Mission 10: Tantra
Are you a being of nature? Of course you are – there is nature inside you already. This mission helps you to get to a place where you might open it to exploration. Your mission today, should you choose to accept it, is to experience a ‘tantric meditation’ to find nature inside you.
Long gone are the days when a mention of ‘tantric sex’ aroused slightly smutty smiles and mentions of Sting and Trudy ‘keeping it up’ all night. Tantra is breaking out all over with a proliferation of courses available from ever-growing sources. Of course ‘What is tantra?’ is going to be one of the first questions you want to ask, as I did when a new girlfriend, after jumping around the room like a mad kangaroo making guttural noises, told me she was ‘tantric’. She wouldn’t tell me but sent me on an expensive weekend course. And I still can’t really answer the question beyond ‘it is entirely experiential and fun’.
It gets pretty wild as people allow their inner nature out in a safe and protected environment. As I realised when I discussed with a friend how they found and kept a contact with nature whilst living in London – he ran courses just like this that helped people to explore their inner nature by returning to a place of innocence.
But Tantra is also regarded as a serious spiritual practice, which, unlike most major global religions, integrates rather than denies human sexuality, pleasure and fun. Osho, one of the main proponents of Tantra published ‘The Book of Secrets’, describing 112 different meditations. This is available online in all sorts of formats and publication types – you can even take courses!
To put things into perspective, only six of these relate to any sexual activity at all. Unfortunately he was poisoned to death in America for advocating such a rewilding of human nature!
Tantric activity doesn’t necessarily have much to do with acts of sex at all – it can be as simple as consciously sharing a meal, going for a walk or just enjoying how each other look. One thing that separates tantric sex from ‘ordinary’ sex is the quality of attention that is brought to the moment.
Although I have heard someone describe Tantra as ‘The McDonalds of Enlightenment’ don’t be fooled into thinking that a journey into tantric sex is just a superficial thrill. The practice of Tantra is older, and deeper, than most world religions. Even a dip into Osho’s ‘Book of Secrets’ will give you months of ‘food for thought’. Your first tantra course is something to be very excited about.
In tantra the practice of interaction between partners (at many levels) is rendered sacred by the reverence and attention given to it. The practices honour the body as a divine temple. Tantra honours ‘the other’ as a gateway to unity with the universe. It is a devotional act, combining the energy of sexuality with spirituality.
When sexuality is combined with the heart and given whole conscious attention, new worlds come into play and transcendence becomes a possibility. Even enjoying sexual activity alone can be enhanced by tantric practises. Compared to the repressions promoted by standard religions, practising tantra is like growing wings.
The proliferation of courses has led to a lot of people experiencing and enjoying Tantra – even to the extent that there are now Tantra specific dating agencies who can hook you up with another Tantrika. After all, once you have experienced the enhanced connections of Tantric sex and other meditations, mere mortal sex almost pales into insignificance. It is a fantastic way to rewild.
If you already have a partner – look online to discover some of the meditations you might share. There are all sorts of meditations if you are single also. You might even go on a course or workshop. If you dare.