In the Spring of 2001 tantra made a break through at Tiger's Nest after a long period of build up. I met a man with whom I could cooperate and our meeting had a great effect on my teaching as well as on the social life at Tiger’s Nest.
At first our relationship was met with opposition and scepticism – all the well-known prejudices against tantra surfaced. However, I gave the first courses on tantra and slowly relationships experimenting with tantra began to appear.
Today, there are a lot of couples at Tiger’s Nest. A number of the young couples marry and have children with the intention of maintaining vigilance, process and polarity in their family lives. A number of the older couples are delighted that it is possible to have a relationship on new premises and make new, positive experiences with love relationships based on freedom and equal worth between the sexes. Tantra has come to stay.
I have formulated an understanding of tantra in the West in the 21st century which is immediately applicable to a lot of people.As always the focus of my teaching is on process, not on technique or form. The main thing is for two people to bring their lives into process in relation to sex, love and spirituality. If they succeed in this it is less important how they do it. On a fundamental level it is all about bringing energy awareness, polarity and equal worth into the relationship and this may happen on many levels.
For most people tantra is a means to overcome barriers in relation to sex, body and libido or to dare open up one’s heart and submit to trusting another human being with all the vulnerability implied in this act. On a more advanced level tantra can be used to decisively confront and minimize one’s ego or to transcend sexual desire – without losing the natural sexual pleasure.
One of the intentions of/with tantra is to balance the instinctive forces and spirituality and once and for all to overcome the religious and cultural opposition between body and spirit and all the guilt and shame that originates from this.
The tantra practised at Tiger’s Nest does not demand the man to withhold ejaculation. Restrained ejaculation is good practice in periods with regard to maintaining the energy for a longer time and learning to distinguish between ejaculation and orgasm. Hereby it is possible to have several orgasms – or to omit them if this is estimated to be relevant. In a healthy and balanced relationship there is energy enough for a reasonable measure of orgasms.
The first experiences made with tantra at Tiger’s Nest are described in the book “Tantra – Sex, Love and Spirituality”. However, the tantric process is in constant development and the experiences made within recent years are about to be collected in a new book on tantra, which is expected to be published in autumn 2008. The book will comprise issues like tantra in practice, sexuality, personal and collective polarity, polarity and union, equality versus equal worth, attraction, to meet and to part, to accept what comes and let go.
But also a greater perspective will be touched upon. This deals with the relation between religion, culture and sex and putting an end to the suffering which religions have created between the sexes. In the spirituality of the new time tantra is part of the basis for awareness development.
Anne Sophie, July 2007