Tantric Myth #3: You Need a Partner to Practice Tantra
Understand the deeper invitation of Tantric Practice, and why having a “partner” is not only unnecessary but can actually confuse your practice.
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Introduction to Tantric Myth #3: You Need A Partner to Practice Tantra
Hello again, this is Jeff Craft or Kali Das! And this is the third video in my series on tantric myths.
Myth # 3 Is The Idea That In Order To Practice Tantra, You Have To Have A Partner
And so, myth number three is the idea that in order to practice Tantra that you have to have a partner.
This myth goes back to a connection with myth number one, which is the idea that Tantra is about sex or sacred sexuality. And so, it’s very common then for people to think that they are going to be excluded because they don’t have a partner to practice sexual practices with.
This is a huge myth. It’s also a very unfortunate myth because there are so many people that are single or that maybe even have a partner, but their partner isn’t really interested in the practice, so they have imagined that they are not eligible to explore tantra. Even if you want to approach Tantra in terms of sacred sexuality, of exploring, healing around sexuality, you can still do it by yourself.
And in fact, it can really be an advantage sometimes to not have a partner when you start to practice tantra. As I mentioned in myth number one, Tantra really is not about sex but there are some legitimate, and helpful healing sexual practices that are connected to the sacred sexuality, which can be linked into Tantra.
And even if you’re exploring down that path, it’s oftentimes a wonderful opportunity when you’re not with a partner to be able to really focus on yourself, your growth on better understanding yourself, involving yourself, and looking at some of the various experiences that you may have had around your own sexuality, your relationship patterns, and using it as an opportunity to really do your own inner work so that when you do finally attract another partner into your life, that you are able to show up as a more whole individual that is able to really be in relationship to somebody in a more mature way.
So that’s one of the potential advantages. Now, the other part of it of course, is that if you’re in a relationship right now and your partner doesn’t want to practice, then I would also give you a very similar concept, which is that if you are feeling called to grow, to evolve, to heal yourself, to explore your spirituality, to explore a healthy relationship with your sexuality in becoming more self-aware, less shame, those types of things then even if your partner is not wanting to participate, that there are safe ways that still honor the commitment that you may have with your partner to continue to do the work.
So, the invitation is to not let your partner’s lack of interest hold you back from pursuing something that you know that your soul knows is going to be good for you. So, I invite you to consider that as part of this as well.
Balancing Of Masculine And Feminine
Now the other thing that happens when we start looking at this as a reflection of sacred sexuality, which is where this misconception comes from, is that sometimes thrown into that are the ideas that in Tantra that we’re doing all this focus on masculine and feminine balance. And if you don’t have a male and a female, then there’s this big problem, right?
So that becomes blended into this myth around needing a partner. Tantra does work with the balancing of what we can call masculine and feminine, but there are two different layers of it. There is one layer where we’re looking at it as a spiritual process, this Yin Yang kind of thing where we’re understanding that there’s sort of a masculine and a feminine dynamic or expression in terms of how spirit or consciousness or God operates. And in that realm, we want to understand that we’re using it as a function of speech. And less so as a literal male and female kind of thing.
You know, the idea of God when we start to look at God as consciousness is that there really is no gender. So, the masculine/ feminine thing, if we take it too far into the direction of the spiritual aspects of things, it can get in the way.
Where it can oftentimes be helpful though is in relationships. Now, one of the ideas that Tantra talks about is that there’s this masculine and feminine energy, which is true and that we all have both in us. Also, true.
So whether you’re male or female, you have the capacity to experience masculine and feminine energy flowing within you, which also means that ultimately it’s not about your gender, your gender identity or the anatomy that’s on your body that indicates your gender, that is in any way indicative of whether masculine and feminine energies are flowing in you.
They’re both flowing in you. Now, there may be little different blends that we naturally are comfortable with, but the invitation is whether you’re a male or female to find your own healthy relationship with both layers of that expression. So, for instance, there’s a common idea at least when I was growing up that the boys are oftentimes told that they need to be tough. They shouldn’t cry. They shouldn’t show emotions. Suck it up. And if there’s enough experience around that then a young boy could grow up into a man who feels very uncomfortable with experiencing emotion.
Now the invitation in Tantra would be to kind of let go of that conditioned judgment and just allow yourself to have an authentic relationship with your emotion. If you feel emotional, allow it to be okay. Allow it to be safe.
This doesn’t mean that we need to take that guy and make him, you know, super sobbing and crying at hallmark cards and, you know, take it to that level. Now, if that’s part of his natural expression that unfolds, once he’s given permission, that’s fine, but we’re not creating an expectation around what it’s supposed to look like. We’re just inviting our connection to it to honor and accept that part of ourselves and then find a balance so that we’re not always pushing just the masculine button or just the feminine button. But that we’re able to find ways to easily and peacefully flow between different layers of our expression. So, that becomes part of it.
And the similar kind of thing sometimes happens for women, especially women who might be in the corporate world where the masculine more directed energy is oftentimes helpful in that environment, at least in the past. In order to be able to compete and to stay connected to the processes that are happening of being a leader or a manager or those types of things, there is a more masculine energy that is sometimes actually needed for that and to be able to develop the skill to use that masculine energy in a healthy way is also a good thing in and of itself.
But when the process of that condition becomes such that you’re in that masculine directive energy all the time as a woman and you don’t have an opportunity to relax back into just being into a more soft, intuitive feeling space where you can be more peaceful and more at home and that part of yourself, then there can be an imbalance created. And so again, the invitation for the female would be how do you find the balance between those two places.
How do you make sure that you don’t lose your feminine essence because you happen to need that masculine energy in your career, for instance?
How do you make sure that you don’t lose your feminine essence because you happen to need that masculine energy in your career, for instance?
So, those are just a couple of examples. They’re obviously not the only examples that are out there. And as part of this idea of the masculine and feminine and the needing of the partner, there’s also a linked myth that is sometimes people will teach or think that same-sex attracted people, gay men, lesbian women, that they can’t practice tantra because, well, it would be two males or two females and therefore that balance wouldn’t happen and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And that is also not true. Because again, we have this access to masculine and feminine energies within ourselves. Similar dynamics are happening in relationships and same-sex couples in terms of the various needs of finding intimacy and different fears that we may have around deepening love and intimacy and connection.
And so there tends to be a way that polarity naturally shows up even in same-sex relationships. Without going into any kind of stereotypes about what that may look like or be like, the natural human expression of those balances and how that works in relationship often translates into same-sex relationships as well.
And in addition to that, Tantra as we talked about in myth number one, isn’t ultimately about sex to begin with. So you can explore so much of the tantric traditions in terms of creating deeper self-awareness, deeper empowerment of yourself, greater confidence and healing your limitations and creating greater joy, love, freedom, vibrancy in your life that have nothing to do specifically with sexuality. Although all that stuff can play into it. But you can do so much great work and growth and evolution and self-discovery, whether you’re in a relationship or not, just through your own practice, through your own intention, through your own methodology and learning to embody these principles for yourself.
Whether or not you have a partner or a friend or anybody else that wants to go along for the ride, you should not limit yourself or think for a minute that you cannot explore Tantra without a partner. It’s just simply not true.
So, thank you very much for watching. Look out for video number four and go back and watch number one and two if you haven’t already, and you can click below and make some comments for this and also find the link to my website if you’d like to learn more about what it is that I do.
Namaste.
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So, how can you go deeper into a genuine Tantric spiritual path?
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