16 Apr 2007
As anyone who has dabbled in tantra will know, a major problem with it is that it makes you extremely sexually aroused (aka horny) but you are not supposed to dissipate that energy but to use it to achieve higher states of conscious. It sounds implausible, if not positively masochistic. And indeed, the least one can say is that it is somewhat easier said than done…
I’m sure there’s material for a book in this, and I’m certainly not qualified to write it, but the great thing about Web 2.0 is how unqualified people can still write stuff anyway and it is easier to click away from their web page than get rid of them in a bar, so here come my thoughts on that subject.
The objective of “channeling” the energy is easy to misunderstand. There is a huge difference between channeling and repressing, but many of the things we think are channeling are in fact just less obvious ways of repressing. Many people think they “channel” their sexual energy into family, or work, or creative arts, but this is nonsense. The only things I believe we can channel our sexual energy into are sex itself and reproduction, fully sensual love and personal development towards enlightenment. Anything else is just a possible expression of that channeling.
What do I mean by “fully sensual love”? I just use this clumsy pleonasm to emphasize that we are not talking about the kind of “love” that is in fact a repression. Tantric love is a love without limits, a love of all creation and an ecstasy of living. This love is fearless, self-confident and compassionate, playful and committed. It embraces all the senses and delights in all that is delightful. It comes to identify with the ecstasy in the Other and make that a part of its own dance of life. All of the chakras participate in this dance.
In fact, this channeling of sexual energy into tantric love is not a “channeling” at all, it is not something under conscious control and it is not directing energy in one direction rather than another, it is just allowing it to spill over, it is a second level of ecstasy, a making love to the universe, and it doesn’t really “solve” the “problem” but it just moves it onto another level where it is, indeed, not any more a problem. This is a stage in the journey to enlightenment, it is the very meaning of personal spiritual development. Thus, the channeling of sexual energy into love is not distinct from its channeling towards Samadhi, that is, the “non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object” (Diener et al.).
To achieve this, we often work with breathing exercises. The breathing exercises allow our whole body and being to resonate with sexual energy instead of being blocked. When sexual energy can flow freely in the body, it can also flow out of the body and into the surrounding cosmos, and this is realized, tantric love, it is a quality of being which is immediately apparent to those who come into contact with us. These and other exercises serve to correct imbalances which we have stocked in our bodies as a result of defensive ways we have found to deal with the frustrations and disappointments of life, and which hinder our self-realization, self-confidence and life in the world.
Channeling sexual energy into sex itself may be more deliberative and is certainly fun and advantageous. Rather than “channeling”, this should better be called “release”. I think that this is the best way to deal with an accumulation of sexual energy provided, of course, that certain conditions are met, such as the consent of the partner and the appropriate precautions. It is good to flirt, seduce and copulate, to be man and woman, to rejoice in this cosmic game and to take pleasure in its afterglow. When we know tantric sex, we may reject this kind of game and take the whole thing so seriously, believing sex must be a “meditation” while having no idea what “meditation” is (a subject for another blog entry!). I think this is wrong, this type of sex is a release, let it be what it is supposed to be and enjoy it. It will not bring you to nirvana but it may help you to manage the process of getting there, because a build-up of blocked sexual energy is also dangerous and we should not underestimate this.
When no appropriate sexual partner can be found (but do not give up too easily!), self-love through masturbation is also fine. Make it self-love in the realest, deepest way you can imagine and achieve. In this way, release and growth will go together – and this also applies to conventional sex.
However, sex does not necessarily have this character of “release” at all. At some point, release is unnecessary and unneeded because energy can flow unhindered. I believe that the physical phenomenon of ejaculation may still occur, without loss or with substantially reduced loss of energy, when we make love in the tantric way.
When Uspenskij first achieves a higher state of wakefulness, his reaction is to ask Gurdjieff how to get rid of it, because it becomes unbearable to him. This is what we typically do in a small, everyday way in our sexual behavior and indeed in our approach to life. To get rid of it is not without meaning, it is not a sin. But gradually, we must allow the ecstasy to remain with us so that it can transform us, and, transforming us, transform the world. The ecstasy and the agony are in the tension between the world as it is and the world as we experience it habitually; by embracing ecstasy, we live more and more in the world as it is, and there we find Samadhi.
So tantra is a return to the source and an affirmation of life, lived authentically. It has no esoteric practices or secrets, however much we may hunger for the mystery and mystification that we desire in order to shield us from the world as it is. It has only a eclectic toolbox of techniques, which are something quite different. In fact, these techniques are not “tantra” at all, they are just therapies for the conditions that hinder us from approaching reality and living life to the full. And tantric sex is not a technique, it is just the front door to ecstatic union which many mystics have achieved, in many spiritual traditions, by roundabout means. The essential unity of all spiritual traditions is close to a self-evidence when you have inwardly grasped the tantric message.
In accordance with this, there is no esoteric method of “channeling” sexual energy, there are just techniques to help bring it to full expression. However, it is very easy to inadvertently repress what you are supposed to be consciously embracing. Many people, including practitioners of tantra, do not understand that this is what they are doing. They have then the form, but none of the content. Only when you understand that tantra is not technique, just as words are not meaning and sex is not love, are you on the path to transcendence and joy.