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Eating for energy and sensuality
Self-nourishment is a primary need – food is literally used to nurture. If you’ve withheld food from yourself you may wish to relearn how to feed yourself with abundant good food. Your body needs healthy foods: a basic nutritious diet includes whole grains, legumes, pulses, lean meat, fish, and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to feed your body with essential vitamins and minerals. A nutritious diet and regular meals also promote a sustained release of energy throughout the day. This helps avoid the blood-sugar highs and lows that can lead to cravings for carbohydrates and foods high in fat and sugar that are so common in our fast-food culture.
Tantra is not an ascetic path that recommends self-denial in any way. Indian practitioners used alcohol and cannabis as part of their rites, as well as meat and fish, which are normally prohibited for Hindus. It’s not what you eat that has erotic potential, but how you eat it. As a path of sensual pleasure, Tantra emphasizes the natural sensuality of preparing and eating good food. Eating is also a ritual celebration of togetherness, which is communally expressed at mealtimes in Mediterranean and Eastern cultures. You can make any small meal into an occasion for expressing your love.
Sexiness is about paying attention to what your lover enjoys eating, and taking time and care in its purchase and preparation. Don’t forget the table setting, with candles and flowers, and do dress (or undress) for dinner.
Choose ingredients that stimulate your palate, balancing tastes so that different flavours complement each other. Consider the texture and visual qualities of the food, as well as the taste.
Serve your partner in an attentive manner, making sure that everything needed is available. There’s nothing sexier than an ardent waiter offering you tasty titbits.
If you want to use food as part of your lovemaking, a fun idea is to prepare soft foods that can be eaten off your lover’s body – avocados, bananas, strawberries and mangoes have the ideal consistency. Chocolate has aphrodisiac properties and can be melted, painted on and then licked off.
The yoga of tantra
Yoga postures encourage the release of any tension held around the hips, pelvis and shoulders. Yoga was used by Indian Tantrics to develop physical suppleness and breath control. The art of yoga is centred on your breathing, and your energy is centred, or grounded, down in your sacrum. Yogic breathing builds your energy in your pelvis and then directs it from your hips and upwards through your body.
Warm up
These warm-up exercises stretch and loosen the hips, pelvis and inner thighs. Begin by sitting comfortably on the floor with your legs crossed loosely and your back straight.
Concentrate on your breathing, directing your inbreaths into your abdomen. As you inhale through your mouth, relax your jaw. Relax your throat and open your lungs as the air moves down. Release your ribcage so that your lungs can open fully. Relax the muscles under your ribcage, opening the diaphragm and letting the air fill your belly. Keep your belly soft and relaxed.
As you breathe, release your lower back. Do this by moving your waist from side to side, letting the rhythm move upwards so that your upper back, shoulders and neck are gently undulating. Let your back uncoil, and keep moving your shoulders from side to side to release tension. Let your neck join in. Once your back feels more flexible, spend a little time releasing your neck. If you don’t suffer from neck pain, you can roll your head around your neck slowly and gently. Let it fall backwards as far as is comfortable.
Now lie on your back with your buttocks touching the wall and your legs straight up, resting on the wall. Settle your spine into the floor. When you are comfortable, let your legs slide open, and exhale as you hold the stretch. Slowly slide your legs together again as you inhale. Do this several times.
Sit comfortably upright, with your legs opened out in a ‘v’ shape. If you are practising with your partner and are quite flexible, you can sit on the floor facing each other with your feet touching. Bend forward for a few minutes, loosening up the muscles and tendons before reaching forward to hold your partner’s hands. Using the weight of your partner as a gentle counterbalance, let your upper bodies rotate in a circle together. Be very careful not to pull too hard and strain a muscle. If you are practising alone, bend forward and place your palms on the floor between your legs. Allow your body to rotate as you gently push against your hands.
Squat!
Practising squatting can give you more stamina during active lovemaking postures where the woman is on top. Squatting releases tension and opens out your pelvis, stretching the muscles around the hips.
Move into a standing position with your feet hipwidth apart. Keep your feet parallel as you bend your knees and sit on your haunches, moving into a squatting position. Your weight should be on your heels, with your buttocks hovering just above the floor; be careful not to strain the tendons in your ankles. Sit for several minutes at least, breathing into your lower abdomen. With each out-breath, focus on relaxing all the muscles around your hips and pelvis. Let your pelvis open more with each inhalation, and release even more tension with every exhalation.
Swing your hips
Stand up and place your hands on your hips. Circle your hips as if you were tracing a hoop, easing all your muscles as you move in a gradually wider circle. Inhale for half a circle, and exhale for the other half. Pause with each in-breath, just before you begin each half-circle.
