Tantra, sacred sex, sexual healing - what are they?

Tantra is the art of experiencing the spiritual through the transcendence of sex. Many spiritual and religious traditions attempt this. Some cast sex as a "sin" which must be resisted, overcome, overthrown. Some practice extremes of control or abandonment to a point where sanity is risked, Some "chastise the flesh".

The variety of approaches to the problem is no accident. Sex is often viewed as an obstacle, a distraction from meditation. There's an awareness in spiritual circles that the sexual desires are often the last to be dropped – and the most stubbornly resistant.

Tantra recognises the glimpse of the divine in sex, and uses the sexual energies to deepen experience and increase awareness of the spiritual.

Sacred Sexuality is a term used in the West to mean much the same thing.

Sexual healing (Dakini work) is therapy for body armouring and releasing repression using techniques related to bodywork and reiki.

I've heard of tantra yoga - is this the same as tantra meditation, tantric massage?

A "yoga" is an area of study. Advait Tantra is a Yoga. The yoga of Transcendent Bliss.

Meditation, is the English word generally used to translate the Japanese word, Zen, or the Chinese Ch'an, which come in turn from the Sanskrit, dhyãna.

Meditation is the practice of awareness. Not thinking, imagining - just awareness.

In dancing until your experience that there's just a dancing happening - no more dancer, one can find that moment of meditation, of awareness. Some long-distance runners get a taste of it, and in moments of extreme physical danger, most of us become temporarily meditative - aware, and notice that the memories of such moments have a different quality to regular memory.

Meditation starts with discarding the baggage of the ego/mind, and accepting the truth, the real, with full awareness.

In the context of Tantric Meditation, one starts by becoming more aware of the real, discarding the imaginary, the fantasy.

Tantric massage is a fusion of techniques useful for easing the stress, the jumpy re-activeness to the flow of sexual energy in the body and re-awakening responsiveness in areas of the body that have become desensitised, numbed, energetically shut off, disconnected.

What are you doing, teaching tantra online - as if it were even possible? Tantra is an ancient Tradition with great discipline and careful guidance required. It is seriously dangerous when misapplied. I don't know which is more frightening - the probability that you have no idea what you are doing -or the possibility that you do...

(-- from Skype call

There's a misunderstanding here. You've been working in a traditional school, and are using the term "tantra" to mean the system you know, with it's practices and the caution required with them. Your reaction is understandable in this context.

Please consider that I'm using the word "tantra" in a much wider, catholic context. Most of what modern culture needs from tantric practitioners is release from repression and body armouring (which are really the same thing).

In terms of the ancient traditions, most of what I teach would be called "approaching the temple", getting ready, getting able to experience "real" tantra.

This also reveals those who can take tantra further - who can and want to risk all for Truth, Liberation, Moksha, God.

Isn't Tantra dangerous? I hear that the old traditional schools warn against the teachings being generally available?

-- From Skype call.

Tantra uses sexually related energies to enhance awareness and move powerfully through spiritual lessons. As (part of) a spiritual path, it can be compared to mountaineering. You can reach great heights, and there is considerable risk. Learning awareness and being strong in meaningful discipline helps. Yes - it is dangerous, if you are introduced to some practices prematurely, or too late. We're careful, caring and supportive, but it must be admitted. There are risks.

One thing that helps is self regulation, and use of your own intelligence. If you can take what I teach, test it against your own experience, experiment with it, you can benefit. A little advice - take a gentle and respectful approach to yourself.

Can I form a sacred bond with my partner through Tantric Practice?

-- From online forum

The trouble is the third entity in a relationship/marriage - the relationship itself.

It is possible, and it happens, that John is really OK, things are cool, life is good. Same for Jane. These should be two happy people - buttttt ...

The 'relationship' isn't OK. The fictional thing that John and Jane have created: The mental symbol they each hold, which has no basis in reality - is not OK. Jane's version of it doesn't perfectly match John's, for instance. This means trouble. The relationship now doesn't fulfil the function for which it was created. It doesn't fulfil it's purpose, which was to provide an illusion of openness in a safely closed way.

