Monthly Archives: February 2014

  Breathing in Tantric Massage. Is it an erotic practice?   The breath is all important. When we stop breathing, we die. Yet how many of us are really aware of our breathing ?   A rapid, shallow “stress breath”, breathing from the chest, prepares us to fight or flee. It is part of the autonomic nervous system response to stress. It stops us from feeling, as our attention is directed towards the external threat.Our digestion stops and sexual response is inhibited. All our mental energy is directed towards the external environment – we disassociate, we feel shut down, frozen and numb.   Shallow breathing allows us to shut down our emotions so that we can fight or flee more effectively.   When we learn to breathe from the belly, or from the diaphragm, which is how we are meant to breathe, we also feel a fuller range of emotions   Deep full breathing can also release tears and laughter. Simply acknowledging and breathing into a feeling, can clear it.   Through deep breathing, we can learn to practice detachment, with mindful awareness of our emotions – and this is very empowering.   The practice of conscious breathing can alleviate… Read more »

Tantra is probably the one of India’s yoga traditions which has become the most sensational, exotic and dramatic. It has come to fascinate the mind of the modern western world and has been interpreted in the most bizarre and entertaining ways. Tantra seems to offer us everything – plenty of heightened pleasure in sex, money, healing, in fact there are tantra methods for achieving all human desires. And what is more, one doesn’t have to renounce anything or become an ascetic as in other yoga traditions, because tantra is supposed to encompass everything. However, as in all things, we need to learn discrimination. We need to find out the difference between real Tantra and the superficial distortions which have become the norm in popular culture and are easily found everywhere. But how to tell who is a genuine teacher? The ‘New Age’ has embraced Tantra. There are so-called spiritual teachers on every street corner nowadays.New Age approaches to massage, body work, pranic healing etc. may have health benefits, but they do not lead to the deeper understanding and experience which require intense spiritual practices of meditation, mantras, pranayama…. True Tantric teachings are extremely deep and profound and include some of… Read more »