«Sex as a Divine Experience
An Interview with Virginia Lee (part 3)
VL: What should a student of tantra look for in a teacher?
MA: Once you have determined the source of their empowerment, the next step is to examine what they have written. Ask if their work has made a con-tribution within the context of the tantra culture and see if they have made a difference. Then look at the fruits of their work. Look at their students to see how they speak, how they live, how their lives have been transformed. These are the three criteria to consider when choosing a tantra teacher, especially if you are looking for the deeper, more mystical path. Practicing tantra is like diving for pearls. If you don’t go very deep, you won’t find them. You’ll just play around on the surface.
VL: So tantra is about more than sex?
MA: I will tell you what it is for me. The first level is to heal your sexuality. The second level is to expand the orgasmic power of your whole body. The third is to open the flow of energy that links the chakras to one another; it moves from the root chakra in the perineum to the crown chakra in the top of the head. Then shakti can move through you and marry with shiva. Once you have done these three things, the fourth level is to transform lust into bliss.
VL: Why do so many spiritual paths require celibacy?
MA: They consider that when sex is practiced with unawareness, it is a distraction. But I want to remind you that of the Buddha’s five mindfulness teachings, the third one was “sexual mindfulness.” What he was talking about (and something I have incorporated into my teaching) is that the place where we are most challenged and least aware, is the arousal of our lust.
When we instinctually want someone, we forget our promises and commitments. We forget everything. This is how empires have been lost. But it is the moment when awareness is most needed. Your capacity to be the witness, as you develop it in meditation, is to be thoroughly involved in the moment yet at the same time know it is a dream. That is when sexual mindfulness is called for, and that’s where people lose it. To put sexuality away is a shortcut as far as meditation is concerned because you don’t have to deal with all the ups and downs, the temptations and distractions. Ultimately, everyone chooses their own path. No one method is better than the other.
VL: What is the difference between yoga and tantra?
MA: As I understand it, yoga is a science that helps us to unite the body and mind for the purpose of knowing the divine. I have heard it said in India that the difference between tantra and yoga, is that according to traditional yoga philosophy, you had to renounce all worldly desires in order to know Brahma. In yoga, you control and purify yourself in order to realize enlightenment, but the tantric perspective says that you are already divine exactly as you are. Tantra tells you to completely let go and dive deeply into your nature as it is. In so many ways, yoga, tantra and meditation all go hand in hand. Tantra really is the yoga of love.
VL: Why is the spiritual element in sex so important?
MA: Orgasm is what brings us the closest to the experience of the divine. In the moment of orgasm, there is a bonding between the right side of our brain, which is the artistic and feeling side, and the left side, which is the center of thinking and logic. When intuition and intelligence fuse into one zero point of total connection, the ego disappears, time disappears and you become one with energy and consciousness. Even the enlightened Vedic masters of 5,000 years ago discovered meditation through exploring orgasmic states in sex. There’s a close connection between advanced meditation and a good orgasm.
VL: What do you mean by “high sex”?
MA: High sex for me is simply a method to get high naturally. Sex is a practice that releases endorphins, that expands our brain and releases natural opiates that can relieve pain in the body. I’ve discovered that if you have one long orgasm a day, your whole life will change — your creativity, your career, your magnetism, your ability to handle crises, your finances. Sex is the shortest and best way to access your naturally high state of being.
VL: How is high sex different from ordinary sex?
MA: Most people think that sex is a natural impulse, so why interfere with it? In fact, what we bring into the bedroom is mother, father, aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather — a whole crowd is in bed with us. Everybody has a particular opinion about how it should go, whether it’s right, whether it’s safe to open up, whether it’s honorable or not, etcetera.
Ordinary sex is usually a matter of instinctual impulse, a reflex response. It is conditioned not only by our family values, but also by what we learned in school and by what our culture teaches us. Very often, that conditioning gets in the way of our ability to be totally na-tural and allow our real responses to emerge. As a result, ordinary sex is rather limited. High sex allows us to move into sex with full awareness, responding moment to moment with the rising energy, being in the present without dragging in the past or projecting on the future. I am as present in high sex as when I sit on the zen pillow.
High sex also means seeing the divine in your partner and your partner seeing the divine in you, the very same consciousness that is namasté in yoga. If you can approach sex in that way, miracles take place.
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