I never saw such eyes as he had: soft, velvety, bleeding with impersonal love. When you passed Videha in the walkway, he was not like the rest of us, happily anxious to connect with a friendly face. No, Videha kept his eyes to himself.When I lived in India for a year, one of the disciplines I practiced was Sufi whirling, the powerful method of remembrance of God danced by the whirling dervishes. Through it, I learned
Pole dance classes at your local “Y,” burlesque and striptease billed as “female empowerment,” fetish shoes worn as ordinary daywear, cougars on the prowl, and porn star sex not only ubiquitous on the Internet but expected in every bedroom – contemporary sex is all about the yang.You’ve seen the yin/yang symbol: the white and black teardrops coexisting inside a circle, each half complimenting the other, each
After living in LA on-and-off for thirty years, I’ve fallen in love with the Hollywood Bowl. Many nights this summer if you trek way up to the cheap seats, you’ll find me sitting with any number of friends drinking a little wine, eating a little snack, and luxuriating in world-class music for a buck. At least once during the program, I’ll consider how I’m the luckiest person in the world to be lounging in perfect LA weather, admiring the silhouette of the hills against the sky, and enjoying
You’re enjoying the perfect stroll along the beach: the crunch of sand between your toes, the lapping waves, the glorious sun on your face. You notice the wind caressing your hair -- suddenly you hear cries for help! – the agony of a fellow being beginning to drown. Your impulse is to heroically swim out, drag the person to shore, provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and thereby save their life.Have you heard about this? That’s the exact thing you must not do. Unless
The thing that makes the holidays the most difficult is the widespread idea that they shouldn’t be. We’ve been seduced for years by pictures of smiling families passing the turkey and opening their flawlessly wrapped presents. Everyone is easy to get along with and everyone is perfectly happy.Nothing could be further from the truth for most people. We are far more complicated creatures than that. All families have their areas of dysfunction which are less likely to politely stay
One tantric exercise you can practice at home is to envision your lover as the god or goddess they truly are. That may seem a bit farfetched in today’s world, as modern lovers are well too aware of what is “wrong” with their partner. Constantly bombarded with images of what the perfect lover looks like, talks like, kisses like, and makes love like, we compare and analyze and find our partners not measuring up. Since it is hard for a mere human being to
Tantra is about making love into an art. If you thought of yourself as an artist of love, what would you create? If you were painting a picture of the most juicy, delicious, perfect afternoon with your beloved, composing a song, or sculpting a masterpiece, how would you honor them?Tantric lovers take their time. They are not in a hurry. Tantra has everything to do with savoring the moment, and bringing awareness to every detail. Noticing what you’ve never noticed before. Did you ever consider that
Great psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Reich pointed out that the majority of people are starved for sexual fulfillment; causing all kinds of ills such as child abuse, rape, frigidity, compulsive sexuality, and obsessions of all sorts. This starvation, however, is not from lack of opportunity as it was in the past. The modern world offers plenty of images of sexuality, plenty of messages that to be sexually active is to be healthy, but little information about the connection between love, spirituality, and sex. Pornography has replaced nourishing sharing. The worship of lust has
When you trace it all back there are only two paths, tantra and yoga. All traditions stem from one or the other root. The paths stemming from yoga are those that teach there is something to do to arrive at ultimate fulfillment. The seeker needs to learn to restrain the passions, discipline the body and the breath, and refrain from indulging in pleasures, including sex. One must mold and sculpt oneself into
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Crown, 1999) is a book that I often recommend for people who are wishing to improve their relationships, married or otherwise. The author, Dr. John Gottman, actually hooked couples up to electrodes and watched what happened to their blood pressures and heart rates while they talked to each other. He found that he could predict with 91% accuracy whether their relationship was