Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century (8 page)

Repeat often: I make no judgments, I make no comparisons, and I delete my need to understand
.

Drop Your Expectations

When we think we know what is going to happen or that we can make something happen, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Despite the cultural proclivity for multitasking, the mind can actually only focus on one thing at a time. You miss what
is
happening in the present moment if your mind is busy writing a script for how things
should
turn out.

Allow me to illustrate. My friend Chester was facilitating an erotic massage workshop. A group of two dozen or so erotic explorers had spent the weekend learning and practicing erotic massage, ecstasy breathing, and an amazing Taoist breath orgasm technique called the Clench and Hold. Over the course of the three-day workshop, everyone had been both giver and receiver in a ritual that combined all three techniques. One participant had had a particularly wonderful time receiving. She had finished each ritual with a Clench and Hold and had gone into intensely pleasurable orgasmic states, each one more amazing than the one before. Now the weekend was almost over; there was just one more chance to receive. As she got on the massage table, she prepared herself for the orgasm of her dreams, the blast-off of all blast-offs, her ticket to a private audience with the goddess: the ultimate cosmic orgasm.

The massage progressed nicely. She asked for what she wanted and received an enthusiastic erotic massage. She took big, full breaths and used every technique she had ever learned to move sexual energy. Then she finished up with a huge Clench and Hold and waited for her reward. And waited. Nothing happened. She waited some more, searching for her cosmic orgasm. Still nothing. Behind closed eyes she kept trying, but nothing happened. No big experience. Finally, thoroughly disappointed, she gave up. When she got off the table she reported to Chester what had happened. She had seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing. It was as though she didn’t even exist. Literally nothing happened.

“And that was bad?” asked Chester.

“No, not bad, exactly,” she replied. “After I gave up, it was actually peaceful. But it was so disappointing.”

“Let me understand,” said Chester. “You felt egoless, you experienced no-mind, and you found inner peace. That was disappointing? Good goddess, girl, what were you looking for?”

Remember: Life rarely turns out the way
we planned. Why should sex?
Release your expectations
.

Giving and Receiving

Think of a deeply satisfying sexual experience you have had—something that expanded your idea of how much pleasure you were capable of. Which moment in that experience do you remember as exceptional? That moment might have lasted just a few seconds, or much longer. Focus on that moment.

I’ll bet that this moment happened when you were doing nothing but receiving. You were not trying to give back to the person who was giving to you. You were not planning what you were going to do later to please your lover. You were totally and completely receiving every drop of pleasure you were being offered.

This is a good example of our inability to give our full attention to two things at once. You cannot focus on receiving if you are trying to give. Nor can you go totally into giving to your partner if you are trying to receive at the same time. In the totality of your receiving, you may give your partner a lot of pleasure. In the process of giving, you may get a lot of pleasure. But sex is a lot more satisfying when your
intention—
either to give or to receive—is clear.

Some readers might say, “But I thought the whole point of sex was to give and receive pleasure simultaneously.” Well, think about it. How successful has that been for you? I know for me, the messiest, least satisfying sexual situations have been when I was trying to give to my partner who was simultaneously trying to give to me. When I was trying really hard to give, I felt that I wasn’t a very good lover if I couldn’t get my partner to lie back and enjoy what I was offering. Then when I was trying really hard to receive, I felt guilty—guilty about taking too long to come, guilty about receiving more than I was giving—guilty about receiving too much pleasure.

After facilitating more Erotic Awakening workshops than I can easily count, I think I can safely and surely say that most people find it much easier to give than to receive. The popular belief used to be that women were especially prone to overgiving and underreceiving. While there is a lot of truth in that, I don’t think men are all that far behind. Most of us seem to carry some sort of automatic guilt alarm that goes off when we are receiving pleasure. The irony of this is that the vast majority of people love giving to a receptive, willing partner who’s truly enjoying her or himself. So in trying to give back while someone is trying to give to us, we are actually depriving our partner of the pleasure of being able to go totally into the experience of giving. Aren’t we silly?

In coming chapters, we’ll practice how to go totally into giving and then totally into receiving. Then we’ll practice giving and receiving alternately in shorter intervals. But before we practice, we need to grasp the concepts of
conscious
receiving and
conscious
giving.

Receiving is not a passive activity. Receiving is not lying back, tuning out, disassociating, and letting someone do whatever they want to you. Conscious receiving is about staying awake and completely present in the moment, asking for what you want, and giving your partner feedback along the way.

Asking for what you want is not a demand or an ultimatum. It’s a sincere request that your partner may honor or politely decline
.

Similarly, giving is not about forcing someone to accept things that you want to do, your way, without their enthusiastic consent or agreement. Giving is about asking your partner what she or he would like to receive, and then agreeing on what you are or are not willing to give. Giving is staying present and asking for feedback, such as “Would you like that a little harder?” or “Is that too ticklish for you?”

