What role does sexuality play in Tantra?

 

Have you noticed the Easter products in the shops already? We are hardly over the festive season and our drive to consummate products is being fueled by the marketing strategies of stores getting us to buy, buy and buy.

Celebrations are no longer season driven rituals filled with meaningfulness and the question is: how do we bring Spirit-filled meaningfulness back into our lives? There are certainly many ways to approach this, however Tantra is the most holistic path I know of. It is a path filled with rituals that not only fit into, but become part of our daily lives. It includes everything, right down to the most fundamental ritual of human life - sexuality.

Unfortunately, in a similar way that life's celebrations are marketed to become something they were not orininally meant to be, the ritual of personal sexual expression is marketed for a community whose new word is "pro-sexual". On the background of a repressed sexuality, this is meant to be positive. The yearning for a sexuality free of shame and guilt however, has resulted in an on-going sexualisation not only of Tantra but of most aspects of human life. Tantra is thus reduced to only one aspect of what it is actually meant to be.

So what role does sexuality then really play in authentic Tantra? It plays an important role - but no more important than anything else that plays an important role in Tantra!

I was fortunate to participate in one of Daniel Odier's* seminars while I was in Europe earlier this year. He spoke of 4 practices of Tantra, and interestingly, sex was not one of them! So what is Tantra really?

Tantra is the Yoga of Presence - of being in the moment, the "now" of whatever is in any given moment. If the "now" happens to be during sexual expression, then it is about presence in that - and this applies to all of the further practices.

Tantra is the Yoga of Creativity - of being aware of our ability to create actively in all aspects of our life, giving us power to never have to be a victim or have someone to blame.

Tantra is the Yoga of Breath - of recognising breath as the life giving substance that feeds not only our bodies but also souls, leading us to cultivate a practice of breath work on a daily basis.

Tantra is the Yoga of Touch - of touching all of Existence deeply and profoundly, of being in conscious contact with all things, "without mental commotion" as Odier puts it.

Put these 4 practices together and you have the most holistic practice available to us today. It is also one of  the oldest practices, recorded in the most ancient of holy books; a practice that has come through time and religion to us today. Giving us the full potential of our sexuality, bringing back sacredness to our personal sexual expression, is only one aspect of what the path of Tantra gives us. Far more, Tantra gives us our full potential - period.

In this sense, we continue our work with gratitude and in awe of the process within not only our clients, but also within ourselves.

Ma Anand Leandra

(A slightly shorter version of this article was written for my February 2013 newsletter Tantra Talk. If you would like to register for the newsletter, go to one of my websites to register: http://www.tantra-massage.co.za; http://www.durgatantraschool.co.za.)
* Daniel Odier is the author of Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love, Desire, the Tantric Path to Awakening, Yoga Spandakarika

The Emergence of Tantra in the West - Historical Background Part I: Freud, Reich & Sex

Masculine-Feminine (original title: Pods)1989
Aquarelle on paper, Ma Anand Leandra

Many forms of Tantra have developed since the sixties and seventies when an eastern mystic, Bhagwan Shree Rashneesh, later known as Osho made Tantra accessible to the west. Osho taught from the ancient holy books, the Vedas, and particularly from the Bhagavat Gita, which is a part of the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, (also known as the play of creation). He explained the scripts in a new way and emphasised a witnessing awareness in daily life, including in sexuality, as a means to enlightenment.

Today we see a watered-down version of Tantra taking the world by storm, a Tantra that appears to be no more than about great orgasms and a free sexuality, polyamory instead of monogamy, and yes even BDSM. Whereas authentic Tantra raises the level of sexual energy, ultimately to a transcendental level, much of modern day Tantra seems to be focusing on sex alone, and appears to get stuck on a very physical, sexual drive orientated level. This development is not something I particularly like. I find that far to often Tantra seems to be used as a label to hide the one or other form of sexual addiction and if not that, then at least a stagnation in the physical - a far fetched scenario from my understanding of Osho's teachings.

As I looked for an answer as to why this is happening globally, my research took me away from the eastern origin of Tantra and into the western origin of what may be considered pre-occupation with the sexual.

The times in which Osho appeared on the scene as a spiritual teacher were ideal for the western ear to receive his message and the west did indeed flock to hear him speak and take in his teachings. The question is, what was it that made Osho's teaching so desirable at the time?

Setting the scene for the sexual revolution - Sigmund Freud

On the background of the fact that all world religions had suppressed sexuality, resulting in a rigid patriarchal form of relating to the world and each other, an emerging sexual liberation had begun well before the end of the 19th century in Europe. Sigmund Freud had made his mark on the world by discovering that suppressed sexual desires created emotional, mental and even physical illness. He not only changed the way we understand outselves, his legacy included a possible “cure”  (or perhaps I should rather say healing modality) in the form of psychoanalysis - bringing the supressed into the open.

Leading up to his discovery of the libido theory, during the time he worked as a lecturer in neurology at the University of Vienna, he travelled to Paris to study under Jean-Martin Charcot, the director of the Salpêtrière Hospital, an asylum known as the "mecca for neurologists" in Europe. Charcot later became known as the founder of modern neurology. Freud spent nearly 5 months there, accompanying the famous director on his rounds through the wards, and apart from becoming acquainted with hypnotism as a treatment method, Freud also encountered another interesting form of treatment that today would be unheard of.

Healing aspects of orgasm

One of the treatments for female patients suffering from Hysteria was to induce orgasm manually. In fact, inducing orgasm of female patients was an ancient cure that went back to the classical Greeks who thought that an orgasm might reposition a wandering womb, which physicians thought was the reason for Hysteria and other ailments. The term Hysteria takes its name from this thinking. At the time Freud started working, Hysteria was the mental illness of the day, thought to be caused by a congested womb and affecting mainly females, and occasionally males.

In the 1998 book, "The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction", the historian Rachel Maines writes about this. "Massage to orgasm of female patients was a staple of medical practice among some (but certainly not all) Western physicians from the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s". The physical manipulation of the clitoris was first done by a medical practitioner manually, and from 1878, an electro-mechanical vibrator was used as this was considered "safer". This was all done at the very hospital that Freud was visiting.
After his return to Vienna, he set up his private practice and began developing his theories. While it is not known if Freud himself ever operated as a "gynaecological masseur" coming into contact with this treatment would have influenced him. In fact, in his "Studies on Hysteria", Freud mentions a patient who a had an orgasm when he "pressed or pinched" her legs to test her response to pain!

Free sexuality

The fact that at he time, a number of physicians believed that female orgasm would bring release to the energy bound up in neurosis is historically interesting. Much of the work I and my affiliates do today in our Tantra Sacred Massage practice here in South Africa, deals with frustrating experiences with orgasm - lack of orgasm, or orgasm that comes to quickly for example. And while orgasm is never a goal in Tantra, in our work it often has to be as we guide both men and women into the full power of this energetic release, which has far more meaning and health benifits than one generally imagines. Obviously we take it further than those physicans could have done back then. The fact is, orgasm was not only considered healthy but also a cure.

