Hello. . . on this Full Moon Saturday, early evening. . . I have a few questions for you and some simple ways you can begin to explore your own inner landscape through unconscious stream of thought style writing. . . I hope you join me in this exploration. . .
Dakini: What is holding you in a spiderweb of negative thinking? Scrawl down the internal dialogue that comes up for you when you find yourself thinking about sex, or fantasizing, or thinking about your body, or other peoples’ sexuality. Writing the unconscious stream of thoughts that come to you may help reveal some of the ways you view your own sexuality and thus hold yourself back from experiencing Tantric ecstasy.
- Some thoughts I have drawn directly from a book entitled, Ecstasy Through Tantra, by Dr. J Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati), 1995: “To experience Tantric ecstasy, your psyche or mind must be freed of negative attitudes toward sex; you will be best served if you have identified your negative or shame -filled thought patterns in relation to sex and your body. This kind of introspective awareness can be achieved through truly seeking a path of self exploration and understanding, both on your own and with a guide or healer. Several aspects of self must be excavated, explored and woven from essential threads of soul, rather than socialized thoughts or ideas, when discussing and reforming the psychic aspects of your sexuality. Your sexual experience is truly dependent on the integration of your nervous system. For example, if you consider the achievement of orgasm as parallel to firing a rocket to hit the moon (i.e. climax) then it will be a fact that so long as your neural pathways in your nervous system are concerned the method by which your rocket is launched is not the main focus. What I mean is, you can have your modality be masturbation, or any kind of twin or multiple sex partner formations you please. Theoretically, the end result (orgasm) is the utmost importance in this paradigm, and any form of sexual behavior is but a means to an end: the cessation of fluctuation of mind, producing a timeless transcendence. . . “
Dakini: When it comes to practice of course we may find our ability to achieve orgasm limited by attitude, the intervening variable between genital and brain. Only attitude, a product of social conditioning, prevents many from exploring their inherent sexually fluid nature or fully reaping the psychic benefits of autoeroticism and partner-sexual bonding. Ask yourself, what is a sexually fluid nature? How do I experience that in myself? When I do experience my natural sensual fluidity how do I respond to myself? Am I open to having all my thoughts and feelings, knowing that I can consciously choose my actions or non actions? Do I tell myself not have such fluid thoughts and make myself remain rigid in a belief pattern I have learned is the right or moral way to be? What do I think sexual or sensual energy is and why is it fluid? What does allowing myself to feel my natural fluidity and accept myself, do for me and my ability to transcend or feel free as a human being in this world, with limitless expansion?
- Some thoughts from Swami Saraswati: “Of course in modern society, we intellectually know that most sexual prejudices are irrational. but we may continue to react emotionally to some possibilities of sexual variation. Psychology is beginning to admit that the old concept of sexual deviation or abnormality is simply not truth or tenable. If you look back to ancient China or India you will see that the idea that some forms of sexual behavior viewed as abnormal is virtually nonexistent. (The idea of “sexual crime” is limited strictly to those cases that interfere with the free will (we are hearing a lot about this in the media to date and is another subject).”
Dakini: What are the varying kinds of Sexual Experiences you have had? Would you consider some having more of a playful component, some more for the hopes or successes of procreation, some more for transcendence of the mind through masturbation or bonding? Some simply for relaxation or even a desire to escape or calm down? Some to explore a fantasy on your own or with partner? Some to express emotion? What else comes to mind for you as you write about the varying kinds of sexual experiences or uses for sex you have explored in your life thus far?
- Some thoughts: “Just as one can talk about physics and metaphysics, so one can talk about sex or “metasex.” The neologism “metasex” implies that sexual activity in a human being is multidimensional. I like to look at sex from a number of different levels. For example, we have “procreational sex,” sex that procreates species and we exist by virtue of this dimension. It has been said that the bonding of sperm and egg is the first great Yogic Union, and the most marvelous of all Yogas because no one knows what potential genius will arise from that linking. Beyond our procreational mode, we enter realms of what some call “recreational sex” –– sex for play, relaxation, and the combatting of boredom.
