Sacred love versus pure sex

 

 

What is Tantra?

Tantra is not about sex alone. It’s about exploring sexuality that encompasses sexual joy, emotional love and spiritual pursuit in a way that can amplify and enhance one’s love as a man and woman. Tantra helps one touch a ‘blissful experience’ that can be achieved by high sexual energy and orgasm. Tantra helps one attain spirituality through sexual practices. We speak about love, men’s issues, women’s issues, about love making, ejaculation control, how to satisfy your partner etc. There have been cases where husbands complain that after having a child, the wife doesn't want sex anymore. With Tantra, one can help out with maintaining libido. Or if the wife says that although she loves her husband she’s lost interest in him, Tantra helps in regaining that love.

On Tantra being taboo…

Tantra is often taboo because people don’t understand it. People usually project their thoughts and fantasies in Tantra and think that’s what it is. And that is why they tend to misunderstand it. Tantra in its purest sense is sexuality and love, and exploring it emotionally, physically and spiritually. It’s about being at your highest, purest and most authentic self. People usually fail to understand the ritual or practice of love making as it was in the ancient Hindu culture. So what people understand, very wrongly, is that it’s an orgy or wife swapping. Tantra, in fact, helps one in working on one’s relationship.

The initial reactions to Tantra

When I first introduced Tantra to people 20 years ago, they would not even understand why I wanted to talk about sexuality and spirituality in the same breath? People would think that sexuality just belongs to your physical body and spirituality belongs to the soul. Now things have changed a lot. People realise the benefits of tantric principles to help in their relationship and to bring closeness, emotionally. It helps discover more sensual pleasures with one’s partner. Tantric view of swinging

I didn’t want to explore Tantra in the swinging style. I wanted to explore love through Tantra. I would urge people to explore themselves and their relationship further’. With swinging or partner swapping, there is eventually unhappiness, fear of break up and divorce. There are not many people I know who go to swinging clubs, and who could maintain their marriage for more than five years! I haven’t seen people stay together who are into swinging because eventually, people want a stable relationship. When people go to swinging parties, I think it’s more to do with making a statement that I’m going to let go of my fears and explore sexuality; I’m going to let go of my cultural pre-disposition or what my mom and dad have taught me. And it’s alright to go and explore these things, but relationships can’t last with swinging. It’s for people who want to explore such a thing and want to experiment. It’s not for those who want a partner for a journey through life. Swinging is similar to group sex. Tantra, on the other hand, is about exploring sex with your own partner. Well, that doesn’t mean that one can’t have thoughts about someone else. But Tantra helps one realise those thoughts as your own desire and then channelise it to use that sexual energy with your own partner. You don’t have to be in a room of 50 people making out in that same room to use that sexual energy. Tantra does not encourage making love to anyone else but exploring love with your own partner. It’s about enhancing your sexual feelings and reaching a spiritual level. So if it’s emotional satisfaction that one needs then Tantra is the way.