As early as 1893, Freud entertained ideas about a free sexuality that reminds one of an era that almost burst into life over six decades later. In a letter to his mentor and friend, Wilhelm Fliess, Freud wondered if the cure for neuroses could be "free sexual intercourse between young men and women. Otherwise the alternatives are masturbation, neurasthenia...". Freud speculated that the the absence of such a solution to free sexuality would doom society to "fall victim to incurable neuroses".

Slowly a number of physicians who were also intellectual thinkers gathered around Freud, many of whom began as his students or analysands, and they became the early practitioners of psychoanalysis. Amongst them were Karl Jung, Erich Fromm, Fritz Perls, Alfred Adler, Melanie Klein, Bruno Bettelheim and of course Wilhelm Reich. As these progressive thinkers emerged, and many of them discovered their own diversions to the original teaching, they took Freud’s discovery to new levels of understanding human nature, levels from which the world would never again depart. 

With Freud and his peers, the birth of psychotherapy took place. Although many would deny this, Freud is defacto the father not only of psychoanalysis but also of what became known generally as "talk therapy". His students, followers and dissadents alike, developed the basis for most forms of psychotherapy that are in use today including Person Centered Psychotherapy, Gestalt, Jungian Therapy etc.

Freud himself moved away from his original belief that neuroses were caused by "enforced abstinence and coitus interruptus" or by suppressed desires, for example as seen with the Oedipus Complex. By 1920 he had published "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and had set the "death drive" against the "sex drive", claiming that "the drive for gratification, love and life is always overshadowed by a self-destructive urge toward aggression and death". 

Although Freud moved away from his original theories, the influence of these had far reaching effects on German speaking society. There was already a more general growing movement towards understanding the negative impact of sexual repression on individuals and on society in general. Thomas Mann's 1924 Bildingsroman ("novel of education"), "The Magic Mountain" (Der Zauberberg), one of the most influential works of 20th century German literature, emphasised the negative effects of sexual repression on individuals and society in general. In the book, the fictional clinician, Dr Krokowski, warns of the dangers of sexual repression: "Suppressed love was not dead, it continued to live on in the dark, secret depths, straining for fulfillment and broke the bands of chastity and reappears through transmuted unrecognizable form...in the form of illness".

Wilhelm Reich

As Freud moved away from his original understanding, a number of Freud's colleagues, amongst them Wilhelm Reich who seems to have led the way, stayed with the original sex drive theory, and promoted amongst other things, a free love society. Reich however was not to find lasting recognition in Europe and he would eventually be ostracised by his peers for his radical thinking and for equating political freedom with sexual freedom and vice versa. For Reich, the one could impossibly not exist without the other.

Psychoanalysis and Reich

William Reich was a difficult person, very loud and forward with his ideas, certainly not discrete, and Freud and his psychoanalyst peers eventually threw him out of the professional bodies of the psychoanalytic movement. They saw his loud communist and anti-Hitler views as an attempt to politicise the psychoanalytical movement. Reich however, saw no difference between political freedom and sexual freedom. He clung to Freud's libido theory so strongly and continued to give orgasm a huge role in healing neuroses, that it became embarrassing to the faithful die-hard followers of Freud.

What Reich stood for went way beyond what Freud had discovered. Reich promoted a free culture of nudity and sexuality, masturbation as well as free peer child and adolescent sexual activity. His own children went to schools that practiced this literally - the children were allowed to follow their drives as they pleased. Many years later Reich's daughter would write about how uncomfortable it was that there was no potty training and that the children walked around nude, some of them leaving little brown packages behind themselves! The fact that such schools existed in Berlin at the time, and later the infamous Summerhill in the United Kingdom, shows just how much this thinking had caught the hearts of large parts of society.

The communist party and Reich

Initially, Reich was welcome into the communist party. He was welcome because of his radical alternative views which attracted the youth. His equating freeing sexuality from conditioning with freeing society from fascism fitted party lines well. He taught that in order for society to be healthy, society needed freedom from repression of all kinds including from a repressed sexuality. After initially being a huge draw card for attracting the youth into the movement, he was later thrown out of the communist party because of the same radical views about sexuality. It appears to have gotten too much for them and in addition, he was attracting a strong following of youth and this threatened the party.

Exile

Finally Reich had to leave Germany, the result of being a Jewish, a communist and such a loud propagator of free sex, made him perfect prey for the Nazis. 
But Reich was to subsequently became a kind of "superstar" in the freedom movement (free love, free sex and free drugs) of the 1950s and 1960s. The term "sexual revolution" was in fact coined by Reich.

After much coming and going between Germany (he returned a couple of times incognito to collect belongings or visit his children), Denmark, Sweden and France, in what proved to be an extremely painful period for him, he finally ended up in the USA. Most of his friends rejected him and only a few stood by him as he struggled to find a country that would take him into exile. Both Denmark and Sweden refused. He was in good company in the United States, many of Europe's top Jewish thinkers ended up there.

He already arrived as a very welcome guest. Freud's 1909 visit to the United States at the invitation of Clark University where he held a number of lectures, paved the way for Reich and a few others who believed in Reich's brilliance. On arrival they were met at the docks by peers who could hardly wait to have him on American soil.

Reich's fame for being a misfit traveled before him. In America it seemed, one could be a misfit - at least for a while. There was a growing community of men and women who thought and lived differently to the status quo.

Reich and the United States of America

Thus it was in the United States that Reich finally, not only found recognition for his theories, but in certain circles was almost worshiped as the messenger of sexual freedom and non-conformist politics. Again it was the youth that he appealed to. He was in the right place at the right time - America's youth were ready for his theories about orgasm and free sexuality. The fact that he equated sexual freedom to political freedom and vice versa, put him on the map for all times to come.

He rose to fame as one of the leaders of the hippie free love movement that had already begun to sweep through the country in the 1940s through to the late 1960s and early 1970s, taking also the United Kingdom and Europe by storm and reaching significant world wide following. Reich fitted in perfectly with the Zeitgeist of the time and became a kind of superstar.

Zeitgeist

The Zeitgeist prevalent in the United States and into which Reich arrived, had built up over a number of years owing to a number of important events and developments at the time. Some of which are:

• the pill had been discovered in the fifties which allowed for a sexual freedom unknown before, particularly with regards to women, releasing them from the fear of pregnancy and allowing them to experiment with their sexuality as men had been doing all along;
• rock and roll and Elvis Presley paved the way for a huge surge of breaking away from norms of the day by the youth;
• the Vietnam war grasped the hearts of the USA's youth, who no longer felt patriarchal about their country in view of the damage caused, resulting in a politicising of everything dear to a generation, including their music;
• the hippie movement of the sixties followed with the idea of free love, and sexual exploration as well as the exploration of natural and chemical substances to promote altered mental states which were claimed to further personal development; 
• finally, the downfall of that very movement. The Vietnam war was over and the experimental use of LSD (which was initially legally available), Marijuana, Magic Mushrooms etc., led to an excessive use of drugs and drug addiction. The anarchical, communities and communal way of life of the hippies finally had to give way to the fact that individuals needed to finance themselves and the families they had produced. This resulted in more middle of the road lifestyles;
• throughout all this, growing criticism of main stream religious systems led to disillusionment in the western religious beliefs and ethics;
• led by George Harrison, the Beatles had very publicly visited India to the eastern mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (founder of Transcendental Meditation) at his ashram in Rakish, India. This resulted in a surge of interest in the west in interest in eastern mystic teachings, mediation and yoga.
• the hippy movement finally ran out of momentum, Many were disillusioned but found themselves unable to return to main-stream thinking and society. Or if they did, it was because a living had to be made in order to finance the upbringing of children. Left with a void and looking for meaning, there seems to have been a general turning to eastern mystic practices and teachings in an attempt to find answers and look for meaning, 

It was on this background that, when a long bearded mystic called Bhagwan Shree Raschneesh appeared on the scene in India, the west was more than ready for his teachings - and so they flocked to him.

