“Sex is a form of emotional reassurance, a narcotic to still the pain of the bruised soul. If life batters them, then sex, like drugs or work, may numb the wound. the sexual act offers a momentary transcendence. Orgasm can be an ecstatic experience; for the moment one may feel outside the iron confines of ordinary consciousness. It is the closest that many men ever come to a religious experience. Thus the act of sex may mask a desperate search for acceptance, underneath which lurks the mother complex. This is ultimately a destructive game. Sex as loving, sex as conversing, sex as dialectic, all presuppose an equal partner. Sex as redemption distorts the relationship and allows entry to the Saturnian shadow of power. When Saturn is present, nothing is really fun, luminescent or transforming.”

“Sex, in particular, is given too much importance, for through it men seek to overcome their isolation from their feeling state and from their own body. They ask the Other to reconnect them and to reassure them before the dawn brings new battering. This makes them as vulnerable and dependent as before. As humans must hate those upon whom they depend, so tension and animosity grow, and eros is replaced by the shadow of power.”

~ James Hollis, ‘Under Saturn’s Shadow – The Wounding and Healing of Men’

Photography by Unknown

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The Awakening Woman does not use sex or her femininity to manipulate or get what she wants. She ceases to engage in love-making without heart, but rather chooses love-making that is connected, organic, fully mutual, and from the healthy ego. She will not allow sex to be used as a substitute for true intimacy, or a distraction from unresolved wounds. She is not afraid to be called a prude or a slut for making her own conscious decisions around sex. She does not let patriarchy, religion, politics, the media, or the unhealthy male ego define sex, beauty, or relationship for her. Her relationship to sex is her own and comes from within, not from what has been dictated to her all her life by a culture that doesn’t value healthy sexuality. She does not placate or sell herself out to gain male approval, nor does she compete with or sell her sisters out for male attention.”

~ Jessica Bahr

Photo: Rokhaya by sl-photographie

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One of the oldest offshoots of Hinduism in the world, tantra has seen a renaissance in the last 40 years.

The ironic thing is although tantra has gotten a lot more attention recently, it’s also been greatly misunderstood; many people think tantra is either a sex practice or black magic.

The Meaning

The word tantra comes from the combination of two words: “tattva” and “mantra”.

Tattva is the science of cosmic principles, while mantra is the science of mystic sounds and vibrations.

This means that tantra is the application of cosmic science with the determination to attain a deeper spiritual connection.

The Big Misunderstanding

Unlike many other traditional religious perspectives, tantra takes the entire person into account- their worries, fears, and worldly desires.

Most teachings believe that the pursuit of material pleasures and spiritual aspirations are mutually exclusive; that is, they are in direct opposition to one another.

This gives rise to an inner struggle that can lead to lots of inner turmoil.

In tantra, instead of drawing a line between these two seemingly different impulses, it’s taught that a practitioner should embrace both.

Since tantra means “to weave”, many tantra masters teach life can only provide fulfillment when we follow the pattern designed by nature.

Anger, fear, attachment, and negative emotions tear the threads and causing the fabric to rip.

Tantra seeks to repair that fabric.

To the tantra practitioner, worldly experiences are the same as spiritual experiences- there is no difference.

This simple philosophy has led many to conclude that tantra encourages people to be indiscriminate in their worldly pursuits.

But in reality it’s a philosophy that encourages seeing the divine in everything, no matter how dark or materialistic.

They’re all the same.

Weaving the Fabric

Tantra isn’t a naive philosophy or world view in anyway.

It encompasses everything.

Even in the hardest of situations, there’s still room to notice the deeper meaning.

And ultimately, this leaves lots of room for a person to grow into their own understanding and how they fit into the world.

Tantra is an ancient Sanskrit word, meaning “to weave or to expand.” In tantric sex, we weave and expand our energy with our love partner, for the purpose of opening up to the entire universe. Shaped variously by Hindu and Buddhist traditions, sometimes constricted by Confucianism, Tantra in its widest meaning describes an approach to living that links the physical universe to the cosmic whole.

