What Is Tantra?

The simple answer to this is that Tantra is weaving a web of expansion

The weaving of two into one…

And, obviously that will have different meanings for each of us, but basically Tantra is about feeling fully and being present in each moment.

In this context, this website uses this definition and refers to intimacy in relationship, specifically referring to intimate sexual connection.

In this context, Tantric Sexual Connection is about delving deeper into intimate heart open connection.

Our belief is that the best and safest container for this to happen, explore and grow is an intimate and loving heart connected relationship.

In this space, of intimate, heart open loving connection, sexual pleasure becomes a magical experience that expands and deepens as your connection expands and deepens.

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Usually thought of as two people uniting into one in making love…

The more complex answer follows, but is well worth the effort.

Tantra is the yoga of sex, the path of surrender, of the mind sinking into the heart, where sex, love and heightened awareness become one.

It restores sexuality to its true nature.

The true nature of sex is energy, vitality, creativity, passion, awareness, love and spirit.

Sex is what we experience whether we are making beautiful love, sharing the joy of a babe in arms, tingling alive swimming in the ocean or being moved by the awe of a magnificent sunset.

Tantra is both incredibly complex and terrifyingly simple.

It is about experiencing fully what is, through mind, body, feeling, heart and spirit, exactly as it is in each moment. It is saying YES to life! It is about seeking to expand into life rather than contracting from it.

Tantra is not a cult or a dogma.

It is a practice.

People are at choice in the way they choose to both participate and interpret what they experience, because the deepest learning comes from within YOU.

You can also choose how much, be it little or large, the extent of the concepts and practices you take up.

Every little piece will offer something of value. Tantra becomes a lifelong love affair you can step in and out of as you are ready.

Practicing Tantra is a way to become more consciously aware, self empowered and experience more freedom, fulfillment and meaning to life. 

It integrates smoothly, even underpins, many other ways of understanding and approaching life.

You can learn and practice by yourself, or with a partner. We believe the ultimate place to practice is in a long term committed relationship, in whatever version of relationship is right for you.

Click here for more about tantra history

Tantra IS about sex, but in Tantra, sex is the beginning, a doorway, rather than the end.

Tantra is the inner freedom that comes from being fully connected to your sexuality as your innate life force energy (it’s what created us after all!) rather than, as it is sometimes seen, merely the acting out of sexual freedom.

Sex is the beginning, not the end. 

There many, many Tantric practices, some that involve direct experiences of sex, and many that are outside of what we commonly think of as sex, working with sex as an energy, that are more meditation and understanding based.

Some are focussed purely on spiritual awakening- oneness with yourself and Spirit, others are focussed on the heart and relationship- oneness with yourself and your partner. And some are about connecting the lovers to an experience of Spirit.

Tantra is on the rise

Interest in Tantra is growing exponentially and many forms of this age-old wisdom are being taught all over the world.

We believe that the reason Tantra is currently having such a rebirth of popularity on every continent is four-fold.

1. People have and want more knowledge about sex than ever before. It’s more in the open. We expect more from it but we’re seeing the limitations of sex that is focused on the purely physical. We believe there is more to sex than what they are currently experiencing and

   

   want to know how to create it.

2. Relationships are more difficult than ever before, despite the plethora of self help books etc. People are looking for new ways to make relationships work.
3. The Western material/status focused lifestyle is offering us less satisfaction and we are looking for more meaning to life.
4. A decrease in the popularity of religion and the readiness of people to embrace responsibility for our own spiritual evolution, due to the global increase in spiritual knowledge, and the massive surge in the personal development arena providing people with the confidence and self empowerment to do so .

Historically it has been difficult to open the door to our sexual nature and maintain healthy discipline and control in it.

Look at Catholic priests, many Yoga (including Tantra) Gurus with their followers, and the orgies of the 60’ onwards that left many people burned. Which is why religion, society, families, individuals and even pharmaceutical companies have tried to control sex for us.

Learning not to ‘leak’ energy, and particularly sexual energy, is a difficult task, even for practitioners of the art and science of Tantra, and one that is still evolving. It is time for us to take charge.

Confusion and ignorance

It takes enormous courage and dedication to be Tantric in your view of sexuality. Our culture is very confused about sexuality. On the one hand, there are cultural pressures to inhibit your sexual expression. On the other there is pressure to express ourselves uninhibitedly.

