Advanced Yoga Practices
Tantra Lessons
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Lesson
T24
-
Tantric Masturbation with Sitting
Practices? (Audio)
From: Yogani
Date: Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:51pm
New Visitors:
It is recommended you read from the beginning of this tantra yoga archive,
as previous lessons are prerequisite to this one. The first lesson is, "What
is tantra yoga?"
Q: After reading
the material in the Tantra group, it makes me wonder if I might help myself
progress faster if I had more sexual arousal during sitting practice.
--Currently there isn't any. Siddhasana doesn't generate any sexual energy
for me, possibly because I'm taking prozac, which lowers the body's ability
to get aroused, both flight-or-fight and sexually. I take it for both
anxiety and depression, and it dawned on me today that maybe on the anxiety
side, what needs to happen is not decreasing arousal/anxiety, but
transformation of that arousal/anxiety into spiritual energy. It would be
hard to provoke anxiety in myself before sitting practice, but not so hard
to provoke sexual arousal. So I wonder if pre-orgasmic masturbation as part
of sitting practice might be useful in increasing energy flow and getting to
ecstasy?
I'm hoping that the practices you have been
teaching will eventually enable me to stop taking the prozac, but I'm not
about to stop taking it precipitously.
A: I agree that you
should not come off your medication just to become more sensitive in
siddhasana. It is not essential, as much progress is being made bringing up
inner silence in meditation with no sexual stimulation needed for that. As
you know, inner silence is by far the most important ingredient for
enlightenment.
Keep in mind that, in the tantra group, most of
what is here is for those who have sex going on at a certain level already,
and how to make the best use of it for yoga. It is not encouraged for
everyone to become sexually active beyond their norm just to participate in
more tantric sexual practices.
I can see how the idea
of needing to promote sexual arousal for sitting practices could come up in
your mind. It is in fact what siddhasana is for. However, it is not best to
try and actively stimulate beyond siddhasana in sitting practices. Better to
let it happen in siddhasana naturally. And don't forget mulabandha and the
mudras, etc, higher up, which all tie in with raising ecstatic (sexual)
conductivity in the nervous system.
You want to help your
spiritual progress along, and that is fair enough. Better not to masturbate
before or during sitting practices though. That is too much stimulation when
you are wanting to let the nervous system come to stillness. You can use the
tantric practices at other times though, and the results of that will
accumulate in your nervous system and then naturally become more prevalent
in siddhasana and sitting practices, as well as in daily life.
You can give siddhasana
some help by cupping your genitals in your hand while doing sitting
practices. This is not masturbation, just a little quiet help for your
energy. Don't do it to the point of too much distraction from easy spinal
breathing and meditation. A nice balance is what we want. That is where we
end up with siddhasana too, with a nice balance between ecstatic energy
gently washing up through us, and deep inner silence coming up in meditation
and other sitting practices. These two combine in us to create unending
ecstatic bliss and overflowing divine love.
It is important to note
that raising ecstatic kundalini isn't only about sexual stimulation, so all
the preorgasmic stimulation in the world (including siddhasana) may not do
it if inner silence is still formative and pranayama and other practices
have not opened the nervous system enough yet.
If you are inclined to masturbate at times (other
than during sitting practices), by all means take advantage of the tantra
techniques. The count method just given can be used regularly with good
effectiveness to coax sexual energy higher in long solo or partner sessions,
and gradually cultivate the nervous system to be in that peaceful ecstatic
mode naturally at all times. Then siddhasana will have increasing effects
because the energy will be moving already.
So, if you work with
sexual energy at times outside sitting practices on a regular basis, that
will help siddhasana and all of your practices. It is a separate practice,
which is how all tantric sex is discussed in the lessons, as separate rather
than integrated with sitting practices. We will add some main group style
practices (breathing, postures, etc.) in with the tantric sex practices at
some point. There are some useful combinations. But whatever we do in sex,
let's not skew our regular sitting practices too far in that direction, or
we will lose something there. Balance...
Sitting practices are
the bread and butter of yoga. We need them every day to progress. Tantric
sexual practices are like the cake. We enjoy them when we can, but not as a
twice daily scheduled event. Tantric sex is not a substitute for daily
spinal breathing and deep
meditation.
The guru is in you.
See this complete instructional lesson and all the expanded and interactive AYP Plus lessons at: http://www.aypsite.com/plus/T24.html
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Note:
For
detailed instructions on the methods of tantra in relation to the broad
scope of yoga practices and the enlightenment process,
see the AYP Tantra book,
and AYP Plus.
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