Andrea Verrill’s life has been a search for the healing love embodied in a deity who looked more like her than the male preacher she listened to on Sunday mornings as a child.

Halfway around the world, Verrill, 30, found what she was looking for in Tantric Hinduism and Mahavidya, the Goddess of Wisdom. She returned from southern India about eight weeks ago, determined to become a teaching practitioner and with a new name – Nagarani.

Her guru, Shri Param Eswaran, will be in Maine next month to share his teachings and practices. His visit is part of Nagarani’s training to become a certified instructor of Tantric practices.

Since her early teens in East Otisfield, she sought to embrace the Christian ideal of love but found that more difficult when she hit her teen years. Nagarani found little in her family’s Baptist church or American culture that helped her deal with her developing sexuality.

“I wanted to be Christ,” she said in an interview. “But he was a boy and I was a girl. That was confusing. Then came my budding sexuality and interest in boys. I didn’t find the necessary guidance to understand that in a sacred context.”

She also was seeking some relief for the scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, that was diagnosed when she was in the fifth grade, and severe menstrual cramps that plagued her her adult life. Nagarani finally found relief in the Para-Tan, the healing sound practices of Tantric Hinduism under the guidance of Shri Param.

He was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1944 but is of Ceylon Tamil origin, according to information on his Web site. He was inspired to pursue spirituality at the age of 9 and began teaching almost by accident in 1972.

He spent the 1980s living and teaching in Australia, where he also ran a healing center and a vegetarian restaurant.

In 1990, Shri Param moved to southern India and founded the Inter Faith Centers Temple of Divine Love with the vision of bringing all religious teaching into one house.

The centers’ mission is to “teach that the purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort, of our limited mortal[ity] into Mother Consciousness” and “to serve the Universal Mother who is within us.”

Meanwhile, Nagarani studied psychology and holistic therapy at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor and Vermont College in Montpelier. She is a

licensed massage therapist and operates Dream Tree Therapeutics in western Maine.

Several years ago, Nagarani trained for two years with the late Kay Gardner at the Bangor Iseum in earth-centered worship practices. From there, she began studying the Goddess as she was manifested in various cultures. That led her to the faiths of the East, then Hinduism and finally Tantra, which is a combination of two Sanskrit words that mean expansion and liberation.

Tantric Hinduism is more concerned with practical aspects of the religion than with theology. Like the main philosophical schools of Hinduism, it holds that the nondual supreme reality has two aspects – Shiva, which is male, and Shakti, which is female. Truth can be realized within the human body, which is believed to be a microcosm of the universe.

“In Tantric ideology, Shiva and Shakti are expressions of the symbiotic interaction of the male and female within,” Nagarani said in an e-mail. “Many Tantric teachings emphasize that it is the power of Shakti whose presence is evident in and underlines the very being of the adept [highly evolved spiritual aspirants].

“When the male and female in the earthly world unite, it is the female who embodies the Goddess of partnerships and the home,” she wrote. “The true Tantrika witnesses the wholeness of the unit they form with their partner, worship one another’s divinity and echo in the microcosm, the macrocosmic unity of Shiva and Shakti.”

Shakti is a multifaceted woman considered by Hindus to be the Great Goddess. Wisdom, or Mahavidya, lies within her. Mahavidya is made up of 10 goddesses. The energy of those 10 symbolizes the dynamic evolution of consciousness, according to Nagarani. Each represents a different aspect of consciousness and phase in a person’s evolution.

In Tantric practices, caste restrictions are reduced to a minimum with women often revered as a manifestation of Shakti and men as manifestations of Shiva. Devotees often discover the Goddess or God within, according to testimonials on Shri Param’s Web site.

Para-Tan, the healing practice within Tantra, is the science of expanding the consciousness and liberating reserves of boundless energy. Its emphasis on doing so is to allow a person to attain freedom from the bondage of the world while still living in it, according to Nagarani. The ultimate goal of Para-Tan is to help people achieve a state of no-duality, the same as the highest reality exemplified by the deity Shiva-Shakti.

In a sound healing circle, a facilitator resonates sounds directly into one person at the center of the circle, while others in the circle sound the bijas, or seed syllables. The sounds erase cellular memories and help restore health.

Nagarani said that since she began participating in Para-Tan healing circles, her scoliosis has improved 97 percent and she has not had the painful cramps she’s endured since her first menses.

“I am immensely grateful for all the educational opportunities that led me to this point,” she said. “My focus now is on the future and evolving myself where I am a living example of love.”

Upcoming events

Shri Param will be in Maine in May to share his teachings. Profits from lectures and workshops will go to help run the home and school for orphan girls that he and his wife run and to build the world’s first Shri Chakra Temple and Para-Tan Training, Healing Sanctuary in Killankulam, India.

For information, call Nagarani at 515-0733, e-mail dreamtreetherapy@yahoo.com, or visit www.tantra-ifc-the-art-of-concious-love.com.

Satsang: A Lecture with Questions and Answers

Cost: Free

Agni: An Ancient Tantric Fire Ritual

Coinciding with the Celtic Holy Day and fire Festival of Beltain, the ceremony consists of changing mantras while sitting around the Agni pit offering special herbs and sacred materials.

Cost: Free

Para-Tan Healing Circles

Bangor and Blue Hill

7-10:30 p.m. May 21- 24

Para Tan is an accelerated path for spiritual growth. The practice harnesses the vibrational healing power of ancient bija or seed syllables of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses. These bijas break up cellular memories, causing Shakti to circulate freely and blissfully through the Nadi, an extensive subtle energy network throughout and around the body.

Cost: $27-$54, deposit required.

Weekend workshops

10 a.m.-7 p.m. May 25-27

Bangor-Blue Hill area

Each workshop will include the Shri Chakra-Yantra, Mantras and Bijas of the Planets and 10 Wisdom Goddesses, and direction in working with Kundalini and clearing the Nadi system. Yantra and Mantra are foundational methods of awakening Kundalini Devi within Tantra.

Cost: $108, deposit required