Heart of Tantric Sex (5 page)

The way to ecstatic sexual union

The art lies in creating and harnessing polarity, and so returning to intrinsic polarities whereby men become more masculine while women become more feminine. Through being able to truly love and satisfy a woman in sex, which represents a man's deepest longing, he begins to feel himself more grounded, mature, responsible, loving, energetic. A genuine male authority and clarity arises. A woman in receiving and returning this love, begins to experience herself as innocent and sweet, the source of love and creation, and a delicate perfumed femininity arises. Falling into balance through this intrinsic polarity creates harmony understanding, respect, and mutual appreciation. Love becomes a living reality. Once we embrace polarity an innate attracting quality develops, an organic magnetic intelligence between the penis and vagina, which strengthens with time. The amazing result is that we require less and less effort to make love; the body does it by itself. Indeed, the less we do and the more we let ourselves be, the greater the experience.

The ancient Tantric symbol, the Shivalingam still found all over India today, depicts the penis or
lingham,
usually surrounded by the vagina, or
yoni.
These are shown in a variety of interesting shapes and forms, but the
yoni
here has far deeper implications than simply representing the negative female pole. It also represents a channel, a highway to the heart through which the man can reach and unite with the female positive, his counterpart. In divine sexual union, the positive male pole penetrates the female negative, reaches upward, ultimately penetrating the heart. When this happens, a kind of golden interlocking effect occurs, the penis encased and absorbed gloriously within the heart. This is pure ecstasy!

 T 
HE ART OF TANTRA most simply defined is the union of sex and meditation. It is simultaneously a physical and a spiritual happening, where two seemingly opposite extremes are joined into one. When this happens, a magical quality arises, and we have the sense of entering a fourth dimension where the mysteriously engulfing "present moment" awakens. In this realm everything sparkles and radiates creating a freshness in the eyes, a song of love in the heart and a new appreciation of the surroundings, our lover, and ourselves. We feel highly sensitive and porous because the essential energy of the Universe, pulsing life itself, is moving through us.

In conventional sex we do not achieve this sensitivity or aliveness because we are usually not aware, not conscious of what is happening. We are simply doing it, often mechanically or habitually, and hopefully enjoying ourselves, but we are usually lost in the activity of it. In conscious sex we are attempting to be aware of what is happening at each moment, and through this we create the opportunity to have an enriching experience of love each time. This happens because we understand the real nature of sexual energy—that awareness transforms sex into love.

A natural meditation

For this reason Tantra invites us to become aware and conscious of ourselves as we make love. We don't get lost or become mechanical; our attention is inward, we are present to our senses and feelings, we are "here." While making love a natural meditation arises. To most people, meditation implies being alone, sitting upright, still and unmoving, but this is only one form of meditation. The movements in sex need not be chaotic but restful. They can revolve around a core of stillness, as in ballet or tai chi or swimming. Contrary to popular belief, meditation can arise most easily during the sex act because its physically pleasurable intensity helps us, even forces us, into the experience of what is happening as it is happening. This awareness of the unfolding moment creates the experience of "here", one of "being present," from which an inner peace and relaxation arises. This is the sought-after fulfillment of meditation. The mere fact of bringing the consciousness to reside within the body whether we are moving or lying still, creates a silence, depth, and presence. The body can move around and change position as much as it wants, it can even fly, but throughout it all the consciousness remains quiet, still, and serene.

Slowing down and being unhurried during sex to experience the present is the way we can begin to have an experience of consciousness. We must take time to listen and be inwardly attentive to subtleties that rise out of an inner focus or stillness. As a couple continues to make love in this relaxed way, a new level of sensual perception and sensitivity grows with time and familiarity. The experience becomes increasingly pleasurable and ecstatic. In this way sex can become a profound ongoing meditation where communion happens between the bodies and spirits of two people.

When we speak of changing the way we make love, we find that awareness is at the core of it. It is a crucial key to lifting sex to a new height. The first step in awareness is that we must continuously pay attention to our bodies and become aware of precisely what we are doing and feeling as we make love. Slowly, slowly we become alert to each movement, each gesture, each breath. When we learn to watch everything that is happening inside of our bodies, and
be with it,
the very act of sex becomes our whole focus, or realm of perception. And the very phenomenon of being it and watching it, transforms it.

When we bring awareness into our bodies, we will be surprised to find that it is a world unto itself with many different realities operating simultaneously. The heart is beating, breath is rising and falling, and we can feel certain vibrations, tingling sensations and warmth, even light, through the body. When we become too involved in forms outside of ourselves, their colors or content or character, if our minds are preoccupied with something else or someone else, our awareness will be diffused and ineffective. Our awareness is also greatly diffused by our interest in orgasm, because in our focus on an event lying ahead, we miss the precious present moment. Even if we are one second ahead of ourselves, we are in fact absent. As we begin to challenge out habit of being absent in sex, we have to begin establishing presence in its place. We have to learn to stay in the here and now in the body, and this requires tremendous awareness.

