CarnalNation

Thanksgiving coming up gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about one of the things that I like best about life and being in a body—the fact that the better things feel, the better they are for you.

The heart is where Shiva dances the rhythm of the universe; the heart is the seat of the human soul in Islam; and Jesus Christ resides in the hearts of all men.

Scientific research performed by the HeartMath Institute actually demonstrates the benefits of happy emotions. Gratitude, care, love, compassion and other upbeat emotions create heart coherence. Coherence is when the variations in the heart rate are alike enough that harmony throughout the body prevails—and yet different enough to allow flexibility. Flexibility is needed for resilience which protects against over-reactions to stress and trauma. So people who feel these happy emotions generally have healthier hearts.

Better than that, Mother Nature encourages us to enjoy all of our necessary functions by making them pleasurable. If you pay attention to your body when you breathe, you can feel a sense of well-being or even comfort. Notice how your body feels when you sneeze or relieve yourself or wake up from a restful sleep. These activities can all be very pleasant. And there's the runner's high. Of course, sex is the biggie.

So sex feels good because it answers nature's strongest drive, that of procreation, right? Yes, and in the world of the tantrikas, gurus, saints, and seekers, it also feels good because it takes you closer to God.

Sacred sex practices—those Tantra practitioners use as well as those from other traditions—aim to convert the practitioner's sexual energy into a vehicle for spiritual enlightenment. This is accomplished through the process of raising one's kundalini. Kundalini is located primarily in the lower abdomen, and is not only the energy of sex, but is a direct connection to the universal life force energy. It is connected to Source through the ever-present energy of the universe, called prana, chi, ether, Holy Spirit, and other names in various spiritual traditions.

This energy goes straight up the spinal column during times of kundalini activation. This could be an unexpected occurrence: a temporary ecstatic experience during a ritual, meditation, or practice session; or it could be a full-blown “kundalini awakening.” Such an experience, whether a one-time thing or a lifelong process, is often described in glowing terms like ecstasy, bliss, and orgasm. Those who have experienced it claim it feels better than the best physical orgasms.

A kundalini awakening process can take any length of time, from months to the rest of a person's life. But it's not all pleasure. In addition to spiritual awareness, energy rushes, and unexpected psychological symptoms, an individual might have problems with health issues of all sorts: mental, emotional, and physical. In his book Spiritual Emergency, Stanislav Grof describes various psychoses that have been diagnosed in people undergoing spiritual breakthroughs. Others claim that some health crises are the result of the energy blocks in the body being released, or alternatively, they are due to not releasing negativity when the energy wants to flow. Heart pains are often reported, and there have even been heart attacks associated with this process.

Spiritual teachers—even though they each have their own beliefs about how awareness occurs—all agree that knowledgeable supervision is required. There is general agreement, too, that while rising up the spine, the energy passes through the heart center, the meeting point of the physical and the spiritual. Most claim that the pain some experience comes from refusing to release judgment, anger, resentment, and other human emotions as the energy passes through the heart where these are stored. If these negative patterns are released, the energy flows past unobstructed, again creating ecstasy and bliss.

By the way, this phenomenon is not associated only with Tantra. The Hesychasts, those who practice a specific prayer tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church, call it “awakening the spiritual heart” rather than kundalini awakening, but the description is almost identical. (Their practice differs significantly from that of the tantrikas, however, and does not involve any sexual rituals.)

Many religions and spiritual systems hold beliefs about the centrality of the heart to spiritual energy and development. The Egyptians and the Greeks considered the heart the place where the emotional, physical, and spiritual meet. The mystic Hindus (Shaktas), Muslims (Sufis), and Christians (Hesychasts) all taught that the heart contained energy centers that connected the human with the divine. These centers were the manifestation of specific, though interestingly consonant and somewhat poetic, beliefs: the heart is where Shiva dances the rhythm of the universe; the heart is the seat of the human soul in Islam; and Jesus Christ resides in the hearts of all men.

These mystical systems warn of the possibility of physically and emotionally painful moments during awakening. They use breath and prayer (or mantra) techniques to calm themselves and stay connected with the divine. Lo and behold! The breathing techniques that have been made publicly available to non-initiates bear a striking resemblance to those taught by HeartMath for increasing heart coherence. Perhaps the heart's physical-spiritual connection is more than metaphoric.

The heart produces the strongest rhythmic electromagnetic field in the body. It has been measured up to sixteen feet away. Its actual effects on others have been detected five feet away. When it is in a coherent state, another's heart can entrain with it. Entrainment is the synchronization of biological rhythms and responses. It can be demonstrated by the use of tuning forks. When a tuning fork of a specific vibration is activated, others in the same location of that same vibration become activated.

This is one aspect of the shared space lovers create together, whether practicing Tantra or not. Tantric practices entrain the practitioners, physically with breathing, energetically with eye gazing, and electromagnetically through heart coherence. These, combined with the energy of kundalini rising up the spine, can certainly give a person an ecstatic energy release. Call it an orgasm if you want. But you don't need to be a tantrika to enjoy the benefits of entrainment and enhanced orgasm. Even without the intention of spiritual enlightenment or kundalini raising, sex with a loved one is one of the greatest pleasures of life.

So here's my Thanksgiving suggestion to you. While having sex with your lover this holiday, put a tiny bit of attention on keeping eye contact and breathing together. Be thankful you have each other and deeply appreciate your partner. Let your heart and Mother Nature do the rest. You can thank me later.