Tantra and an Improvisational Life

Tantra and an Improvisational Life

Annie Brook, MA LPC

Tantra in its simplicity means teaching; teaching which ask us to hold both the ecstatic and the horrific without judgement. We are asked to sit in the center of our humanness and use our spiritual and emotional capacities. Joy, ecstasy, pleasure, pain; all are energies to be embraced.

We are given at birth the opportunity to live a fully lived life. This is a great gift. Yet often we are filled with suffering. How can we transmute suffering to compassion in an integrated way? How can we use what life brings us to be more fully present, alive and responsive to those we love and to our communities?

This is where a tantric practice can be of great value. It can teach you to embrace energy and how to move it through the many levels of our complex nature. Can you imagine any force greater than the actual ability to create life? This Life Force, the essence of our greatest energetic state, is directly linked with the power of our sexual nature. It is fullest when we express ourselves from an integrated place which includes our emotions, our bodies, our sexuality, our mental attitudes and spiritual insights. Tantric practice can bring us balance in our lives, an extended capacity to handle energy and emotions, an awareness of our human frailty, and a sky rocket streaming into divine consciousness.

Learning to use tantric energies to open to internal ecstasy is a discipline and a practice that comes from direct application to life experiences. A full Tantric path includes integration of the psychological, the emotional, spiritual and sexual. It is this integration which includes our sexuality that gives us power. Sadly, sexuality has been deformed in this culture. In fact, I went to my first tantric training kicking and screaming, dragged along by a good friend. All the while I imagined Tantra as just another way to have sex with someone you didn’t really know. I imagined it as a way to back out of commitment to a marriage or partner. You can imagine my surprise when I recognized the spiritual essence found in the inner Tantric work, the personal discipline and cultivation that this path demanded, and the level of commitment needed to learn the tantric arts. There was room for monogamy as well as other forms of relating. I sensed the power of Tantric work, power that did not come from rising above life, or "blissing out", but in finding a way through pain by living. Let me share with you a personal experience of loss which taught me to sit in that middle ground, an experience in which I simultaneously experienced sadness and great joy.

I have had many losses in my life which have been great teachers. I didn’t know the wisdom of these gifts at the time, and have spent energy in my adult life to cultivate a path where I could learn about the gifts these losses held for me. At birth I was separated from my mother for a month. At age two my father died suddenly. While in my young twenties my first hand-built home burned to the ground and in my early thirties, my partner started sleeping with someone else. In my late thirties, I experienced the sudden death of my husband, and now in my forties, two recent miscarriages. All of these losses were sudden surprises. They shocked my plans as to how I thought my life would evolve. Yet through a practice which supported me to move, to feel, and to find my own spiritual voice, I have learned how to open beyond the pain of loss into deep compassion and regain my zest and humor.

My last two losses were the ones that most affirmed the tantric path for me. In the midst of a miscarriage I felt a deeper river of joy. How could this be, I wondered? So I tried again. Feel the pain, the sorrow, the saying good-bye to this unborn baby, and keep open to feelings. Every time I let the sorrow fully into myself, into the tissues of my body, I felt beneath it a quiet joy. I felt the fullness of birth and death, and an inner ecstasy. I said good-bye to the unborn one with love and felt love in return.

Don’t get me wrong; it is not that I am happy with the painful events of my life. I don’t think God asks us that question. It is that I have been able to go fully into these events and come through them whole. I am not living a life of despair and this I attribute to the use of tantric awareness to help me integrate and embrace life. By following the sequence and flow of my emotions, by moving my body and my sexual energies, by prayer and cultivated practice, by time with nature, alone time and time with others who just loved me, I was able step by small step to find my way home. This means that I can be present; with myself, with others, and with a deepened sense of spirit.

For this reason I write these words. They are a subtle invitation to you to go to the depths of your experiences and let them open you. They are also an invitation to reclaim the beauty and power of yourself as an integrated sexual being. I invite you to stay present with the energy that comes your way, and flow with life. Feel both through pain and pleasure and follow the waves and rhythms of your life. You will be drawn to different teachers and experiences that will help you deepen along the way. Eventually you will be sharing your depth, your fully lived life, with others and contributing towards the common link of our humanity. Oh, yes, one more quick reminder. There is bliss and ecstasy. It awaits us as we travel fully opened. Enjoy ... Annie Brook