Tantra Teachings
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Kenneth Stubbs, says in his book The Essential Tantra (1989), “Acceptance is a central teaching embracing the sensory experiences, surrendering consciously to the moment we transcend the world of attachment, and allowing the flow of feelings we develop empathy and deepen intimacy. Our mindfulness and our meditations transform the energies of each experience, liberating us from the limitations of grasping and avoiding. Here we open ourself to a reverence for beauty as aesthetic appreciation enriches the meaning of life. In tantra, we celebrate the heart and the senses, we are at-one-ment.” Tantra is a teaching of acceptance in nonattachment. For example, when you grasp an object, action, or outcome, and you are attached, there is no freedom. When you avoid an object, action, outcome, and you are attached, there is no freedom. It is through the acceptance of all as it is that you become free. Acceptance is not submission, it is not giving up. By embracing the present while letting go of past experiences and expectations of the future, this is the path of tantra.
Tantric exercises are not limited to sexuality but focus on relationship, vitality and sensuality. The approach is on the way we do it, not on what we do. It is not based on technique but rather on approaching your lover as heart filled with love as beloved, as divine. It is about finding ways of relating to the sensual more than the sexual. Trust in the relationship can heal old wounds and fears. Tantra is viewing the relationship from our own sense of dignity and worth rather than our partner’s failings and what he or she doesn’t give. Remembering that love is not outside ourselves but is within is what is important. Lorius writes in her book Tantric Sex (1999), that “A tantric paradigm of relationship is that we come together as king and queen, out of an overflowing and fullness. ‘I am complete in myself, but because of the joy of experiencing myself in the flowing, it’s great to come and share the experience with you.’ The sense of divine grows as you step into sacred space with your partner and create an energetic connection rather than a fulfilling of emotional needs.”
Tantra practitioner Charlotte Koelliker is also quoted in the book Tantric Sex (1999) by Cassandra Lorius: “To create a tantric relationship you need the following: a consciousness about working with energy, complete mutual respect and freedom, to bring sex and consciousness together, to realize that the divine is in the other and to want to connect with it, commitment to being honest and truthful as you can about your own emotional issues, commitment to working toward greater consciousness. If you are committed to connecting with the essence of your partner and trying not to get caught up in emotional problems that get in the way, you’re well on the way to developing a good tantric relationship. Accepting the other person as they are and allowing the space for them to be themselves. In order to do this you need to let go of the fantasy of the perfect lover and relationship. Letting go of conventions and going on a journey into the unknown and staying with your partner during uncertainty because the path has not been mapped out. Tantra is about dancing all the possibilities in your relationship.”