Osho

Just like Reich, Osho was in the right place at the right time. Embracing humanity as the vehicle to the spiritual, his teaching caught the spirit of what a generation of individuals were now seeking. Nothing need be avoided, everything could be included - so also desire and sexuality. Osho was also politically outspoken, criticising socialism, Gandhi, religion and just about everything about anything status quo. He emphasised the importance of meditation and awareness and love but also of celebrating life, love and sexuality, of creativity, courage and humor. He told those who listened not to take things too seriously, and instead to be and feel light and okay with whoever they were and to be joyous.

His idea was that freedom became negated, even suppressed by adherence to an un-free society, by obedience to politics that one did not believe in, by religious indoctrination and the conditioning of upbringing, education and society in general. The path to happiness, to freedom was to free oneself from all that inhibited a full expression of a joy and almost lust for life itself and an appreciation and love of everything physical. Spirituality was attained, and indeed consciousness through almost any human activity. At last, a generation of young adults felt understood.

When one looks at both Osho and Reich, their thinking is astoundingly similar. Each one of them in their own way caught the Zeitgeist of a generation and made their mark on whatever was to come. If Freud paved the way for Reich, so did Reich pave the way for Osho. People were now ready in large numbers for any teaching about freeing up sexuality and particularly when this teaching was also politically critical.

I welcome comments...
Namaste
Ma Anand Leandra.

To be continued next month..."Osho's tantric teachings and Neo-Tantra"

Uniting Western Science With Eastern Mysticism

This is the first time I am recommending a book here in my journal. Although it’s not about Tantra, it explains tantric philosophy from a non-tantric but spiritual perspective. For those of you who do not yet know the author Gregg Braden, his book "The Divine Matrix" is a good way to get to know his writing.

Tantric Philosophy is founded on the Interconnection and Unity of the Universe. The human being does not exist in isolation, but is part of the One and is connected to all other matter in the universe. The human body in Tantra is seen as a microcosm of the universe and all that exists in the universe, exists also in the human body. The path to “enlightenment”, to conscious awareness, is through recognising our connection to the dynamic unity of reality. Through the intimate connection of body and universe in Tantric thought, we can understand how sex and orgasm can be seen as a cosmic and divine experience.

Many ideas of Tantric Philosophy can be found in other branches of philosophical thought and scientific study throughout the ages. It has however been relatively recent discoveries of the properties of space and the wave structure of matter that provide a scientific and logical explanation of the ancient Indian philosophy of Tantra, allowing humans to understand, for the first time, how they exist in space and are interconnected with other matter in the space around them.

I would like to suggest a book that explains all this beautifully. As it states on the back cover:“With easy to understand science and real-life stories, Gregg Braden show us that we’re limited only by our beliefs, and what we once believed is about to change!”

Although it offers an easy to understand and fascinating history of modern science and new physics, this book is much more than a book about science. It allows us to see and understand everyday life in new way and gives us tools, based on scientific knowledge, which empower us to change to take charge of and change our experience.

Namaste
Leandra

The Divine Matrix – Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, And Belief by Gregg Braden.
A Hayhouse publication: http://www.hayhouse.co.za/
Gregg Braden's website: http://www.greggbraden.com/

The Relationship Business

I work with a lot of couples wanting to enhance their experience of intimacy and sexuality. For some, the children are out of the house and they wish to renew their relationship after completing the offspring raising phase. For others, the aim is to start off “right” by setting standards for their love life from the outset of their relationship. For many couples however, it is the fact that they are experiencing sexual difficulties of some sort and their intention is to find a way of getting beyond these difficulties.

The difficulties can be very varied and no matter what they are, these difficulties impact the emotional and spiritual aspects of the relationship severely. More often than we like to accept, the problem is that one partner wants more sex than the other, usually the male with the female being less interested. Sometimes it is the other way around. I have had wives sending their husbands to me with the request to do something about their libido. and more and more I am seeing male clients whose Urologists, after all the medical options have been tried out without the hoped for results, have suggested they see me.
Whatever the case, I would like to share with you three simple suggestions that I give all these couples. Often, when put into practice, these simple ideas work wonders and intimacy begins to flow anew in the relationship.

The principal is very simple: the practical side of living relationships is completely different to the original love affair. So here are my suggestions:
- hold weekly Relationship Business board meetings
- create a sacred space for intimacy and bonding (I like to call this Relationship Yoga)
- hold weekly Relationship Yoga practice meetings

Weekly Relationship Business Board Meetings
All relationships require decision making. In most marriages and long relationships, important decisions are taken at all times of the day when couples are together: at the dinner table, in the bathroom, the kitchen and even in bed. Arguments often arise or one partner getting into a bad mood. Often one partner is not ready to discuss whether or not to visit the parents for Christmas or to buy a house or where to go on holiday. No business is run like this; there are agendas and meetings that take place for this purpose. One of the reasons for friction in long term relationships is that we run our relationship totally disorganised and pretty chaotic!

See the running of your relationship as a business and have a weekly board meeting to discuss subjects on which important decisions are to be made. If your decisions include the children, they too can be invited to a board meeting. This way you clear up the space and relationship energy for living, enjoying etc instead of using it up for planning and organizing.

My suggestion is to set a regular time every week for your Relationship Business Board Meeting and stick to that time. You can have a counter book in the kitchen for jotting down themes and topics for discussion and you start your meeting by setting an agenda. If you can’t agree on a topic, listen to the arguments and take the decision over to the next meeting. This will give you time to ponder over it. If you require extra meetings, they can be set up but arrange an extra meeting together with your partner. If you are experiencing a lot of organizational and decisional difficulties, have two or even three board meetings a week for a while. But take the discussing out of the time when you are supposed to be enjoying each other’s company or when you are spending time with the children.

If you stick to this, you will find that a lot of daily tension is avoided and you also don’t draw the children into the business energy of your relationship.

Create a sacred space for intimacy and bonding
Many tanrikers do not use their bed time in the evenings as a time for making love. The bedroom is a place for going to sleeping; the energy, the atmosphere of the bedroom, is often not conducive to intimacy as it holds every day accessories. And usually one is tired by the time you go to bed. Creating a sacred space gives you a space for sharing intimacy apart from the bedroom. If possible, this should be a separate room which is especially decorated as a room for Relationship Yoga as I like to call it, a room for tantric bonding and intimacy rituals giving sexuality the special place it should have in our lives.

