Heart of Tantric Sex (7 page)

Polarity, the underlying theme of Tantra whereby the genitals generate an energy of their own, begins to emerge of its own accord as we make love consciously, particularly if we make love consciously
consistently.
With the information about polarity, and the importance of engaging the positive poles (which can be called the background Love Key), the Love Keys will make the body a vehicle, an anchor and a bridge to keep us rooted in the sexual present. The Love Keys will guide us to various parts of the body which open up doorways to being "here and now" in the present moment.

These Love Keys assisted me thousands of times and as I dropped into them, layer by layer, I was slowly able to center my awareness in my own body and thereby regain trust in myself. As a result of bringing consciousness into the act, old sexual wounds moved out of the body, repressed energy was freed up, and I was enabled to shift to a higher frequency. When I first introduced the Love Keys to my experimental group of Westerners while living in India, I was stunned at the dramatically fast response. Love was in the air sparkling in the eyes of both the men and the women! What had taken me years to unravel and rearrange in myself was happening in a handful of days. It was a miracle.

This was reassuring for me because it confirmed that our bodies respond instinctively in similar ways. In working with couples since then, I have established that they can be in their teens or in their sixties, together for one night or thirty-two years, the response is the same. Love flourishes with consciousness. But it must be stressed that establishing "the present" through the Love Keys, and
in the body,
is an ongoing process. It never really ends. Although there can be an immediate sense of an enchanting quality at first, and a more relaxed approach to sex, it takes time for the sexual present to be rooted firmly in the body. You can't expect to be operating one way for several decades, focused on fantasy or the sexual reward of orgasm, and then suddenly move into a whole new way of being.

Moving away from old patterns

As a couple it is very important to realize that changing our lovemaking is an art, it's a journey and not an instant affair. It is made up of small steps, which can sometimes be huge in effect. But the more we experiment with the Love Keys, the more we can practice moving away from our ingrained patterns into the experience of what is happening now. It is a practice of returning to the body again and again. Sometimes we manage and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we will get caught up in the desire for orgasm, and (please) go for it and thoroughly enjoy it. And at the same time be aware that this is what is happening, we are choosing it. This is a great step in itself. It brings awareness to the process we are involved in, and with practice, when we are able to remain present in the body during lovemaking, no longer motivated to do, but happy to be, the body regains its inherent sensitivity and consciousness.

The Love Keys will strengthen your rapport with your lover and a new intimacy will grow. It will be like developing a new language, a solid foundation for love. The awareness encouraged by the Love Keys will allow you to relax and have more time to focus on what is happening inside your body, and particularly between the penis and vagina. As the sensitivity of the genitals increases, and polarity gradually becomes established, the positive and negative poles begin responding to each other, vibrating gloriously. Sex returns itself to the body, and ceases to have anything to do with the mind.

Take the time to create stillness

But this is not immediate. When you approach a new way of sensing the genitals, it may be difficult to feel anything at all at first. It might even be an effort to try and feel. Until this point we have always depended upon a lot of friction for our sexual experience, but now we are searching for a sensitivity that lies beneath this superficial sensation. You are getting in touch with a finer layer, vibrant and glowing, more satisfying. And although you never lose your capacity to become excited, you are moving beyond the initial intensity and overwhelming nature of this excitement. It is almost like stepping underneath it. You must slow down in both body and mind, creating enough stillness to feel something so subtle it has previously been barely discernible. Developing this degree of sensitivity takes time and commitment, but it is so well worth it.

When you begin using the Love Keys, you will feel exposed, vulnerable, a little bit shaky perhaps. This is natural because you are
penetrating your own innocence.
It is as if returning to that childlike wide-eyed innocent state, present and playful, now starting to make love for the first time. It is fresh landscape with different colors. If you feel uncomfortable, embarrassed or a little bit silly, it is fine to laugh. Many times I have burst into fits of wild, uncontrollable laughter, and I always felt so much better, more alive and relaxed afterwards. If you feel sad, allow the tears to flow, be grateful for them, don't hold them back. Laughter and tears are a release of withheld inner tensions, and allowing them expression enables you to relax into a deeper, more authentic layer of yourself, a prerequisite for intimacy and satisfying lovemaking.

Let this be a form of play where we are sincere and not serious. And there is a world between these two. Sincerity arises from the heart, while seriousness arises from the mind. Sincerity likes to experiment and learn, while seriousness likes a foolproof recipe. Playing around with the Love Keys is a bit like peeling an onion. There is always another layer to penetrate, another step inward to the glory of relaxation in the body. When you and your lover are able to be easy and experiment with each other, playfully and willingly with commitment, love is able to penetrate you deeply. You will eventually find that you can create love through your consciousness, that love is in your very own hands, and is not some wild wind blowing through and over you beyond your conscious control.

Explore and experiment

We need a fresh attitude and a loving approach in order to experiment with sex. As a couple we must be curious enough to challenge our usual tendencies in lovemaking, which means we will probably have to give up things that up to now we may have enjoyed tremendously. Since for most of us sex has become a relatively mechanical orgasm-hunting experience—and people will often admit that the excitement of it is not unlike an addiction—we will need to support each other in breaking or releasing the mechanical or doing aspects of sex. But if we remain focused on the usual goodies in sex, and what we are giving up, it will be difficult to see what we are gaining. Often there is a gap between the letting go and the gaining, so we need the patience and willingness to abandon the old ways, and a playful, honest approach to prepare for the new. With this commitment to exploration and the unexpected, it is most helpful when both partners embrace similar attitudes, making ultimate cooperation and discovery possible.