Our deep desire for union with a perfect other is based in a truth - hence it's attractive power. It's from a damaged, warped condition, hence it's falsity - I'll try explain:

We each have inner male and inner female aspects. If we get comfortable with the polarity, accepting, the aspects can love each other, leading to synthesis of a 'true' human. This is the truth which attracts us, and which is at the very centre of Tantra.

We are raised with a lack of love. On account of this, one can be desperate to 'own' the affection, sexuality and respect of the other. Hence we fear the 'loss' of the other, and will insist on obvious untruths: We are 'made for' each other, we 'complete' each other and so on.

We can each get past this - integrate our masculinity and femininity, learn to love without an attitude of lack and refuse the enslavement of any bond.

When love is unconditional, there aren't conditions: no bond, no ownership of affection or sex, and definitely no cardinal sin of infidelity.

Relationship at it's absolute best is a space in which real love can be gradually learned. When it's learned, there's just John and Jane, two wellsprings of love, and no 'relationship' , no shackles, no bond.

There's no need to force things - if you are in a relationship, that's perfectly good, and there are many lessons to learn. Much of tantra practice can benefit you, but it would be worse than misleading to "sell" someone on Tantra with the suggestion that it could "improve" their relationship. Not that you might not still spend the rest of your life with your partner, just that it won't be on account of a bonding fear.

Seriously now, what's this about a man having orgasm without ejaculation? Is it pleasurable?
Is it for real, or just a myth?

-- Online forum

My earliest sexual experiences, way pre-pubescent, involved ecstatic rushes of energy, which I later forgot about because of the "proper" orgasms, with ejaculation, that I had later.

My earliest sexual fantasy also had a clue in it: I just was entranced by the vision/feeling of union - imagining sslloooooooww penetration, and no impression of movement after that - just sinking into bliss and being in bliss.

When I later remembered these things, I figured there might be something to this tantra thing, and I wanted it!

I tried to get there by control, found some delight in that, and the appreciation of my lovers. Alcohol helped a lot - a delicate balance of getting a tipsy buzz, but not drunk. To my shame, I think sex really never happened without alcohol and an attitude of control until after I'd been married a while…

Eventually, I realised that I was missing much of my experience in sex - numbing my neurals with breath routines and alcohol, distracting myself from absorption in the experience with complex rhythm counts and so on.

The most useful insight I had was that bliss in sex would surely be a natural thing, no force required - so, to my wife's initial disappointment, I willfully became what the tantra right-wing call "sexually incontinent - spilling my seed with no regard to timing, or a lover's preference. That, and indulgently relaxing into the experience, particularly learning to enjoy the approach and onset of ejaculation without bringing a tension to it - not encouraging or discouraging the ejaculation/orgasm, just trying to sink deeply into the experience, to feel it in fullness.

What probably helped me, though I don't believe it would be generally necessary, was my relationship with wife going a bit down the BDSM road. I think it helped me learn to submit to my experience, particularly, I noticed where I'd been shying away from intensity, finding it uncomfortable.

The deeper I accepted my experience, the longer I took to ejaculation (wife started smiling again). Sometimes, I'd be overwhelmed with the intensity of my experience and wouldn't get to ejaculation. The intensity became so severe that sometimes I'd pass out and miss my ejaculation.

I got stuck there a few years, then I had an experience of being so relaxed, blissful, sweetly accepting of the orgasm that it seemed ... that the body had just "forgotten" to ejaculate. Almost as if my willingness for orgasm, and non-striving for it had pre-empted the body's usual routine.

This was not an "ordinary orgasm" by my standards. It was "whole body" and more. A greater intensity by far than had previously rendered me unconscious, and I was VERY conscious in this new orgasm.

- much life experience and changes, a story for another time intervened...

My experience now, invaluable to my teaching work, is that Bliss is immediately available to me. Just one breath, anytime. There's no arousal, erection or eroticism required. There's no need, no urgency, no desire. Just bliss. With a lover, there's the sweetness of sharing this dance.

Health note - It doesn't seem healthy to not ejaculate at all. If I'm not a bit conscious with it, and don't deliberately ejaculate, a couple of months easily slips by. Ejaculate is then very thick, a strain to pump, and it hurts. Can't be healthy. It seems that the taoists' recommended ratio of 8 orgasms to an ejaculation is about right.