This room is sometimes called the Tantra Temple and sometimes simply, the Sacred Room. Ideally, the room should have a double or queen size futon mattress on the floor or on a low wooden frame. Futons are great as they have the hardness required in order to move around without wobbling or bouncing too much. It should be in the middle of the room so that you are able to move on and off it all around. Many tantric rituals begin with sitting opposite each other. There is some lovely rituals to be done sitting at the head or the feet of your partner (foot washing ceremony or foot and head massages for example).
You can have a cushion at the foot end as well as the head end for this purpose.

Choose linen that you really like. I prefer white but you may like a color. If you are going to use oils, please see that you have a waterproof sheet on the mattress to protect it. You can create an eastern look if you like this, or use any other deco that will enhance your intimacy. Soft lighting and gentle music should also be available.

If you do not have an extra room you can turn your bedroom into a Sacred Place. Take some time before your intimacy and bonding rituals to change your bedroom into this space. You can have a box of goodies which you open up and arrange in the room after taking away all the everyday items. The bedroom should be free of clutter and you arrange a few drapes and set up your altar. Let the daily stuff can disappear into the box after you have taken out your special deco items for creating the sacred space in your bedroom.

Soft drapes, a candle, incense or another form of aroma (I find the small humidifiers that are not available in health shops really lovely for this and they purify the air as well as giving it a aroma of your choice). Have a couple of objects that have meaning to you and create a small altar with these. Perhaps some fresh flowers…whatever it is that you like.

It is not so much about creating a sexy atmosphere, but much more about creating a sacred atmosphere. This is a room for connecting with your deepest self, with each other and for worship. You worship each other, you worship the Universe, Existence, the Divine, God when you bond and make love with love, awe and reverence in your hearts. Create a space that supports you in this.

Weekly Relationship Yoga meetings
As mentioned earlier, going to bed time is time is not the best time for intimacy and bonding. We seem to think that sex is supposed to happen all the time. Three times a week is not enough for many of us – yet, what about the quality of that sex? Nothing wrong with delightful quickies but when sex and intimacy get reduced to bed time all the time, it is no longer what it was when we were falling in love - long afternoons or mornings of being in each other’s company, bonding, holding, chatting, touching, loving and sharing sexuality.

So set aside one time per week which will become your Relationship Yoga time. Relationship Yoga is bonding, sharing intimacy, sharing physical, emotional and spiritual pleasure. If you have children, organize for them to be cared for. You need at least 2 hours undisturbed, 3 – 4 hours is better. Ideally this should be the same time each week, very much in the same way as you would go to a yoga class in a yoga studio. Stick to it, it is worth it.

When it is time for your Relationship Yoga class, enter your sacred room and begin the process with a series of rituals. I teach a variety of these rituals in my private Couple’s Workshops and on weekend retreats. Welcome each other, bless each other, thank each other - not just generally, specifically. Then take turns to pleasure each other. This way the one who is relaxing can simply enjoy and is not responsible for anything. The other one is active and does not receive or expect anything in return. You let your sexual energy arise if it does, become a witness to it, as opposed to having to act on it or to satisfy it. You can take turns on the same occasion to be in the active role, I however prefer to rather have the change-over on different occasions. This way you can go totally into either the active giving role, or the passive receiving role.

I hope I have inspired you to take up this simple program. If you do, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how it worked for you. If you’d like to learn more, contact me for a private Couple’s Workshop. Singles can book a Tantra Sacred Massage session.

My warmest greetings to you all,
Leandra

Neo Tantra and Post-Neo Tantra

Osho coined the term "Neo Tantra" for a good portion of his teaching. There is much confusion as to what this actually means. Many of today's teachers of Tantra claim that this is the physical or sexual aspect of Tantra, or that Neo Tantra implies a focus on teaching tantric sexuality as opposed to teaching the spiritual or transformational meaning of what Tantra is. This is, in my opinion, totally incorrect and really not comprehensible as to why this is being done. When one reads Osho's writings about what he meant, what he taught, one gets a very clear picture that Neo Tantra is being misinterpreted.

Neo Tantra is also often referred to as "western tantra" or "modern tantra" as an expression of our modern times being pre-occupied with sexual matters. I understand Osho’s tantric teachings to actually pick us up where we are - with the human preoccupation with sexuality.

The sexual revolution was essentially about women becoming more open to sexual exploration. The discovery of the birth control pill in the fifties revolutionised sexuality by reducing fear of pregnancy which resulted in women beginning to feel more free about exploring their sexuality. The sixties and the hippy movement with it's "free love” philosophy, opened the doors for sexual exploration even more. As a woman, it was no longer necessary to be shameful about sexual escapades. Since then, it has been a slow movement towards what we have today, the signalisation of almost everything in life. The question is whether this serves us or not.

Tantra does not sexualise us, it picks us up where we are and that is with a huge preoccupation of sexuality that has not ended in spite of a deep shift into more esoteric and spiritual understandings of life that have emerged since then. And indeed, it cannot end because of its very nature and importance to our humanity and lives. So we need to take our pre-occupation with sex into account when our intention is to live more spiritually. Not doing so results in, for most of us, a separation of spirituality and sexuality and this, in end effect, inhibits our spiritual growth, let alone our physical pleasure.

How can we live a spiritual lifestyle and in the bedroom resort to animal nature and a testosterone driven, goal orientated sexuality? Spirituality that includes the body, our senses actually changes our experience of sexuality and gives it back the sacredness it was meant to have.

It was natural that after Osho made Tantra accessible to the West in the sixties and seventies by re-visiting the ancient texts and teaching them for a free-love inspired public, the emphasis would be on experiencing sexuality in all manner or ways, all the while getting rid of inhibitions, as well as guilt. A lot of the tantric work that began in the eighties and nineties focused on sexuality.

In latter years, a new tantric teaching is emerging out of the Neo-Tantra era. Tantra in the west is is no longer "just" about sexuality and although sexuality plays a large role, the emphasis is more on the spiritual aspects of our sexual energy. This Post-Neo Tantra is closer to what Osho actually taught - the transcendence from physical to spiritual and more about transcending sexuality. I personally think that the phase of an almost "free for all" in sexuality where anything goes is done. It is well done and now is the time to go further, but not back into suppression, which is sometimes the case. Having had enough of the sexualisation of Tantra, some schools feel the need to once again reject the sexual aspects of the work. This is unfortunate, it is a step backwards. What is needed is the integration of the polarities that Tantra places us in. Only when this integration has taken place, do we find the complete picture. Only then will we realise fully what it was that Osho actually gave us.

I share the following Osho quotes with you in an attempt to make clear what Osho meant and how the term Neo Tantra should be understood if used correctly. The quotes will also give the reader a good idea of what the path of Tantra in our day and age and in all cultures really is.

Osho quotes

"The first part has to be sex. The second part has to be love. The third part has to be prayer, and the fourth has to be transcendence. So from the gross to the subtle you move. And in the fourth, sex has to completely disappear, love too, prayer too. Make it absolutely silent, peaceful, meditative... not even a trace is left. These are the four stages of Neo-Tantra..."

"Sex is just the beginning, not the end But if you miss the beginning, You will miss the end also."

"If you remain aware you will come to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer, deep inside is the love, and even deeper is prayer, and deepest is God himself. Sex can become a cosmic experience. Then it is Tantra."

"This is tantra's proposition, that mind is nothing but subtle matter; it can be changed. And once you have a different mind you have a different world, because you look through the mind. The world you are seeing, you are seeing because of a particular mind."

