impersonal energy

This is the last episode in this short series of talks on tantra, and in this episode I’m going to talk about another aspect of tantric sex. In previous episodes, I have already talked about several characteristics of tantric sex, and so far it probably sounds very appealing: one can enjoy great sex and meditate at the same time. One can bring spirituality and sex together – wonderful – and it is.

But there is another characteristic of tantric sex which many people struggle with, and in fact, this often limits where people can take their sex life with regard to spirituality. The aspect I’m talking about is that tantric sex is impersonal. With tantric sex, one is embodying one of the polarities of sexual energy – either the female polarity or the male polarity – and your partner is embodying the opposite. We become pure sexual energy, either male or female, and it is this polarity which generates energy, the energy which can burn up the ego. But normally, we link sex and relationship, and relationship is on the level of personality, it is a personal matter. Two personas relate to each other. So normally, during a sexual interaction, the personalities are very present. But this limits the sexual energy, our awareness is diluted. We have not become pure sexual energy: we are a mixture of the personal and this raw energy.

For tantric sex to take us into the strongest energies, the energies where real transformation can happen, we need to set aside the personal. We need to move fully into this raw sexual energy in a very impersonal way. In this state, we are no longer two individual personalities coming together. We are just male and female energy, raw energy, without all the complications of personality.

By bringing all our awareness, and therefore our energy, into this primitive aspect of our being, it can be released in its full strength. The energy during sex will build to higher and higher levels, and that amount of energy flowing through the body will burn up anything which is no longer serving us. It is transformative. But it takes great courage to allow that level of energy to arise. The feeling is that it’s going to destroy us, it’s going to kill us. How can we survive such intensity of energy? Surely it’s not possible? So usually, we do not have quite enough courage to go into this space, and that’s why tantra is not easy.

People think tantra is great. ‘Great, we’re going to have great sex and be spiritual at the same time.’ But you must realise that it takes a great courage to abandon everything to this energy, not knowing whether you’re going to survive or not. The feeling is that it is going to kill you. And it will kill your ego. It feels like a death. It’s not a physical death of the body, but part of your psychology will be destroyed by this level of energy, and of course the ego doesn’t want to die. It will resist in every way it can.

So do not think that tantra is somehow an easy option; an enjoyable way to become enlightened. It is pleasurable, but only if you have that underlying courage. Can you set aside the personal aspect of sex? Can you become impersonal in the heat of the moment? Can you regard your partner not as some specific individual, but as raw, male energy, or female energy? This is the feeling during tantric sex. And then the energy levels can go beyond anything that you’ve experienced. Only then can transformation happen, through tantric sex. It is a wild path to follow, not for the faint-hearted, and not really for the romantics. 

Romance is about the personal aspects of relationship, and that’s not what tantric sex is about, not at all. In tantric sex it does not matter who your partner is, the only requirement is that they too can enter into that pure sexual energy, in the opposite polarity to you. And you too, for your part, need to set aside the fact that you are a personal human being with a story. You have to drop any idea of relationship relating to this sexual act. That’s not what tantric sex is about. Set all that aside and become the raw energy, and ignore the fear that arises within you. Allow your ego to be burnt up through the impersonality of raw, sexual energy.