Val Sampson - Tantra: The Art of Mind-Blowing Sex

Val Sampson is a freelance journalist who has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, Times, You Magazine, She and Womans Weekly.

This book is dedicated to my husband Colin, with my heartfelt gratitude for his enduring love and support, and to my son, Oliver, whose presence fills me with hope, comfort and joy.

I would like to thank all the friends and Tantra teachers who have given me invaluable help with this book, especially Dagmar Charlton; Leora Lightwoman; Karen Goodwin; Gweneth Roberts; Dominic Fielder; Peter Barker; Ros Barker; John Hawken and David Secombe.

This book began life as an idea for a short article. As a journalist, Ive covered everything from complementary medicine to celebrity interviews, but when I suggested a piece on Tantra to a national newspaper, I had no idea of what really lay ahead. I thought it sounded like a sexy, fun subject that would spice up dinner-party conversations and impress my friends, so to be honest, it was rather a shallow impulse that sparked my interest. But the more I read about Tantra the more fascinated I became. I ended up spending a year researching the subject and interviewing dozens of people. It would turn out to be one of the most interesting projects of my career, and one that would have a profound effect on me.

Tantra is a 5000-year-old spiritual tradition, but its relevance to 21st century society is astonishing. It offers an approach that enables women to feel sexually confident and good about themselves, and gives men an opportunity to become multi-orgasmic and to satisfy their lovers in the most intimate, soulful ways. It gives new lovers a unique way of getting to know each other on a deep and connected level, and also enables couples who have been together for years to find the passion they may have thought theyd lost.

It was watching a couple regain this level of intimacy on the first Tantra workshop I ever attended that made me want to write this book. I had turned up at a venue in north London one Friday night, intending to observe the workshop, safely hidden behind my notebook. My attitude was that everyone was probably slightly sex-mad, but the experience would be harmless and a bit of a laugh. I had practically made up my mind that if I thought Tantra was a waste of time I could write a light-hearted piece, poking gentle fun at it.

Then, on the first evening, one man sat in our circle and said that the only reason he was there was because his wife had dragged him along, and he hinted that hed only turn up the next day if he couldnt think of a good enough reason to get out of it. I felt some sympathy for him.

But by the Sunday afternoon, the end of the course, he had been transformed. After 28 years of marriage he turned to his wife with adoration in his eyes and declared how deeply he loved her. And I found that my mind had been changed, too. Anything that could restore that level of passion in a relationship that was 28 years old deserved serious consideration.

Afterwards I stayed in touch with the couple to see if the husbands emotions that day had simply been down to a burst of over-enthusiasm after a fun weekend. They had not. Both partners have continued their interest in Tantra and both believe it has put them in touch with levels of love and understanding they had never before experienced.

At first, I thought Tantra would be the kind of subject that I could simply interview other people about. But I soon realised that Tantra is a practical tool. You have to experience it in order for it to make real sense. So I have continued participating in workshops and made efforts to incorporate Tantric practices in my own life.

Tantra has revolutionised my ideas about sex and relationships. Not only does it offer a blueprint for great sex with another person, it gives each individual the chance to experience their own sexual energy and to use it creatively in every aspect of their life. It is a mind-blowing discovery.

Changing your attitude to sex takes time. It is not compulsory to drop everything that you have enjoyed or found fun before in fact, its vital that you dont. But you do have to be prepared to widen your horizons and accept that there is more to sex than the occasional mindless bonk that most people settle for at some stage in their lives. If you have an open mind, then this is the book for you.

Ask a roomful of couples with children, jobs and mortgages to raise their hands if their sex lives are blissful and youll probably get no raised hands, a few hoots of laughter and plenty of embarrassed shoulder-shrugging. After all, everyones love life gets submerged by stress at work, hassle at home and sheer exhaustion, doesnt it? Isnt sex meant to start out exciting and end up cosy, if you are one of the lucky few, or almost non-existent, if you are one of the majority?

It is received wisdom in the West that sexual relationships peak with the excitement of newness at the beginning and then dwindle downhill. But it doesnt have to be this way. There is a direct route to rekindling sexuality and bringing depth and richness to your relationship. It is a kind of sex education for grown-ups. Its called Tantra.

Tantra is a philosophy that offers an entirely natural way of achieving blissful experiences. It doesnt require any artificial stimulants. As a society we have lost touch with our natural abilities to transcend our routine existence, as can be seen from the widespread incidence of drug abuse. A report in The Times in March 2001, for example, describes the appeal of crack cocaine: [It gives] that giddying collapse into sensual ecstasy [for] thirty minutes of bliss before you are craving it again. Tantra offers a superior, longer, and entirely natural high.

The popular misconception is that Tantric sex is ordinary sex that goes on for hours and hours. The truth is, however, that it offers an entirely different approach. In the first place, it is not confined to the genitals; orgasms can be experienced throughout the whole body. And by learning some simple physical processes, you can powerfully enrich your emotional and spiritual life.

We all have a life-enhancing and cleansing energy stored in our bodies. Meditation, yoga and some types of rhythmic dancing all offer ways of accessing this energy. But Tantric sex not only helps you to get in touch with this energy, it teaches you to use it for your emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Instead of sex being a purely physical experience a kind of genital sneeze it becomes a way of opening your heart and mind to the purest forms of love and unity. You become inspired by greater levels of passion and pleasure than you may have thought possible.

What Ive learned from Tantra is that sex is another way of getting into a powerful and connected state, and when you feel that good, life becomes a lot easier