TANTRA

As my colleague Zoila once asked me, at what point were spirituality and religion separated from sexuality? Indeed, sexuality is a sacred energy, maybe the most powerful of the human energies. Masculine and feminine poles move in a dance similar to the electromagnetic energies that created the entire universe and life. These energies are moved by the attraction and repulsión of opposed complementary elements. And maybe because of this reason, because we feel that its enormous power scares and overwhelms us, societies have wanted to encapsulate it in a series of references and codes.

The fact is that all of us are guided by more or less unconscious programmes in our way of interacting with others. Self-observation in tantra by means of its main tool, breathing, is a good entrance door to detect and transcend these patterns. In the experience of one of Astiko’s students, well-lived tantra is a gift for oneself and for others. Xavi Pañella shares his testimonial in these terms: “Practicing tantra dynamics helps me feel balanced, live in presence, feeling the energy as a whole and joining the mental, the emotional and the sexual parts. It makes me learn that love is inside ourselves, and it teaches me to share with others only from this awareness. Connecting with the source, feeling the quiet breathing, opening one’s heart, working on limits, healing wounds. It is a kind, infinite path, one of self-knowledge and personal growth, to be travelled with sensitivity, tenderness and compassion”.

Ronald Fuchs explains that different tantric traditions are adapted to the various cultures’ social structure and the customs, as well as their moral and spiritual principles. This tantra instructor has sought to find the processes involved in the man-woman relationship, in sacred love, in the interaction between the physical and the spiritual dimensions, as well as the true potential in the union of masculine and feminine energies. By his devotion to the Hinduist masculine and feminine deities, he allows us to realise and experience how the Supreme Creator Forces are both feminine and masculine.

We are no longer speaking about man and woman but about ying and yang forces. Breathing and conscious, subtle contact are a great tool for healing.