Celtic Sacred Sensuality & Tantra Resources

The following section is adapted from the work of Traktung Rinpoche (with permission) who can be found at www.flamingjewel.org and also contains excerpts from an article on huffingtonpost.com by Linda Savage.

rom the beginning there have been certain rare women and men, Welsh/Celtic Priests and Priestesses, who, following their hearts great yearning, have discovered the answer of birth and death with realization of who they truly are - who we all are.

The intent of Sacred Sensuality is to both merge with the Divine (God/Goddess) using sexual energy as the vehicle and to use sexual energy to cause action to occur (Sex Magick).

Currently most citizens of Western culture are stuck with a model of sex that can be called, "The Performance Model: Sex equals intercourse": in this model, the goal of sex is orgasm, and great sex is a virtuoso performance.

Only one hundred years ago, women were thought to be incapable of orgasm and sex was intended purely for procreation. Not that everyone accepted this view, but everything in our Western culture supported women's sexual ignorance and encouraged men to use sex in very limited ways. Now, women are supposed to have orgasms every time and men are supposed to last all night as perfect sexual athletes. It's a recipe for disaster which the invention of Viagra has not averted.

So imagine living in a culture where sex is sacred and not a sin and sexuality is seen as a positive expression of the life force. This perspective was the norm in many cultures pre-dating Greek and Roman times and these societies date back 30,000 years. Even as late as 3,500 years ago those who lived on the island of Crete recognized sexual pleasure as a wonderful way to connect with spirit, renew the abundance of the land, and unite deeply with one another. In this culture sexuality was widely understood as a pathway to spiritual ecstasy.

The fact is that sexuality and spirituality were never split until well into the first millennium of the Common Era when denial of the body became the popular theology of the day. It may seem outrageous to view sexuality in such lofty terms. Yet, it no longer makes sense to deny the spiritual dimension of our sexuality, as if we had "lower," physical urges and "higher," spiritual functions, disconnected from the body.

Let me define again what I mean by spiritual sex: it is sexual energy that goes beyond physical sensations of pleasure and genital orgasms. It is not limited to genital stimulation and the release of tension through a quick and simple orgasm. When spiritual sex is consciously practiced, there is a quality of "mindfulness," which is heightened awareness and expanded consciousness. The more cosmic experiences utilizing sexual energy create ecstatic states. The essence of spiritual sex is enhanced awareness, extraordinary inspiration, and a sense of merging with the life force.

For simplicity's sake, we have divided spiritual sex into two levels: the first is conscious loving which is sexual energy that generates intense, loving feelings for the partner. The result is greater partner connection, reinforcing commitment in a long-term relationship through loving communion, enhancing the bond. The second level is spiritual union which is the ultimate expression of sexuality. Often one receives inspiration and illumination that can be translated into divine guidance or simply experienced as pure bliss. These transcendental sexual experiences produce a sense of merging with the source of energy and losing physical boundaries during orgasm. It is often described as "being in the moment of boundless bliss." Many ancient and modern visionary experiences are described as feelings of being "bathed in pure light." It is cosmic orgasm, the direct experience of the self as pure energy, in union with a divine source. This level of spiritual sex may occur without a partner and even without any physical stimulation.

One woman, related the following; "At the moment of orgasm I knew that I was in a great, golden light and I experienced myself as transparent, luminous energy. I saw seven star-like, golden, swirling points that lined up in my body. I did not know about the chakras at the time but later I discovered that that's what I saw. My energy centers looked like radiant golden lights in my body." What she had visualized was the life force freely flowing through all seven energy centers that were illuminated and energized by her orgasm. Many people who become interested in spiritual sex have had similar initial spontaneous ecstatic experiences.

Since sexual energy is the source of our connection to the life force, the benefits to physical, emotional, and mental health are obvious. Developing conscious rituals and techniques allow you to become more open to such transcendent experiences. It prepares you to be receptive to the possibility of connecting in higher states of awareness from peak sexual moments.

Sexual energy is the most powerful force within the human body and can lead to profound spiritual experiences accompanied by intense physical pleasure and bliss. Welsh Shamans use their erotic energy with awareness, love and respct, for themselves and their partner.

Sacred Sensuality views everything as energy, vibrating at different rates and manifesting in a myriad of ways (e.g., matter, space, time, forces, people, animals, objects, etc.). Harmony and peace are the result of energies being in balance -- life flows without restriction. Often, due to various reasons, the energies that make up the human body become unbalanced. This results in ill health, sleeplessness, sluggishness, pain, distraction, and many other unwanted conditions including unsatisfactory sexual performance.

One of the goals of the Sacred Sensual Process is to bring the body into a balanced state before engaging in sexual activity. The benefits are many, including deep relaxation (important for High-Erotic energy), heightened sensual response and better health. The process builds trust and intimacy between the partners.