Sexuality, the most physical and intimate of human interactions, is thus seen a sacred activity, continuously reenacting the original creation of the universe. The First One, separating from Itself to know Itself, embracing Itself to experience Itself.

Tantra proposes that each one of us must undergo within ourselves this total union, a joining of the female and male within us. And when love partners dance the path of Tantra together, the relationship is transformed into a sacred journey to Oneness.

Tantra describes a movement of energy, a welling up within us, of joyous excitation. Unlike forms of meditation that cause us to withdraw from the world of senses, Tantra encourages us to start with the senses, building on their ability to focus us in the present moment.

This energy need not be explicitly sexual; all sensual experience is appreciated as a tool for awakening the energy within us.  In the moment that we shift from overt physical pleasure to an internal joy, to a focus on the internal movement of energy, the subtle nature of our being is exposed and Tantra takes place. Nor does Tantra exclude experiences which are not overtly pleasurable; this same internal shift of focus can take place as we experience outward pain, even death.

Tantra occurs only in the present moment; yesterday’s experience has no relevance.

When I smell a rose, I smell it in this moment, not yesterday or tomorrow, but right now, right here. And if I embrace that moment of smelling the rose as the prelude to a spiritual experience, if I invite the rose-smelling into my total being, aware both of the scent and my total bodily response to the scent, aware of the softness of the petals and the rose energy in my heart, then in that moment I am open to the fullness of who I am. This is Tantra.

And if you and I both smell the rose together, and sharing that experience, dissolve our separateness into an infinite Oneness, then together we experience Tantra.

Tantra brings poetry to lovemaking. When my lover caresses my face and our eyes meet and we breathe together and acknowledge our rising passion, sense our hearts joining and our spirits soaring, the energy rising through the power centers of our bodies, this is Tantra.

Some spiritual paths teach us to deny, to say not this, not that; they teach that who we are is not the body, not the mind, not our actions, not our thoughts. Stripped of what we are not, these paths allow us to see the emergence of who we may be. Tantra takes the seemingly opposite approach and teaches us to say YES! to this, YES! to that. I smell the rose and I am that experience, my lover touches me and I am that experience, there is nothing that I am not, I am everything. All experience can be a doorway to who I am, provided I focus on the experience itself, with the intention of energetic awareness.

To learn and benefit deeply from Tantra, we must practice being still, undistracted. When I am smelling the rose, I smell the rose.

To make love in the Tantra way means to be fully present, to allow each moment to be the entire experience. In Tantric lovemaking, there is no goal, no race toward release or orgasm.  Instead, there is complete attention to each touch, each breath, each movement of energy.

Every moment in our lives can be shaped by Tantra, can be lived in fullness and acceptance.

However, our minds, our thoughts, are constantly darting here and there. We are consumed with busy-ness, at our jobs, at school, taking care of our children, our home, our parents. Birthday parties.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, funerals. We are bombarded by input from phone, TV, fax, e-mail and junk mail. Bills.

When we finally get away on vacation, often as not we’re busy skiing or snorkeling, eating, shopping, museuming, being transported from place to place.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off! But first, I need a haircut, car wash, new blouse, shoe repair, show to see, and of course, those bills to pay. Our lives are structured around busy-ness, not around living in the moment.

While we are skiing, or snorkeling, or playing tennis, basketball, or golf, the world does disappear, leaving only the action of the sport. This is the attraction of athletics. It is a natural occurrence.

But how do we make time for a momentary tantric relationship with a flower, let alone an hour with our lover? How do we say Yes! to each moment, when the next moment is already here and then gone?

We need to do even more than make time to smell the roses. We need to learn how to let the scent permeate into our belly, deepening our breath and opening our heart to the expansiveness of spiritual experience.

Athletic pursuits require practice and training. They are designed to take place in a zone outside of daily living.  Tantra provides us a way of living daily in that zone.

Tantra is being in the flow. 

Being in the flow of all that is. 

In the present moment. 

Being in the flow,

of all that is in you.

