In this article, I would like to share some of the insights and things that I have personally learned through my tantra journey so far. It is very personal, and I hope it can serve as an inspiration if you are looking to start the tantric path.
My tantric journey started already in late 2010, when I first joined a weekend course by Shanti Limnell in Finland. That weekend course was an eye-opener, and thus I started learning more about tantra – mainly from the point of tantric sexuality. A bit later I met a woman who was not able to receive anything related to tantra, so the idea stayed dormant for next coming years. When that non-tantric relationship ended, I was more than ready to embark on the tantric journey.
Autumn 2014 I started Wild Heart Tantra training, which continued to Tantric Life Coach training. Both of these trainings were held by Shanti Limnell, one of the pioneers in tantra in Finland. Shanti has been teaching for nearly 20 years, and now continues her work in Portugal. Now for the last two years I have been an assistant on some of Shanti’s groups and given a few workshops and tantra events by myself as well.
First of all, as with any of such long processes in an intimate group, this tantric journey has been a huge leap in my personal growth. In our group we were perhaps 20 participants, and we met 5-6 times per year for a weekend or longer, and in addition some smaller group meetings in between the weekends. So there’s plenty of time and possibilities to reflect on how you relate to yourself and others. There’s enough time to see how you and people around you evolve, how your world opens and how their world opens. Plenty of time to see your ups and downs, plenty of time to see their ups and downs. Empowering to see people when they open up to life and gain courage to step out of a life situation that is no longer serving them.
Accepting myself, accepting others
All the same, all different
For me, the biggest growth has been in accepting myself as I am. For some reason, my self-esteem was not very high for the early adulthood, and I mostly did not – or could not – bring my views or personal sharing out very easily. I had done a lot of sharing in different kinds of circles already before the tantric training, but still it was often a bit confusing for me. Somehow I felt that I would be judged for the views that I hold or represent.
Tantra is about accepting things, going deeper into feelings, going deeper into emotions, feeling it fully, immersing, surrendering. I feel there’s still much more for me to discover in this, but at least my life has become much easier as a result of seeing things through tantra lenses.
And through accepting myself with my strengths and weaknesses, it has become MUCH easier to accept others as they are. Very important.
Through the taboos
Yet another big and important aspect of my tantra journey has been to accept myself as a sexual being. In the beginning, tantra meetings were really exciting as there it was accepted to be intimate and open and let the sexual energy be present in the personal interactions – in the exercises we did. Even if we as westerners think ourselves as free and open, it is surprisingly common how much shame and taboo there is around sexuality. People avoid talking about sex and sexuality openly, and if they talk, they may talk indirectly about “the bedroom things” or “down there” and so on. And giggling a bit.
The real breakthrough for me happened in Tantric Massage Training that I attended in 2015 and 2016. There we worked with several naked and sexual bodies, doing exchanges in massages in a safe and accepting environment. Working with sexual energy, working with different people, giving and receiving. For the first time I experienced something that could be called a full body orgasm or an energetic orgasm. And for the first time, I gave and received several genital massages.
Genital massage is maybe the most intimate encounter you can imagine, so it’s mostly not “business as usual”. Yet, our genitals can hold a great amount of stress, physical or psychological, and thus properly and professionally done genital massage can be a great help in your growth.
So of course it was super exciting to give yoni massage, to learn how to be present and how to find that sensitivity in your fingers and touch. And to learn that yonis and lingams, or vaginas and penises, really are an integral part of ourselves, and touching them does not need to be a taboo.
Stretching the comfort zone
Now in retrospect the journey seems pretty easy and smooth, but certainly there were times that I had to expand and stretch the limits of what I was used to. I will not describe the single exercises here, as probably I would not be able to convey the real feeling of the situation and it may even sound weird. It’s better to experience these things by yourself, but in a safe and supported environment. More on this a bit later.
Do you dare to show yourself?
In my experience, this has a lot to do with shame. Shame on how we feel about our bodies, how we feel about ourselves in general. One exercise here that I would like to mention, one that I found very difficult when I first did it: presenting my own naked body. We did this exercise in a small group of 5-6 people, and in each group, each person had a set time to present their body, taking off the clothes as the representation proceeded. Talking about your relationship to various body parts, what you like, what not. Beautiful parts, not attractive parts, too big or too small parts. Then when everything is said, the group will shower you with what they see in you, and offer their own reflection. And then offering some gentleness through touch to the Divine body. Very healing.
There were several situations during the training that first felt pretty awkward, but once done, it felt as some extra weight was dropped off from the shoulders, and so gave more space to breathe, more freedom, more possibilities.
Safety, support and trust
I really highly respect my teachers for their ability to create a safe and supportive space to explore these things I have mentioned above. I am aware that not everyone has been so lucky, and there has been a lot of crossing the boundaries. It’s sad, and through this blog and directory I would like to help people to find practitioners who work from the place of total integrity and respect.
It’s crucial that you feel safe when exploring the most intimate and sacred areas of your being. I also think it’s very beneficial to have a long process, to really commit to follow a training once you find a suitable teacher. If you just dip your toes in to the tantric river, it may give you some nice experiences, but to really grow and evolve, it’s better to give yourself enough time.
Trust and consent, these need to be present and respected for the opening and deepening to happen. In my experience, it also helps to consecrate or dedicate the practices and exercises to the Divine, so that it transcends the personal level of our being. Everything we do is for the good of something greater than our individual Self.
Tantra vs. tantra?
