The Lover and the Beloved: a Journey into Tantra

A film about one man’s journey across northern India and his search for enlightenment. Rajive McMullen, a history teacher suffering from a debilitating illness, makes the painful journey into the heart of Tantra, searching for meaning in holy shrines, coming close to death in cremation grounds and enjoying the chaos of the Aghori seekers. This film offers dramatic insight into Tantric ideas about the life cycle, particularly death, and contributes much to our understanding of how we seek knowledge and how we die. The Lover and The Beloved also represents a realistic attempt to understand both the practice and illusive theory behind Indian Tantrism, and is intended to challenge widespread Western misinterpretations of this system of thought. Along the way we visit Kamakhya Devi in Assam and Tarapith in West Bengal, two of the most important centres of Tantric Hinduism.

Andy Lawrence| India 2011 | 70min| OV with engl. Subs

“The Lover and the Beloved revels in absurdity and the seeming chaos of India and in particular the holy men who live in the polluting world of a cremation ground. It explores the beauty of the irrational and immerses the viewer in the world of spiritual practices that seek to obliterate the ego and presents tantra as the science of the spirit. It is a rare film that makes the viewer cynical and at the same time experience the irrationality of the existential lifestyle of the Hindu Aghori sadhus. The film does not pass judgement but allows the viewer to witness and possibly understand what is deeply esoteric and difficult to explain with rationality." Michael Yorke, University College London 2015