Many people regard tantra as the ultimate in love-making and as a route to the ultimate orgasm.

In this extract from In search of ecstasy by Eileen Inge Herzberg we discover that the pelvic floor muscle, or love muscle, plays a key role in the attainment of more orgasms or greater frequency and greater intensity. Exponents of tantra know that pelvic floor muscle exercises help develop the control and sensitivity of the love muscle and Eileen recommends the PelvicToner as an highly effective way to exercise effectively.

"Ecstasy is more than just joy, it’s bliss. It’s a feeling of such intense elation, excitement and delight that the sheer pleasure of the experience might make you lose control, lose your sense of consciousness, your sense of self.

Ecstasy comes from the Latin ex-stasis, meaning to stand outside oneself – being “beside your self with joy.” It’s the peak experience where you sense the interconnectedness with everything and touch the divine.

Now you have an idea of where you’re going, forget about it. Focusing on the destination only encourages the inner critic to whine “Are we there yet?”

In tantra, it’s important to enjoy the journey.

Conventional sex is very goal oriented – orgasm is the objective and nothing else matters. In tantric sex, the emphasis is on the total experience, not just the orgasm.

Normally, we strive for high states of arousal, but tantra, helps you to stay in that state of excitement and then build up the intensity of the experience. The key is to stay relaxed in the heat of passion, instead of allowing the fire to reach its climax and burn out quickly.

What is an orgasm anyway?
Orgasms vary enormously from intense, genitally focused excitement to ecstatic experiences which encompass the whole body, mind, emotions and spirit.

In tantric sex, ejaculation isn’t very important. In fact it doesn’t even have to happen at all.

Tantric orgasms happen both physically and ‘energetically’, so both men and women can reach ecstatic states without ejaculating.

What is tantra?
Tantra connects base, physical and sexual feelings with both human love and divine, spiritual love. Some people call it spiritual sexuality.

In the ancient Sanskrit, Tantra means loom or weaving. It’s a wonderful image for intertwining the masculine and feminine and evokes the idea of uniting body, mind and spirit.

Tantra is the sexual route to enlightenment, but it can also improve your sex life, even if you never reach nirvana.

Tantra is a 3,000 year old spiritual path which has roots in yoga, hinduism, and Buddhism. Although there are many forms of tantra, there are two main paths. The right hand path is where ideas of balancing the masculine, feminine and the divine are kept in the realms of meditation, devotion and visualisation. The left hand path is concerned with more physical activities. Even on the left hand path, tantrikas can spend years practising and yet never reach the point when they are ready for full ecstatic love-making.

In the West, what we call tantric sex is a form of tantra which best suits our speedy Western temperament and consists of a mix and match between ancient tantric practises and more modern techniques which were first popularised by Osho (previously known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) and his well known student Margot Anand (who wrote “The Art of Sexual Ecstasy.”)

Tantra is ‘energetic’ sex
Energy is really the key to tantric sex – it’s not just a physical act, it also happens at an energetic level.

To get an idea of what energy feels like, sit with your feet flat on the ground, close your eyes, and play imaginary pat a cake with your hands. Bring your hands really close together, without actually touching, and then slowly bring them apart. Notice that the space between the palms feels slightly different to the air that touches the back of your hands.

Now rub your hands together for at least a minute and repeat the process of feeling the space between the palms.

It may be quite subtle at first, but what you’re looking for is a slight tingling, a feeling that your hands are more alive and vibrant than when you first started.

Once you get the hang of doing this on your own, try it with your partner. Stand facing opposite each other, close your eyes, slowly bring your palms closer and closer together and then play with this connection. See how far apart you can stand, yet still feel the space between your palms. This is your energy connection, the vital ingredient in tantric love making.

In tantra, the vagina is called yoni, which means sacred cave.
The clitoris is called the pearl.
The penis is called vajra, which means thunder bolt or wand of the gods.

In English, the words we use for our genitals have been damaged because they have been over-used as swear words. Simply switching to using the words vajra and yoni creates a completely different feeling.

In tantra a woman is known as Shakti – Shakti is the Indian Goddess who represents the divine feminine - pure energy.

A man is known as Shiva - Shiva is the Indian God who represents the divine masculine - pure consciousness.

The tantric words are important. They make a difference to how you feel about yourself, your partner and your sexuality. By using the words Shakti and Shiva you are inviting the divine to join in your love making.

