Heart of Tantric Sex (13 page)

Energizing the positive poles of love

Whichever part of the body you are touching, "be" in your hands and send energy through them. A loving, firm and sensitive squeeze is great whenever it feels to be the right moment. As a way to begin making love, mutual touch of the positive poles can be used with great results. The sensitive touch will enable your lover to focus on his penis or her breasts, which awakens the sexual energy without stimulation. This can be done lying on your sides facing each other, or with the man kneeling at the side of the woman who is lying down. Reach out to your partner, and place your relaxed hands on their positive pole. Channel your love and warmth through your hands into them while allowing the eyes to meet. Remain in this mutual exchange for ten to fifteen minutes before you begin making love. It can be difficult to find a position for yourselves where you can be both comfortable and able to touch each other at the same time. If so, one of you touch and the other receive. Then exchange. And then make love.

Remember, this focus on the positive poles of love is very important as it sets the stage for the interplay of polarity once penetration occurs. When the opposite poles are alive to each other, the penis and vagina in attunement, an incredible interchange of energy is possible. Lovemaking can become increasingly dynamic, the bodies twisting and turning around and into each other for hours, as if possessed by life itself.

Remember it is very helpful to communicate to your lover what you are feeling in your body as you are being touched. Use a few simple words; begin a conscious dialogue between you and your body to intensify your awareness. Share your now!

When considering touch, don't limit yourself to the idea of hands only. Be aware of the bodies themselves touching each other, where they touch, how they touch, and the silky slippery feelings between legs, arms, lips, bellies, chests. While embracing and kissing, be alert initially not to push your bodies hard up against each other in too much enthusiasm! This has the unfortunate affect of compressing the physical body and with it the energy field surrounding the body, which limits or eradicates all sensuous feelings. There will be a lack of porousness, and consciousness will not be able to filter through the body. They will be perceived as solid unyielding objects which limits receptivity.

You have most likely felt this difference when you have a hug with someone. One person may give you a hug or handshake, squeezing you a little too hard, or even slapping you on the back taking your breath away, without any real exchange of energy or warmth. Another person may surprise you by simply melting into your arms. Suddenly you feel vaporous and light, expanded through the contact. A touching sweetness arises out of the simplicity.

As is the way of Tantra, touch begins with you and a slow sensitive approach in order for energy and aliveness to flourish in the cells of the body. Take the time to sense yourself as you lie down. Breathe for a few minutes, turn to your lover and face him. Feel the space between you that separates and connects you. Allow the eyes to meet and move the bodies together inch by inch. More subtle phenomena need time and tranquillity in which to grow, and this creates an environment conducive to energy and electricity within the body. When the touch of your bodies is sensitive, porous, and conscious, the relaxed sexual energy can become a spontaneous and dynamic force.

 T 
HROUGH ACTIVITY AND EFFORT and tension, we achieve our aims, fulfill our plans and projects. Through relaxation we achieve a more loving heart and a greater sense of well-being. Most of us are longing for the state of relaxation where we experience deep inner peace, each moment a joy, without disturbing and anxious thoughts about the future. As we experiment with the Love Keys we are learning to relax in many different ways, to enable a more loving and nourishing exchange to arise through sex. When we remove the idea that we must get something out of sex, we find we can begin to relax. No longer is an orgasm the all-important goal that has to be reached through effort and tension every time. When it happens it is good, and when it does not happen it is also good.

There arises an acceptance of what is, because there is no pressure of what should be. This acceptance leads to realizing and appreciating what is actually happening, the delightful joys within the body, the simple breath, the feelings that come and go, the alertness that arises with an inward focus—all this creates a deep sexual relaxation. In this frame of mind we are able to welcome whatever comes next, almost cat-like, self-contained and purring, while completely responsive to our changing environment. We have all envied cats their tranquillity while admiring their impeccable alertness. We must bring relaxation into the sexual act so that it becomes a magical unfolding rather than a fixed routine. We must become children again, utterly absorbed in the seashells littering the glistening shore. Sooner or later in life many of us, whether consciously or unconsciously, find ourselves searching in different ways to regain this lost childhood absorption and peace.

The power of doing less and being more

The state of exhaustion or laziness where you are uninvolved, detached and bored or groggy and sleepy, is often described as one of relaxation, but it isn't. Relaxation returns you to earth rejuvenated, not devastated. Relaxation is the process of becoming increasingly alive. It is a powerful force. If you have ever had the heart-warming experience of your finger being encircled with gripping life force by a tiny baby, this demonstrates the power of relaxation from a child without muscular strength. True relaxation happens when you pull your attention from without to within, external to internal, from activity to rest, doing less and being more. If, when you lie down to rest in the afternoon, you slowly and consciously bring different parts of the body into the awareness through relaxation, and then remain in that awareness for fifteen or twenty minutes, you will notice the refreshing results it produces. Relaxation regenerates the body and uplifts the spirit. You emerge as a different person. Importantly, relaxation is not a collapse of the physical structure as many people believe, but a returning of presence to the physical structure. When you relax consciously, you enter the body parts, become more alert, more vibrant, more sensitive and receptive. It is not a checking out but more a checking in. So while making love, you do not disappear and leave your partner, instead you arrive in your body, poised and present to your partner.