- “Tranquilizing sex” is yet another dimension. Sexual activity in human beings can and should be used as a natural tranquilizer, as through this kind of transcendence we experience mad rushes of inexhaustible dopamine, oxytocines, serotonins, something like a major pharmaceutical drug with few side effects. You may have tried masturbation to cure insomnia; freeing your mind and body of complex tension ,and thus permitting sleep. Yet, unfortunately many of us have been conditioned with various sorts of guilt- conditioning that can interfere with our ability to utilize sex as the most natural of tranquilizing and curative agents.
- Many people because of tension and negative conditioning will only permit themselves a sexual experience when absolutely everything else is correct in both external and internal environments. In other words, everything has to be right: no headaches, no stomach aches, no cramps, no emotional turmoil, and then maybe they will relax into a special room and have something they call “sex.” The problem is that very seldom on any given day is everything “perfect.” ” Swami Saraswati
“One Tantric approach to sexuality is that you don’t wait for the right circumstance to have some some sort of internal erotic experience–– rather you go ahead and create a sexual experience to readjust the psychic equilibrium of the nervous system everything to be right and thus feel aligned, balanced as you move forward with life. . . ” xo Dakini
- Dr. J. Mumford (Swami Saraswati): “Tantric sexuality is the dimension of sex employed for consciousness expansion. One possible translation of the Sanskrit prefix tan is “expand,” while tan means “liberate” ; so Tantra becomes that which first “expands” and then “liberates” the mind. A colloquial translation of Tantra would be “mind-blowing.”
- In terms of profound sexual experience, this consciousness expansion is produced by the far-reaching effects that tactical of touch receptors exert upon brain states and personality. We even describe personality idiosyncrasies using such tactile synonyms as “touchy,” “prickly,” “smooth,” “rough,” and, “silky,” or “soft.” The importance of adequate tactile stimulation in character development is driven home by our reference to a person who is consistently thoughtless, insensitive to the feelings of others, and verbally callous as “tact-less.” Saraswati
- Swami Saraswati: “Standard psychophysiological estimates of daily sensory input tot the brain reveal the following percentage: 75 percent information from sight; 13 percent information from hearing; ; 6 percent information from smell and taste; 6 percent via touch. Although only 6 percent of our total environmental information comes to us through tactile nerve endings, it has been recognized for thousands of years in Asia that it is not quantity but quality that is important. The most exquisite sensory sensation that a human is capable of having comes through the tactile receptors that give rise to orgasm. The climax is the ultimate tactile sensation, the tactile sensation that ideally eradicates tension, blows the mind, induces consciousness expansion and leaves and aftermath of lucidity.”
- “The path to psychosexual power begins not only with recognizing and overcoming restrictive sexual prejudices, but also with cultivating intense gonadal awareness through conscious breath and sometime tightening or pushing away from your pelvic floor with intentional energized breath. This is sometimes accomplished through selective contraction and relaxation of the anal and urethral sphincters.”
- “Tantric practice, exercise and philosophy have been traditional for thousands of years in Tantra Yoga and throughout the Middle East, while many Western physicians have “rediscovered” or “uncovered” them. The encounter movement in psychology still has much to rediscover or uncover from Tantra in regard to touch therapy.” Saraswati
Dakini: I invite you now to write. . . about how you use your sense and what senses create the deepest and richest experience for you throughout the day. Think about what quality over quantity means in terms of your sensory experience. Do you find yourself repeatedly returning to touch or tactile means to try to get a feeling of aliveness but not experiencing depth of quality, and so needing to repeat, repeat, repeat rather than adjust your ability to give and receive? Do you find yourself always using vision to gather information for the mind or are you also able to use your sense of sight to take in sensory feelings or even texture? What else comes to mind for you as an individual when you write about touch as a form of enlivening therapy? In what ways do you experience shame or negative thoughts around giving or receiving touch? How can you use touch (on yourself or with others) throughout the day to stimulate your energy in subtle ways?
. . . May the Full Moon this weekend bring you much deeper sense of wisdom, knowledge, calm, openness and energy. . .
“Howl,” she says. . . “howl. . . ” xo Dakini
“Where there is ecstasy there is Creation; Where there is no ecstasy there is no Creation. In the Infinite there is Ecstasy; There is no ecstasy in the finite.” Chandogya Upanishad
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