Tantra: Tantra in Depth

By Susan Kramer

Tantra

Tantra is the state of feeling that there is no other person that is not ourselves. Tantra is the balance of the vibrant yin-yang energy. When we fully feel these complementary energies balanced within us, we feel like a whole and complete person-without the compulsory idea that we need another person to make us feel complete.

Ignite the fire of love in my breast

and we are eternally One

Yes, all are part of the One

This state of tantra in sexual love comes about as a natural process when we mentally surrender our bodily reserve and freely express our loving emotional feelings. As we caress our lover's body we feel that we are really caressing our own body, as if we ourselves have four arms, four legs, and two heads. Reflecting on our experience of the tantra state, we realize with awe that we are completely responsible for our own actions and condition of life. We experience that there is no other person than ourselves, really.

If we feel oneness with our lover, then it follows that we are one with all. Everyone is in some kind of relationship with another and that other is in some kind of relationship with still another, and on and on. All relationships overlap. Since we are one with all, we can act with anyone without fear of rejection. We are only afraid of what feels separate from us. When we are radiating loving feelings toward others, shown through our caring actions, we are accepting them as extensions of our own Self. Can we ever remove ourselves from part of ourselves? It is not possible.

In tantra we realize that we are already totally whole, and that all of the different people are the parts making up the Whole. The individual is an indispensable part of the Whole or ultimate Self, which we call Creator-Sustainer. To experience tantra is to be aware of our complete Self. We do not feel restrained by the visible limits of our physical or mental body. Instead, we radiate through the vehicle of bodily feeling and positive emotions an all encompassing Love for all.

Ultimate Tantra

Our physical sexual relations have a deeper purpose than just for personal pleasure and procreation. After experiencing tantric heart to heart communion with our beloved, we feel and enjoy how energized we still are physically. The warmth created in caring physical communion stays on with us, overflowing into our daily lives. We become more loving with others and our life becomes a blessing for the world. Ultimate Tantra is the beautiful lovingness generated in heart to heart communion taken along into the rest of daily living, adding harmony instead of discord to our world.

Ultimate Tantra

Communion of hearts, bodies, energy

between two

Creating a radiance

that generates loving interaction

with many

Enlivening the rest of daily living

Mating

In the animal world, mating means getting a mate by first forming a physical sexual union. So, to establish a long-term partnership animals mate, or have sex. Then they feel bonded; one for the other, the two parts of the whole. With humans, this principle applies also, even though we would like to be able to play sexually with many people and forget the aftereffects. On the mental and emotional levels, an eternal bond is formed. We can get very confused about our feelings and responsibilities if we mate with several partners-we do not know who should get our allegiance. We do not know which mate is our emotional-mental-physical compliment. With multiple partners, the subtle bonding formed is difficult to reconcile into our daily life. The attachments and results set in motion by mating also follow us throughout our lives.

What we seek in mating is a sense of fulfillment and happiness. We are not feeling the completeness within so we think that lasting happiness lies in the pleasures of mating. After many attempts at trying to capture the illusive happiness, we realize it does not come through mating, but we were not misled in seeking to mate. The end results that can be attained through allegiance to one mate are a justification for mating.

Through our repeated self-surrender and the selfless giving of our affections and tender actions, we gradually lose our sense of being just an individual, and melt into a greater all-encompassing space of existence. This transcendent experience takes much repeated practice with a single mate because more surrender and letting go of personal barriers happens the more comfortable we feel with our mate. This is a natural process that happens over a long period of time.

The primary purpose of mating is to form a bonded relationship, with each partner seeing the other through ups and downs. Through the experience of self-surrender, the transcendent oneness with our Creator-Sustainer can be realized.

We all know that mating can produce children. Not every couple can conceive, so child raising is not the ultimate reason for mating. The ultimate reason for mating is that it benefits our spiritual evolution through our repeated tender affections with one another-expanding to tenderness with family, friends and the world.

Charging and Recharging our Vital Energy

The momentary bliss of orgasm only hints at the all-consuming full-being continuing orgasm experienced in union with God. In the process of human lovemaking, we feel more and more charged with energy. We send that charged energy to the sexual organs, which finally explode when at capacity, releasing the pent up energy-not improving or making us more aware or better people, just draining our reserves of vital energy. In effect, our best energy leaves us.

Instead, we can transfer, transform some of the emotional vital energy usually spent in orgasmic sex into devotional feelings for experiencing God. When sexual energy is aroused, take note of the feelings of that moment. Then later, recall those sensations. This vital emotional energy can be drawn to the self by willpower, without the physical or mental stimulus. Once this has been accomplished, the energy can be drawn from the sexual organs into the whole body at any time.

This energy arising in our whole body energizes us and we feel like being loving to others. By will power this sexual energy now energizing all of us even spreads from our body into our actions and interactions. The source of this living vital energy is our Creator-Sustainer. All energy flows from the unseen Source, by the unseen Force. We can consciously summon up the vibrant vital energy by our warm loving feelings and pass it along to the creation via our actions. When our emotional, vital, sexual energy has been raised up, transferred, and transformed into love for all, we enjoy feelings of fullness and oneness with all. By giving ourselves over to the great warmth of expansive energy, by surrendering to our aroused loving feelings we live upon our heart rays, experiencing the vital pulse of Love, of God.

Lovemaking

The fulfillment of love can be experienced in an embrace, a hug, as hearts together form an unbroken circle of energy. The effect of a loving embrace, heart to heart, never recedes. The energy generated expands our consciousness, eventually including all in its embrace, just as a bell ringing sends out gentle ripples of sound vibration pulsating outwardly, entering many ears.

Sexually, we can achieve release on our own, but this does not create the continuous flowing circle of transcendent energy; neither does sex with a partner if devoid of affectionate caring feelings. Love energy is experienced in the close contact of caring giving hearts, gradually leading to awareness of the inner heart chamber of self-effulgent, ever present Divine Love!

The article is an excerpt from Tantra in Depth by Susan Kramer. For more reading, please visit her webiste: http://www.susankramer.com.