This article is about the element of love. For the book by Hanif Kureishi, see Intimacy (book). For the movie by Patrice Chéreau, see Intimacy (2001 film). Intimacy - Definition. Intimacy is complex in that its meaning varies from relationship to relationship, and within a given relationship over time. In some relationships, intimacy is entwined with sex and feelings of closeness may be connected or confused with sexual feelings. In other relationships, intimacy has more to do with shared mo ...

Including:

• Intimacy - Definition

Read more here: » Intimacy: Encyclopedia - Intimacy

Including:

• Physical intimacy - Intimate proximity
• Physical intimacy - Affectionate touching
• Physical intimacy - Sexual Touching
• Physical intimacy - Sexual Penetration
• Physical intimacy - The Baseball Metaphor
• Physical intimacy - Other Forms of Intimacy

Read more here: » Physical intimacy: Encyclopedia - Physical intimacy

intimacy: The state of being intimate or very close. Having a close rapport.

(See also: Intimacy, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Beyond The 50/50 Relationship

Many people today believe in a myth that says intimate happiness is attained through a 50/50 ideal of equality based on a notion of "sameness" between men and women. Belief in this myth of the 50/50 Relationship is one of the major reasons that men and women have been unable to cultivate and deepen sexual, emotional, and spiritual union in intimacy. As many of us have discovered, when we focus on dividing the pie equally, our intimate embrace often becomes more like a business handshake than a delicious swoon that dissolves two lovers into a single heart of desire.

Read more here: » Relationships: Beyond The 50/50 Relationship

Tantric Celibacy: Going All the Way With Tantric Celibacy

Tantric yoga, as a system of rituals, exercises, and philosophical teachings, was developed over the past 2,500 years in a practical search for profound feeling and awareness. Just as a modern scientist might spend years on a single research problem, tantric yogis might dwell on a certain feeling for hours a day, plumbing its every nuance and what it told them about existence. They became experts in the arts of feeling and concentration.

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The Astrology of Intimacy

Love and relationships are high on the list of concerns for most human beings. There are some solitary souls who are quite content to live without a primary partner, but most of us choose to pursue intimate relationships for many different reasons. A loving partner helps keep away the cold, not only by warming the bed, but by supporting your dreams and listening to your fears. Close companionship is the way of the world for the majority, but modern society has made it an extremely complex process.

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The central teaching in Tantra is that all of life is sacred, especially our sexuality. This is because Tantrism views the sex power as being the same inner energy that powers our enlightenment. The practitioner of sexual Tantra attempts to use the powerful sexual force as an agent for awakening and transcendence.

Read more here: » Tantra: Aligning Intimacy with Spirituality

Buddhist Quotes: Don't Give Way to Heedlessness

Don't give way to heedlessness

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(See also: Buddhism Archives, Buddhist Quotes, Inspirational Quotes, Love Quotes, Friendship Quotes, Life Quotes)

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A happy relationship is a universal ideal. Yet, few among us can claim to have perfect relationships. Worldwide, divorce rates are going up. Even most couples who do stay together for a considerable length of time allow their relationship to turn mechanical - there is little room for romance, intimacy or joy. Such couples end up transforming a beautiful partnership into a mere social institution, no more than a familial commitment empty of true love.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Sacred Sexuality: The Principles and Practices of Tantric Yoga

We are in a season of accelerated personal and global awakening, a season that calls us to be clear about our values, our priorities, our soul purpose for this incarnation, and fundamentally, to be clear about our self-identity. But as metaphysics and mysticism go mainstream, great discernment is called for lest we bring along our old separate, fear-based self-identities that manifest the illusion of all lack and limitation.

Read more here: » Sacred Sexuality: The Principles and Practices of Tantric Yoga

There are two fascinating qualities that can enter into our lives or the lives of those we care for at any moment: love and addiction. At first these two may appear to be strange bedfellows: love evokes pleasurable images of couples passionately embracing or tenderly gazing into each others' eyes, while addiction brings up a darker, grim, even desperate image of people struggling against a part of themselves that is out of control. Yet at their core, both have in common a profound spiritual yearning, the desire to transcend the self, to experience powerful states of bliss and ecstasy and to merge with and feel a part of something greater than oneself.