"The moment you enter love, you enter a different person. And when you come out you will not be able to recognize your old face; it will not belong to you. A discontinuity will have happened. Now there is a gap, the old man is dead and the new man has come. That is what is known as rebirth - being twice-born."

"Tantra's contribution is the greatest, because it give you keys to transform the lowest into the highest. It gives you keys to transform mud into lotuses."

From the Prologue to Osho's book Sex Matters in answer to the question: "Why does the topic of sex make people so uncomfortable? Why is it such a taboo?"

"The simple reason is that people have been for centuries living a repressed sex life. They have been told by all the religious prophets and the messiahs and the saviors that sex it sin. To my understanding, sex is your only energy, it is life energy. What you do with it depends on you. It can become sin, and it can become also your highest peak of consciousness. It all depends on you how you use the energy. There was a day when we had no idea how to use electricity. Electricity was available always - as lightning - and was killing people, but now it is your servant. It is doing everything that you want. Sex is bio- electricity. The question is how to use it. And the first principle is not to condemn it. The moment you condemn anything, you cannot use it. Sex should be accepted as a normal, natural thing in life - just as sleep, as hunger, as everything else. Furthermore, sex can be joined with meditation, and once sex can be joined with meditation its whole quality changes. Sex without meditation can only reproduce children. Sex with meditation can give you a new birth, can make you a new human being."

What is...?

Over this busy festive season, stop and ask yourself "What is...what is this moment, what is in this moment, what do I experience, perceive, realise?" We so seldom do this. Our lives are full, day for day, minute for minute...and moment for moment. Life is not slow. Work is not forgiving. Even our "play time", our relaxation time is full of doing. Full of appointments and activities. So much of modern spiritual talk is about "being in the moment: - but what does that mean. Osho puts it beautifully, simply in his answer to a student's question below. Such moments of conscious awareness are meditation. Pure meditation. Tantra uses the senses to be in the moment. Sight, smell, sound and touch. You can do it anywhere. At Christmas dinner with the family, on the beach, in the mountains, the desert...and even in a busy shopping mall. It only takes a moment!

I wish you all, dear students and friends of Tantra, many moments of such beauty and calm over Christmas and the drawing year -end.
Namaste
Leandra

In one of his lectures, Prabhati (a student of Osho) asked: "Beloved Master, What Is?"
Osho answered:
"Prabhati, there are two kinds of things in existence: one, that which can be explained; and the other, that which can only be experienced. The things that can be explained are mundane, ordinary, have no intrinsic value in them. And the things that cannot be explained are really significant, have intrinsic value. For example, sex can be explained, love cannot be explained. Hence, sex becomes a commodity - it can be sold, it can be purchased. Love is not a commodity; you cannot sell it, you cannot purchase it - there is no way. Sex can be explained because it is part of physiology. Love cannot be explained - it is part of your inner mystery.

Unless your sexuality rises and reaches to love it is mundane, it has nothing sacred about it. When your sex becomes love, then it is entering into a totally different dimension - the dimension of the mysterious and the miraculous. Now it is becoming religious, sacred, it is no longer profane. And there is an even higher stage of love - I call it prayer - which is absolutely unexplainable, which is absolutely ineffable. Nothing can be said about it.

When a disciple asked Jesus, "What is prayer?" Jesus fell on his knees and started praying. What else can you do? Prayer cannot be explained, nothing can be said about it, but it can be shown. What can you say about death, what can you say about life? Whatsoever you say will fall short; it cannot soar to the heights of life and death. Those are experiences.

What can you say about beauty? Even if the lake is full of beautiful lotuses and it is a full-moon night, and all is benediction, somebody can ask, "What is beauty?" What can you say? You can show! You can say, "This it it!" But he will say, "I am asking for a definition."

Rabindranath, one of the greatest poets of this country (India), was living on a small houseboat. He used to live for months together on that houseboat; he loved living on the houseboat. It was a full-moon night and he was reading in his room, a small cabin, just by a small candlelight, and he was reading about aesthetics - what is beauty? And the full moon outside, and the cuckoo calling from the distant shore, and the moon reflecting all over the lake, and the whole lake was silver...! It was a tremendously silent night, nobody around, except that cuckoo calling. Once in a while a bird would fly over the boat, or a fish would jump in the lake - and those sounds would deepen the silence even more. And he pondered over great books on aesthetics in search of the definition of what beauty is.
Tired, exhausted, in the middle of the night, he blew out the candle...and he was shocked, surprised. As he blew out the candle, the moon-rays entered through the window, through the door, inside the cabin. That pale light of the candle had been keeping the moon out. Suddenly, he heard the cuckoo calling from the distant shore.

Suddenly, he became aware of the tremendous silence, the depth of the silence surrounding the boat. A fish jumped, and he came out.... He had never seen such a beautiful night. A few white clouds floating in the sky, and the moon and the lake and the cuckoo calling...he was transported into another world.

He wrote in his diary, "I am foolish! I have been searching in books for what beauty is, and beauty was standing outside my door, knocking on my door! I was looking for beauty, searching for beauty, with a small candle, and the small candlelight was keeping the moonlight outside." He wrote in his diary, "It seems my small ego is keeping God out - the small ego, like a pale small candlelight, keeping the light of God outside. And he is waiting outside. All that I need to do is to close the books, blow out the candle of the ego and go out - AND SEE!"

Prabhati, you ask me, "What is?" This...this-ness...this moment you are surrounded by the is. It is within you and without you. The chirping of the birds...and this silence...and you ask me what is? It is not a question that can be answered… We are here to experience something. All explanations about the mysteries of life are nothing but explaining away those things. The basic, root meaning of the word 'explanation' is 'to flatten a thing' - but to flatten a thing is to destroy it. If anybody could answer, "What is God? What is love? What is prayer? What is?" he would have flattened a beautiful, tremendously beautiful, incredible experience, into ugly words. All words are inadequate. Be and know! Be still and know! You are here not to learn more words; you are here to get deeper into silence. Use my words as hints towards a wordless existence. This is it! …

Feel this moment...in its totality, in all its dimensionality, and a great beauty will descend, a great beatitude, a great benediction will surround you; a grace, a very silent ecstasy will start rising in you…that is the only way to know it.”

From: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol.2. by OSHO. Talks given from 01/07/79 to 10/07/79. English Discourse series.

Tantra and Sex - What It's Really about!

The most predominant misunderstanding about Tantra is that I encounter, is that it is all about sex. Well, not only sex, but having great sex, the best sex you can imagine, and hours of it with multiple orgasms. The reason for this seems to be the simple fact that sex rules our lives in one way or another. We either have a partner that wants too little of it...or one that wants too much, depending on the perspective from which we are viewing it of course. Or there is no partner in sight to experience either too little or too much, it is simply zero. Sometimes there is lots of it, with lots of partners, in lots of different situations – twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, orgies etc. And of course, there are great deviations from the “normal” variations of it, like BDSM etc. Then there are all sorts of sexual difficulties that can make our lives miserable – difficulty to orgasm or climaxing far too early, having too much or too little libido and funnily enough, this applies to both men and women, although we like to think it’s gender specific and applies to men only!

