Shakti Tantra

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Article 1 - An Introduction to Tantra

The earliest record of Tantra was around 6 thousand years ago in India.....It is documented in the book " The Vijanabhairava"  or Divine Consciousness, which is the story of Shakti [female quality or principle, sometimes called yin] inviting Shiva[ male quality or principle, sometimes called yang] to tell her the way of the world..........Of course she already knew all this, but Shiva was lying around lazily complete in himself.                                                                                                                                                                                         

For the benefit of us poor mortals she invited him to speak and share his wisdom creating the  "The Vijanabhairava", but not only that ......the two together created a whole, Shiva being consciousness, Shakti being energy, meaning the marriage of male and female within,  which in turn allows the sacred experience to manifest.......the book "Zen Flesh Zen Bones"is a precis of the aforementioned scripture.
 
Tantra is a difficult concept for the highly trained intellectual mind because it's more to do with feeling than doing. We are taught to be clever, think a lot about life, what it means and how to obtain and perform. What this approach doesn't do, is to teach us to really live life, to feel,to make our choices  from our own inner knowing of what is good for us.

Tantra invites vibrant aliveness from inside, not from our heads but from a totality in the body, emotionally rich and authentic in our expression. Tantra came into being as a spiritual discipline for the lay people,householders [married people]......who became increasingly fed up with the concept that the only ones able to celebrate the sacred path were the celibates........the nuns or monks etc.

Although it was a strong spiritual discipline in the east, and now in the west, it is still a discipline but a lot of the emphasis is on the healing aspect of our sexual energy, the many issues around  abuse, shame, sexual health and all the violence that is born of ignorance. Tantra is 'The Tao'[the way] that honors the body as sacred, celebrates the senses  and allows pleasure and nurture as a way of life........It teaches us how to relax, to choose to live totally and as intensely as we wish to. Tantra teaches us to trust ourselves, trust our inner guidance and judgments in our way of living, choosing and creating our lives with awareness.

Much has been written about Tantra and sex, it is most commonly thought that this is all.......in actual fact the Tantric path is about consciousness, sex is only one manifestation of our unique expression of life......love is another.....we have  many  expressions of living and at each point of meeting we can choose to be total in consciousness and awareness.......it is a skill, a discipline, invited by the model of Tantra ......The byproduct of all this, is that we can live a life with more intensity, more sustainable sexual pleasure and much deeper connected relationships.

Tantra is a non dualistic, a non prescriptive model, not making any demands on sexual orientation........you can be with one partner or many, the choice is yours, it is leading a life of transcending all differences. Living life in awe, wonder, love and with the innocence of a child with the adult perspective, the miracle of our bodies and senses, being participants of our lives rather than spectators.
 

 Hilly Spenceley

Article 2 - BDSM

BDSM is an acronym that covers three distinct areas “ bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sado- masochism. BDSM is one of many aspects of sexuality and although in the past has been veiled in mystery and fear, in recent years, it has become more widely known and many of the play instruments of BDSM (paddles, crops, handcuffs) are now readily available in High Street sex shops, and have created a more mainstream subset which is quite often known as tie and tease. However, for the general public and the mass media, it is still seen as being ˜kinky™ sex and is quite often portrayed as in a ˜Carry On™ film.

Under the general umbrella of BDSM, many subsets of human behavior are played out, including punishment, verbal abuse, sexual role playing, dressing up, tying up and many more, but in essence, BDSM is all about the expression and use of power in relationship.

Relationship in its widest context (including personal, sexual, working, family) is the playing field on which power is expressed, used and in certain circumstances abused. BDSM brings into consciousness many of the unconscious games that are played out in relationship and allows this free expression in a safe, sane and consensual way.
BDSM does not always involve sexual play and in domination/submission activities, it may not include any physical connection at all. From the outside, BDSM can appear to be sexual abuse, violent or coercive, but in reality, when played with consciousness and agreement, it is a safe, sane arena for play. However, one potential problem that can occur with BDSM is where the person gets stuck in this one aspect of sexuality and is only able to express themselves sexually within BDSM play (in essence BDSM becomes a true fetish).
Activities and relationships within a BDSM context are characterised by the fact that the participants usually take on complementary, but unequal, roles. Typically, participants who are active “ applying the activity or exercising control over others “ are known as tops or dominants and those participants who are recipients of the activities, or who are controlled by their partners, are typically known as bottoms or submissives. Individuals will tend to have a greater energy for one role although some will happily switch roles and it is generally good to experience both.