Try describing a horizontal figure of eight with your hips.
Release your upper back
Repeat the squat position described above.
As your hips and ankles ease into the posture, relax the top half of your body, letting your head hang forward and your arms drop loosely between your knees. Let all the tension you are carrying around your shoulders and upper back drop away.
Release your shoulders
If your shoulders still feel tense, slowly bring your upper body into a standing position again. Then bring both arms behind your back, holding the palm of one hand in the other, with your arms straight. As you bend forward your arms will fall away from your body.
Remain in this position, bent over with clasped hands, relaxing the tension around your shoulders as you breathe.
Corpse pose
In yoga, the corpse is the traditional name for the relaxation pose used at the end or beginning of a sequence of postures. In lovemaking, the corpse posture is when the man lies underneath his partner.
Lie flat on your back on the floor, with arms relaxed by your side and your palms facing upwards. To lengthen your back and straighten your spine, start with your knees bent upward and focus on relaxing the small of your back, settling it into the floor. When your back is comfortable, lengthen your neck by drawing your chin more toward your chest.
With your next few breaths, straighten your legs along the floor, with your feet slightly apart.
Spend several minutes relaxing. Concentrate on the breath moving through your airways, filling your throat, sternum and ribcage, and releasing all the muscular tension as you breathe out.
Make a bridge
Remain lying down for the four final postures.
With your knees bent upward and your arms along your side, slowly lift up your hips as you breathe out, letting the breath go right down into the centre of your pelvis. With each out-breath unfurl your back, lifting it from the floor. Leave your neck extended and in contact with the floor, but lift up your back right up to your shoulders. With every out-breath, release any tension you can feel. Think that you are offering your body to the universe; your body is a bridge for your energy to move outward.
Let your back relax and move slowly downwards. Begin with your shoulders, then release your back, hips and buttocks, so you return to the corpse pose.
Release
Bring up your knees, keeping the soles of your feet resting flat on the floor and the small of your back snuggling into the floor. Place your hands, palms down, over your heart area, and focus on breathing into your heart. Let your arms fully relax, with your elbows resting on the floor. Your fingertips should touch each other.
The butterfly
The butterfly describes the action of your bent knees, which move together and apart like butterfly wings. This exercise opens your pelvis to sexual energy.
Open your knees to each side as you breathe in, taking the breath all the way down to your pelvis. Exhale, and relax into the posture with a feeling of surrender.
Take another breath in and, as you exhale, press your feet together and down into the floor in order to bring your knees back to the upright position. If this is at all uncomfortable for your back or hips, support each thigh with cushions.
When you have familiarized yourself with this ‘out-in’ movement of your legs, switch your attention back to the rise and fall of your abdomen with your breath.
Surrender
The posture of surrender focuses your attention on the movement of sexual energy by drawing your breath in and out through your genitals.
Lie on your back, with your arms out to the side and your palms facing upwards. Let your knees drop to the floor on either side, placing the soles of both feet together. If you are not very flexible, don’t bend your knees quite so much, but leave the soles of your feet together. As you inhale, imagine that you are drawing in energy through your genitals and the base of your spine; in your mind’s eye, see it climbing up your spine and resting at the crown of your head as you finish inhaling. As you exhale, visualize that your breath drops back down to your genitals and streams out through them.
To finish
Repeat the corpse pose, and relax for at least five minutes.
Get a head start: meditation
Most meditation practices start with paying attention to your breath. Breath is the source of our vitality; it is how we live. In Sanskrit, the word for ‘breath’ means ‘spirit’. Breathing deeply also stimulates your unique energy-body, the internal, subtle energy that is stimulated through Tantric practice.
The best posture to meditate in is ‘easy pose’, which helps to keep your back upright while sitting for long periods. Sit with your feet crossed at the level of the calves so that each foot is under the opposite knee.
How to breathe
This breath meditation helps relax your body, and bring your mind to the present – it is this quality of presence that makes sex ecstatic, when you focus on sensation and feel the exchange of love between you and your partner. By practising breath meditation, you can let energy radiate from your breath and animate your body; when you make love, you can feel intensely in the moment.
Sit with your legs crossed loosely in easy pose, with one leg in front of the other. Sense your relaxed body. Summon up a sense of wonder at the miracle of being alive. Breathe fully, right down into your abdomen. This expands your lung capacity, and slows down the rate of your breathing.