~ Soul8love

Photography: Unknown

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The spiritual path is not all love and light as most of us know from experience and others are about to find out — especially in the earlier stages of our awakening process. The joy of having found truth and meaning that resounds within our hearts is often accomplished with layers upon layers of disillusionment as the untruths of our lives become glaringly obvious and unavoidable.

One aspect we do not talk much about is how our individual spiritual practice and awakening affects our intimate relationships.

In my life, traveling to Bali and being brought back to life by its magical energy and the power of meditation and yoga has had a profound transformational effect on my intimate relationships by my choice and commitment.

Contemplating about my life made it very clear to me that I was unfulfilled and unhappy in my life and relationships, no matter how much I loved my then partners. And I had a clear intuition that I needed to be single to be able to focus on my inner work and healing and not use my partners as an excuse and distraction from it.

After spending a third of my life with my longterm partner it was quite a surprising and rewarding adventure to reacquaint myself with myself in a non-coupled and non-other-pleasing-state. 

That is when a deepening of my journey into introspection, spiritual practice, self knowledge and self love took off.

I met amazing men on this journey whom I am honored to call brothers and friends, who have allowed me to see through their eyes, partake in their perceptions of life and relating in novel and insightful ways. Which is saying a lot because I had pretty amazing poly partners and friends with whom I had been having deep ongoing exchanges on the male experience, relationships, sexuality, communication and more. Later I would see that my poly friends were very versed in relationship, communication sciences, reflective, knowledgable about their emotions and psyche  though not as connected with their hearts, spirit and energetic aspects as my spiritual friends were who in turn were often lacking in the strengths of my poly brethren.

7 years of single life with fluctuating, changing and shifting attitudes towards intimate relationships, sexuality and men as conditionings and programming on gender, relationships, sexuality and romanticism were dismantled. Years of magical encounters turning into friendships, playful moments of connection which had a defined ending date by virtue of travel schedules, beautiful connections that felt like they could be my next longterm relationship but turned sour, etc., all of which came to me as teachers and catalysts on my healing path.

I realized it would be hard to meet someone and build a relationship worthy of my energy and time while I was traveling without and within. When you are constantly falling apart and pulling yourself together in a new form, oscillating through your days and weeks it is hard to keep up a connection unless it is of the lightest and non-attached kinds. 

What is more I was working my way through healing many of the relational traumas of this life, my ancestral line and karmic accumulated burdens in intimate relating. I know, I chose to incarnate into this life to clear all of this and other darkness surrounding my entry into this body.

While going through my healing and integration work I recognized quite a few narratives that are distortions of the collective conditioning we share and which sadly reverberate in the New (C)age community.

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.” ~ T.S. Eliot

Why does the New Age still hold people hostage to ideas of heteronormativity conveniently treating the energetic gender principle as if it was the conditioned matrix gender? I dislike using the terms like “divine/inner feminine” or “divine/inner masculine” because so many cannot read it without the toxic matrix conditioning of gender. Often I will choose to say yin or yang because with those terms people get that this is describing types of energy signatures and not human traits. But this is a rant for another time.

Why do so few spiritual teachers talk about the fluidity of our paths and the changes we go through in this life? Why uphold the monogamous ideal of having just one partner or staying with them for a lifetime as the ultimate ideal? I cannot help but see in it unreflected Judeo-Christian religious programming in need of elevation by the law of one and spiritual teachings like the hermetic principles for a higher and less distorted perception of reality. 

Humans do change and evolve, rigid relational systems that do not allow for the change and expansion of the people in it or at least offer tools to help them relate and overcome times of dissonance are not aligned with our reality. To uphold narrow definitions and ideals of monogamy and glorification of duration of a relationship is to create a matrix of suffering for others.

Don’t get me wrong I have no attachment to any relationship style or configuration as being better or higher, my vision is to see every human to be free to choose, live and thrive in consensual, loving and expansive relationships or not.