Bondage and Discipline

In the context of BDSM, bondage involves people being tied up or otherwise restrained for pleasure. Bondage is usually, but not always, a sexual practice and can involve many different items of constraint. In this regard, a whole sub-culture exists particularly around rope tying which in its purest form becomes an art form in its own right.
The inclusion of bondage in the sex lives of ordinary people (tie and tease) almost exclusively constitutes foreplay as a way of adding a spark to a sexual relationship, where one partner is voluntarily tied-up or put into restraints (i.e. bound / cuffed / spread-eagled / possibly blindfolded etc) by the other, who then sexually pleasures the tied partner using manual masturbation, oral sex, vibrating sex toys or intercourse. In the BDSM scene bondage itself does not necessarily lead to sexual activity.
Bondage can lead into the infliction of pain (Discipline) which can be from mild spanking to more severe forms of punishment.
The erotic appeal for the giver is often in the expression having power over another person by making them helpless and this in itself can be visually exciting, especially when seeing another person struggle against the constraints. The tied partner may derive pleasure from being in a largely "helpless" predicament in the hands of a trusted partner, Either way, many established couples find playing bondage games relationship-affirming, as they both require and imply a level of trust between the partners that is not normally found within more casual relationships, as well as being a shared "private" facet of their sex life that many couples prefer to keep just between the two of them.
Discipline is the application of rules and punishment to control behaviour and although it is normally portrayed as physical punishment, this also can include psychological punishment or loss of freedom. It is not generally understood how receiving pain can lead to pleasure, but from purely a physical point of view, there is a link. When the body receives a painful stimulation, the body reacts by releasing endorphins. They are produced by the body during strenuous exercise, excitement, pain and orgasm and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce a sense of well-being. Endorphins work as "natural pain relievers". The term endorphin rush refers to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress, due to the influence of endorphins. So in itself, there is the link between pain and pleasure.
The act of imparting pain can involve many sensual impressions, and does not need toys and implements (spanking, pinching, biting, scratching) and in particular, the connection between a hand and a bottom (spanking) can be the most erotic form of punishment. The use of toys and implements can include simple household objects (pegs, wooden spoons, slippers) to the more elaborate (paddles, crops, whips etc) and moving into the application of a completely different sensation ( wax, ice cubes). The repertoire of possible "toys" is limited only by the imagination of both partners.
A successful bondage and discipline session will be dependant on the competence and experience of the giver and the physical and mental state of the receiver at the time of the session. Trust and sexual arousal help the partners enter a shared mindset with the receiver potentially experiencing an altered state of mind known as ˜sub space™ which can  leave a lasting impression.

Domination and Submission

This is a set of behaviors, customs and rituals relating to the giving and accepting of dominance of one individual over another in a sexual or lifestyle context “ it is sometimes referred to as master or mistress/slave. In Domination and Submission (DS), there is pleasure (which may be erotic) in either dominating another person or being dominated. In the broader sense, DS has been a continuing theme in human nature and in almost every culture, over time there are examples of DS at work as part of the very fabric of society. This is true of the current day as well as of history.
The play of DS in a relationship is virtually limitless and the activities take many forms. These may include:
¢ sexual slavery
¢ verbal humiliation
¢ cross dressing
¢ de-humanisation (pony play, dog play)
¢ domestic servitude or consensual slavery
¢ cuckoldry
¢ humiliating acts (foot worship) etc
Some DS relationships are sexual, others completely chaste and may be acted out over the telephone, by e-mail etc. In some DS relationships a partner only submits occasionally perhaps for an evening or the duration of a party, whereas in other relationships, there may be an ongoing contract to the point where it becomes continuous ˜24/7™.
Fantasy role play can also be a part, with partners taking classic DS, or classic authority figure roles such as teacher/student, police officer/suspect, priest/acolyte or parent/child.

Sado-Masochism

The line between the giving and receiving of Discipline and Sado-Masochism (SM) is not clear and will vary based on an individuals view point (what for one is a sexual act of caning for another would be an act of brutality). In its broadest sense, the difference is one of consent. Whereas in Bondage and Discipline, the use of trust and safe practices (safe words etc) is paramount, for the sadist, the pleasure in causing pain does not depend on the consent of the ˜victim™, indeed, a lack of consent may be a requisite part of the experience for a true sadist. Similarly, the true masochist will, normally as a substitute for sexual pleasure, allow themselves to be physically abused, maybe to the point of torture where they relinquish all power to the sadist. In extreme cases, SM can be considered part of a mental disorder, not necessarily as disorders in and of themselves, but only as disorders when associated with other problems such as a personality disorder.

Martin Hellawell

Article 3 - Evolutionary Relationships

If we aspire to create a new consciousness and culture, then we can only do it together. On our own, unless we are firmly established at a new and higher stage of development, inevitably we're going to fall back. That's just our habitual tendency. But when we cultivate relationships with other individuals who are compelled by the same vision and possibilities as we are, who share the more evolved values, perspectives, and insights we are reaching for, we create a structure in consciousness between us that can support the very higher potentials we are trying to create. It is through sustaining and continuing to cultivate those relationships that a new world is literally created. We begin to actively engage together with life and what it means to be a human being in new ways. In doing this, the issues that we all have to deal with are brought into the light of the new perspective we are sharing and can be questioned and scrutinized. That's how new values, which form the building blocks of a new culture, are actually cocreated and codeveloped with other equally inspired individuals who want to take this next step with us. We need each other to do this!

 Andrew Cohen