What is Sacred Sexuality, and how is it experienced?
Sacred Sexuality is the term given to sex that is extraordinary and distinguished by its spiritual effect which feels sacred and divine, and transcendent. Sacred Sexuality fulfills spiritual longing for communion with the divine by channeling the divine’s presence into and between partners. Achieving it is a different process than what is done in typical sexual intercourse—which also activates and works with different aspects of awareness and produces a higher consciousness of sexual interaction.
There is a different approach to sex that is more about ‘experiencing’ than ‘doing’—and less about sexual expectations. Sex becomes about establishing a shared presence and resonance of harmonized energy. While Sacred Sexuality is highly pleasurable and personally very fulfilling—sexual pleasure and personal fulfillment are not its only motivation. Sacred Sexuality is as much about spiritual worship, or a spiritual practice, “making sex a prayer” or a meditation as it is about sensual pleasure and orgasmic bliss.
© Art by Richard Stodart
For a long time I had no idea what was wrong or why I wasn’t feeling fulfilled by sex. I wondered if there was more to expressing love and intimacy through sex than what I had experienced during my marriage. In the year 2000 I began studying and practicing western styled “neo-Tantra,” aka sacred sexuality—learning from teachers like: David Deida, Bodhi Avinasha, Jwala, Margot Anand, Kalashatra Govinda, Ma Ananda Sarita and Swami Anand Geho, and most profoundly Daniel Odier. Many of these teachers were students of or influenced by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho; 1931 – 1990) —who I also hold as guide and teacher.
Very early in my Tantric education I was influenced by an obscure transcription by Paul Reps in the book “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” entitled: Centering. This turned out to be a poetic version of the Vijnanabhairava Tantra—an ancient book of spiritual sayings, or “sutras,” considered to be one of the foundation texts of Tantra and pertaining to achieving enlightenment through sacred sexuality. Two key sutras from this work have inspired and directed my Tantric exploration:
“While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caressing as everlasting life.”
“At the start of sexual union, keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and, so continuing avoid the embers in the end.”
These two sutras contain great Tantric secrets that provide adepts transcendent experiences of nirvana, divine attunement and unity consciousness. The Transcendental Tantra™ I teach includes a thorough understanding of these two sutras and how to realize their ecstatic and transcendental gifts.
The Sanskrit word Tantra means “web” or “to weave” and is explained as “that which expands understanding.” Tantrism can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices intended to stretch the human mind, to guide its adherents to higher knowledge, or gnosis. Tantrism celebrates the divinity in and of every being and thing. Its goal is personal liberation, which is understood as the transcendence of the ego-personality, of the ordinary consciousness. —Georg Feuerstein, “Sacred Sexuality: the Erotic Spirit in the World’s Great Religions”
Transcendence
It is clear to me, that admonishments like the above and Osho’s:
“Tantra is not for Sex, Tantra is to transcend”
(Tantra, Spirituality & Sex) —point to the higher purpose of sacred sexuality, or “Tantra”—which is transcendence!
This transcendence is from ordinary mundane awareness to divine, or soul, awareness experienced as equanimity, deep peace, ecstatic bliss, “at-onement” and nirvana. This transcendence is a process that includes: clearing any blocks to experiencing one’s divinity and embodiment of sexual energy, nurturing inner masculine & feminine integration and harmony, along with harmonizing and attuning with one’s beloved and going beyond personal identification into a transpersonal, or supra-personal state of melded consciousness associated with “the mystical body of the divine.”
Much of what is being taught as “Tantra” is just another avenue for the Ego-personality to be fed what it wants: pleasure, power, and gratification, from a “me” point of view. When the Ego is incrementally transcended it allows the Tantra adept to access the transpersonal realm beyond “me” —where individual experience is melded with “the other,” and beyond that state with “Spirit,” over-arching supra-consciousness that is in everything and part of everyone (experiencing unity consciousness, or nirvana). I can guide you through a process in how to do this in my Transcendental Tantra™ workshop and private lessons.
In Tantra, sexual energy is used to propel an experience of transcendent consciousness by harmonizing and attuning oneself with one’s beloved and modulating sexual energy. Accomplishing this, the Tantra adept experiences awareness gradually shifting and expanding to become less self identified and more transpersonal, archetypal—producing a “higher,” divine perspective and experiencing a synthesis of the multiple levels of being: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
The Roots of Sacred Sexuality
As I studied and practiced sacred sexuality, I was fascinated with the ancient cultures that birthed and supported “Tantra,” and spiritual-sexual integration as a natural part of their social practices and mores. Often, religious ceremony and ritual included sexual elements and ritual sex acts.
