In most cases, the intent of meditation is to produce a relaxing and calming effect on the mind and body. The benefits of Tantric Meditation go a bit beyond this by stimulating certain sensations and areas of the body involved in sexuality.

Breathing

Tantric breathing techniques are the most esoteric area of Tantra. They do not involve simply sitting still and taking deep and slow breaths. Rather, the steps in Tantra breathing uses specific exercises, movements and sounds related to the kind of breathing required. These types of breathing exercises result in some of the major benefits of tantric meditation. They include a heating up of the body, which leads to heavy sweating, improved blood circulation and a resulting detoxification effect. As a related benefit, the breathing exercises release endorphins, improving your feelings about yourself. Read more

Tantric sex originated in India and was originally used as a means to achieve spiritual growth and to connect to the divine realms.

It is possible to use the same approaches to maximize the total sexual ecstasy, both the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the sexual ecstasy. The approach can also be used to make the sexual pleasure last a very long time before you plunges into a intense climax. Read more

Our Sexually Immature Culture

Our society is full of tease, titillation and men taught to look at women as sex objects. We have no meaningful intimacy education and never will until we drop the false sexual repressiveness of religion used for controlling people and reorient ourselves towards loving sexual fulfilment.

We are not born naturally good at sex and we have little or no training in sexuality other than by hit and miss experimentation. We are largely conditioned by a belief system that often instills guilt, fear, insecurity or shame in our sexuality. We need to take back sexuality and integrate it with our spirits in a way that results in much more love, intimacy and fulfilment than what our culture has taught us. That is the basic teaching of Tantra.

Many couples have terrible sexual relations, since they have never been taught fulfilling sexuality, which doesn’t just come naturally hiding by yourselves in a dark bedroom. Men especially often have no idea how to give maximum pleasure to a women. Real responsible sex education is needed, not Christian repression based on mistranslated or misinterpreted scripture. Read more

Deeper connection. Sustained passion. A sense of one with your partner. Tantalizing sex. A merging of the sexual and the spiritual. These are just of the reasons I’ve been intrigued by the idea of tantric sexuality. And yet, it is a topic that until recently, I didn’t much talk about because there is quite a bit of mystery surround the idea, and might I just also suggest this: many people may be uncomfortable with the idea that sexuality and spirituality may be connected in ways deeper than the idea that God commanded us to procreate. What if sexuality is actually one way to become closer to God? What if, in the moment of orgasm, we have the opportunity to feel the presence, the kiss of the divine upon our flesh and within our souls? If that intrigues you, continue reading. Even if it doesn’t, go ahead. Read more

The Llewellyn Journal: Dr. Mumford, your initiated name is Swami Anandakapila Saraswati. Your first book, Psychosomatic Yoga, was published in 1962. At that time there was very little interest in the spirituality of the East, although it exploded during that decade. Why do you think the popularity of Eastern spirituality has grown over the past 40 years?

Dr. Jonn Mumford: The 1960s represented a tremendous opening of the Western mind to concepts of Yoga, particularly through the popularization of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his popular Transcendental Meditation or “TM” movement.

However, the soil in America had already been richly fertilized by Swami Vivekananda visiting at the turn of the nineteenth century and then by Swami Rama Tirtha who visited America shortly after Vivekananda. It is also worth remembering that American counter-cultural movements from the transcendentalists to the beats were drawn to Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. But it was not until the 1960s that teachings became widely available to the general public.

There is a popular belief is that no one, outside India, attempted to practice or integrate Tantra until the Post World War II period. However in 1906 the “Tantrik Order In America” published the International Journal: Tantrik Order. The copy I saw was a lush, 200-page journal. It had a cover in rich red, gold, and black, and was full of translations of Tantric texts and articles eulogizing love. Read more