Tantra is well known for openly embracing eroticism, but there are many misconceptions around what Tantric lovemaking actually is. In this article we’ll present a Tantric perspective on love making that will help you understand the major difference between the usual way we engage intimately and the Tantric way.
Normally most people use love making to experience pleasure and satisfaction. The aim is to experience that delicious yet fleeting moment of bliss – the orgasm – and most of our attention is directed towards reaching that goal. But when it comes to Tantra, things are very different. The only reason a Tantric engages in intimacy is in order to experience profound states of consciousness which unfold in the dimension of the spirit. Pleasure is never the aim for the Tantric, but just a tool. Thus, the love making follows precise stages that aim to make the most of the spiritual possibilities that intimacy offers us. When precisely applied, this Tantric method can give you and your beloved deep ecstatic pleasure, extraordinary joy, but more than this it enriches the profound connection that you have with each other and it may even launch you into a profound spiritual adventure.
Tantra considers love as an integral aspect of the spiritual path. Like the practice of Yoga and meditation or the study of the sacred scriptures, love-making is also a bridge to the Sublime. However, here the object of meditation is not breathing through the nose or some secret mantra, but your beloved. In the same way that the meditator strives to devote all their attention to the mantra and to let go of all other thoughts, in the couple you strive to refer your entire being to Love and to your beloved until all other thoughts are gone. Then the act of love can become an absolute gateway to the Divine.
Creating a proper atmosphere
The first step before the act of love-making is to create the atmosphere. The room must be aesthetically clean, it can be purified with incense, decorated with flowers, delicate sheets, beautiful pillows and soft lightning. It is recommended to use natural lights such as candles or sunlight. An instrumental music playing on the background, without words but expressing gentleness, caress and dynamism, allows us to relax and to be absorbed into the space beyond thoughts.
Creating a warm, embracing and beneficial atmosphere is of great importance, so please don’t dismiss this part.
Dedicated to love
Preparing the internal environment is even more important. Tantra strongly recommends that you don’t see your partner for a couple hours before love-making. This will create the same fine magic and heart excitement as during the first dates you had with your beloved.
Physical purity is very important, so always take a shower just before. Men are highly recommended to finish off with cold water, as the cold water stream greatly improves the flow of energy. It even helps them to keep their erotic continence better. Anyone who practices Yoga, Tai Chi or any other energetic work can do some practice before love-making.
1. Consecration – offering it all to the Divine
For a tantric, the first step in the actual love making is the act of consecration, a step that marks the beginning of the intimate, sacred union with the beloved. While offering the act of making love to the Divine, sit facing each other, holding hands, closing your eyes and sincerely devoting your love to the Supreme spiritual power, with pure faith. If you do not believe in such power, you can direct the dedication to Love itself. In this way, you combine your personal love with the boundless Universal Love which is the source of all experiences of love. This is a way to get support from the universe.
2. Transfiguration – seeing the sublime in each other
The second stage in Tantric love-making is the action of transfiguration. At this point, open your eyes and look at your beloved. Direct your soul to admire and exalt your beloved. Look at his/her beauty and virtues as a poet thrilled by the splendour in front of him. You fall in love in this moment as if your love has triumphed, as if it is the first time you realise your love. Therefore, ignore any shortcomings and weaknesses of your partner or yourself and focus on the ever growing love. This phase of looking at each other should take a minimum of several minutes, but it could take much longer. The transfiguration and mutual admiration continues throughout the love-making and of course throughout the relationship.
3. Foreplay – minimum half an hour
The third step of tantric love-making is the famous but often ignored foreplay. It is now that you begin to caress each other. Tantra emphasizes on the importance of the foreplay: it must be long, a minimum of half an hour, preferably an hour or more. The mood during the foreplay should be very calm and without any haste. Be creative, full of passion and playfulness. The woman must feel that she is all stimulated and longing for her body to merge with that of her beloved and the whole existence. Only after this stage you can move on to the fourth stage which is the love-making itself.