Pause for a moment or two before you inhale, and before exhaling. Then lengthen the holding-in stage of your breath, as well as the exhalation, so that you inhale for a count of one, hold for four, and exhale for two.
Pay attention to each out-breath and fully relax on each one. Let go. The in-breath will take care of itself.
When you have mastered this technique, you can use it in all the meditations in this book. You can progress your practice by focusing your inner eye on visualization to encourage the natural movement of energy through your body.
Get centred
Grounding, or centring yourself is a basic technique that deepens your sense of being; it helps you to feel connected and complete. When you are with your partner you can be self-contained, but also open to share your energy; in Tantra, this is a building block for intimacy. Grounding is also recommended as a relaxation technique after dynamic freestyle dancing; learn how to move from a state of high energy into this blissful, centring meditation.
Stand with your feet hip-distance apart and your knees slightly bent, with your back straight. This helps align your spine so that energy can move through your body more easily.
Close your eyes and focus your attention on your breathing. Be aware of your inhalation and exhalation, without trying to control it. Observe it for a few minutes. You will probably notice that your breathing calms down and becomes longer and more even just by paying attention to it.
Inhale, and imagine that your breath is travelling down to the base of your spine, right to your tailbone. As you exhale, imagine it moving back up your spine to exit through your lungs.
Imagine that you are a new tree growing roots. Visualize these conduits of energy reaching deep down into the earth. As you breathe in and out, your roots are expanding, growing, reaching through the layers of earth. With each out-breath, let your roots penetrate even deeper as if they are striving to touch the centre of the earth. This symbolizes your connection to the earth as a source of energy. Feel this vital energy pouring into you through your roots.
As you continue to breathe, draw this nurturing source of life and energy up your spine so that it can permeate your body. Keep breathing and drawing this energy up through the soles of your feet, creating a sense of solidity and groundedness.
Then draw that energy up into your pelvis and torso and into your lungs and chest, allowing your lungs to expand fully.
Breathe in, drawing that energy into the centre of your chest, in the area of your heart. Feel your heart expand with your breath, and fill with energy for life and love.
Fill your head with energy. Imagine that you are growing branches of energy that touch the sky from the crown of your head. Feel these vital conduits reach into space, the realm of the infinite and of the spirit.
Feel a sense of infinite possibility. Mentally bring down this sense of expansion and spaciousness through the branches in the sky and into the crown at the top of your head. Then bring this sensation into your chest; let your heart feel soothed. Imagine the spaciousness of the heavens mingling with the grounding energy of the earth in your heart. See your heart as the centre of convergence whose roots connect with the earth, and whose branches connect with heaven. You are a bridge between the two.
Ground yourself in nature
Start with this simple visualization exercise to learn how to take in energy from outside in order to balance your own internal energy. When you feel more connected to the earth – literally grounded – you are better able to remain yourself while in the energy field of others. This helps you to maintain your self-esteem and internal balance.
Imagine yourself in a favourite landscape. If you feel most at peace in woodlands, mountains or meadows, imagine yourself there. In your mind’s eye, picture the landscape, the rocks and trees, foliage and flowers. If the seaside gives you most energy, visualize yourself on a shore, feet in the sand, gazing at the ocean. Go inside yourself and commune with nature. Feel connected and nourished by what is around you.
Relax and feel the environment holding you. You are resting in the waves of the ocean, or the leaves and grasses all around you.
Absorb the goodness and strength of nature. Imagine that everything around you gives you energy and light.
On finding stillness
Meditation masters say that you don’t need to do anything in order to find stillness; you simply cease your activity to stop doing and start being. Yet it can be difficult to find stillness, because we need to learn to quiet the incessant chatter of our minds. Our minds are often charged and over-stimulated; our normal state of mind is restless, chaotic and overrun with myriad thoughts that push and pull us in different directions.
Sages hold that thoughts are a distraction from your true self, and this sense of authenticity can only emerge in the gaps between thoughts – the time when your thoughts are not there to claim your attention. This is the authentic self, an inherent quality of presence that is not defined by what we do or our identity labels. It is a quality of consciousness that is open, responsive and vibrant.
When you let go of your mind, you also let go of your ego. Your ego is the idea you have of yourself that is made up of your thoughts about yourself. These are usually negative thoughts and create what psychologists call a ‘false’ self – an idea of yourself that is not based on the reality of who you are. Your authentic nature is a state of being experienced in meditation, in lovemaking, in peak experiences where you feel moved into a realm of ecstasy. These are all times when you transcend a limited idea of who you are and what you are capable of experiencing. By shifting your focus to clear and still your mind, you make way for your own ecstasy.
