Note: For the complete lessons, with additions, see the AYP Easy Lessons for Ecstatic Living Books.

Lesson 24 - Q&A – Tantric masturbation with sitting practices?

From: Yogani
Date: Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:51pm

New Members: It is recommended you read from the beginning of this tantra yoga archive, as previous lessons are prerequisite to this one. The first lesson is, "What is tantra yoga?"

Q: After reading the material in the Tantra group, it makes me wonder if I might help myself progress faster if I had more sexual arousal during sitting practice. --Currently there isn't any. Siddhasana doesn't generate any sexual energy for me, possibly because I'm taking prozac, which lowers the body's ability to get aroused, both flight-or-fight and sexually. I take it for both anxiety and depression, and it dawned on me today that maybe on the anxiety side, what needs to happen is not decreasing arousal/anxiety, but transformation of that arousal/anxiety into spiritual energy. It would be hard to provoke anxiety in myself before sitting practice, but not so hard to provoke sexual arousal. So I wonder if pre-orgasmic masturbation as part of sitting practice might be useful in increasing energy flow and getting to ecstasy?

I'm hoping that the practices you have been teaching will eventually enable me to stop taking the prozac, but I'm not about to stop taking it precipitously.

A: I agree that you should not come off your medication just to become more sensitive in siddhasana. It is not essential, as much progress is being made bringing up inner silence in meditation with no sexual stimulation needed for that. As you know, inner silence is by far the most important ingredient for enlightenment.

Keep in mind that, in the tantra group, most of what is here is for those who have sex going on at a certain level already, and how to make the best use of it for yoga. It is not encouraged for everyone to become sexually active beyond their norm just to participate in more tantric sexual practices.

I can see how the idea of needing to promote sexual arousal for sitting practices could come up in your mind. It is in fact what siddhasana is for. However, it is not best to try and actively stimulate beyond siddhasana in sitting practices. Better to let it happen in siddhasana naturally. And don’t forget mulabandha and the mudras, etc, higher up, which all tie in with raising ecstatic (sexual) conductivity in the nervous system.

You want to help your spiritual progress along, and that is fair enough. Better not to masturbate before or during sitting practices though. That is too much stimulation when you are wanting to let the nervous system come to stillness. You can use the tantric practices at other times though, and the results of that will accumulate in your nervous system and then naturally become more prevalent in siddhasana and sitting practices, as well as in daily life.

You can give siddhasana a some help by cupping your genitals in your hand while doing sitting practices. This is not masturbation, just a little quiet help for your energy. Don't do it to the point of too much distraction from easy spinal breathing and meditation. A nice balance is what we want. That is where we end up with siddhasana too, with a nice balance between ecstatic energy gently washing up through us, and deep inner silence coming up in meditation and other sitting practices. These two combine in us to create unending ecstatic bliss and overflowing divine love.

It is important to note that raising ecstatic kundalini isn't only about sexual stimulation, so all the preorgasmic stimulation in the world (including siddhasana) may not do it if inner silence is still formative and pranayama and other practices have not opened the nervous system enough yet.

If you are inclined to masturbate at times (other than during sitting practices), by all means take advantage of the tantra techniques. The count method just given can be used regularly with good effectiveness to coax sexual energy higher in long solo or partner sessions, and gradually cultivate the nervous system to be in that peaceful ecstatic mode naturally at all times. Then siddhasana will have increasing effects because the energy will be moving already.

So, if you work with sexual energy at times outside sitting practices on a regular basis, that will help siddhasana and all of your practices. It is a separate practice, which is how all tantric sex is discussed in the lessons, as separate rather than integrated with sitting practices. We will add some main group style practices (breathing, postures, etc.) in with the tantric sex practices at some point. There are some useful combinations. But whatever we do in sex, let's not skew our regular sitting practices too far in that direction, or we will lose something there. Balance...

Sitting practices are the bread and butter of yoga. We need them every day to progress. Tantric sexual practices are like the cake. We enjoy them when we can, but not as a twice daily scheduled event. Tantric sex is not a substitute for daily spinal breathing and deepmeditation.

The guru is in you.

Note:  For detailed instructions on the methods of tantra in relation to the broad scope of yoga practices and the enlightenment process, see the AYP Tantra book.

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