Relationships! What fascinating things they are. We spend most of our time trying to get into one and when we do it seems that 50% of our population then attempt to get out of them! For second marriages the results are not much better. Those who stay according to the Hite Report fall into the following categories. 50% divorce 82% of women love their husbands but they are not in love. 71% of women have left the relationship emotionally although they are still there physically. 82% love emotionally but not passionately 13% of women married for 2 years are in a state of deep love
The Hazelton Clinic in Minnesota statistics are equally as devastating:
1. The Dream Stage (lasts up to two months)
2. The Disillusionment Stage (lasts up to two years)
3. The Misery Stage (can last up to thirty years)
4. The Enlightenment Stage (when coupes stop blaming each other and take responsibility)
5. The Mutual Respect Stage Now regardless of whether these statistics fit your model of the world right now, it is obvious that something isn’t working in the relationship stakes.
We get into this fabulous ‘forever’ relationship and then something happens and we get hurt so we jump off the trapeze, go into a corner somewhere and lick our wounds for awhile until we venture out into the circus again and repeat the process with intermittent times of celibacy and being alone. Relationship is a form of playing with energy, of union, of taking two and making one. With energy you can create fission or fusion. Fission is energy that moves from the centre outwards, driving the energy apart. Fusion is energy pushing toward unity, to oneness. Because we had no education in relationships we use relationship energy to create fission and it drives us apart.
Firstly it is obvious that men and women are different creatures and as John Gray says in Men are from Mars, we come from different planets altogether. In Tantra we know that energetically, a man’s heart is negative and his genitals are positive. In a woman her heart is positive while her genitals are negative. In relationships women like romance, want intimacy and sex follows once the first two criteria are met. With men the romance is there in the beginning but often the starting button is sex and once in a relationship the romance disappears. Then women find they are not getting what they want.
I once read an article by a woman who said “I have been penetrated thousands of times physically but never energetically.” For most women this is an accurate description and to be penetrated without a heart connection is sad but true for most. Sex becomes boring and so women shut down… they have a headache, they are tired. Men often feel frustrated and stop asking… and the relationship deteriorates.
Where did you learn about sex? From a master? Probably not! Yet if you want to learn to be an expert at anything you apprentice yourself to someone who knows more than you do. Unfortunately, we have no such training and so we stumble around in the dark (literally!). Our training is such that often sex is not even spoken about in our formative years and the majority of people it seems make love in the dark with their eyes closed and noise is also not something we allow ourselves to make a lot of! Sssshhhhh – What if we wake the kids???
Tantra is an ancient art form which transforms your sexual and spiritual lives by uniting them and turns the sexual into the sacred. It has been called the missing piece of the spiritual puzzle that many people are searching for. The Tantric exchange is a Holy one where we bless each other physically, mentally, spiritually and energetically. It changes the nature of your sexual exchange and brings the spiritual aspect of lovemaking into your daily lives. It turns lovemaking into a loving meditation. It is the art of love which takes lovemaking to an entire new level. It is designed to bring back the passion, to give the intimacy that we all desire. It is the fuel of relationships that allow women to access the deep well of their feminine essence, their Shakti power – and men to recognise and access the healer that lies within all men – creating for every couple a union of sexual wholeness woven into a tapestry of intimacy and heart connection. To learn Tantra requires that we forego everything we ever thought to be true about sex.
Tantra teaches men to have multiple orgasms and no ejaculation unless they choose to! Imagine that women… A man who can take a woman to heights of ecstasy without the fear of being left in the lurch because they have ejaculated first. How many times women have you been soooo close to orgasm only to have it disappear into the ethers? This is a control factor, strong in many women and with Tantra, women learn to surrender… to themselves, to their partner, to the energy that is said to bring couples to enlightenment, or at the very least to a merging of two people into one. Men learn that a woman’s sexual energy can only be opened through the muscles of the heart and therefore teaches that the heart connection is the starting point of any lovemaking session. It also disputes another common belief system, that in order to have sex, a man must have an erection. Not true. Michelangelo did his finest work with a soft paintbrush and in lovemaking the same thing applies.
Think about this… the person you are making love to is someone that you love, therefore why wouldn’t you want to look at them? One of the first practices of Tantra is to keep your eyes open and look into the eyes of your partner. To sit, eyes connected, hands on each other’s hearts and breathe together is a beautiful way to begin to connect. Once the woman’s heart is open then the energy flows to her yoni or sacred space (vagina).
~ Tantra is a dance of love ~
Tantra is a dance of love, it is sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes gentle, sometimes strong. The breathing is the most important part and if you breathe together, you will harmonise yourselves, feel closer and melt into each other. When the energy diminishes, you breathe alternately, and the energy rises again. Tantra teaches men that they can be their beloved’s healer and it teaches women that their sexual energy (Shakti power) is a gift and should be honoured as such. For a man to recognise that within his hands and his lingam he has the power to heal the deep hurts of the past in his woman is very humbling and empowering for men. The men we have spoken to really want their women to receive as much pleasure as possible and that in turn gives them pleasure. It empowers men and allows women to access the full force of their sexual energy.
Tan means body and Tra means vibration so Tantra is actually the vibrations of the body. To experience Tantric lovemaking is to experience vibrations of energy running through the length of your body, taking you higher and higher into ecstasy and bliss. You learn how to take that energy and direct it from the genitals up to the heart and then up to the crown chakra and at that point you meld with your partner as never before, often described as an altered state of consciousness. Tantra heals relationships…. when couples think there is nothing left in their marriage and they learn this art, they rediscover each other and feel the love that was there in the first place. The result of this is happier couples which precessionally produces happier children and in the end a better world.
Tantra is for people who know that there is ‘more’ and who want to discover how to combine sexuality and spirituality, who want to be more in love daily, who want to maintain or create the passion they had in the beginning and who want to transform their lovemaking abilities into those of a master. The goal of men is to awaken to Goddess energy in their beloved and the goal of women is to awaken the intimate heart energy of their man so together they can become conscious lovers, thus making a difference on this planet.
Diane McCann is a Facilitator of Tantra for Couples, an immersive 5½ day retreat held in South Australia.