Here’s the thing: sex IS important. It is the most major energy force in our lives. We come from sex and in fact, the whole of life comes from sex. In Tantra we call sex our Life Force. And as you can imagine, when our Life Force depletes, a whole lot is pulled into a downward spiral with it.

Sexual energy is charged with an internal, mental and physical drive whether we like it or not. This in turn charged with hormones and endorphins etc., it is the single most naturally given drive we have. It is our creative energy, not only physically in the form of pro-creation, but our drive to complete ourselves, to be passionate about whatever it is we allow ourselves to be passionate about – our work, our relationships, our hobbies. Sigmund Freud discovered that it was possible to compensate desire by directing this energy into other passions and that if we don’t it sometimes finds its way into mentally unhealthy results.

So all in all, sex is worth thinking about! The thing is to get out of the habit of simply thinking about sex as sex only. Sex as sex only is just the physical act and that in itself is a pretty mundane activity. Tantra allows us look at everything else that sex is about, it gives more meaning to sex than we generally believe is possible.

The ancient Chinese realised the life force aspect of sexual energy and developed methods of cultivating sexual energy in the form of Taoism and taoist practices, just as the ancient people of India developed the deeply spiritual path of Tantra and tantric practices. Both cultures understood that sex was the very centre of life itself, and although the two paths differ tremendously, they do have in common that sexual energy is essential to our physical, emotional and spiritual well being in one way or another.

Whereas in China the emphasis seems to have been on the cultivation of sexual energy for physical well being and longevity, in India, being probably one of the most spiritually inclined countries in the world, it seems natural that the emphasis was on sex and spirituality, sex and the Divine, sex and enlightenment.

Valerie Brooks puts it beautifully in her book Tantric Awakening – A Woman’s Initiation into the Path of Ecstacy:
“Utilizing our most primitive, overwhelming desires for sexual encounter, tantra teaches transcendence of all desire. Tantra’s ultimate lesson is that all human desire carries at its source the singular desire for God. And even the desire for God is transcended once we understand that we are already there.”

Furthermore...
“Tantra allows anyone to experience the ecstatic, heavenly realm that saints through the ages have attempted to describe through poetry and metaphor. It’s nearly indescribable, because it’s beyond what we can mentally conceive.
...
“People become involved in tantra for various reasons. The practice of tantra can bring us many personal benefits, including improved relationships, emotional healing, physical health, longevity, happiness, wealth, and of course the obvious: an intensely satisfying sex life...But, regardless of diverse initial interests, to remain on this path all must have only agenda – a profound desire for oneness with whatever it is we call God.”
...
“Tantra has no text or manual on how to treat others. Yet the universal call for love within all great spiritual teachings can be embodied through tantric. Tantra calls our intellectual bluff. Tantra takes the theory of loving God to a practical level. Before we can love God, we must love others. Tantra asks us not to idealize love, or to love a concept, but rather to experience love. Tantra is about really loving others, here and now.”
...
“This does not mean that we need to have sex with everyone we want to love. Tantra is a tool that teaches us how to love unconditionally, in every area of our lives. Many people misunderstand how tantric relates to sex. Tantra uses sex only as a vehicle. In and of itself, sex is meaningless. Sex is a tool, like the flame of a candle in meditation or the beads used in prayer. No tool will bring us enlightenment unless we use it for that purpose. Tantra’s purpose is never about having sex. The purpose of tantric is not even to be a tantric. The purpose of tantric is, once again, love. Tantra holds sexuality in a context that is healing and positive, as an expression of God’s love.”
...
“Tantra might be a simple path, but it is not always easy. Many people who begin tantric, even with the best intentions, will fall off the path. Why is it so difficult to make love all the time? Practicing tantric is not like going to church for two hours a week. It will make us look at ourselves. It will ask us to change. It pushes buttons.”

Tantra has pushed my buttons and continues to do so. It has changed how I deal with things, how I deal with all aspects of my life and it continues to do so. It is fascinating and deeply rewarding, and I feel blessed to have gotten over my initial belief that it was all “just about sex”. Had this not been the case, and being the well brought up, sexually conservative South African that I was, I could never have embraced Tantra. I came to Tantra looking for God, or if you prefer, looking for life. I wanted more. I felt there was more. Most importantly, I wanted my frustration with life, my pain around love, my loneliness amidst friends, relatives and people in general to end.

I wanted life and I wanted it fulfilling, full and filled. I got it. I learnt to love myself in a way never before imagined, then I learnt to love others in a way never before achieved...and finally I learnt to love God, the Divine, Existence in a way never before experienced.

Tantra is not a religion. I did not have to adopt a belief system or adhere to doctrines. Tantra is a path, a method, a way of life. It has become my way of life.

Of her personal experience, Valerie Brooks’ writes:
“ In tantra I found a synergy between sexuality and spirituality, between tradition and spontaneity, between the communal and the subjective. It was like glue to me. It brought together all the seemingly irreconcilable pieces, merging the contradictory and disparate messages of religion, philosophy and literature. Tantra guided me inward, showing me that my darkest demons were illusions built of dust. In essence, it enabled me to become a completely different person.“

I too became a completely different person on my tantric journey. Not someone else, just the person I was always meant to be. I hope you enjoyed this read and that you not only have become interested in Valerie Brooks' book, but also in starting your journey with and on the path of Tantra.

Namaste,
Leandra

* all quotes from Tantric Awakening – A Woman’s Initiation into the Path of Ecstacy by Valerie Brooks (pages 11 – 14) ISBN -89281-096-5 (pbk)

Discovering Durga

One of the most invoked forms of the divine feminine is the Hindu goddess Durga. Ma Anand Leandra takes a closer look.

In this manifestation, the multi-armed deity who battles and conquers the mighty buffalo demon Mahisasura, is one of the most spectacular of all personifications of cosmic energy. With three-eyes and adorned with the crescent moon, her multiple arms holding various weapons, emblems, jewels, utensils, garlands and rosaries of beads, and seated on her lion or tiger vehicle, she seemingly has overwhelming omnipotence. Also known as the Divine Mother, she embodies all the other goddess incarnations including Kali (goddess of death and transformation), Lakshmi (goddess of spiritual and material abundance) and Sarasvati (goddess of wisdom and creativity).

According to the myth, demonic forces threatening to conquer the world and take down all who did not agree with their agenda, appeared in the form of Mahisasura, the mighty buffalo demon. When all the male divinities had tried everything they could to put an end to this threat, and after realising that their methods were only perpetuating the violence and with nothing left to do, they fused their energy together allowing Durga to emerge.

Although invoked by the merging of all the male god energies, Durga’s birth was not the result of the will of the gods, but, as with all her incarnations, was the result of her will to be in the world for the benefit of mankind. She chooses when and how to become active in the play of the goddess in the world.

Mahisasura symbolises, among other things, the elemental powers of brutish ignorance and an exaggerated ego-sense whose sole purpose is to dominate and control, destroying the balance of the universe. Durga, her tremendous power poised and ready for this ferocious battle, changes her form time and again, matching his changing forms, until finally she wins the battle by decapitating him.

Then, having completed what she set out to do, she disappears from the battlefield completely, but not before promising to nourish the world in times of need and to fearlessly annihilate all that is not truth, delivering all who call upon her from their enemies, and blessing them.

