Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening

by Daniel Odier

In order to aspire to initiation, it is necessary to have realized that desire does not know how to, cannot, be satisfied by an object, and that incandescence is what remains when the desire for something has been consumed. To celebrate this state of abandon, the master gives (or not) the initiation or the transmission of maithuna once the disciple has joined him in completeness.

Practically speaking, there is an abandon to the profound breath, which eliminates any difference between master and disciple; at this point identity is celebrated by the Great Union. Then orgasm no longer needs the release of ejaculation, because the tantrika has integrated feminine energy. Moreover, a woman who is not open to the world is considered energetically a man by the tantrikas. At the energetic level, there is therefore only woman, the presence of Shakti.

In the reality of initiation, once the well-established practices of the yoga of presence, and when the presence of samadhi—or “pure presence to reality,” as certain Tantric masters define it—are attained, the preparatory work toward sexual initiation can take place. It unfolds in several stages and differs for men and for women. This fairly long training is based on awareness of the previously unconscious physical processes. It involves penetrating this unknown territory of intense enjoyment, of coming, in a series of subtle, refined methods. From the moment this consciousness finds its home in us during regular sexual relations, particular exercises are implemented in order to arrive at yogic ecstasy.

The work of the Tantric orgasm is the same for men as for women, but it is accompanied by the dissociation of orgasm and ejaculation. In this respect, most authors talk about “controlling the ejaculation.” On the contrary, it is really about abandoning all control in a very deep relaxation and easing of the breath.

By the massage of points situated on the meridians, the respiratory functions relax. The diaphragm becomes more supple, and the deep muscles release. The whole pelvic region finds an autonomy and an easeful relaxation, both of which will permit progressively and successfully “forgetting about” ejaculation without holding back anything whatsoever.

Their aim is to open us to the ecstatic duration, to the continuous tremoring garnered by the open senses of the yoginis and yogis. Ecstasy is for them a natural state. All our energetic reflexes block this flow, particularly ejaculation. In order for a man to be able to follow a woman on the successive waves of pleasure, he has but one solution: to become a woman energetically. That is, to abandon himself totally, let go, surrender, completely.

The massage of points situated around the pubis allows us, once the respiratory points have been liberated at the diaphragmatic and abdominal levels, to attain an uninhibited breath, whose depth and slowness will permit the miracle of orgasm without ejaculation.

Contrary to the usual ways, the sexual rhythm of yogis starts in impassioned ardor, where everything works toward bringing excitement to its peak. The more the union is prolonged, the more the rhythm will slow down, until the point of total immobility. All the processes will tend toward calmness while ecstasy itself will follow a lightninglike mounting.

Sometimes, in the beginning, the yogini will use the various pressure points (banda) at the perineum level or two fingers above the right breast, which are designed to short-circuit ejaculation. But these are only temporary tricks to prove to the aspirant that he can let himself go all the way to orgasm without any plan of holding back and that, despite this, ejaculation will not take place.

Through the course of the night, placed in the center of the magic diagram (yantra), where each is recognized as an incarnation of the divine, Shakti-Shiva, by ritual touching of all parts of the body (nyasa), yogini and yogi will reach the state of immobility, without any voluntary contraction but in a total abandon to the tremoring vibration in a union that lasts a whole night. When the initiator is an authentic master, this experience can open into a rising of the kundalini—in other words, to the presence of Shakti in the form of energy. Because in our school the kundalini is liberated through the opening of the heart and not by the working of the lower centers, it is a gentler, more spherical experience than those described by the various authors who have had the experience or who describe those of others.49

At the beginning of my practice with Devi, I had trouble thinking that things were how she presented them to me, close and absolute. I thought she was simplifying my work for me in order to lead me to a later stage of greater depth. This is the marvel of the Tantric practice, which right from the beginning recognizes in its practitioners their capacity to understand the most far-reaching of the teachings and which, in the presentation of these teachings, conceals nothing. Everything is told at the start. There is no progressive quest. The masters have always taken care that they could be understood by everyone, without book knowledge being a condition or requirement. These masters talk above all to the people around them, who are from all levels of society. They recognize no social, cultural, ethnic, or gender differences. Their teaching makes access to the philosophical texts optional. They are above all living examples of what they preach and happily, willingly, give the key to their realization: naked attention to reality.

What a practitioner of the Tantric path quickly feels, and sometimes the very first day, is that the benefit or reward—the state of joy, space, and freedom—is not subsequent to the practice of awareness. It is, on the contrary, an integral part of it. All I have to do is be present to any aspect of my inner life or to any event—it does not matter which—and I am right then and there in communication with what the teachings promise: openness, relaxation, ease, joy, love.

The advantage is that today—thanks to the work of such pioneers as Lilian Silburn, Ajit Mookerjee, Arthur Avalon, Swami Lakshmanjoo, Alain Daniélou, and Swami Muktananda, who have been taken up again by a new generation of seekers, some of whom are clearly informed practitioners such as Navjivan Rastogi, Mark Dyczkowski, Paul Eduardo Muller-Ortega, and Éric Baret—we have access to the authentic spirit of Tantra.

References to learn more

The Tantric masters believe that a man who is alive, in a state of tremoring vibration, is a woman energetically. They believe equally that a woman who is not in this state of tremoring vibration is a man energetically. But this does not mean that there is any fundamental difference between man and woman; it simply means that everything is this tremoring vibration.

In Tantrism nothing is advised, nothing is forbidden, and there is no moral judgment—simply because we aim for full consciousness, and when there is full consciousness, everything is harmony.

Tantrikas have a very different view. For us, there is no magic act because there is no duality and no intercessor. If we are what we want to attain, there is no need for an act that would open this unknown and far-off realm. No auspicious dates—all days are good from the point of view of consciousness—no instruments, no purification. However, rituals do exist in Tantrism, but they are considered in a completely inner way. A ritual is not an action that will procure the divine for us, give us powers, etc. It is the celebration of the unity realized between the tantrika and the object of his awareness. Ritual brings nothing: It is a celebration in honor of the state of unity in which the tantrika bathes. To take it farther, we can say that each gesture or act is a ritual celebrating union. Hence, there is no longer any separation between subject and object; everything is connection, everything is spherical, everything is plenitude.