SEXTANTRA
Tantra is the living of yes, of love, of embrace. It is an honouring of the divine nature of every aspect of life in its moment by moment living. It results from making real the deep knowing of the heart that there is nothing other than god, and that god is love. It is the ongoing recognition that the particular is the universal localising: that the finite is the infinite dancing. This recognition is expressed in attitude, in action, in response to the changing circumstances of life. It is a disposition of deeply relaxed but engaged acceptance of the outer flow of life’s diversity and its inner indivisible core. It is an engaged relaxation: an active acceptance within which all of the colours of life are accepted, embraced, penetrated and revealed as a quivering in the radiance of love

This is, of course, not how human beings usually live. You could say that it must be learned, but it cannot be taught: it needs only to be remembered, regained. This remembrance is what all true spiritual practices are for. The living embodiment of true awakening, enlightenment, liberation is always tantra, whatever name it may be given. Yet it seems to deeply contradict the culture of spirituality within which most seek peace through meditation, yoga and other means. For this is a culture which causes endless suffering and confusion through its insistence on separation of the spiritual from the mundane, the righteous from the profane. Thereby it invites people to lie about what they really feel. Then they are driven further and further away from what they really are as they try to conform to ideas and ideals of what they have been wrongly led to believe is how and what they should be and do.

There are three gateways to freedom: body, breath and mind. Each gateway faces in two directions: body, breath and mind can be used in two different ways. This creates two opposite paths. The Tantric way is positive: to embrace them, to explore, honour and enjoy them as they reveal their true nature. The Ascetic way, is negative: to turn them against themselves till they reveal their true nature. There are dangers in both paths. The dangers of the ascetic path is the denial this can bring to every aspect of life while the journey is not yet finished. The dangers of the tantric path is the indulgence this can bring to every aspect of life while the journey is not yet finished. The fruition, completion of either path is of course the same. A total acceptance of the divine nature and significance of all phenomena.

Tantra is the triplicate gateway of body, breath and mind: and at its heart is sex. Not sex as it is normally understood and practiced. But the conscious and mutual release of the deepest energies of life, through sexual activity. This release is potentised through the mirroring of genuine partnership. Yet it is almost impossible to do within a conventional relationship because of attachment and expectation. For the essence of conventional, romantic relationship is the elevation of the personal. Yet tantra is the honouring of the impersonal divine. In both cases the most powerful expression is sex. In both cases sex deepens the situation. In romance it deepens attachment. In tantra it deepens liberation. Of course, this does not mean that couples cannot explore and benefit from tantric sexual practices. Nor does it mean that tantra and romance are incompatible. It just means that the inherent problems of sexual tantra are exaggerated within a romantic relationship based on emotional and sexual negotiation, however subtle and unacknowledged. When a relationship is based on the genuine intimacy of compassion, understanding and acceptance it can be the most potent context of all for liberation.

The heart of tantra is the recognition of the divine in the mundane. This recognition is only genuine when it has embraced and overcome the fundamental issue of awakening. It is not and can never be simply a matter of conceptual endorsement. It is not a matter of belief. It is an organic disposition from within which life has been completely, though subtly, transformed. This transformation, this disposition depends upon the clarification of the true nature of action, effort and volition. This clarification, which is the heart of classical yoga, and the message of the Bhagavadgita, reveals the inherently impersonal nature of all phenomena.

The use of sex for this porocess is highly problematic. For sexual pleasure creates such deep and destructive interpersonal attachments. Accordingly the sexual practices of tantra are, in this sense, advanced practices. If a deep recognition of the impersonal nature of all phenomena has not occurred, then they will almost inevitably lead to delusion and attachment. However, if the impersonal nature of all phenomena has been deeply, organically embodied this will not be the case. Then the power that lends itself to delusion lends itself to awakening: the power that feeds attachment invites liberation.

The essence of sexual tantra is the utilisation of energy. The deep energies of the psyche are used to awaken a vibrant awareness of the universality of the divine. These energies include not only love, desire and pleasure, but fear, anxiety and even pain also. Sex then becomes the ultimate tantric technique, the ultimate spiritual path. One that can have many avenues of expression. Honest sensitivity to the movement of internal energies reveals the specific unfolding of the path, which is always unique and spontaneous. This can lead to radically different styles of sex. Within which the habitual grasping and clinging patterns of sexual relationship are absent.

There are a number of technqiues associated with tantra. Many of them are based on controlling, or resisting, the flow of natural energies: especially the impetus of the male orgasm. These techniques can totally transform the patterns and possibilities of sexual exchange. But they cannot invite liberation. For any attempt to assert control deepens the delusion of personal volition and is profoundly dualistic and deluding when undertaken as a spiritual practice. The spiritual path is a razors edge. An edge so fine that its cutting can not easily be felt. The fall into delusion cannot be recognised to be such by those who are falling or have fallen.

Touch is touch and pleasure is pleasure: what works for one does not work for another. No specific sexual practices are either necessary nor exempt from tantra. All that is necessary is a deep, ungrasping presence and sensitivity that allows the possibilities between the lovers to unfold naturally and organically without reference to aims or methods. The point is to use the energies of desire, expectation, excitemement and pleasure to bring about a deep, conscious relaxation that reveals the unitary, divine nature and source of all phenomena. Of course these are the very energies the ascetic puts aside.

Nevertheless, some simple techniques can invite deep tantric possibilities. Although they can be used, or spontaneously manifest, in a sexual context, they are not overtly sexual techniques. These techniques constitute the basis of what is popularly known as ‘hatha yoga’. They include the use of movement, action, rhythm and stillness that are used to sensitise, awaken and integrate the body, to instead sensitise, awaken and integrate two bodies as one. Central to their effectivness is the nature of the breathing mechanism. The more deeply the breath has been released from all historic and conceptual imposition the more freely sexual enrgy will ‘rise’ into its deeper more subtle possibilities; as the delight inherent in its unrestricted rhythms developes a magnetism stronger than that generated by pleasure in the sensory nerves.

Amongst those actions used are what have been esoterically known as the ‘bandhas’. These are sets of specific, subtle muscular contractions that have little direct relationship to the gross pattern of motor activity that we are used to. Amongst their impacts are a transformation of our relationship to the flow of sensations, and movements of energy. Rather than being caught and propelled by them into patterns of seeking and grasping, we merge deeply with them. In doing so we access the inherent nature of energy and awareness themselves: which is nothing other than delight. Deep familiarity with the satisfaction and nourishment that this delight provides weans us from our complusive pursuit of gross sensual pleasure. Then we become able to enjoy sexual interaction without the need for intense stimulation or climactic energetic release, and merge effortlessly into the unified field of lover and beloved. Then sexual tantra is not about the control that intensifies separation and prevents true merging: instead it becomes a deep surrender triggererd by desire and supported by pleasure.

Sexual tantric practices are definitely not for everyone. The power of sexual energy and the binding effect of deep pleasure are too much for most people to be able to bear. They simply fall in to inextricable attachments and suffering. However tantra is not only sex. In effect any process or technique that invites the realisation of the impersonal, divine essence of all phenomena is tantra. There can be many. Yet all of these techniques can be used in the opposite way, and simply confirm the prison of the self in ever more sophisticated ways. There is no cheap, populist path to freedom. The price is fixed and always non-negotiable. The price of freedom is total, unconditional surrender. This is a price that most are not willing to pay.

yoga and sex