This disappearance of Durga after her victory expresses one of the deepest truths of the divine feminine: her action in the cosmic drama is without retentive, ego-seeking ambition. She did not remain to be hallowed and subjected to praise and adoration for her deed.

If Durga is understood as the wisdom of the heart, the buffalo demon is the symbol of ignorance, reactions and ego attachments. His constant changing form is symbolic of the ignorant mind continuously jumping from desire to desire, relating directly to our irrational behavior. The demon's uncontrollable rage, destroying everything in its path without regard for the consequences, is a fitting analogy for all the levels of destruction that we face today. This battle is symbolic of the universal war between knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, the oppressor and the oppressed.
This myth asks us to consider how we choose to express our anger. Will we poison our environment by being divisive, fearful, defensive and blaming? Or we will use our rage against the injustice and the polarities of separation in constructive ways? Will be contain the destructive force of our negative emotions: anger, jealousy, pride, greed and delusion over and over again, until such time as they are melted away and no longer exist?
Durga's story is a metaphor about the eternal cyclical repetition of the entire life process. The paradise which she restores on earth is temporary, and the battle between the order and chaos has to recur endlessly. On this battlefield, protagonist and antagonist take on the looks and qualities of the other over and over again, until the disguise of each is penetrated. When demon and goddess are reduced to their true nature, they are, in the last analysis, alike. Without the one we cannot perceive the other.

Symbolising our constant struggle with all the perceived polarities of human life (male and female, right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark, pain and joy, love and hate etc), Durga’s story also represents constantly restoring paradise or bliss, until finally we are able to perceive and experience the ‘Oneness of All’ that is inherent in our spiritual nature.

When we reach the state in which all dualism has melted away, we understand that without the other we are not ourselves; when we exist together as one, I am in you and you are in me, only then are there no oppositions and no polarities, leaving only a ‘oneness in an eternal cycle of cosmic activity’.

Durga is a metaphor for the fiercely compassionate divine feminine aspect of our nature. It is our Durga nature that can and will finally free us from an afflicted ego and return us to the penetrating wisdom of divine love. She is the impenetrable place of calm within our hearts from which we are able to choose actions that promote harmony and unity over selfish, harmful acts. Formed out of the sum of all the divine masculine power, she is the ferocious feminine power that paves the way to understanding true oneness, free of all polarities. For men and women alike, it is the Durga within ourselves that paves the way to bliss.

Published in Odyssey Magazine August/September 2011

Speak to us of Love...

The Bridge, Aquarelle on paper by Leandra

Taken from the book "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran, these words describing the ups and downs of love are beautiful and deeply insightful.
I have quoted from The Prophet before here in my journal - in the article I wrote after my father passed away last year, I quoted a portion about death - and indeed, this is a book that has had much meaning to me since my student days when I was first introduced to Gibran's writings. It accompanied me in many roles of loving and living, being a wife and particularly a mother, with work and play and so many things along the path of practical human life.
This particular passage accompanied me very recently, offering me comfort, support and clarity at a time when loving seemed to be a deeply painful process. It helped give my pain direction and meaning, and as I slowly understood the full meaning of Gibran's words, it allowed love's warmth to once again surface in my soul, melting the pain into clear flowing water, rippling over cool earth stones, beautifully.
And so I share it with you all, with warm love in my heart, and a kiss upon my lips.
Namaste,
Leandra

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may would you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Thought his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as hi is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God.":
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips"

Proudly Lingam

Shakti-Shiva Energy (Aquarelle on paper) - Leandra

Proudly Lingam

Rigid
Stands in soldier-steady stance,
Preparing for a Tantric dance.
Sliding.
Oiled hot and stoked, stroked mildly;
And ever so often wildly.
Burning from all four watch-towers
He enters to the stage.
He's centre of the stage
And always by that stage
Proudly lingam.

Merry choice to be a boy.
Merry times to wind this toy.
Merry meet, my phallic friend,
So proudly, proudly lingam.

Justin-Dean Brown - May 2011

(Justin-Dean Brown is now co-perating with Ma Anand Leandra and is working from her premises in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Visit his website Thurisaz Cobra - Practical Pathways to Personal Power)

Starting points & finishing lines and the race in between...or what you’ve always wanted to know about orgasm.

Lingam - Aquarelle by Leandra

Part I - The truth about non-ejaculatory orgasm for men

Introduction

Orgasm is usually both the starting point and the finishing line of any sexual encounter. The starting point because, being the aim or goal of “normal” sex, it is generally what is on our minds as our intention when we start off with any sexual activity. The finishing line because, after orgasm there seems no where else to go, the goal having been reached.

But then, orgasm is so often a letdown. I used to think this was my issue with sexuality but today, from my many years of experience with students coming to Tantra Sacred Massage sessions, I know that most individuals feel this at some stage in their lives. This is particularly as one reaches the forties threshold or in terms of marriage and relationships, the eight to ten year threshold. Mind you, these are estimates and it can happen earlier and later, but invariably it does happen that sex becomes a bit mundane and the feeling that orgasm is not what it is made out to be grows.

Men particularly report that the nicest phase of sex is actually before orgasm, and they wish they could stay in this phase longer. The actual moment of orgasm is usually pretty quick both for men and women – although women do naturally experience a slightly longer orgasm compared to that of men. (I will go more into this in Part III of my article).

In addition, many individuals have some form of difficulty with orgasm itself – either it comes too soon or it does not come at all – both variations are difficult to live with and ruin full sexual satisfaction. So it is perhaps understandable that much of modern day tantric literature and content of Tantra websites worldwide, is filled with the promise of better orgasms – either longer, or deeper, or full body, or multi and for men, non-ejaculatory – and this accompanied by the hope of greater and more satisfying sex which in turn promises a happier and more fulfilling life.

Even without all this information, we seem to find ourselves racing after orgasm. In a sense, the event of Tantra becoming more centre stage worldwide has not done us a favour as the level of sexual expectation is now higher and more individuals are feeling the pressure of having to have more than just an “ordinary” orgasm. So it is understandable that learning to enhance orgasm is one of the main motivations for students coming to tantric massage sessions.

My personal quest on the subject of orgasm

When I came to Tantra, my motivation was to find meaning and healing in my life. I wanted my body, mind and spirit integrated and a way of life that would fulfil me. Basically I wanted my neediness to stop so that I could feel good about who I was and where I was in my life from my inner core, as opposed to having to rely on positive responses from others and situations, that would endorse the meaningfulness of my life and who I was.

Having better orgasms was something I never spoke to my teachers about. I did however ask about the non-ejaculatory orgasm for men, as I thought teaching men this technique would become an important part of my work, and to my astonishment, two of my three teachers told me “forget about non-ejaculatory orgasm, it is not important”! The fact that they were both male, seemed to place more weight on their statements, and thus I was influenced quite strongly in this respect.

After starting my tantric work, I intensified my reading of tantric literature and found that much of it was about methods to enhance orgasm. So it was natural for me to ask myself what the truth of the matter was...and thus began my research into the subject. In this series of articles about orgasm, I share my thoughts resulting from this research as well as from both my personal and work related experiences over the last 6 years or so.