What about Intimacy, closeness, what most people would call love?

-- Dakini

There's a certain depth of intimacy that can arise in a really close, committed relationship after five years or so.

In this work, that depth is where we begin. I encourage you to regard that kind of intimacy as non-negotiable. Not something to achieve. Claim it, in every situation, as your human birthright.

Your intimacy has nothing to do with the beloved. It is entirely your own experience, the depth to which you are willing to experience. Keep on moving into deeper and deeper intimacy.

If sex is sacred, why are Christians so against it?

-- Dakini

The Roman Catholic Church has for quite a while ardently supported a seriously sex-focused movement, Opus Dei. They use celibacy, intensive conscious sexual reepression and flagelation, but their objective is exactly the same as Tantra: The transcendence of sexuality.

Their practices are not foreign to Tantra, Bliss is after all sometimes attainable through the synthesis of the pain/pleasure duality.

Tantra, in final analysis, is the most anti-sex force possible. Sexual transcendence is the end of desire, the death of all lust. Tantra is the path, the progression from the mud, the lowest form of love, Sex - through the lotus, growing from the mud, the flowering of Love, giving rise to the fragrance which is Compassion.

The desired result of the Christian way and the Tantric way is the same. Both are absolutely agreed that sexual addiction is an obstructon to spiritual authenticity.

Someone attained in either tradition should be able to walk around Khajuraho's temples, the red light district of ... anywhere ... or be naked with anyone, and be undisturbed by lust, free of any desire, unstressed and blissful.

Just the view on how to get there differs. There are many schools because there are people with many different needs.

What’s so special about Tantra?

-- Online forum

Tantra is a very powerful meditation technique. It comprises methods, not doctrines. It can be, and usually begins as a devotional path.

For Practitioners, Tantra is a calling. Their awareness of their sexual energies, their “uncensored” view, perception, reveals to them that this tiger was made to be ridden, is all revved up, and any other path would be an indulgent stroll.

For Practitioners. Dakas and Dakinis. Not people who are releasing their desires, using sexual healing techniques to release repression. Normal, healthy meditating seekers can benefit from some tantra techniques and Dakini work, and will move beautifully with techniques such as guided and movement meditations, later silent sitting, zen, or vip. I just want to stress here that tantric practices are only healthy in a “normal” context to a point. Like anything, one can get a bit hurt, even just by accident.

Most of us enjoy a walk in a park. Some need mountains. Some reach their transcendence in whirling, some find it in all sorts of things. Tantra is just one. One for the risk-takers. In a sense, it's the "extreme sports" zone of spirituality. It's potentially quick for some. It's not a shortcut.

This is why it's been "underground" for a while. If you research it, you'll be amazed at the number of "straight laced" traditions and religions that have histories of recognisably tantric practice. Tantra has always been a minority practice, so it's mostly been easily suppressed.

Essentially, we use the chi, the life energy that flows (hopefully!) through the chakras, turning the burners up to "max", so to speak.

When our sexual energy arises and moves on it's preferred, natural path upward, it encounters, as obstructions, the resentments, judgements, in those chakras where such things lodge, when repressed.

Turning the supercharger on means that the flow of energy becomes extremely powerful, If you've had a blissful moments in sex - moments when there's a glimpse of something - - more, well, those moments hint at it.

It's important to be reasonably unrepressed, and, as stated, it's important that you feel particularly drawn to the work, and willing to face your emotional work with an attitude of "wholesale" processing. If a chakra is closed, no flow at all, the energy would be painful, damaging.

When things are open, even though still constricted, restricted, the intensity of the energy passing through "scours" the system. There's all sorts of beautifully written, poetic texts describing the process, but my description fits my experience. My restricted chakras took quite a beating, flushing in a viscerally felt, richly experienced waves of physically experienced emotion. All I'd resisted in life, and I'd been really good at packing it away!

The flow increases as obstacles are "washed away", or forced through your consciousness with a high pressure fire hose. As things get clear, it becomes possible to take the energy of an orgasm, that would be ejaculation if released at the root chakra, and use it's explosion to burst through to the next chakra, build the energy some more there, and push through to the next, and so on.

