In my experience, tantra is about converting lust to love…
taking a base emotion and worshiping as a deity a doorway to God…
for example a sadhaka tring to subdue his natural cravings will never succeed(at least while the body breaths) instead when life grips you, worship it as the divine Mother & be free!
“Some frequently appearing aspects of neotantra, such as animal magnetism, are similar to the 19th century sexual techniques called Karezza used in the Oneida Community; see coitus reservatus.
In neotantra the most important features of sexual practice revolve around the experience of subtle energies within one’s sensual embodiment, and the accessing of these energies both to enhance pleasure and to challenge our egotism into its dissolution. Thus, tantric sexuality often cultivates ecstatic consciousness as well as increased spiritual awareness of the erotic consciousness that pervades one’s human embodiment as well as everything that contextualizes this embodiment.
Tantric sexual methods may be practiced solo, in partnership, or in the sacred rituals of groups. The specifics of these methods are often kept secret, and passed from practitioners to students in an oral tradition. It must be remembered that genuine tantric spiritual practice is merely one aspect of a comprehensive spiritual path of meditation—and that the sexual and erotic aspects of tantra cannot be authentically engaged in without adequate preparation and discipline.
In sum, neotantric sexuality is just one dimension of a spiritual path that is devoted and dedicated to the challenge of becoming aware, in every moment of our embodied lives, of the supreme flow of the sacred lifeforce itself—the sacred unity of love.
In Vajrayana Buddhism, tantric sexual practice (Sanskrit: Maithuna, cf. Tibetan:Yab-Yum) is one aspect of the last stage of the initiate’s spiritual path, where s/he, having already realised the voidness of all things, attains enlightenment and perpetual bliss.”
A person’s approach to sexuality is a sign of his level of evolution. Unevolved persons practice ordinary sexual intercourse. Placing all emphasis upon the sexual organs, they neglect the body’s other organs and systems. Whatever physical energy is accumulated is summarily discharged, and the subtle energies are similarly dissipated and disordered.
Where ordinary intercourse is effortful, angelic cultivation is calm, relaxed, quiet, and natural. Where ordinary intercourse unites sex organs with sex organs, angelic cultivation unites spirit with spirit, mind with mind, and every cell of one body with every cell of the other body.
Lao Tzu explains that the practice moves couples away from separation, toward oneness and transcendence.
Culminating not in dissolution but in integration, it is an opportunity for a man and woman to mutually transform and uplift each other into the realm of bliss and wholeness.
The cords of passion and desire weave a binding net around you….The trap of duality is tenacious. Bound, rigid, and trapped, you cannot experience liberation. Through dual cultivation [careful sexual intercourse] it is possible to unravel the net, soften the rigidity, dismantle the trap. Dissolving your yin energy into the source of universal life, attracting the yang energy from that same source, you leave behind individuality and your life becomes pure nature. Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Finally, he advises that the desired metamorphosis will not just happen without our focused participation.
Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.
Ajah Dharma 