Anatolia, one of the earliest known Neolithic sites, sculptures and sacred paintings representing the female and the male have been found. The images suggest the practice of hieros gamos: a man and a woman were specially chosen to represent the sacred marriage between the Goddess and God.
The archaeological sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in India reveal rituals of worship to the mother goddess, with tantric practices that represented the mystical union between Shiva and Shakti.
“One day, Shiva was walking through the hermitage with his penis exposed and erect. The sages were so enraged by this public display of his private parts that they immediately tied him up and castrated him. Shiva's penis, however, possessed power of its own and turned into a flaming missile. The missile went flying in all directions at once, threatening to destroy the three worlds - Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. The sages tried to capture the rebellious penis, but failed. Feeling defeated, they rushed to the god Brahma, who said, “O foolish men! What did you do? If this rebellious penis does not stop, it will destroy the cosmos". So, the sages invoked Shakti, the goddess. She offered her vagina to encapsulate and contain Shiva's penis. The power of Shakti's vagina is so immense that it neutralized the strength of the penis, and thus the union of Shiva and Shakti saved the world from destruction.”
Tantrism is an esoteric tradition based on a system of spiritual knowledge, where the central core of tantric practice is sexual intercourse, whether ritual or symbolic, where the body is sacred and highly related to the feminine and follows a philosophy where the universe, the macrocosm and man, the microcosm, are composed of two opposite aspects: masculine and feminine, static and dynamic, negative and positive. Tantric practices predate Hinduism; its structure was the result of a tangled web of cultural confluences and the tantric/alchemical body becomes, in this practice, the icon of the deities, when the God (Shiva) and the Goddess (Shakti) unite producing what is variously described such as Bliss, Complete Enlightenment or Liberation.
In Ancient Egypt, the myth of Isis and Osiris tells the story of a couple who came from the stars and incarnated on Earth to establish the principles of cooperation, balance, harmony and mutual respect among humanity.
As Egypt's first rulers, the couple ushered in an age when the gods walked the Earth and brought civilization to human beings. They were enlightened kings, aware of their mission and ready to assume the responsibility of governing.
Isis and Osiris are archetypes of a golden age, when kings and queens ruled to serve, not to be served. The crown was a symbol of enlightenment, of the fully developed and active crown chakra.
They taught the people to plant and harvest, to prepare meals and medicine, to spin and weave. They taught them to make and play musical instruments, to sing and dance. They educated the people in all arts and sciences, established laws and revealed deep spiritual truths.
During the reign of Isis and Osiris, Heaven and Earth were one. Humanity experienced the integration of spirit and body, full awareness of its cosmic origin and its divine nature. It was a time of great advances in all areas, a time when the people were happy and prosperous.