Why persist with Tantra and Tantric sex? What can it offer that we don't already have? Are we doing things in the bedroom that is so wrong that we need to look back at this ancient alternative medium?
It's About The Birds and The Bees - The Limitations of Traditional Sex Education
I am sure many of us can remember back to our cheesy sex education lessons at school. If your sex education was anything like mine then there were probably a lot of scientific and biological descriptions, a few strained jokes about birds and bees, and some horror stories about sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. I certainly remember one high school teacher who hammered home some dire warnings of the basket of emotional problems we would soon find ourselves in. In hindsight, this may have simply been a projection of their own shortcomings.
No matter how you came to find yourself having "the talk" there was probably very little (if anything at all) said about pleasure. No open discussion about energies and body sensations that we can expect to experience. Certainly no discussion on a more personal and intimate level for people about to begin their sexuality journey. Even all of those years ago back in high school, I remember coming away from my sex education classes thinking pleasure must be a taboo out there in the world. It is acceptable to fantasize and swoon and make the earth move with ease in Hollywood TV shows and movies and romantic novels, but for us living our everyday lives in the real world, there is often fumbling, rushing, lack of communication, and "was that good for you?"
Our culture in the 21st century views sex as the coming together of two bodies. Tantra sees sex as the meeting of two energies, through the medium of the physical body. Since the big sexual revolution and free love of the 1960s, the exposure of most people to sexual experiences has become more common and more mainstream over time.
In turn, this had made our bodies yearn for more and more excitement and stimulation of the awakening our sensual nature and arousing our pleasure states. If we focus solely on a physical level, our bodies have evolved to be somewhat jaded, requiring stronger and stronger stimuli to bridge a connection with us. To add to our burden – and thanks in part at least to TV, movies, and social media – we compare ourselves unfavourably with Instagram bodies, and Hollywood perfection and end up settling (for what we tell ourselves) is second best.
We Are Energy - A Different View of Sexuality
If we look at ourselves on an energetic level, we can see that we are formless and unlimited in the potential that we can achieve. Tantra teaches us that inside each of us is the unique incarnation of the masculine and feminine essence. If we can learn to make love by uniting masculine energy with feminine energy, we will then be able to enjoy our human bodies and the beauty of all it is capable of feeling and sensing while meeting on the energetic and spiritual level as divine beings.
Tantra teaches us that we don't have to become divine or become gods or goddesses. What it teaches us is that we are perfect as we are because the Universe created us as so. It is our connection with this that we need to wake up to and discover again. With this discovery and realization comes the healing of the ancient rift between body, mind, and spirit, which sees the flesh alive with the masculine and feminine energies as the rivals of the spirit, dragging us down from higher things to the realms of the physical earth.
Return to Innocence But Look Out For Tension
Tantra teaches us to view our bodies as a doorway to the spirit. By honouring our body we learn the knowledge our body carries with it bringing us closer to the spiritual innocence we once had but lost when we came into the world and this life. It is this spiritual innocence many of us long to return to.
Spiritual innocence is about being present in your moments. It is about being in that state of mind where you embrace and delight in the here and now, which is the nature of the physical body experience. It is so very easy for our human minds to take us back to memories of our pasts, worries about our present, or our plans for the future when we ought to be grounded in our here and now.
On the physical level, our bodies hold the past with us in the form of tension, the energetic imprint of past negative experiences being stored in our muscles and connective tissues. When we work at cleaning our body of negative energies of our past, not only does our tension fade away, but we find ourselves able more open to the flow of energy around our body and between our partner, which is of the moment, which is always sacred and true.
Letting Go of Tension
So our body becomes revered and innocent through the release of tension, relaxing into the meditative, non-controlling state of innocence. But the normal sexual act for us is excitement and tension. This is what we have learned since teenagers, this is what we have always been taught. We learn that tension is sex. Sexual excitement makes us tense up. Even at the point of orgasm, our muscles tense up and our bodies tighten.
So now we find ourselves in a state of doing, not a state of being. Our innocence is now lost, and all the terrors of getting it right, are we any good, performance standards, seduction techniques, and manipulation consume us, pulling in our minds along with them.
Additionally, when tension is present as an energetic contraction, it brings with it the emotional association of fear. On the flip side of this, when tension is present as an energetic expansion, it carries with it feelings of pleasure.
The Connection Between Body and Spirit
I often get asked what is the difference between stimulation and pleasure. Aren't they mostly the same type of thing? Think of sexual arousal and sexual excitement where there is tension as stimulation rather than pleasure. Whilst pleasure remains the main objective for many women and men, the focus solely on reaching orgasm and climax keeps it in our mind and boosts our ego rather than being relished with delight as the experience of love and sexual pleasure in the body.
One of the things Tantra helps you explore is how to enjoy the excitement without the tension. This is done by showing you how to relax into energy and allow it to expand and flow.
So instead of tension and excitement moving through us as a rising spiral that piles on top of itself and pushes our minds to the edge of frustration before we dare to let go of control over our body for a few brief seconds of orgasm, we can choose to feel the excitement build and rise to the heights of spirit while the relaxation deepens the experience to touch our souls.
Don't Forget to Breathe
Famed Austrian doctor of medicine and psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich, suggested a theory on orgasms whereby the body requires the discharge of energy to enjoy and maintain an energetic healthy life balance. This plays along with the notion that life energy must flow to stay healthy. No matter if it is life energy or sexual energy or orgasmic energy, energy is still energy and it needs to flow.
Of course one of the negative takeaways of this is that some of us can associate fear with holding on to energy. Some people may become so frightened that if they hold on to energy it will turn into a destructive force. Once again here we have fear and tension popping up through this excitement generated by our thoughts of energy and whether we are holding it too long or not long enough, and it is creeping back into our subconscious via the back door.
Tantra dearly wants nothing more than for you to learn how to relax into the excitement, to allow sexual excitement to flow and spread, from the genital and pelvic region into the entire body. And once the body is fully consumed it can be pushed beyond the limitations we have set on our physical body and into the expanded bodies of energy and auras that surround us, bringing us into greater connection and dissolution with our partner and with the whole universe.
When we can consciously breathe deeply and fully with the sexual energy and push it into the higher chakras, we can make love with our hearts and with our spirits, honouring sexual union as an all-embracing conscious event of transcending aloneness into togetherness.
It is at this time our sexuality and spirituality blend and become mutually completing aspects of the being of our energetic being.
Sources:
The information contained above is provided for entertainment purposes only. The contents of this article are not intended to amount to advice on your personal situation and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. The Writer and Shoshin Therapies disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.
Comments