AYP Lesson T45 - Tantra, Sitting Practices and Inner Lovemaking

Advanced Yoga Practices
Tantra Lessons

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Lesson T45 - Tantra, Sitting Practices and Inner Lovemaking (Audio)

From: Yogani
Date: Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:50 pm

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: I am reading more and more about practices, and personally practicing your techniques. The one thing I feel really different about is when I practice my daily morning pranayama, my breathing before wouldn't necessarily achieve that silence in my head immediately. But after practicing holdback method and channeling my sexual energy my pranayamas have improved dramatically. As even after one round of pranayama I have a serene silence. I can't describe it well, I stop thinking and I feel like my mind is reaching outside the brain a bit, if that's an accurate description.

Though I have a recurring question in mind which I felt maybe sharing it with you I could get some answers on. The human body needs to balance its inner male and female energies (shakti and shiva energies), right? Now once this is done we become neutral beings with a balance inside us. We are not inner male only or inner female, but both, hence, making it both or neither. When this happens what is our physical body for?

For example, once the inner balance has been achieved then we are not male or female anymore, are we? We become Light Beings. Hence, what is the need and reason for a physical body?

Just some thoughts which are running through my head. As the more I study and contemplate the more questions arise. Would love to understand it further with your help.

A: Ah, you have found the experiential connection between tantric methods and sitting practices. Yes, that is the extra dimension that brahmacharya can bring us. When I say brahmacharya, I don't mean celibacy, of course. I mean preservation and cultivation of sexual energy, which is what holdback and long preorgasmic cultivation are about. It works, yes? When you add advanced siddhasana for women and mudras and bandhas into your sitting practice (maybe you did already?), then you will eventually be doing internal preorgasmic cultivation for the entire time of spinal breathing, meditation, samyama and so on. In the end, sexual cultivation and cultivation of ecstatic conductivity become one and the same and are happening all the time, even outside practices. It becomes an automatic part of our biological functioning. This is constant inner lovemaking.

As the process proceeds, the male and female components in us do not disappear. They continue to integrate within. So, while our inner attitudes and sexuality outwardly may become more balanced, we do not become androgynous in the sense of becoming non-sexual beings. Just the opposite. We become the field constant lovemaking of the feminine and masculine energies within us -- a constant orgy of shakti and shiva energies. In more mundane terms, it is the blending of ecstatic conductivity and inner silence. This inner process of enlightenment has also been called the blending of euphoria and emptiness within the human being. As we progress, that is advancing all the time, and the body (human nervous system) is the field of play for this. So we'd like to keep the body around to continue this process as far as we can go with it. A final reason to keep the body is for service. As we rise into enlightenment, we find ourselves with the combined qualities of unshakable inner silence, ecstatic bliss and outpouring divine love. Then all around us become as dear to us as our own Self. So, naturally we'd like to stay and stimulate the emergence of divine joy in everyone as much as we can. These are the reasons for a sage to keep on living in the body. It is a natural evolution, which we are hastening along (fertilizing and watering) with our yoga practices. We'd all like to take full advantage of the sacred temple, our human nervous system, as long as we can. It is for ourselves and for everyone that we do it.

Wishing you continuing success on your chosen spiritual path. Enjoy

The guru is in you.