Do you feel that you want to get even closer to your lover than you can get with skin to skin contact? Do you feel you want to merge so closely that you become unity itself? Do you want to experience his soul, feel his soul inside you? Dissolve the pain of separation, push up so close to his being that you are his being?
Tantric exercises let you do that. Tantra is about the unification of seeming duality by using the body as a conduit between the two.
A conduit between one and two: it's a strange concept.
Oneness, Absolute Consciousness, is felt through meditation on the chakras on and above the head. Meditating with your eyes up generally creates a sense of light, a sense of the upward frequencies, a sense of self that is expansive. It puts you automatically into Alpha Brain Wave States. You feel an understanding of the world from a high perspective, it feels wide, and it seems endless. This is portrayed as Shiva, the Tantric God, or male principle, as being expressed through the microcosm of the body.
Through the vortices at the top of our head, we have a portal to the Divine Oneness.
The Oneness was said to feel the desire to experience love, appreciate and celebrate a creation. The creative urge to manifest that became Shakti, the Goddess. And as there is no time according to quantum physics, it can be concluded that this creative urge is constantly pulsating out of the quantum foam of nothingness. Goddess Shakti, the female principle, represents the physical universe, the tangible world, and thus sets up the sense of duality with the spiritual, non tangible reality. They can see each other, they want to merge with each other, be each other, and desire to make love with each other. His or her desire forms a conduit, the kind of energy we feel around someone we are greatly attracted to. It's that spark, that magnetic pull.
The Shakti is most concentrated in the Kundalini latent life force energy at the base of the spine, the powerful force which brings self realization and liberation. While this remains inaccessible for most who are not dedicated practitioners, people can draw on it, prepare for its possibility, raise the pre-Kundalini, which is also very intense the more it is activated. All this energy we are drawing on is related to the sexual organs - grounding, earthly, beautiful, our animal nature. It is about duality, survival, and it feels separated from the Oneness, its beloved Shiva. Shakti feels that urge that we do to want to hug and kiss and hold close, and fuck her man. She resides at the base of our pelvis. She wants Shiva, who is at the crown of our head, and he wants her, all very vibratory across the length of our spines. This symbolizes the electromagnetic potential in our spines.
Bones are piezoelectric, crystalline structures, and in alignment with the properly synchronized pineal and pituitary in the brain. They physically measure changes that occur through the body. A circuit of electromagnetic charge circles through the brain and a standing wave is created in the spine. We become physically changed beings, and our perception of reality changes as well. As the core of our spines becomes more energetically free-flowing, we have more energy, health, radiance and the ability to go beyond survival and beyond limits normally attributed to humankind. For example, Tantric traditions abound with practitioners who are able to levitate. Psychic and healing abilities improve, as well as creative genius, and much more.
The flow along the spines enables us to feel the flow of energy and it feels so good. It can be easy to see the spinal energy as a pure life force, and moreover, feel that we are that energy. We are boundariless, as indeed, we have no solid edges, all our molecules exchanging constantly and being mostly space. We are influenced by others all of the time, we can feel that influence with our lovers if we are with them.
As lovers, if we can go into the awareness of ourselves as spirit, we can flow through each other while both floating on a higher realm. This creates Beta brain wave states. We have moved to Alpha, Theta, or even Delta brainwaves consciously together, and at that state, we are aware of ourselves more as our auric, astral selves, which is larger and wider than the concept of personal edges. We can feel we are lucid, flying with our lovers.
Tantric exercises involve keeping the spine straight, with the neck so straight that the chin tucks in. The Abdominal muscles are held in, and the muscles at the base of the pelvis are used very specifically. They are pulled upwards to push the awareness and flow of energy to the crown of the head. They are, in a way, turning Shakti's eyes up to see Shiva. Our eyes are closed but turned upwards, also to see the pathway to Shiva, that golden sense of light and expansion and relaxation and excitement. The tongue is also curled backwards in "Kechari Mudra:" the bottom of the tongue is pressed against the roof of the mouth, and it can be played with, the tip moved from place to place. This can truly create a variety of conceptual perceptions, of geometric light flow, of energy exploding into the body and moving it around, of bliss zinging through you on and on. Holding the breath as long as possible while doing all these things at once, and then releasing, is part of many exercises that are very powerful.
I always teach three exercises using that breath at the beginning of my Tantra lessons. That puts us in a deep, meditative state together. This is also what is done to retain the semen during ejaculations. Along with pushing the perineum, doing these things while holding the breath can create a Tantric orgasm (which is a full, powerful orgasm, but without ejaculation). This is great for the man and the woman both. The energy at the base of the body, the creative urge, goes upwards along the conduit to merge with the awareness at the crown of the head, the meditative oneness. As semen is in large part cerebral spinal fluid, it does indeed charge and returns the fluids rather than drains them through ejaculation. The whole body feels charged with energy.
We become energy. And our lovers are energy. We are the same energy. We are all one. We circulate it up from body to spirit, spirit to body, body to body. The base chakras are body, lower self. The crown of the head is spirit. We arc from crown to crown, down the body from yoni to lingam (these are the Tantric terms for the female and male sexual organs). As we feel ourselves merge on the higher planes, we feel we are truly one, not separate beings. As we feel our own energy move through our lover's body, we feel we are one energy flow, one circle of light. We are one, but dual. And that is what makes the world so fun.
Originally published December 2006 - "Oh, Oh, Oh!"