Tantric love making
Tantra is a feminine path, so Shakti always takes the lead. It really is ladies first. Shakti, you have to ask for what you want, even if all you really want is to just lie in your lover’s arms or have a story told to you. You might even want to receive or give a massage. It’s up to you.

Whether you are on your own or with a partner, allow yourself to experiment and discover what gives you most pleasure.

Tantra takes time. It’s not something you can squeeze in just before you go to sleep. Allow at least an hour, but two hours is better. If you normally live a busy life, you may have to make a tantric date in your diary, so that ordinary life doesn’t erode your tantric time.

Strange as it may sound, making time for tantra, maybe one of the most difficult aspects of the whole journey. Finding more important things to do is as common as the “are we there yet” phenomenon.

Tantric tips
Focus on your breath – your in breath takes you into your body and out of your mind.

If you close your eyes or use a blindfold, you take away your dominant sense and so your other senses become more noticeable.

If you feel stuck, move your body, exaggerate your movements

Open your mouth and use your voice. In childbirth, women naturally want to open their mouths and moan, shout, and make all kinds of noise. This really does help because the mouth and throat relate to yoni. An open mouth can enliven the other mouth, moaning and groaning adds even more pleasure. The opposite is also true - a tightly clenched jaw will reflect a tension in the pelvic area and make it harder for you to relax into your pleasure.

Pay attention to all your pleasure centres – your mouth, breasts, ears – discover which other parts of your body evokes erotic feelings. Don’t dash straight to yoni and vajra, take your time and explore the whole body, allowing yourself to build up the intensity of your experience.

The love muscle
One of the best ways of turning up the heat is to use your love muscle. This is the pubococcygeal or pc muscle, the muscle that you use to stop yourself urinating – the same muscle that the PelvicToner is designed to help you develop.

The pc muscle is really a series of overlapping muscle groups between the pubic bone and the base of the spine. It supports all the internal organs and acts like a bowl, supporting your life energy – and your sexual energy.

If the pc muscle is too slack, it can dull your appetite for life in general and sex in particular. It can cause depression, incontinence and impotence.

If the pc muscle is too tight, energy tends to bounce upwards, which makes people pushy, almost hysterical. You can feel cut off from your sexuality and think about sex more than you actually experience it. It can also lead to pre-mature ejaculation.

Any well-toned muscle needs to be exercised, and the pc muscle is no exception. The PelvicToner is specially designed for women who want to get the most from their pelvic floor exercises and can be very effective at toning even the flabbiest pc muscle. When you use the PelvicToner for just 10 minutes a day the improvement in your muscle tone can be dramatic.

But both men and women can practice squeezing and releasing the love muscle at any time. Like anything else, the more you practice, the easier it gets and the bigger the benefits.

Squeezing and releasing the pc muscle is known as the pc pump, and the very act of pumping this muscle brings blood, life and vibrancy to your whole sexual area. It lights the sexual fire, which is why it’s sometimes called the fire muscle. Using the pc pump at any point in your love-making adds more energy, more sexuality to whatever you are doing. It holds the key to intensifying and prolonging sexual pleasure.

This becomes even more noticeable when you add the breath – breathing in with the inward squeeze helps you to build up the sexual energy, breathing out as you release the muscle helps you to relax into your pleasure.

A woman can invite vajra into her yoni by pulling vajra in with each contraction. Once vajra is inside yoni, Shakti can create the rippling effect of an orgasm as she squeezes and releases her love muscle. This repetitive squeezing and releasing feels as if yoni is milking vajra. This is known as “pompoir.”

When a man squeezes his love muscle, his vajra moves up and down with every contraction and release. This feels like a gentle tapping inside yoni and can lead to an intimate conversation between yoni squeezing and vajra rising in response.

In any orgasm, the pc muscle contracts every 0.5 seconds – by its very nature, it’s an involuntary, reflex action. In tantric sex, the love muscle can be controlled, so that sometimes it contracts rapidly, sometimes slowly. The love muscles speak the secret language of love which deepens and enlivens your ecstatic tantric journey."

Like yoga or any spiritual path, tantra takes practice. It also helps if you have a good teacher, someone who can show you the way.

If you’d like to find out about tantra courses and workshops visit www.shaktitantra.co.uk.

Thanks to Hilly Spenceley at Shakti Tantra for her guidance and assistance

© Define Trading Ltd 2006