Sex is the peak experience of ordinary physical existence.
Tantra asks us to bring meditative consciousness to the most intense sensory experiences in all of human life.
Tantra is hard. Whether one’s ideal of spiritual development is non-attachment, universal divine love, or pure bliss-consciousness, it is particularly difficult to realise any of these ideals with respect to the our most powerful animal instincts.
As much as it’s a tidy mystical statement to say that God is in everything, it can be extremely difficult to actually experience the bliss, spaciousness, unconditional love, and perfect peace of the divine presence on a deep level while watching such things as the news or say a zombie apocalypse movie (same/same).
It’s not that we don’t experience sex as blissful, or post-coitally as deeply peaceful. The trouble is that ordinarily sex leads us away from an focus on our inner world toward the external world of material existence.
For mystics, this is a big problem, since the basic message of almost all the mystical traditions is that happiness is found by turning inward, not by seeking pleasurable experiences in the material world. Yet, of all our external world experiences, sexual pleasure and the intimacy of a romantic partnership seem to be the biggest draws.
This is why regulating and controlling human sexuality has been an obsession of almost every religion because sex is the peak experience of ordinary physical existence.
Nothing else presents such intense competition for our devotion to spiritual life and the inner world as sex, romance, and family life
I can say from my own experience that mystical ecstasy and divine love are good, amassing, mind-blowing, yet good intimate sex still holds up against even the most peak religious experiences.
So the response of many religions is essentially an attempt to crush the competition by denying or limiting sexual experiences.
In contrast, tantra takes the approach of, If sex feels good and God feels good, how great would it be to bring Sex and God together in a unified experience of Godsex !
Why not strive to attain a new peak experience that blows away both conventional religious experience and conventional sexual experience?
Yet, that’s easier said than done. The amount of energy that has to be harnessed in order for the mind to actually remain clear and present to the divine during intense erotic response is really quite extraordinary.
Anybody who has tried ordinary meditation knows that it can be a challenge to sit in stillness even with minimal sensory stimulation.
Tantra asks us to bring meditative consciousness to the most intense sensory experiences in all of human life.
Samantha Thrower 