But we can never free ourselves from sex by repressing it or acting it out at a purely physical level.

The Lotus flower – sex is dirty

The lotus flower is used as the icon symbolizing enlightenment in the Hindu/Buddhist tradition. The

‘thousand petalled lotus’ represents the expansion of consciousness. This beautiful flower grows out of the rich mud below (the sexual centre), nourished by the Earth Mother (Shakti Kundalini) – coming up through the mystical waters (sacred feminine), and uniting with cosmic consciousness (Shiva, sacred masculine).

The Science of Sex- understanding the mechanics

In this age of science and instant access to information we know more about sex than ever before. We know about the hormones of lust – testosterone and oestrogen. Adrenaline and serotonin excite us and dopamine makes us feel happy. We have learned about the cuddle factor in bonding hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. Endorphins with their pain-killing and pleasure-delivering properties are part of both these stages. Sexual self help books abound. Ads for Viagra turn up daily in the inbox.

We see a multitude of sexual images used as titillation in books, movies and as random images to sell everything from icecream to cars, as well as instant access to a never ending source of porn. Conversations about sex are more available. There are many experts on the pathology of sex- the effects when it goes wrong. We know so much more about the mechanics of sex but our corresponding levels of sexual satisfaction are getting lower. Something is still missing. This is because we have separated sex from its true nature.

Accepting your sexuality is a powerful pathway to self acceptance, as it is such a core aspect of who we are.   

Unexpressed sexual energy

Trying to avoid sex creates obsession, shutting down on it creates neurosis, ill health and even violence.  We are enslaved by our sexuality and yet not permitted to, or knowledgeable enough to enjoy it fully, so the hunger is never satisfied. Tantra teaches us how to be the master of our sexual energy, not a slave to it.

Our loving potential and lovemaking

Until now, most human beings have remained quite ignorant of their own loving potential. We are able to make love more frequently and sensuously than perhaps any other animal.

Yet we are often disappointed after lovemaking. Why? Because most of us are like the owner of a precious Stradivarius violin we have never learned to play. Each of us has the built-in ability to experience ecstatic states of consciousness. But how do we access these states?

Click for Ecstasy Unveiled- What Is This Ecstasy?

Sex is the doorway to your soul

Exploring sexuality allows a peeling off of more and more layers of shame, guilt, fear and anxiety. It gives you huge clues to your childhood wounds and core issues. When these are brought up to the light and healed, your self-empowerment is regained, along with your innocence and wonder. Our more than a decade of personal experience, and time spent teaching Tantra to others, supports the conclusions of Maslow and Reich about the incredible healing powers and growth potential of super sex combined with super intimacy and love, in the context of a conscious committed relationship.

We have both had many multiple orgasms, rolling, flowing, spine tingling, erupting, ejaculating and non ejaculating ; ‘orgasms’ at the third eye (sixth chakra), the heart centre (fourth chakra), and involving the whole body. We have had ecstatic lovemaking that goes on for a short, very intense time, or that lasts for hours.

We have satisfying, passionate lovemaking also because we bring emotion into the sexual experience rather than making it wrong, or shutting down on this powerful source of feeling. When we feel the energy of emotion it allows more pleasure to arise. And as Jack Morin PhD in The Erotic Mind says emotional sex is some of the best sex you can have. 

By using the techniques of Tantra, we have also experienced states of being beyond the material plane, beyond the realm of our physical bodies, beyond words, and beyond time. We have experienced long lasting states of altered consciousness (bliss, ecstasy, samadhi, satori). We have learned to open to intimacy and deep heart connection.

Tantra safely fills the innate yearning of people, in cultures of all ages and from across the

globe for profound experiences of altered states of being (without the use of drugs, or other risk behaviours) and direct experience with what can be called the Divine or mystical, experiences where we as individual seekers or lovers are invited to step into something larger than our everyday ordinariness – where we not only become more at one with our lover and the world around us but also more awake in ourselves.

We have dedicated ourselves to teaching Tantra because we believe the benefits go beyond simply enhanced pleasure, or just ‘getting high’. It is our experience that when individuals realize a state of higher consciousness, they realize certain ‘truths’. The information they bring back from such experiences has a positive effect on their creative contribution to humanity, and inevitably serves to heal and enrich the planet.

Click for Principles of Tantra