Lovemaking as a shared meditation...

The male tends to stand above and beyond the world looking over it, energetically not coming down into the body. Through evolved love making the female polarised partner can aid the male polarised form to come into be present whole bodily, the feeling dimension.

The male aids the female to rise upwards into consciousness. By a sharing of lovemaking as true consciousness a unity connection can be felt between the partners that is miles apart from most people achieve in sexual exchange which is a blurting out of energy to release from stress only.

There are three very basic teachings that seem to be most impactful for Western couples. First is for men to learn to not ejaculate every time, which results in a tremendous turn-around in their vital energy in daily living. Second is for both partners to learn to breathe together and circulate their energy together, as one energetic whole. And third is to view lovemaking as a shared meditative experience, letting go of any goal or performance orientation.

In Western culture it is a relatively novel concept to think of sex as a form of meditation or spiritual attunement, and any notion that it could be used for building vital energy would also be considered quite unusual. Yet these concerns are precisely the focus of many Eastern teachings about sex.

While westerners tend to associate the term "tantra" with exotic lovemaking practices taught in the Orient, its more accurate meaning is simply the "transformation of energy." Tantric teachings of Eastern spiritual traditions are concerned with the transformation of our vital energy in all its permutations, ultimately toward the goal of spiritual attunement and enlightenment. In this context, sexual relationships and the energy that they arouse are considered resources for fueling and supporting spiritual unfoldment, not just for sex or pleasure as an end in itself.

The essence of these teachings is that when lovemaking is not goal-directed (as in seeking to achieve orgasm or other pleasures), but rather takes on a more calm, relaxed, meditative quality, there is a subtle building of a charge of energy in the body. The Eastern tantric traditions teach that when this powerful energy is then drawn upward to our higher energy centers with the guidance of our conscious intention and visualisation, it can unite us with Spirit as well as with our beloved. Another use of this energy is to direct it into specific organs or parts of the body for healing purposes.

Thus, a loving partnership can directly contribute to both our spiritual unfoldment and our physical health.

In tantric lovemaking couples learn to synchronize their breathing and circulate their sexual energy through the heart. This leads naturally to coherence and entrainment with each other, and the popular metaphor "two hearts beating as one" is an allusion to this experience of "oneness." A natural outcome of this intense form of intimacy is that all the other biological oscillators involved may become entrained, both within each partner and between partners.

We can learn to come into entrainment and coherence with ourself and another, in a sense forming a greater spiritual/energetic whole. Sex becomes a means of energetic and spiritual communion.

The ultimate coherence or entrainment to which tantra practitioners aspire, of course, is with Spirit or Universal energy.

Tantric practices are steps to create the conditions for this to occur, and the benefits to intimacy, health and greater energy are a welcome bonus.

The Electricity of Sex

The tantric teachings are based on the circulation and merging of vital energy (chi or prana) between two people. However, it is implicit that in the grand scheme of our energetic anatomy, our electromagnetic energy plays a role as well.

While it may be thought of as being of a lower or denser nature than our vital energy, during intimate contact with another the two are transferred and circulated simultaneously.

In keeping with the discovery that the electromagnetic field of the heart is transmitted through touch, it's easy to see how acts of physical intimacy also allow a strong exchange of electromagnetic energy. Both kissing and sexual intercourse involve contact of moist mucous membranes, and moisture facilitates particularly strong and efficient electrical conductivity.

It is inevitable that the communion of sex engages all aspects of our energetic nature simultaneously. It is no surprise that people sometimes even refer to their sexual experiences or feelings as "electric" or "electrifying."

In taoist energy theory, sex can serve to either enhance (if both understand energy fields and energy sharing) or deplete our vital energy (if sex is simply spurting out of the body at orgasm to de stress) , and sexual vitality is also considered a good indicator of overall health and immunity to disease.

To understand this more fully we need to recall that there are two aspects to our vital energy: congenital chi, also called jing, and acquired chi.

In addition to the general wearing down of our reserves through life, there are two specific means through which we lose jing. Women lose it through menstruation, and men through ejaculation. These two experiences are analogous in terms of the felt impact on one's energy, although for men, ejaculation brings a more acute and instantaneous experience of loss, compared to the more drawn out experience of menstruation.