Tantric Sex: Making love last. Cassandra Lorius

THROUGH SACRED SOUND

       Meditation and visualization

       UNITING HEAVEN AND EARTH: MEDITATION

       PURIFYING THE CHAKRAS

       ANOINTING THE CHAKRAS

       Raising the energy

       FIRE MEDITATION

       STREAMINGS

       Eroticizing your body

       AWAKENING THE SENSES

       DANCE OF THE GODDESS

       EROTIC TOUCH

       Anatomy of sex

       THE LOVE MUSCLE

       FIRE MEDITATION WITH LOVE MUSCLE SQUEEZE

       Improving your sexual enjoyment

       SELF-PLEASURING

       HONOURING YONI

       HONOURING LINGAM

       HEALING YONI MASSAGE

       MASSAGING THE LINGAM

       Extended sexual pleasure

       THE GODDESS SPOT

       MALE SACRED SPOT: THE PROSTATE

      Part 4: Divine Sex

       Relaxing into orgasm

       NON-DOING IN LOVE-MAKING

       RIDING THE WAVE OF BLISS

       Working in an on-going Tantric way

       ONGOING TANTRA

      Glossary

      Bibliography

      Resources

      INDEX

      Acknowledgements

      The Art of Sexual Ecstasy

      About the Publisher

       FOREWORD

       Essences of lily, lemon and lavender were wafted under my nose, and small segments of pineapple, figs and pomegranate teasingly popped into my mouth – all of which I savoured with a sensual pleasure enhanced by being blindfolded. Percussion instruments were gently rattled somewhere near my ears, and my skin was brushed with fabrics, feathers and fur. In this state of heightened sensitivity my hand was placed in the tentative clasp of my neighbour to explore. ‘I don’t know where this is leading,’ I thought, ‘but if this is Tantric foreplay, I want more!’

      TANTRIC WORKSHOPS

      Tantric workshops have had a bad press – often portrayed as excuses for orgies by the tabloids. Yet they’re not solely about sex but sensuality in the broadest sense. SkyDancing’s ‘Taste of Tantra’ workshops combine the Eastern practices of yoga and meditation with techniques from modern humanistic psychology, which focuses on developing the intimacy skills needed to effectively communicate and connect with our partners. Participants are led through a sequence of exercises designed to increase energy and sensual awareness, culminating in an ‘Erotic massage’ from your partner. Tantra involves letting the mind go and becoming more expressive through your body. Along with a sense of relaxation and playfulness comes a surge of energy, which you can use in creative ways to enhance your interaction with your partner.

      Discovering Tantra was a revelation for me – not that it felt strange or exotic. It was more like coming home to myself. Feeling freely expressive, worshipping my own body, and being worshipped all felt natural and inevitable. Of course I am a goddess incarnate; I’d always known that – it was just that no-one else had!

      My partner is also a natural Tantric; a very sensual man whose ability to love and connect continues to amaze me, in spite of other problems we have. Like all the men I’ve met on the Tantric path, he loves and honours women.

      This honouring of women tends to run through the men who are attracted to, and stay on the Tantric path. They are usually more in touch with their feminine side, which makes it easier for women to express themselves more completely. Of course this doesn’t mean that all relationship problems are automatically solved, but it’s an important foundation for a couple who choose the Tantric path together.

      Tantra means celebrating the love between you, and keeping it nourished and alive in a variety of ways, which this book will explore. It’s all about being spontaneous and playing together, as well as nurturing a sense of your spiritual connection. Tantric practices are a way of finding or creating a path together that is filled with a sense of the sacred.

      The key practice is to see your lover as truly divine.

      When you accept that your lover is divine you can use the model of a divine relationship as an inspired template for your own. Even if you don’t manage this challenging task you can experience a lot of joy and pleasure trying. And usually your sex-life improves greatly.

      I was dissatisfied with my sex life before starting on the Tantra training. I felt that the full potential of my capacity for sexual pleasure had barely been explored, and that traditional sex therapy and self-help approaches had nothing to offer me. It wasn’t that I had a sexual ‘problem’, or that I couldn’t reach orgasm, but I felt a deep post-coital emptiness in spite of the love I felt for my partner. The models in our culture for a satisfying sexual relationship have more to do with ideas of stress-release and notching up orgasms than they do with our deepest desires for connection and intimacy. When I embarked on my first Tantra weekend workshop I had no idea that Tantric ideas and practices would resonate so strongly with me – it seemed like good fun at the time, and after several years of doing Egyptian dance, I wasn’t shy about dancing and ‘getting in touch with the sensual goddess within’.

      But by the end of a weekend of ritual exercises, and yogic breathing with my partner I was on a literal high for the whole of the next week – it was so intense I wasn’t sure I could put my serious hat back on and lecture abroad as I was scheduled to do.

      As we drove back to London, through the spectacular fireworks of November 5th, I was filled with exuberance and an excitement with the discovery that getting in touch with my own passion could fire up my passion for life. My Tantric journey is not completed yet, and hopefully never will be. Working on a Tantric relationship, and incorporating Tantra into daily life are challenges that make life