From the Sacred Sensual perspective there are many energy centers in the body. The seven primary psychoenergetic vortices are referred to as Psychic Power Centers or Wheels of Light, each having a specific function in the body. The most important one is the Heart Power Center. There are three Psychic Power Centers above and three Psychic Power Centers below the Heart Center. The upper three have to do with intellect and spirituality. The three lower Psychic Power Centers deal with base human needs and emotions. The Heart Center balances the Spirit with the flesh. This Center is the seat of unconditional love and divine presence.

(If you aren't already aware of these energy centers or for more detailed information, I suggest you acquire one of the many excellent books about the Psychic Power Centers, Sex Magick and TANTRA. Metaphysical bookstores are a reliable source for these books. Wheels of Light by Anodea Judith is one title to check out.)

Sacred Sensuality smashes the taboo against unreasonable happiness; a thunderbolt path, swift, joyful, and fierce. There are many different types of paths. Some touch you like a gentle spring rain, but Sacred Sensuality is the wild summer thunder storm churning with creation, destruction, bliss and emptiness. Sacred Sex is a wild tiger - if you approach her with right motivation, right intention, and integrity, she'll suckle you at her breast; but if you come to her in a sloppy way, she'll rip apart your body-mind and eat you for dinner.

The Sacred Sensual path is complex and can be dangerous. It requires a strong, well integrated sense of self. Otherwise it is possible for the practitioner to make gross errors in judgment. On the Sacred Sensual path, it is easier to become the ultimate form of egohood and delusion than it is to become free. You can begin by intending to liberate the tyranny of ordinary appearance into primordial awareness and end up crystallizing the ego into diamond-hard delusion. There is no authentic Sacred Sensuality without profound commitment, discipline, intelligence, courage, and a sense of wild, foolhardy, fearless abandon.

Foolhardy because the path is for gamblers. There is a beautiful poem which speaks to this from the Sufi tradition:

Discipline, courage, hard work and intelligence are required because that is what any quest of the heart demands. Sacred Sensuality, which molds the power of creation and ego into skillful means cutting through delusion, requires careful preparation. We don't expect someone who just wants to play around now and then on a keyboard to become a concert pianist. We don't expect someone to be able to get up off the couch one day and run a four minute mile. Great tasks require great effort.

With Sacred Sensuality we are taking the mind and body as cauldron, feeling, ego, elements and world as alchemical ingredients, and imagination informed by divine power as catalyst; and we are accomplishing the great magical task of alchemical transformation. The base metal of dualistic view becomes the infinitely valuable gold of pure and luminous awareness. Sacred Sensuality is a path of tremendous power. This power is not easy to use without getting burned by it. Yet, at the same time, it is a path of great joy.

If you're going to use pleasure and personality as the path, you have to be careful not to self-destruct. In working with an advanced practice such as Sacred Sensuality, powerful energies of psyche, nature, and the subtle realms are harnessed. When such a powerful practice is introduced into one's system through authentic empowerment, it is not something to be taken lightly. Let's say you re going to bring anger into the path. It's a razor's edge between liberating anger into the wrathful compassion of mirror like wisdom and just becoming an arrogant, self-righteous prig. With Sacred Sensuality, either you are actually transforming your mind stream into this wisdom-being of great wrath and power, or you are just dressing up your egoistic anger in the deities's clothes. If Sex is misused, the divine becomes a demon.

When you work with the Sacred Sensual path, you are playing with a live wire. It's charged not with electricity, but with the power behind creative force. Sacred Sensuality practice deconstructs and constructs reality, as play, until the essence of reality becomes obvious. Through the practices, private non-realities interface with the public non-reality until you realize the true nature of both. You use illusion to cut through illusion.

With Sacred Sensuality you are not getting somewhere; you are just waking up to the true nature of things as they are. The colors inherent in clear light are not other than the light. The display whereby Being presents its limitless mystery is not other than the birthless and deathless pure mystery from which Being comes.

Some groups teach that delusion is only an illusion and all that you need to do is understand the illusion to be free of it. Because all you need to do is understand, then all the master has to do is explain the truth to you, and all you need to do is listen and you will "get it".

In truth understanding is a whole body act. You must understand with the cells of your body, your mind and your feelings. Listening involves a profound action of the entire self. This action is what Sacred Sensuality is. The Sacred Sensuality Spiritual practice is the act of listening to the teaching with the whole body.

Sacred Sensuality is a spiritual path whose goal is union with the divine through ecstatic sex. This path is based on the philosophy of sensualism: the idea that in order to transcend our physical existence, we must first fully experience it. Sensualism teaches that the experience of the physical world with complete awareness leads to communion with Divinity. This is different from hedonism, which is mere indulgence in physical sensation and which encourages blind attachment to the physical world rather than conscious understanding of it.

Sacred Sensuality also describes the human body as a microcosm which reflects the larger whole of the universe, and suggests that self-knowledge leads to an understanding of the workings of the cosmos. As above, so below.

Click Here for the Art of Sacred Sensuality

Click Here for Sacred Sensuality and the Great Rite

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