For instance, in the throes of sexual heat and excitement it may be a challenge to stay open to experimentation. You might suddenly experience the overwhelming urge to go for orgasm. And in these moments, nothing seems more important! However, if your partner can help you in bringing yourself back to "now", suddenly the possibility for you to relax arises and in taking the enormous step of dropping beneath this compulsive urge, the mystery of sex will begin to unfold before you. In this way the support and awareness of your partner is essential in order to grow in love, to bring clarity to the sexual experience. When couples make love in the spirit of cooperation, they are helping each other, teaching and learning from each other, and through each other. Together they uncover the path of relaxation in sex. It is not possible alone. When one partner again and again undermines the efforts of the other, stepping away from our unconscious sexual aspects becomes a near impossibility. Without mutual willingness it will be very difficult to explore new terrain.

Right from the start there must be an attitude of vulnerability, the humble acknowledgment that neither of you really knows much about making love even though you have probably done it thousands of times. A woman I worked with introduced herself by saying she had made love at least three and a half thousand times in the same way, and she was here to see what else was possible! If either partner is unwilling to explore new territory, by challenging old patterns in sex, this can lead to a lack of vulnerability. If you think that you
know
what it takes to make love and how this mysterious energy works, there will be no space for different, possibly more refined and sustaining experiences. Instead, you must be willing to acknowledge all of your feelings and to expose your insecurities and fears about sex. If you are too set in your ways of thinking, the higher orgasmic potential of sex cannot be realized.

Banish rules from the bedroom

We must remember that there are absolutely no rules about how to make love. Using the Love Keys is more a question of awareness. Through awareness we are able to discover and learn, we teach ourselves, but rules are imposed on us and sooner or later imply rebellion. It is the undermining tendency of the mind to make ideas fixed and rigid, especially when we feel insecure about not knowing what may happen next. If you have to do something it is not the same as discovering its value through experimentation. "That really works for me," is different from "I must." It is very easy for a woman to become rule-oriented because she is usually the less demonstrative partner physically, so less doing is easier initially. I have seen all too often a woman imposing rules and literally pointing an angry accusing finger at her lover, rather than exposing her own vulnerability in the situation. The man, feeling chastised and with his ego threatened, will react by rebelling or withdrawing his cooperation.

When insecurities appear in a fresh new sexual way, Tantra offers suggestions rather than rules. Try this, we can say to ourselves, and when we do, we gain concrete experience and so we are able to create new guidelines and orientations. We are two people working together in a unit, like scientists with insatiable curiosity slicing through the misunderstandings of centuries. Patience, love, respect, and understanding are the ways of Tantra.

Choosing which Love Keys to try

In Part 2, the Love Keys are assembled under nine general headings: Eyes, Breath, Communication, Genital Consciousness, Touch, Relaxation, Soft Penetration, Deep Penetration, and Rotating Positions. Each of the Love Keys assists us in accessing the present moment through the body. As you read the individual Love Keys you will find there are keys within keys. Each Love Key gives a range of practical suggestions that can immediately be incorporated into lovemaking. There is a lot to absorb so do not think you have to use all the Love Keys all the time and get overwhelmed. Instead, see which keys you respond to as you read, which feel right, which arouse your curiosity. And then start with these. As you begin to feel grounded in each of these, you can begin to incorporate new ones. Also, after a time of experimenting, it will probably make more sense, you will understand more, or find interest in things that did not previously attract you in the slightest,

It is a unique dance, a journey, an adventure. As you experiment your experience will deepen, and with it your perception. Even if you embrace any two Love Keys to start with, for instance, maintaining eye contact and breathing deep and slow, you are most likely to experience a qualitative change in your lovemaking. So you do not have to embrace everything all at once, it is up to you to choose. Besides, it is a process that takes time, remembering that a shift in consciousness, and not a sudden change, is afoot.

I remember a couple telling me, a year after their first workshop, that they had experimented a great deal with the Love Keys but still they enjoyed having the orgasms. The Love Keys enabled them to be more present and loving, and extend the time of lovemaking, which was wonderful, and then just to finish it off they would have an orgasm like a little whipped cream, so to speak. They continued their exploration, attending another workshop during this time. Then two and half years from our initial meeting, the woman suddenly said to me on the telephone, "Do you know,
neither
of us is interested in orgasm any more! It's unbelievable, because it used to be
so
important. But now we have slowly discovered how to be here, it is so much nicer, more relaxing, why bother with orgasms! And we are so happy, so in love."

The beauty is that once consciousness is brought into the sexual act, a process is set in motion and the old habits or patterns slowly work themselves out of the system. New experiences happen and consciousness takes root. So while you are making love, do not be afraid of trying out some of the Love Keys. Just try one or two and see what happens. If you are in a couple and you decide to experiment, you can discuss which to try at first. Often when both partners are using the same Love Keys, say combining positive poles and breathing, the effect on the sexual energy can be strengthened, but this is not essential.

Even if you don't decide beforehand, or you do not have a fixed sexual partner with whom to experiment, you may suddenly feel inclined or inspired to try something out. It can surprise you. A friend of mine in a workshop, upon hearing that the Love Key relaxation also included relaxation of the vaginal muscles, did not quite believe it. She said nothing at the time, but later while experimenting with her lover, she remembered this suggestion, and saying to herself "okay, let it go!" she consciously released her vagina. As it widened and opened the penis instantaneously dived into the depths of the vagina, pushing and probing upward, almost grateful with delight.

As you choose a particular Love Key to play with, keep spreading the awareness through the
whole
body. For example, if you choose to focus on your positive pole, don't become over-focused on the area. Don't let it obscure everything else so that it becomes a concentration or a fixation and thus a tension, instead of a melting relaxation into your body. If you find yourself thinking about it too much then relax the brain, imagine it fanning open and spreading wide. Sweep the body with your awareness, from head to toe and back again, connecting the parts with the whole. This spreads and expands the sexual energy, bringing the body into one organic unity.