Heart of Tantric Sex (25 page)

Insensitivity resulting from tension and anxiety

I hear sometimes from men about a "sexual condition" which is an extreme erectile function but with virtually no sexual sensitivity. This means an erection can be maintained for prolonged periods, but the penis is so insensitive that it is impossible to build up enough sensation to trigger an ejaculation. And so they pump away incessantly and end up frustrated in the absence of a few seconds of real pleasure. This in a sense can also be classified as impotence, even while it appears to be the opposite. When a man has an erection that is steel hard but without consciousness in it, he is effectively impotent. Where he has no sense of his male pole responding to a woman, he feels less manly. A friend of mine who experienced excruciating emotional pain about his insensitivity from his early sexual years was fortunate enough to meet a woman twenty years later who was interested in experimenting with him. After a period of eight months of making love without the tensions and anxieties that produced his insensitivity, he was grateful to find his penis beginning to regain its inherent sensitivity, able to sense the environment surrounding it and respond accordingly. He began to experience his penis as a channel of divine energy, able to sustain love and deeply awaken the woman within. The organic intelligence present in the body is a force so powerfully integrating that even the slightest shift in consciousness (which reduces the pressure of our sexual conditioning) is rewarded by the vigor of renewed life and sensitivity. The body is intrinsically ready (even longing) to return to one organic unity.

 T 
ANTRA IS A JOURNEY from mind to body, from thinking to feeling. As we immerse ourselves in the world of feeling, we will become aware that there are two distinct categories. There are feelings that have an emotional content such as sadness or irritation, or those that are the sensations of energy movement within the body itself. As couples practice using the Love Keys, they will discover both kinds of feelings. While gradually increasing their consciousness in lovemaking, they will find a corresponding increase in bodily sensitivity and awareness. This brings in a whole new range of internal sensations and feelings such as smoothness, velvet silkiness, heat and warmth, excitation, tingling, bubbling, lightness, fluffiness, coolness, molten gold, streaming brilliancy, and dissolution of all physical boundaries. As we reduce the need for sensation in sex, we uncover in ourselves an innate sensitivity and perceive a world of unknown sensations lying within. This gives sexual delight as the energy begins to move along internal circuits. The sexual experience becomes entirely different and at first couples do not describe it as exactly sexual in nature. In a recent workshop of mine, after his first taste of it, one man said "It is really touching, and it is not like anything you see in the movies!"

Our feelings are different from our emotions

Feelings that have an emotional content are another matter entirely, and confuse many people because they can seem to create heaven and hell. Argument and love get entangled again and again, and there seems to be no way through to the peaceful times. Our feelings and emotions keep disturbing the tranquillity. It is this aspect of ourselves, this subtle and usually unconscious layer, that needs to be brought into the awareness. Awareness of the body and of the thoughts are the first two steps. This is relatively easy compared to the third step, awareness of our shifting moods, swings in temperament, and complex emotions.

Although the words "emotion" and "feeling" are used interchangeably, this is a common mistake. There is a vast difference between the experience of an emotion and the experience of a feeling. This distinction is important to understand, particularly in the world of love, since it offers insights into our psychology and gives us the possible start to taking real responsibility for ourselves. Knowing the difference enables you to know what is happening, when it is happening.

Feelings are an expression of what is happening now, consciously in the present moment, and emotions are an unconscious expression from the past, something that has already happened. Feelings are conscious while emotions operate on an unconscious level. Feelings are expressed freshly and innocently, while with emotion the expression is avoided, repressed, or delayed, and when finally expressed is often overwhelming, destructive, or unkind. Emotions like to blame and say "you always... it is your fault. . . while feelings take responsibility and say "I feel" or "I need". Feelings strengthen the heart while emotions harden the ego. Feelings bring you closer to the one you love while emotions separate you. It is clear that feelings and emotions have very different qualities, and give us almost opposing experiences of reality. Through our feelings we expand our energy, we feel light and energized. We feel closer to the one we love and supported by life. Through emotions we are contracted and tense, experiencing heaviness, hopelessness, and pain. It is exhausting. We feel separated from the world and outcast by the one we love.

