We as a culture seem fascinated with making love…but not on learning about love. Popular magazines abound with stories about hot new sex tricks and techniques…but not on the nature or practice of love.
‘How-to’ articles abound – about sex, not about love. While tracing the letters of the Greek alphabet on your lover’s clitoris may bring some thunderng orgasms, it brings us no closer to manifesting real love. A fire and ice may make your guy happy right now, but it won’t bring about the union that keeps us happy.
This focus on the gross aspects of lovemaking is the result of a basic misunderstanding; many of us think we make love with our bodies only. So we focus on how good our bodies look or perform, on the mechanics of sex…but not on what making love is.
When we truly make love, we bring body, mind, and soul to the bed (or beach, to meadow or mountaintop). We engage with our entire beings, holding nothing back. Anything less is just making the Beast With Two Backs. While that may seem fun enough, it is ultimately disrespect – using the other as an object, to scratch our itch.
That dishonors us, and our partners.
A handful of Viagra and mindful of fantasies does not a lover make. No amount of techniques can make you a good lover. Mastering every position in the Kama Sutra might make your partner come…but it won’t make them stay.
Making love starts when clothed…when demonstrating love and consideration out of bed. It just concludes in bed. To be more accurate, real love-making takes a lifetime to complete.
Now don’t get me wrong – the physical aspects of making love are a beautiful, sacred gift we give each other…but they do not solely constitute making love. When you think of old lovers you might .miss, do you remember the sex or the love? When you think back on the great times with them, do you think of sweaty gyrations or the beautiful moments of interpersonal communion, of shared laughter and experiences?
When younger, I mastered the techniques of sex and self-control, learned the mechanics and thought I was suddenly a good lover. On the surface, I was. I could make a woman come like none other, but witheld that crucial part of me, failed to offer up that bit of essence that makes a great lover.
Mechanics alone won’t do it; we’ve all experienced lovers who loved us mechanically, perfect in action, but somehow missing something. Without mutual passion and sharing, sex is simply fucking…and that’s gross. Maybe not gross like a piece of dog poo is considered gross, in the modern vernacular…gross as in lacking the subtle, the magic that turns pretty good sex into great lovemaking.
If I could again be with old lovers I missed, making love physically is not the first thing I’d like to do with them. I’d prefer to first listen to them, feel with them, share with them. It’s like setting out the blanket for a picnic – you have to first set the atmosphere, the environment, create a safe place for your sacraments.
Then can begin the real lovemaking: laughing, sharing, growing closer.
The sex is just icing on the cake, an outer manifestation of the real, inner lovemaking. The sex is not the core (as we seem to think), but the crown of lovemaking.
Totally being there, absorbed in every action. Completely giving one’s self, without reservation. That is really making love; uniting as one, our focus not on ourselves, but on the other, on US. In that beautiful crucible, we join together for a sacred moment as One.
Can we make love without touching? In tantra, we try.
In tantra, we hope to transcend the mere physical, yet engage fully in it to accomplish this. Tantra is about so much more than making love, or even love itself. Tantra (like the Tao) cannot be described; it can only be experienced.
From most reports, the average lover focuses on the mere physical when making love. The focus also appears to be on limited physical (‘erogenous’) zones, rather than the entire body…mouth, nipples, and genitals, for the crudest. Throw in a brief sortie to the neck or the area between chest and genitals, as an afterthought on the way from one to the other, for the rest.
Leaving your Lover essentially unloved (‘loved’ in only the physical realm, and a limited version of that) is never a recipe for sacred union, for truly mind-blowing sex or complete lovemaking. In tantra, we seek to make love not only to the whole person, but with the couple we create, and through it, the entire world.
So don’t get tantra wrong; it has nothing to do with sex…and everything to do with it. Through the practice of tantra, we elevate it (and ourselves) to a higher level, a more complete and Divine manifestation. Through our personal union, we reflect and invoke the Divine Union. Through our physical (and mental and spiritual) selves, we allow God and Goddess to make love, in us and through us.
We merge Yin and Yang, animal and Divine.
This is truly a rare and sacred gift. After sharing this nectar, the crude potion of mere fucking becomes distasteful, repugnant even. It serves only to dishonor and denigrate ourselves and those who we participate in this travesty with.
The sages of Vedanta and Buddhism (and indeed, of all religions, at their core) speak of right action and wrong action. Right action is seen as that which brings harmony and union, which is undertaken selflessly, without regard for or attachment to the result. They are actions that are natural expressions of our higher Self, our true, authentic, and intimate Selves.
Wrong actions are those which do the opposite. They take us not towards unipn, but to selfish gratification of desires. They are based primarily in the perceived good of the individual, of the lower self. These base and crude actions are undertaken for their anticipated results. They are engaged on to fulfill personal, lower-order desires, to join not with the world in harmony, but to use it to get what we want…not in the long term, but in the greed-filled moment.
Living life or using sex like that is perverting it. It degrades us instead of elevating us. It is the exact opposite of tantra.
Tantra is a gift. In it, we express Union (the definition of yoga)…with ourselves, our lovers, and the Divine – with the entire world. That is a gift beyond compare, a gift we give gladly, participate in gladly.
Love. It is the only goal, the only good reason, the only firm foundation for sex and life.
Love.
: )
Tales from the Hips (and Heart) 