A Tantric perspective on Love

Love is a concept used with a wide array of meanings, most of which are usually unconscious but reflected in the way we do our loving. Here are some examples:

I love you because you are mine.
I love you as long as you protect me from feeling what I don't want to feel.
I love you because you support my co-dependance patterns patterns in just the right ways.
I love you because I can effectively project my fantasy on to you.

Tantra is interested in taking you to the real of love. I have reflected on how love gets felt and expressed from a Tantric perspective, and have come up with six aspects so far.

1. Love as Presence

Love in its purest for is totally present now. It does not get drawn into the past or into the future. Love without attachment to the future means that my ability to love this moment is not a product of future visions and expectations, romantic of sexual fantasy. Love without attachment ot the past means that old stories and old body memories no longer affect my ability to be totally present with you, right here, right now.

2. Love as Devotion

I can love with totality if I open to my own vast, infinite self - the god or goddess in me - and bow in devotion to the god or goddess in you. Tantra has many techniques for deepening your devotion in lovemaking. In sanskrit devotion is called Bhakti, and it is one of the most potent ways to a) open the heart to unconditional love and b) realize the true nature of the self.

3. Love as Selfless Service

If you love with totality, you want to serve the beloved, selflessly. Note that there is a difference between selfless service and self sacrifice (the latter having its polarity in resentfulness and self rightenousness.) In Tantra, lovemaking becomes selfless service. I give myself to you completely, without any holding back. I receive you completely. I am no longer interested in building my excitement levels through you, using you to release my pent up stress, or making you a crutch for my weak self image. I know that when I make love to you, my old ego concept of who I am, is likely to die in the process.

4. Acceptance, not judgment

This is a basic principle, but one worth mentioning as it is so big for most people. Loving someone means accepting them as they are, without judgment. That kind of love of course starts wiht yourself.

5. Love as willingness to feel it all

If you desire to love fully, love without limits, then you will have to be willing to feel all the feelings that will come up along the way. Are you willing to feel beyond - way beyond - your current capacity for bliss? Are you willing to feel all the fearful and difficult emotions that will arise when you open your heart completely? That's what it's going to take of you. The heart can only be as open as it is. If you are trying to protect yourself from feeling - anything - that thing will keep your heart from loving with totality. The good news is: Your heart has the capacity to feel everything, and survive. More than that: The more you let yourself feel, the more it will flourish.

6. Masculine-feminine integration

A key element of the dream held in lovemaking is the desire we have to merge with the opposite sex. This principle applies whether you are straight, bi- or homosexual. We all have a deep yearing for the integration of the masculine and feminine inside us. Our relationship lives are learning schools towards this integration. When the inner union occurs, you will experience it as a different capacity for love.

All our activities - every workshop, retreat and session that you will find on offer by the Tantraschool - will assist you in clearing the blocks, and moving along so that you can start to Love in a way that's worth being called Love.