© Art by Richard Stodart
My exploration of Tantra extended to including cultural anthropological, historical, and archeological viewpoints through written works by: Alain Danielou, Wolf-Dieter Storl, Andre Van Lysebeth, Georg Feuerstein, and Julius Evola. Further understanding came from research works such as Asia Shepsut’s “Journey of the Priestess: the Priestess Traditions of the Ancient World” and Sharron Rose’s “The Path of the Priestess: a Guidebook for Awakening the Divine Feminine” as well as Nancy Qualls-Corbett’s stellar book “The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine” —all reveal clues for understanding the ancient cultures that practiced a spiritual devotion that integrated spirituality and sexuality.
Understanding these ancient cultures to a greater degree has enabled me to accept and accomplish a synthesis of my spiritual-sexual self and see how I can help others to do so as well. To learn Tantra, there are esoteric principles that are hard to prove materially that one has to open up to in order to reap their benefits. It’s hard for the logical mind to accept the esoteric explanations for understanding personal and universal energies. The adept is able to grasp and integrate the esoteric to make the exoteric (material) embodied reality possible.
At every step on my Tantric path I have followed the same integration practice of this esoteric-science: take what I’ve learned into my own experience and see what works and what I feel; use what does work in continued practice, to create a deeper, embodied understanding and ability. This practical, experiential learning method has grounded the esoteric ideals of sacred sexuality into an embodied experience for me and this is the place I teach from: knowing within my body what sacred sexuality feels like to me and describing it so that others can also have this embodied feeling in their experience.
I teach Transcendental Tantra™ to people interested in reaching this remarkable state of being and experiencing its profound benefits.
Transcendental Tantra™
I offer group work; as well as private lessons on Transcendental Tantra™ —which is my synthesis of western styled neo-Tantra, traditional Indian Tantric, Taoist, esoteric and Gnostic principles and practices that are centered in divine presence, spiritual recognition and integration and serves as a path of spiritual awakening, evolution and transcendence.
For those who seek sacred sexual expression in their relationship and desire sacred sexuality as a spiritual path, Transcendental Tantra™ invites you into deep communion with the divine, expressed through sacred sex principles and practices.
Transcendental Tantra™ is about honoring the “Divine” in the other, and experiencing the Divine within oneself —and then communing as divines in the ultimate integration of sacred sexual union. Transcendental Tantra™ awakens one to the spiritual path of sacred sexuality and infuses life with deeply sacred awareness and presence which transforms all relationships to a higher expression of equanimity and harmony.
Tantric Ritual, Ceremony & Journeys
In Tantra the sex act is a sacred ritual (Maithuna) or ceremony (puja) and is intended to transform the participants. It is expected to generate pleasure and transcendental bliss—not being limited to ego-personality gratification. The sexual acts performed are by the divine polar aspects (male: Shiva, and female: Devi, or Shakti) and not as the ego-persona selves. Tantric adepts, practicing Transcendental Tantra™, pass through layers of awareness that gradually produces a sense of all-connectedness, unity consciousness, and a state of nirvana.
The principle exchange between partners in Tantric ritual is sexual energy—the experiencing of which creates higher states of consciousness leading to the ultimate union of god and goddess within the self and between partners. The Tantrika (Tantric practitioner) therefore, uses sex in sacred ritual and ceremony to fuel a kind of internal alchemy, fusing spiritual energy with the physical being through sex—and in the process unite various apparently-disparate elements of self to obtain a state of divine union.
For couples, I’ve created 3 Tantric Sex Sādhanā for Lovers sacred sex rituals to enhance your Tantra practice together.
If you would like to learn more about Sacred Sex or Transcendental Tantra contact me for a free 15 minute consultation.
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2 Comments
Tantric Sex, Enter the Caressing as Everlasting Life · March 8, 2024 at 11:07 pm
[…] Tantric sex is a vehicle that empowers a journey of consciousness expansion. The Tantric sutra cited above reveals how consciousness is enhanced and transformed as it experiences the journey. […]
9 things you should know about Tantra—the path of ecstasy · March 8, 2024 at 9:57 pm
[…] name for Tantric sex is “sacred sex” which teaches adherents how to enter into higher states of consciousness and become attuned […]