The truth about non-ejaculatory orgasm for men

In almost all tantric literature on this subject, we find the claim that men need to learn and master the method and the practice of non-ejaculatory orgasm in order to contain their energy and experience their full sexual potential.

The reason given is that ejaculation depletes a man’s energy and that by not ejaculating he will contain his energy and be able to “last longer” (i.e. have longer erections, experience longer orgasms (generally called expanded orgasm), become multi-orgasmic (meaning being able to have a number of consecutive orgasms in a single session), and experience full body orgasms (meaning a special kind of orgasm that is felt throughout the body).

All this of course, will result in generally more fulfilling sex and by implication, a happier life. Sometimes one reads that non-ejaculation is the clue to tantric sex, the way to achieve more conscious and more spiritual sex.

Kegel Exercises

The method that is taught worldwide is relatively simple and within a few weeks of practice relatively easy to achieve. Men strengthen the pelvic muscles by training them with what is known as the Kegel exercises.

These exercises were developed and first published in 1948 by a Dr Kegel in order to assist with incontinence. For women they are extremely helpful for tightening the vaginal walls after childbirth, excellent for incontinence difficulties and also increase the experience of orgasm. They assist men with prostrate health, with bladder difficulties and it is said to assist with having stronger and longer lasting erections, thus being very beneficial to men suffering from pre-mature ejaculation.

The next step is to learn to contract the pelvic muscles just before or in the moment of orgasm and in so doing, close off the Vasa Deferentia or sperm ducts resulting in the ejaculate not reaching the tip of the penis to be excreted there. This then has generally been called the “non-ejaculatory orgasm”.

Why this is commonly called non-ejaculatory orgasm I do not know because an ejaculation does occur.

Retrograde ejaculation

What really happens is that contracting the muscles squeezes the sperm ducts closed causing a blockage. When the ejaculate reaches the blockage, it is subsequently pushed back and into the bladder where it quickly dissolves and is urinated out. While the semen are not excreted through the penis, they certainly leave the testicles and are excreted. Medically this is called a retrograde ejaculation, sometimes known as an in-ejaculation.

Retrograde ejaculation is medically speaking the sign of a blockage problem in the sperm ducts caused by infection or certain medications which is one of the main causes of male sterility. It is also the way ejaculation takes place when a prostrate operation has been performed.

Medical problems resulting from blocking the sperm ducts

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with strengthening the pelvic muscles, in fact this is a very healthy thing to do. For those of you who are interested in learning these, follow this link or Google ‘Kegel exercises” and you will find an abundance of info available on the web.

However, please do not use this as a general way of having orgasms guys. I will give you a different method, more natural method. There are a number of difficulties and dangers with this method of prolonging orgasm.Interestingly I have not found tantric literature that makes mention of a variety of medical difficulties that can result from repeated practice of this method.

It is not difficult to imagine that by doing this, pressure is placed on the sperm ducts which can result in irreparable damage being done. This is particularly important for men nearing and reaching their fifties. Apart from this, regular retrograde ejaculation can result in a further variety of medical problems which I won’t go into now.

Another important fact is that regular ejaculation is important for the health of the prostate gland and it used to be medical practice for men to have their prostrate glands “milked” regularly as a preventative measure for the development of cancer. This was a method of massaging the prostate gland to empty it of the colourless thin fluid that is produced there.

So all in all, I do not recommend this method or even regular non-ejaculation through any other method. And in fact, my experience shows that it is not preventing ejaculation that contains a man’s energy but they actual way he orgasms – whether he ejaculates or not!

How this method was assimilated into tantric teaching

The method of in-ejaculation comes from a completely different tradition to that of Tantra which originated in India. It goes back to ancient China and the Taoist tradition and was originally used as an ancient birth control practice. This makes sense as today we understand blockages of the sperm ducts to be one of the major causes for male infertility.

The Taoist also saw this as a way for males to contain their energy and prolong life. This results from the ancient belief that a man could run out of seminal fluid if he ejaculated too much in his life time and that his life would thus be shortened. Another Taoist belief was that if the man retained his sperm, he would retain the intelligence that made them and draw this up to his crown, thus increasing his intelligence. Today we know that these beliefs have no medical substance and that the male does not run out of seminal fluid through ejaculation.

As a side note, interestingly women were encouraged to have frequent secretion of female ejaculate as the belief was that it contained a vital substance from which her partner (the male) could derive energy and power!

Tantra is an ancient Indian tradition that emerged with or prior to Hinduism. In Tantra there is no ancient practice of this method and it certainly had nothing to do with tantric spiritual practice. As the knowledge of Tantra expanded to other countries it was assimilated into the traditional belief system and philosophies of those countries. Thus the development of Buddhist Tantra in Tibet and the incorporation of tantric practices into Taoist practice in China.

Tantra being the non-dogmatic system that it is, also appears to have over time, assimilated other practices and western Tantra (or Neo Tantra) seems to have merged two vastly different traditions. Taoism is concerned with the conservation of energy, Tantra is concerned with sexual energy being our life force and our senses being the door to being in the body and the “now”.

Tantra is concerned with the merging together of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine, the polarised male and female energy. In the traditional tantric understanding, it is in this union that enlightenment is made possible. Although this is mostly understood as the union between a male and a female, it can occur in a meditative way or self-loving rituals without a partner through the merging or balancing of the inner male and inner female energy.

One belief in the tantric system is that the male needs to unite with the female and needs to remain inside her as long as possible in oder to be able to absorb some of her vital life juices and energy, so necessary for men to attain an enlightened state of being.

Does then the non-ejaculatory orgasm exist in Tantra at all?

Yes, certainly, but at least as I teach it, it occurs in more natural way and is not as important as it’s made out to be. What is important, and much more important than ejaculation, is breath. It is the correct breathing technique that contains the energy in the body. As with any yoga practice, breath is the single most important aspect in Tantra and tantric work of any kind. The breathing technique, accompanied by full body relaxation as well as a specific muscular relaxation is what enhances orgasm and can lead to the experience of a true non-ejaculatory orgasm.

This is therefore what I teach. I teach men how to orgasm, how to change their orgasm into one that will contain their energy and in addition open the door to deep and spiritual experiences – and this independent of whether he is alone or with a partner.

The method is the same for men and women, just that women do it naturally and through understanding what they naturally do, they are able to do it more consciously thus enhancing their experience of orgasm.

It is also the method I teach to resolve all kinds of sexual difficulties, including premature ejaculation and difficulty in achieving orgasm.

What is the secret of tantric sex?

It is however, not beneficial in any way to chase the non-ejaculatory orgasm, just as Tantra teaches us not to chase the orgasm itself. Important is being in the moment of whatever you are doing without it having to lead anywhere. That really is the secret of tantric sex. Furthermore, it is a way of life. A way of living and experiencing each moment as it comes along and this way of life does not back away when things get sexual – on the contrary, this momentary experiencing continues throughout the sexual act.

I hope you enjoyed the article so far. I welcome your comments below!
Next month I will write about the real meaning of orgasm and finally I will give you the method I teach.

Warm autumn greetings
Leandra

Next articles:
Part II) The real meaning or orgasm
Part III) The Method to enhance orgasm