When you’re receiving, go totally into receiving. Receive it all
.
When you’re giving, go totally into giving. Give everything
.

In Tantra, we often speak of surrender. Surrender, even to the Divine, is something our culture does not encourage. Surrendering to the Divine means crossing over from our well-defined roles and worlds into the realm of the gods, where everything is possible and nothing is explained. Scary stuff for many of us. The word
surrender
has been commandeered by the military and the government; it conjures up images of defeat rather than release. In Tantra, surrender doesn’t mean voluntarily submitting to unpleasant experiences. Surrender is not at all the same as “grin and bear it.” Surrender is a conscious choice.

Some people find it much easier to surrender when that surrender is explicit, such as in S/M and bondage. Other people find that kind of explicit surrender brings up all their control issues. Everyone’s path to surrender is different. Do not judge yourself for your preferences. You don’t have to do things that feel wrong in order to “grow.” As you develop your particular Tantric path, you may feel drawn to try new things. Great. You may also decide you never want to try some other things. Also great. That’s conscious giving and receiving. That’s conscious sex.

There is no goal in Tantra. Although Tantric positions, exercises, and rituals may give you bigger, longer orgasms, more intimacy with your partner, and even enlightenment, none of these are goals. While there is no goal, there is a likely outcome of Tantric practice: the kind of freedom that exists only in the present moment. You need only be present in each moment and notice what is going on. That’s all.

We human beings have always been fascinated with our bodies and how they work. We have developed countless theories and systems to explain every observable process from birth to death. Some people believe that the chi that flows through our energy meridians is the essential life force. Others think that it’s the blood flowing through our veins or the neural transmitters that send instant messages along our nerves. Tantrikas believe that our life-force energy is the Kundalini spiraling up our chakras. In Tantra, we view the body in energetic as well as physical terms. The mind, body, and spirit are all connected and engaged in every aspect of our lives, including sex.

The Seven Chakras

In Sanskrit, the word
chakra
simply means wheel. Chakras are seen—by people who can see such things—as spinning spirals of energy in the etheric body (which is located outside the physical body, about six inches to the front and back), approximately in the same areas as the glands of our endocrine system. There are seven major chakras and forty-three less significant ones. Each has numerous specific properties, including color, sound, and vibrational speed. Additionally, each chakra is linked to a specific area of the body and the emotional issues contained there. We are going to look at the seven major chakras and their primary qualities.

The first three chakras—the lower chakra—are concerned mostly with the physical world. They vibrate at slow speeds and their associated sounds are low in pitch. The higher chakras—five through seven—are more connected to the nonphysical world. These chakras vibrate at faster speeds and their sounds vibrate at increasingly higher pitches. The fourth chakra is the bridge between the two worlds.

The chakra system is a simple, practical way to direct energy and awareness to specific areas of your body. If you want to be able to move erotic energy throughout
your body in order to experience a full-body orgasm, you’ll need to open up the energy pathways that will make that possible. Working with the qualities of each chakra will help you do that. The properties of the chakras are also useful diagnostic tools. When I was first experimenting with one particular ecstatic breath technique, I would get a terrible headache between my eyes every time I approached orgasm. This area of the body is the third eye or sixth chakra, the chakra of intuition. Knowing this, I realized I was overusing my mind and undervaluing my intuition, not only in sex but in other areas of my life. I also realized that the breath I was using was too powerful. I was trying to force open a chakra that needed a more gentle awakening. By approaching the chakra from both the physical and metaphysical angles, the headaches soon stopped, my intuition strengthened, and I was able to move energy up through my third eye.

THE FIRST CHAKRA

The first chakra is known in Sanskrit as Muladhara. (Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to ask you to learn Sanskrit, but if you decide to learn more about traditional Tantra and/or the chakras, you’ll find it really helpful to know the Sanskrit names.) It is located on the perineum between the anus and the genitals.

Color:
red

Sound:
low in pitch; C on the Western musical scale

Physical focal points:
base of the spine, legs, feet, rectum, and immune system

Metaphysical aspects:
grounding and survival

The first chakra is concerned with security and survival—the basic elements of life. On a personal level, the first chakra reflects issues of home, survival, and safety. On the community level, it is the “tribal” chakra, concerned with issues of family, school, job, religion, nationality, politics, and patriotism. The first chakra is also concerned with money issues, insofar as money is connected to our survival, our safety, and our tribe(s).

The first chakra grounds us like the roots of a tree: the stronger and deeper its roots, the more blossoms above. It also functions as our internal seismograph, and through it we can pick up global stresses such as revolutions, environmental disorders, terrorist attacks, and plane crashes.