What Is Tantra?

The word, Tantra, refers to a vast domain of teachings, but in a nutshell it pertains to a rapid method for liberation and expansion which leads to freedom, opening us up to all possibilities, much the way Neo was liberated from the Matrix and gained astonishing abilities in the process. This process involves focusing on very physical aspects such as expanding our breath, thoughts, feelings and sexual energies. This focus causes liberation of body, mind and spirit. Thus the key to expansion of consciousness lay not in the intellect, but in the body’s physical interface with the universe: its senses. Achieving such expansion is the ULTIMATE high. If one starts watching the flow of one’s breath (20,000 breaths per day) and the thoughts one is thinking, (50,000 thoughts a day) miracles will unfold in meaningful ways thenceforth throughout one’s life.

Tantra is the key to total fulfillment and the Essence of life. It regards the sexual energy as a bridge to spiritual wisdom, leading to a greater love of oneself and others, intimacy, healing and expanded creativity. Tantra includes yogic aspects, and all yogas teach that relaxation is a science in itself. Yoga simply states that when one learns to relax the physical body, one gains immense power and mastery over one’s mental states.

Tantra is an art as well as a science. It teaches one to awaken and expand one’s sexual energies. This allows more pleasure, sexual healing and evolved states of higher consciousness.

“Holding Your Chi”

In ancient times, this energy was revered as a divine, creative force. It was a way of communicating great love, honor and ecstasy between masculine and feminine. While Western culture regards sexual energy as an ending, eastern culture uses it as a beginning! Understanding how to separate orgasm from ejaculation is the start of mastering, and thus fully experiencing this potent life force. In fact, when a man relaxes enough to be open to this, he raises his consciousness along with his energetic frequency by not ejaculating regularly. This is also called, “Holding your Chi.“

In this context, one’s chi is equated with one’s male essence or Yang energy. A man is most sexually empowered when this is practiced willfully and consciously. The goal is not to stop ejaculation, but also not to chase it either! Instead, the objective is to make ejaculation a conscious choice. It may appear natural and perfectly normal for most men to keep this ongoing habitual sequence of arousal, tension and ending with ejaculation their entire life. However the Tantric point of view is quite the opposite since the western way sadly robs a man of his potency and vitality, leaving him mostly drained by the time he matures into middle age and beyond.

Please understand that neither Tantra nor Taoism is about depriving oneself or holding back any pleasurable sensations. Rather, it is truly about expanding, harnessing, and channeling these sensations in the body to a higher-level while being fully present to the unraveling. All Pleasure can be profoundly Healing and Ecstatic when it is brought under fully conscious control by one who is living fully present in the moment. This association of healing with pleasure stands in contrast to our Western conditioning and programming which, since childhood, has taught us just the opposite – that healing, progress, and growth are things associated with pain, both emotionally and physically. Remember the mantra: “No Pain, No Gain?”

An Experiment: Connecting To Your Heart

Contemporary Western culture, sadly, has lost touch with this vital Sacred Healing energy. Consequently, we have desensitized ourselves, disconnected from our heart, and from the cultivation of feelings and pleasure toward spiritual ends. Divorced in this way from our somatic experience, we live fully in our minds. Instead of feeling present in our bodies and living our lives in the now, we are thinking thoughts in our head about the past or future moments.

Try this simple experiment: Stop reading at the end of this paragraph. When you do, take a deep breath through your nose from your belly. Hold it for 4 seconds as you squeeze your sphincter muscles. Then relax your sphincter as you exhale through your mouth, allowing the breath to rise powerfully up your central channel (closely associated with your spine), and focus on feeling the reality of this aspect of your subtle anatomy.

When awareness is anchored in the heart, one is firmly rooted to Mother Gaia. Through Tantra you are operating from your True Self – one which transcends the present lifetime – and out of which a completely new reality can spring forth. Sadly, modern culture has taught men to feel solely through their genitalia, to think solely from their heads, and thus bypassing the heart. Tantra teaches one to reconnect one’s sexuality to one’s heart, thus awakening one’s purely innocent wild, passionate self.

Tantric Power and Sovereignty

Science acknowledges that there is enough energy in a person’s body to run a large city for a year if one knows how to harness it. Mantak Chia, Taoist author of “The Multi Orgasmic Man” notes, “in a very real sense, every man can create a stockpile of sexual energy in his lifetime literally more potent than the atom bomb.”

Tantra uses the physical body as the vehicle to bring one’s attention and focus to the present moment, and in this way to expand consciousness by being fully present in the now. On this path, one must necessarily explore the nexus of one’s sexual, emotional, and spiritual aspects. In so doing, one gains the mastery which makes one free to choose to feel or not feel, and to what degree.

When one chooses to resist one’s feelings, say, for example, to avoid the experience of pain, one becomes guarded and shuts down in the heart and body, and thus comes to live in the intellect. However, if one has the courage to choose to feel, the heart opens, and enables one also to feel love, joy, and ecstasy. This is the pathway by which one may get in touch with one’s true sensuality because the heart and body are the sensory organs for feeling. When one lives in the physical body and is present in the heart (now) one unlocks the doors to all levels of healing: emotionally, sexually, and physically.

One who is sovereign is not subject to the dominion of another. When you achieve this level of healing you become sovereign. This is just one of many Ancient Keys to unlock your true self and your untapped divinity. These become precious treasures you can share with your Beloved!

I remain truthfully Dr. Dagny, your Sexy Sage, Activist for the sovereignty of your primal nature as the “Wisdom Warriess.”