Tension, the opposite of relaxation, reflects itself in the body as hardness of muscles and body tissues. Having touched countless bodies in therapeutic massage clinics over many years, I have found the upper back, shoulder and neck area of most people to feel like concrete, solid and thick, creating a feeling of immense density. The cells of the body are compressed through internal and external pressures, and there is simply not enough space for physical comfort. Too many people report tiredness and anxiety, neck pain, headaches, eyestrain, difficulties in breathing and sleeping. When we do not feel physically well it affects our psychological state considerably, and can easily determine our happiness or unhappiness. Physical therapies are an answer as these encourage physical and mental relaxation, but one hour of massage or exercise will not correct years of accumulated tension. Relaxation is an ongoing deepening process that never really ends. The body is composed of 70 to 80 percent water, like a huge elastic bag, jelly-like, but most of our bodies have lost this soft and watery quality. Through consciousness and relaxation the body is able to revert to its smooth, soft state.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of relaxation is convincing ourselves that it is something of genuine merit. Is it really beneficial to do so? How many times did you think about lying down to rest, but your mind soon convinced you otherwise, saying "I must
do
something?" So you performed a long-awaited task, for which you could later congratulate yourself. And yet, if you had spent the morning relaxing comfortably in bed, you might have felt guilty thinking it was time wasted, or misspent. Relaxation is given no intrinsic value in our lives. This same compulsion to do something is found even more forcefully in sex.

Giving up control for expansion

So, in our new approach to lovemaking, we have to introduce relaxation by reducing the amount of physical effort we make. It implies relaxing the body and its movements (slowing down to achieve genital consciousness), and it also implies relaxing the mind. At this point it is often hard to believe that forgetting about orgasm and choosing to relax instead is going to be worthwhile! Our minds, our sexual conditioning, our past experiences, will urgently talk us out of relaxing, by saying "Go for it, it's so nice anyway, what could be better?" In effect, by relaxing, we are releasing our control over the sexual act, and the aspects of our sexual expression that keeps us locked into habits. It is not so easy for the mind to accept the idea of less control, so reason will be determined to keep you contracted and within your normal range of experience. However, when we do manage to relax underneath the urge for orgasm or "doing," we will find the experience full of richness and variety. It astounds me how many layers of relaxation are possible. Just when I sense my body or mind is fully relaxed, I find yet an additional layer of subtle tension. With each drop into relaxation, there is a corresponding sense of expansion within the body, awareness of more subtle vibrations. There arises a sense of glowing and porous life at an intercellular level.

As you make love, travel around your body again and again to find any areas of tension, the places where you are unconsciously contracting your muscles. It could be the shoulders, the inner thighs, the feet, the belly, the jaw, the anus. Anywhere. Each drop in relaxation counts. Tightness in the jaw is often related to tension in the pelvic area, so again and again bring your awareness to the jaw and relax it as you make love. It is well worth it. As you play around with relaxing different parts of the body in this way, you will notice how the smallest of tensions affect your sexual energy. As you release them, even if there appears to be no direct relationship between the body parts, for instance the shoulders and the penis or the feet and the vagina, you will feel an increase in sexual sensations.

Not unlike the pelvic floor, the solar plexus too is a place to relax and instill with consciousness, especially as you make love. Here too, we gather and store many unconscious tensions including the debilitating effects of painful emotional experiences. It is therefore not an area in which we have much consciousness. However, when the solar plexus is relaxed and filled with awareness, the sexual exchange between man and woman changes. It brings genuine spontaneity into the sex act, and enables you to hold the awareness within while being fully responsive to the outer events. This area may not be easy to sense initially, or it may bring feelings of nausea or a lump in the stomach, a sure sign of fears and tensions stored in the body. In time these negative feelings are released. Once it is easier to access this area, it is a suggestion to lovers that they hold their awareness in the solar plexus as they make love. The fire of awareness built up here spills warmth over into the genitals. When we are present, we are truly passionate. This engagement with the solar plexus has the capacity to squeeze out the tiring thoughts through which we always filter our experience. There is a strong sensation of being fully within and without simultaneously. Men happily report that the urge to ejaculate diminishes, and there is an ease and relaxation from which a power emerges.