How ignored feelings become emotional monsters

In our society, where rationality and reason are given prime status, our feelings, whatever they may be, are given almost no importance by ourselves or others. Unfortunately, in most cases we try to repress them in order to reveal less about our vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Ignoring our true feelings begins in early childhood, when we learn to hold ourselves together. This is true especially of men and feelings are regarded as belonging strictly to the female domain. The English expression "keeping a stiff upper lip" is no joke because when we are in touch with our feelings, our insecurities, and weaknesses, the upper lip and chin will tremble shamelessly. When any feelings of sadness or frustration, even joy and love remain unexpressed, they accumulate slowly and become a storehouse of emotions affecting the harmony of mind and body. Jealousy, anger, hatred, fear, and rage, start building up early in our lives (often related to sexual interference), and no matter how hard we repress them, it is not easy to ignore these past emotions in the body. Our social lack of honest expression has compelled us to develop tough, brittle, and defensive qualities. We store the pain and disappointments that would have us weep and wail, and so they bury themselves in the unconscious as emotions, distorting our bodies and damaging the psyche.

These unexpressed feelings live on in us and return sooner or later as destructive emotions. The ghosts of the past continually taint the simplicity of the present. This explains why a seemingly placid and reasonable person can one day erupt at the slightest provocation, exploding irrationally into a violent rage. They are releasing the pent-up pressure of past feelings that can no longer be suppressed, and the virulence of such an outburst is rarely proportional to the incident that set it off. The accumulation of stored and unexpressed feelings is released with the force of this pressure behind it, so it seems to make the person act completely "unreasonably," but in reality they are acting "unconsciously." If we can become aware of the influence of our past on our present moment we can begin to separate emotions and real feelings.

Expressing our feelings as we experience them

Feelings, on other hand, are consciously expressed at the time when the feeling is actually happening. It is not stored or repressed, but exposed. If anger is present, or frustration, a wholesome roar from the belly for several seconds can have a truly liberating effect. The anger dissolves instantly, and there is no lingering resentment gnawing away at you. Conversely, you are exhilarated and full of heart-pounding life. When it is an aching, breaking heart, an animal-like wail of crying pain will make the whole thing more bearable. The internal pressure is released. Sadness is expressed in heartfelt tears. When we show our innermost feelings as we experience them happening within us, they are transformed into living energy and we are freed from any undermining effects. Even unexpressed love or joy soon turns to depression or sadness.

The point is that our conscious feelings contain our heaven, while our unconscious emotions contain our hell, and we create our hell through not expressing our heaven. Emotion is a defense to pain while feeling embraces it and uses it as a way to heal. At times heaven may look like hell in the form of a tragedy, a loss or a disaster, but if we allow the
real
feelings to rise, the anguish, agony and pain, we feel much better, even uplifted. Otherwise, if unexpressed our feelings pull down the spirit and eat up the heart. These remain as emotions lying dormant in the unconscious until an incident triggers the memory. The best we can do is to learn to share our feelings and so avoid our emotions.

Storing feelings in the body

The body functions as an innocent "home" for these unexpressed feelings. This creates an internal pressure, the stress of which can go so far as to affect one's physical structure and muscular movement. When feeling is unexpressed, the body stores it in the tissues. The way a person angles their jaw and holds their head, uses their shoulders, carries their pelvis, are all determined by internal emotional pressure. When the sexual center is contorted through the tension of our emotions as it is in all of us, this too, is evident in the walk, the angle of the pelvis, the shape of the legs, the alignment through the knees. It is in the solar plexus, however, where many of our unreleased emotions are stored, damaging physical and energetic structure.

When we are emotional and observant of the solar plexus, we will notice the discomforting gnawing sensation of being ill at ease, even a ceaseless twisting and turning. Awareness and relaxation of the solar plexus while making love is suggested earlier as a Love Key because it intensifies presence and sexual energy. In the same way, the solar plexus can be used in daily life as a monitor of the emotions. It gives great insight. As soon as you observe that there is a physical feeling, a hooking or pulling in the solar plexus, know that ease has been disturbed, and something is afoot. You are emotional! The solar plexus never misreads the situation, and it does not have to be a particularly dramatic event. It could be something as mild as a friend ignoring you in the coffee shop, a neighbor saying something dismissive about your children or your dog, or your preoccupied partner forgetting to give you a good-bye kiss. You may notice later that you feel disturbed, especially in the stomach area, with a feeling of separation or unhappiness.

Awareness, acceptance, and relief of tension

Instead of carrying around the discomfort of this emotion all day, acknowledge to yourself precisely what you are feeling—abandoned or insecure and simply feel it, experiencing the physical aspect of the feeling too. Enter into the solar plexus with your awareness and sink down into the feeling there. Remain with it for a while, imagining flames in the base of your belly burning it up. After some time check to see how you are feeling. How is your sense of ease? Having acknowledged your emotion by bringing awareness to its root, you are likely to have experienced some relief, a lightness of spirit. The physical load is dissolved, the acceptance of it dispels the tension, and you are rooted in your being again. In this case there is nothing more to be done, and you are able to continue your day with a joyful heart.