The flow of energy through the chakras resonates with our second energy channel, the straight, smooth one in the spinal region. The Kundalini.

The gentle (ok, feels like all one can possibly handle at the time) energy flow upward through the chakra system is like a relay, encouraging flow in the second channel. This second channel starting up feels like lightning strikes up the spine. Some people feel this occasionally in very wild, explosive highly charged sex.

The traditional description is that of a snake uncoiling from the base of the spine, and moving upward. Rough if snakes give you the shivers. My experience is that the "snake" strikes, repeatedly, encouraging, readying, making one available for when it may, with grace, just connect, and stay open.

Many spiritual practices (and even some mass-therapies) induce satori, the flash of lightning, illuminating the territory, allowing a glimpse to eternity in an instant. Tantra is a practice where satori is evoked, then experienced over time (which is a real language trouble - the timeless, experienced for longer??), surfing orgasmic energies, staying right on the sweep of the wave, and it's a wave that doesn't have to break.

You talk about releasing repression to get a healthy sexuality. What is a healthy sexuality?

-- Online forum

This is what lies under the ego's desires. The desires have been induced by what we associate with love. One can, for example, have shame associated with love if, when one felt the real, the true pleasure of playing with the genitalia, and was shamed by a parent.

When the incorrect, usually parent/culture induced, associations are removed, there's a surprisingly small component of mamalian breeding instinct to notice, and then the healthy flowing can begin.

The true desire, past the ego nonsense, is the desire to love existence. The desire to submit utterly to what is. To follow the truth as it reveals. When sexuality flows, there's less a rushing, a crashing into orgasm and into unconsciousness, There's more surfing, gliding on the wave of the orgasmic. learning this, living this, one passes through the things one hears about tantra - the multiple orgasms, experiencing orgasms in the higher chakras, ejaculation-free orgasm, and so on. These are all related to the true miracle of our human sexuality: our ability to quite literally make love.

You say we all have male and female within - please explain.

-- Online forum

There’s a lot said about the differences between men and women. It’s also said that we each have complementary masculine and feminine aspects.

The physicality, the nerve connections available to males and females are twins. There’s almost exact experiential parallels between the male and female sexual equipment. Everything maps out - even down to details like lubrication and tumescence. Just the behaviours and attitudes of maleness and femaleness make the difference.

An example: Erection is experienced by both body types. In a woman, the erectile tissue is within the body, but it's still there. It enables coition by pumping up, the yoni flowers. Of course, there's also the nectar. Male bodies lubricate too. With sufficient arousal, the "cowpers glands" produce a clear fluid with extraordinary lubricating properties.

It would solve a lot of womens' more regular complaints against men if men retained or retrained their genital sensitivity. The leatherising they've done to their clitoral-equivalent areas means that multiple, clitoral-equivalent orgasms are unattainable. They just have that g-spot/prostate gland/ejaculatory orgasm, because the reverse end of the penis crushes into and pressures the prostate with thrusting, often aided by bum-clenching. That's the only flavour of orgasm many men ever get to experience.

Male and female behaviour differences, of course permeate the whole culture. There are group therapies in the world where the entire group gets into their male aspect for a week, everyone's male. Burp, maybe sneak a beer etc. Then all women for a week. After forcing/encouraging the separation a little, kind of a safe self-induced personality split, they each have a voice, and negotiations can begin.

This is the real love affair. This is the truth that makes stories of soul mates, perfect complementary lovers for all, so alluring. There is a mating needs to happen - in your soul. It has to be sweetly approached. Usually it starts from an antagonistic distance, hence it being externalised, experienced at first through the other, the beloved.

When, and only when there's an inner rapport, an empathy between your male and female aspects, there's a very powerful practice available:

Get comfortably joined with the beloved, male flat on back, woman sitting on him, facing him. Squatting, or kneeling, depending on comfort. Close eyes, and find the male and female aspects within. Stay totally in your own experience, let the physical sensations merge into your inner experience, allow/gently encourage the meeting, the loving of these two aspects of "you".

It's a deeply intimate, but absolutely individual exercise. All that's required of the partner is a relaxed awareness. Presence, but not action.

Nothing needs to be said, or could usefully be said about the experience. It's to be experienced.