And what is especially painful, yet a reality many have faced is when our growth paces are no longer aligned and we do not find ways to bridge the ever growing gap between us. There is no “one dogma fits all” in this. Everyone has to assess if staying with their partner or moving on is the right thing for their soul and the souls of their children. Discerning if the gap and dissonance of vibrating on different levels is just an interim phenomenon or the sign of a more permanent misalignment is impossible for the mind. These deep levels of discernment necessitate us to connect with the wisdom of our bodies and the guidance of our higher selves. These conversations and contemplations take time and cannot be rushed nor should we feel bad about the time we stayed although we knew it wasn’t serving us.

Sometimes staying serves us complete a cycle of healing or integration we might not be aware of but we will know when the time to move on has come, the clear alignment of all our parts in telling us to go. And man, it is scary to leave the security of the familiar to step into the unknown! 

But there is no alternative to stepping repeatedly into the void, the unknown, if growth and service to Life/Source/the divine is our goal.

“I want to love you without clutching, appreciate you without judging, join you without invading, invite you without demanding, leave you without guilt, criticize you without blaming, and help you without insulting. If I can have the same from you, then we can truly meet and enrich each other.” ~Virginia Satir

My wish for us to create ways of connecting and relating intimately with each other without a need to own, limit or encase ourselves in constructs of the mind arises from my fundamental values of love, sovereignty, honesty and freedom.

My dream would be to live in a world or community of beings who have let go of the tyranny of religious and cultural constructs to explore, live and learn from their individual embodied soul expression with utmost love, curiosity and care for each other. 

Living in a consciousness and value system which honors loving relationships, regardless of their duration, constellations and type. 

Capable of Un-coupling when our paths are diverting, honoring the beloved teacher and divine in the other as we accept the completion and fulfillment of our union in this now.

Meeting each other in our sovereignty and loving one other without reserve, not just as long as our relationships last, but for eternity.

Letting it be love for Self in us and the other which works on bridging gaps between us or moving apart, whatever is intuitively right in the now.

Letting us drop the negativity and fear based programming around sexuality and learning to approach and enjoy our sexuality with playful, creative, passionate and sacred awe.

Learning to merge our energies on many different levels of our being and taste the diverse flavors of uniting Self with Self with love and in ever new and joyful ways.

A collective of sovereign, loving and powerful creators immersed in a joyful and passionate dance of love exploring itself.

My insights and reflections won’t necessary align with yours as we may have different incarnational trajectories, missions and soul paths chosen for this life… only you know your path and what is right for you. This is simply a sharing and invitation for reflection and exchange.

Art: Dreams of Scorpion Heart by Cameron Grey

The post The Spiritual Path & Intimate Relationships appeared first on Venuskind.

She looked at him. “First you have to learn how to FEEL into her”, she replied.

“Well then teach me. Isn’t there a type of tantric massage I can learn to do that?”

“No sweetheart” she said, “you can only learn to feel into a woman by feeling into your own inner feminine.”

“My what? …How?”

“Every time you feel lonely you rush outwards looking for company. When you feel sad you rush outwards looking for entertainment. When you feel horny you rush outwards looking for sex…

…and every single time you rush outwards you neglect her- your inner feminine.

Inside you there is so much depth but you have never entered. There is pain you have never held. There is desire you have never witnessed. There is pleasure you cannot even in your wildest dreams imagine.

That is the She.

She lies within you, neglected and betrayed. Unheard and unseen and abandoned again and again.

She cannot open, blossom and shine unless you listen to her.

She cannot awaken until you are present with her.

How can you even think you can just open a woman outside of you when you have not opened the She within you?

There is a vulnerability and depth yet to be matured within you. Yet you are hoping to open a woman?

You think you can enter her yoni when you have not entered your inner realms? The most you can do is stick your physical body part inside her!

There is no trick. No tool. No technique.

If you “do” anything at all merely give up your actions, stop following your desires. Pause a moment and find what’s at the ROOT of your desire instead of losing all your focus on the object of your desire.

The roots will lead you into an inner world so vast you cannot believe it’s there. Vast underground caves FULL of treasures.

But you must choose.

Choose to go down and in for once, instead of out out out.

Then my dear, then… after developing a loving relationship with your inner She…. THEN you can open a woman. You will not even have to ask how.”

via: Shashi Solluna Tantra

Photography: Unknown

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