Diana Richardson - The Heart of Tantric Sex: A Unique Guide to Love and Sexual Fulfillment

W HEN I FIRST HAD THE URGE to write a book, I promised myself that it would be short. What I felt at the outset and increasingly since, is that the essentials of sex are simple and elementary, even while vastly complex in implication. Most of what I had seen on sex did not seem simple at all. To find more it appeared that I would have to compound effort with effort. The truth I discovered was that in doing less I found more. Sex is astonishingly simple because the male and female human bodies are beautifully and ingeniously crafted to connect, one slipping into the other with the power to generate a divine biological ecstasy, lifting us into the dimension of love and meditation very naturally, an essential for regeneration of the spirit. We need sex in the same way we need air and water. In the absence of this vital energy flowing within, we feel as a hollow shell, dragging the stiffened body, weary in spirit, desolate at heart. Sex is our link with the divine, our key to the alchemy of energy and the mysteries of life.

Our privilege in being human is to generate this ecstatic energy in consciousness, and it is this consciousness that distinguishes us from the animal kingdom. Even though we have much to learn from the observation of animal love-play, they do lack a "consciousness" of themselves, ecstatically present to the splendor of the moment only in instinct. Perhaps this has influenced us in dismissing sex as a purely instinctive animal function, devoid of spirit. And yet we embody both, with our animal aspect fulfilled through procreation, the descending half of the circle of sexual energy, and through inverting this same energy, the ascending spiritual phase arises where an ecstatic sexual energy is generated.

The widespread conditioning has belittled sex and we have been denied the ecstatic spiritual part of it. Sex is viewed superficially as a physical or emotional need, and so we feign disinterest in it while our hearts are confused, making us afraid to bring it out in the open. We ignore sex, while other obsessions and compulsions arise in compensation. Yet we are still driven by the unconscious forces of sex. From time to time we have "to do it" and then we keep it hidden and in the dark. An immediate purpose is served, congestion is dispersed, but it fails to be a genuine sexual experience of love.

Several men have told me that when they were young and first sexual, their impulse was to lie effortlessly inside the vagina. That is what they really wanted to do. And then later, most dismayed, they saw the movies, heard the gossip, looked at magazines, and forced themselves to make a concerted effort in sex, painfully turning away from their blissful nature. It has been my observation that the younger a person is, the more easily they are able to step aside from or deflect the influences of our sexual conditioning, to connect with their innocence. However, as the years pass by, the shell of conditioning cast around us toughens, fears grow, tensions solidify in a physical form, resignation steps in, we become attached to our ways and so complacency keeps us held in many unconscious patterns. But the beauty is that this sexual misunderstanding can be dissolved with consciousness; that is all that is needed, and it works. And the sooner we can start, the better. There are very few resilient individuals who are what can be called "naturally Tantric" and fortunate enough to retain this God-given sexual innocence throughout their existence, while some will require only one profound Tantric experience to completely transform their lives. For others, to find their way back to this sexual simplicity can be described as a slow erosion, a gradual shift from dark to light, delightfully traveling all the shapes and contours in between.

Only through making love was I able unravel the misunderstandings about making love. It was not talking about it or thinking about it that made the difference, it was actually doing it that made the difference. Talking about how you wish to make love, and then holding to it while making love, are vastly different. As soon as the bodies are united, these unconscious patterns begin their play and we can find the ideals we started out with may not be so easy to stay with. The unconscious forces in the body are so much stronger than our presence and consciousness in the beginning, and they are persistent. We are where we are. It is a process of bringing the sexual experience slowly and surely into consciousness, learning to relate out of the sexual here and now. The urge to "go for coming" would arise for me soon after, if not before I was penetrated. My body and psyche was so accustomed to responding to the urge, that it took me time to adjust my mind and unhook the bodily reactions that pulled me down the track automatically. As my interest in orgasm was released, slowly my body was able to respond naturally out of each moment, to find that each time was unique.

To bring these shifts of consciousness into play to qualitatively change your love experience requires that you make love with the same person again and again. It is a gradual attunement of two divine instruments, slowly bringing them into fine harmony with each other. As time passes, finesse grows; the magnetic poles align and melt ecstatically into each other.

It certainly requires commitment on the part of a couple, and doesn't happen by accident unless you are lucky. It is as if a switch has to be turned on, which is the simplest thing in the world, but we have forgotten the knack, so we need practice. First and foremost, the commitment must be to now, this time and not the next. When I first started experimenting it began as a day-to-day affair so I never had a choice but now, this very time to make love. It forced me into the present, there was a sense of urgency, no opportunity to be lost, and I can say that this strengthened my consciousness. I had to make love as beautifully and as consciously as possible now, and not tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. Willingness, flexibility, a preparedness to play around, and a humorous side are required to start all over again. Be willing to experience yourself in a refreshing new way. To enable this to unfold within, to teach yourselves as a couple, means having courage to experiment and to share experiences during lovemaking, and to talk about it afterward as well. Perhaps even in descriptive detail. Any level of intimacy reached with your lover will be reflected as increased sensitivity and pleasure while lovemaking.

Remember to observe what happens to you after lovemaking; how you feel in your body, your emotional state, how close you feel to your lover. The answers to these inner questions will begin to give you clues and guidelines about the essential spirit of lovemaking, and how to maintain love and harmony in your life. It may seem for the first time you have a glimpse of what it means to love. True learning comes out of experience. One time you may feel "blissed out", the next bitchy and unhappy. Why? What happened during the lovemaking that made you feel so discontent? What did you do and how did you do it? Using this as a guideline you will slowly start to bring more consciousness to sex. Being observant of the consequences of our sexual interaction is a way of bringing light into the darkness. When we are able to see the outcome of our unconscious aspects in sex, it spurs us on to transform it now with consciousness. Slowly we shine a light on something that was shrouded in mystery, bringing in the light of our intelligence.

We find this transformation through transition, the growing into a unique sexual expression through finding our way, creating experiential foundations. It is not assisted through replacing one approach with the other, high ideals, impatience, or tension. A danger lies in ruining the childlike joy and sensuality of discovering through bodily experience, with the rigidity of restriction to hide not knowing. Uncertainty, shakiness, is real and contains the seeds of growth. Using the Love Keys as guidelines will support you into an experience of love that is more simple, nourishing, and loving. These are practical suggestions to enable you to permeate your body with awareness and the experience of immediacy, which reveals sex to be a fresh and uplifting experience.