Focus on the present moment

Sex offers us the opportunity to practice and intensify awareness in order to literally create the present moment. We learn to "be" more in sex, and to "do" less. Out of this the magical Tantric experience emerges. Suddenly when there is no goal, there is an injection of spontaneous and uninhibited life energy. The natural attraction between the penis and vagina is so strong, so full of life, it gives easy access to the present moment.

When we walk, for instance, it is easy to drift off into thought because foot contact with the ground through a shoe is not exactly a heightened feeling (although it can be if you want it to be). Likewise when we cook, the wooden spoon in our hand does not create tremendous delight, no thrill. It is easy for the mind to drift off to other matters. The intensity of sexual union, and its powerfully engaging nature, makes it easier for us to be aware of the elusive present moment, unlike when we are walking or cooking or performing any familiar task. The pleasures of sex with awareness form an experience, the very nature of which can anchor us in the present moment.

Be aware of yourself

To assist us into the present moment, Tantra asks that our attention and awareness be on ourselves. In conventional sex, I have found generally the attention is on the partner first and foremost, as we focus on his or her pleasure. How is he doing? I would ask myself. Does he feel good? Am I doing it right? Is this enough or too much? He was almost more important than me. As I placed my attention on my lover in these and other ways I noticed I did not have a real inner connection to my body, or a sense that I was rooted inward and downward. I was all up and out, and essentially I was making love for somebody else.

Tantra taught me to pull my attention back to myself, to forget about the man and to engage with my own energy first. It taught me to bring the awareness in and downward and back into my body, to feel my belly and my breath, to make love for myself, before I concerned myself with him. This may sound crazy, but it makes all the difference! It creates an ease and relaxation out of which a natural intimacy and attraction arises, and where insecurities dissolve easily. It means that I energize and unite with my own body first, before I join it with another. I bring my body to my lover, inwardly in attunement, alive and joyous, ready to make love. With this attitude of putting yourself into prime focus, rooting and centering yourself inward, so much more can happen in love.

This was initially clarified for me during my practice and teaching of bodywork. Massage is something I have taken great joy in giving throughout most of my life. I decided that I needed to be more qualified, so I learned some new techniques, more advanced and sophisticated, but I found much to my dismay, however, that the spirit and joy of giving disappeared when I focused on a specific outcome. After some time I decided to drop whatever fancy techniques I had learned and returned to the magic of massage in its oily simplicity, cruising down the contours of the body, slipping and sliding along the musculature. I felt the delicious textures, each one an engaging story in itself, while I hunted around for knots and hard sinewy bits. For me, these were always the most "juicy" spots to play with, and I soon forgot to think about
how
I was doing it. Instead I began to put my whole focus on
what
I was touching. How did the body tissues underneath feel? How did the fingertips most enjoy searching? What would feel most delicious if this was me lying here? Where did my hands most want to touch, and how?

I began to forget about the person I was massaging, concentrating only on the movements of my own body, my breathing, my internal relaxation, and the interior of the body beneath my searching hands. I noticed that the more I focused on my body, my hands, the deeper the person seemed to relax, and an almost ringing silence would emanate from the body. They would feel extremely benefited from the massage, deeply rested, at peace and refreshed. They had lost sense of time, an hour of bodiless eternity. The more I focused on myself and the moment, the more the other person was able to relax back into themselves. I remember feeling guilty when I stopped thinking about their physical problems during a session, but whenever I had simply loved touching their bodies, the people always felt better, even enriched. Today I teach my massage students to focus on
themselves
and the innocent joy of touching and giving, to stop worrying about technique and simply to bring love and consciousness into their touch. Technique has value, but the person using the technique is even more valuable.

Relax into your body

In the same way, when we make love we must pull ourselves back into center-stage, focus on and become familiar with the interior of the body, learn to relax all over. When you are relaxed, your partner is more relaxed and vice-versa. The more we relax, the more we become involved in the present moment, and from here the sexual experience can emerge spontaneously. The intensity of turning the awareness inward onto the delicacy of the genitals during sexual union encourages consciousness to awaken in the body. The body then becomes a temple and sex a god-given meditation.

Our new approach is essentially a shift from mind to body, so I suggest couples forget about each other, their personalities or problems, and focus on their inner world. When I was retraining myself this approach worked well for me, allowing my mind to slip into the background, and the body was an anchor that created my inner reality. Because senses and sensuality are greatly enhanced through awareness, and because love is made in the physical body, we must learn to expand our sensory awareness, its feelings and perceptions. What is happening in our very own bodies? And where? Remember it is a matter of pulling your attention from the periphery to the core, from the outside focus of the mind to an inside focus of the body. What am I feeling and where am I feeling it? How does it actually feel? Exactly where do I feel the awakening of life in my body? Where is the light in here? I often suggest to couples at the beginning of a workshop to look around inside their bodies "for a place that feels like home, a root."