4. The erotic play – maintaining energy within
The fourth step, the woman invites the man into her. He must enter in the same way as a pilgrim enters the temple: with respect and dedication. He must strip his selfishness at the doorstep and come naked in soul so that he can become a channel of masculine love flowing through her. He must retain his semen without compromise, which will of course contribute to the extension of love-making. The woman must give herself completely to her beloved with utter confidence. Only complete trust will allow her to relax and allow her erotic pleasure to grow, expand and deepen. First she will experience more superficial orgasms, but later more intense and deeper orgasms will arise.
Deep orgasms can only be experienced during extremely long love-making sessions. The woman must maintain her inner energy by not discharging it during orgasms. Indeed, a woman can lose her energy during an orgasm – it’s not so much a physical loss, but more an energetic loss. This results in the feeling of tiredness and loss of appetite for continuing the erotic game. However, it’s a natural process for women to keep their strength, as their erotic energy spontaneously rises into the heart area.
In case you both have tantric skills and your bodies are strong and vital, you have the ability to make love for many hours. Switch from making love to meditation and back to make love again. In this way you’ll develop a deep connection that is beyond words, which also reaches deeply into the soul, a connection that will allow you to spiritually grow together.
5. Afterplay – end in a delicate, nourishing way
The fifth stage takes place after love-making. When the love-making is over, remain together for some time. You are now full of tremendous energy contained in your serenity and love. You remain embraced for a while, caressing with affection. At this stage, you feel at home, as if after a long journey.
A good question to ask is when does the love-making end, since the man does not ejaculate? Well, the moment to end love-making can be compared to the moment when you stop eating a very delicious food. Suppose that you have a divine and infinite pudding bowl in front of you. There is a point when you will feel a pleasant saturation that makes you stop eating, no matter how divine and heavenly it tastes. It will be all in the heart at that moment.
The love-making can end after the woman has experienced one or more internal orgasms and the man has also reached beautiful states, maybe with one or multiple orgasms without ejaculation.
6. Polarity – you shouldn’t sleep together
After love-making, the tantric couple goes their own way. Here begins the sixth phase of the tantric love-making game called polarization, or the polar phase. You should be far away from each other in the first few hours after the tantric love-making. You must maintain this space, go several miles apart, in order to allow your accumulated energy to grow. The man has accumulated a tremendous amount of masculine energy and to make it an integral part of his being, he must be alone or with other men during those hours. Otherwise the process of crystallization will not take place in full strength.
In the same way, the woman allows for the feminine energy to crystallize under the same conditions. This process significantly increases the profound attraction towards each other and the passionate love between the two of you is not only maintained but even increased. In this context, Tantra also recommends not to sleep together after love-making, even avoid sleeping together at all with your beloved, as the distance and longing may serve as a source of strengthened attraction.
7. Sublimation – direct the energies higher
The seventh and final phase of tantric love-making is the key of the spiritual relationship. This phase is called sublimation. It’s the transformation phase in which Tantric magic appears in full glory. Tantra and Yoga offer precise methods to convert the sexual fluids and sexual energy into immense spiritual energy. If there is no sublimation of the sexual energy, the love-making is like any other love-making, which has no “spiritual gain”. For example, the very famous shoulder stand pose will rise the sexual energy towards the higher chakras (energy centers).
A second technique which is a little less known but much more effective is the abdominal suction called Uddiyana Bandha. We will not describe it here but any qualified Yoga teacher can teach it. Practicing these techniques can only be done under the supervision of a qualified teacher. There are a number of other techniques that are designed to create this sublimation effect of the erotic potential. Practicing these methods if of enormous importance, because in this way the tantric couple has the ability to successfully walk this steep and slippery path without any danger.
Tantra recommends to do sublimation and dynamic exercises for minimum half an hour even up to two hours after love-making. When the energy has accumulated in the high centers, it is highly recommended to meditate (even if only for a few minutes) to stabilize the energy at these high levels.
By Uriel