Read more here: » Relationships: Addictive Love Relationships

The Subtle Bodies: The Yogic Anatomy of Human Potentialities

Through exceedingly detailed meditations over thousands of hours, the yogis determined that the human body is far more than a configuration of fleshy organs, bones, and fluids. Composed of five gradients or koshas, literally, "sheaths," with each one more interior and more subtle than the previous one, we are the actual "bridge" from the physical to the spiritual. Each sheath exerts a guiding intelligence over the next more dense sheath in the following order: the individual soul and causal body (jiva and anandamaya kosha), the reflective-intellectual body (vijnanamaya kosha), mental-emotional body (manomaya kosha), vital energy body (pranamaya kosha),and the physical body (annamaya kosha). Through this anatomy of increasingly interior bodies, yoga maps the emotionality and sentient capacities of the intimus itself and thus the way toward deepening our intimacy with one another and the world.

Read more here: » The Subtle Bodies: The Yogic Anatomy of Human Potentialities

The mysterious Tradition of Tantra

This article attempts to outline, in an extremely general way, some basic ideas of the Tantric tradition. Even though the author has a rich personal experience in some of the practical aspects of TANTRISM, the intention here is not to expose a personal view, but to present the Tradition in its most pure form, without any kind of "western interpretations" that most of the time kill and destroy the authentic meaning. This is done with the sincere intention to revive, mostly from the practical point of view, this lost Tradition and to reveal the true face of TANTRA Science.

Read more here: » Tantra Yoga: The Left Hand Path of Love - Tantra

Tantra: Sanctified Sexuality

The TANTRIC philosophy itself includes in its theory all the levels of the Universe and gives a paramount importance to astronomy, biology, parapsychology, anatomy, meditation, medicine, music, art and even sexuality. In fact, the sexual experience, considered to be a unification of the Everlasting Male (+) and Everlasting Female (-) principles, has a very important place in TANTRIC techniques and procedures which are often profoundly erotic.

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Tantra: Returning to origins

TANTRA YOGA considers that the human being has an extremely complex body and mind. The usual consciousness of wakefulness is considered to be only a very small fraction of our native intelligence, fruit of a very long period of evolution and development of the human being. The practitioner tries to follow the same road of evolution but in an opposite direction. He must go through all stages in inverted order and leave them behind, until he finds the starting point or the unique origin. This is logical if we realize that TANTRA considers the human being to be a summary of the Universe and therefore all the cosmic elements have their correspondent in the visible and invisible man.

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Tantra: Experimental duplication

TANTRA Science relies upon the practical realization of its teachings. Here we are not dealing with endless talking and argumentation but instead with engaging ourselves fully and thoroughly in an exceptional practice which can lead the practitioner to Freedom, Pure Existence, Super-Consciousness, Beatitude and super-normal powers (SIDDHIS).

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Tantra: The Libido - thirst for Unity

Another aspect which is important in TANTRA YOGA is that the libido, when manifested as sexual drive, is not at all considered to be only sensuality but, at the innermost levels, as the soul's ardent yearning for spiritual perfection. Here the erotic impulse appears as the psyche's abyssal thirst to reach perfection through unity of complementary polar opposites. In this way, re-born as a genuine Androgyne of the Secret Tradition -- magical child of SHIVA and SHAKTI -- the Individual Spirit will have access to the highest levels of Consciousness.

Read more here: » Tantra Yoga: The Libido - thirst for Unity

Tantra: Why sexuality?

In the act of lovemaking the couple embodies the dyadic wholeness of the Supreme. TANTRIC sexual union resonates with the very foundational energies of the Universe: it captures, magnifies and re-directs the essential Cosmic Power of Life. It is therefore not by chance that sexual intercourse brings the most intense emotional experience that the human being can have while in the flesh. Therefore TANTRA uses it predominantly to create that overwhelming unifying energy. The erotic impulse stirs up the KUNDALINI energy so that it can rise, through the subtle duct of power along the spine, to the highest center of power above the head. This process renders the adept immortal:

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Tantra: Orgasm and ejaculation

Stated with extreme simplicity, orgasm is an intensely beatific state of consciousness and canceling of ego, with profound harmonizing, relaxing and regenerative effects. Male and female ejaculation is only a complex physiologic process of explosively energetic discharge with a dim manifestation of a brief, incipient orgasm, experienced in a selfish unilateral way. During ejaculation, the energy is quickly wasted and for no purpose (except when conception is wanted).

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Celibacy: Sex Is Not Compulsory

Most of the sex advice books written during 1960s underlined the idea that the world could be saved by sex - without, of course, enduring the messy and inconvenient complications of an unwanted pregnancy. Many therapists of that era encouraged their neurotic and mentally disturbed patients to 'find themselves' and become better balanced individuals through positive experiences of sex. Sometimes, surrogate partners would be provided for the purpose. We liked to believe then that much mental illness as well, resulted from long-held repressions, and that these could be released through sex.

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