I realize that there are many out there who see tantra only as something sexual, and indeed, for me too, it has been a big part of it. However, now once I feel more free in that sense, it’s no longer a taboo, and I enjoy my sexuality, it has become more of an integrated part of me. Like owning this sexuality, the sexual energy that everyone of us have. So at the same time the need for outer expression of this sexuality has changed its form, and I have started to learn a different, perhaps deeper level of tantric approach to life. May sound like a cliche, but it’s like living life more fully, becoming who I really am.
Tantra is a practical and physical approach to spirituality, where our bodies are the unconscious in a materialized form. We’re holding on to the tensions and thus limiting ourselves. By letting go of all the unnecessary load, we finally can discover our true self, with effortless and easy flow to life.
Ultimately tantra can be seen as a path back to the Absolute, back to the Divine, by shedding the layers of conditioning and attitudes that are no longer serving us, to become free and to open up to dharma, our real Self. And we can then start to express artha, richness and fullness of life, where dharma happens naturally. Which is feeding kama, bliss, our natural state of being. When all these three aspects are present in our life, we could experience moksa, Liberation. Yes!
Glad to be alive at this time, on this planet and on this sunny summer day 🙂
What kind of experiences you have had on tantra? Can you relate to any of the above? Please leave a comment below!
Yours,
Simo
Kuulostaa kiinnostavalta. Oman henkilökohtaisen tarinan avulla tantra voi avautua muillekin.
Thank you Irja, this is exactly why I wanted to write this post 🙂
(She said: “Sounds interesting. Through personal story tantra can open up to others as well.”)
This post was inspired by my small self reflection of the past four or so tantric years, as I started to think about what I have learned in tantra, or how it has changed me.
I think this particular post could be very helpful for many people out there who struggle with being comfortable in their own sexuality (I know tantra is not only about sexuality). However, I believe that the more comfortable one is in this particular area, the more open they are in every other aspect of their life.
Why do things seem that way to me? That, I cannot answer. It just seems to be the case.
Hi Lisa, thanks for your comment! Yes, this is my experience also, it’s like making our comfort zone bigger and more spacious, so there’s more freedom and even the problems may seem relatively smaller in that greater space 🙂
Cool! I love this type of stuff. I think tantra is a great topic to dive into and discuss with those that are willing to keep an open mind. Have you ever tried ayahuasca? I think many of the talking points that you have outlined in this article could also pertain to ayahuasca. Very interesting indeed! Thanks for the information. Keep them coming!
Hi Patrick, thanks for commenting!
I personally did not try ayahuasca, even though it seems very popular these days. In my opinion, using drugs, even “natural”, is a kind of shortcut, and some stories I have heard that it may be difficult to integrate those deep experiences to the everyday life.
Also, as my friend Elo wrote in her article about the connection between tantra and shamanism (you can read it here), the plant medicine works with the forces of nature, which is a different level.
My approach would be to work slowly towards the Divine, or the Absolute, with tantric yoga and working with prana.
It is also interesting to read about the therapeutic use of drugs under supervision, such as psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA. They say that it’s firing up the brain, so that everything is “lit up”, and so the therapist can help to establish new and healthier patterns of behavior, new possibilities how to relate and react to things in life.
What I have read (not experienced!) about the Kundalini Shakti, it’s doing something similar to the brain, so I would rather work my way towards this kind of awakening!
I would be interested in tantra, especially from the sexual point of view of it — but feel very hesitant to learn it in a group setting, especially if it involves exposing yourself. I don’t mind watching others, though. I would rather practice it with my guy instead and we could make it our own journey. But is this possible? Just learning theory in a group and in practice, it’s done in own bedroom. I know my boundaries of sharing myself and my comfort zone is right there with my partner, where I have no barriers.
Hi Maija, thanks for your comment!
Yes, certainly you are not alone with this thought. In my experience, many of the couple courses (at least here in Finland) are organized so that the common parts of the courses are more of general type of practices and information, and then the actual work can be done in your own time. But still there’s the group, and often, if not always, there’s some sharing and thus exposing yourself in that way. Most of the courses or workshops I know of do not involve sexual encounters as such.
Then of course there are the online courses. I recently wrote a review on one that I have attended and can highly recommend. It’s running just now, so unfortunately it’s not open for enrollment.
There are also other high quality online courses from our friends at Beducated. One course that I could recommend is the one called Master Lover. I did not attend to this course personally, but Ma Ananda Sarita has been teaching tantra for nearly 30 years by now, so I believe she knows what she’s talking about 🙂
And yes, I’m also open to discuss any of the needs to organize workshops, perhaps together with some great tantra colleagues!
Tantra seems like a great way to get to know oneself more deeply, accepting oneself as who they are and accepting one’s sexuality which is – as you described – too often a taboo in this world. I have felt very insecure about myself, my body, sexuality, opinions (as if I would not be accepted by others – I have figured out that maybe I don’t accept myself as who I am) for a very long time and I feel like it is limiting me on everyday basis, being reserved, unable to trust and open up. Though, I am more open than ever since I started practicing yoga last year, been doing a lot of self-reflection and practicing compassion, kindness and such. Still I feel like something is lacking. My question is, where in Finland could be found places to learn about tantra? What is the most approachable way to start the path of tantra especially when being very reserved? I don’t feel comfortable in groups of new people but I wish I did.
Hi Mari, thank you for your comment. I would definitely refer to the previous comment above, to learn tantra online with a partner (or even alone) is one way to go about this.
However, a group is very effective and good way to learn tantra. The role of the group facilitator is to create a safe and supportive environment for all participants. If you attend a tantra evening or other “casual” event, it might be a bit difficult because the group will be different every time. If you would join a longer course, then you will get the support of the group in your process as well – and will witness others’ processes alike. One step at a time 🙂
We have a new group starting in November. I will be posting more info about it shortly, but you can email me if you want more information: simo a allthingstantra.com is my email.