Union of Opposites

Article by Roxana, published in Yoga Magazine, April 2010. 2008. Roxana, our budding couples Tantra teacher, reveals in this article how Tantra transformed her relationship to her husband Vincent, and also to herself.

 

A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF THE PATH OF TANTRA

In the first flush of romance, I saw in my new boyfriend Vincent, a playmate, an adventurer, a friend with whom I could explore my life’s dreams. Innocently we embarked on a week-long Tantra retreat with Sarita and Geho at The School of Awakening in Somerset. The very little I knew aboutTantra was an abstract but very appealing idea; that Tantra was an ancient path which used sexual experience as a pathway to expanded states of awareness. I had some sense that it was also a path that honoured sexual union. These two notions were sufficient for me to tug at Vincent and encourage him to come play.

Glancing back over my previous relationship history I could clearly see that I had some wounding around sexual expression and love. Now at thirty-three, having fallen deeply in love for the first time in my life, I wanted to learn about how to nurture and preserve this love.Moreover, the whole subject of sex was so utterly taboo in my cultural and family background. I was beguiled by the notion that sexual union could be viewed as a sacred expression of love and creation.All this drew me in.

Little did I know that over the next four yearsTantra would become the source of profound transformation and healing in my relationship with Vincent.Tantra would become the vessel that held, protected and nurtured our love as we journeyed through the intensely turbulent emotional storms which marked our path as a couple. Over these four years we completed the couples’ soulmate training, consisting of seven retreats each lasting five or six days culminating in the seventh level, a glorious ten-day event in the land of honeyed figs – Corfu.

We were in for Tantric Emersion or Tantra bootcamp as Vincent sometimes called it. Far from the buzz and hum of London (our home), surrounded by acres of national forest, lies Croydon Hall, with its beautiful simplicity and spacious environment. This retreat venue is run by a community of Osho devotees, their meditative lifestyle providing a perfect backdrop for the work we were undertaking. Although can I call it work? We did rise early,meditated, danced, experienced a whole range of powerful healing methods including: simple communication techniques, strong emotional release methods, profound rituals, varied massages, group processes, women’s and men’s work, and much much more. Each afternoon the couples were sent to their own bedroom to practise in private the particular sexual meditation we had been taught.

Later we would meet, often in separate groups of men and women to reflect on our experiences and perhaps to refresh ourselves in the spa. Dinner was followed by further meditations and a highlight of each retreat was a themed party Sarita hosted. In this setting guided by the ever-loving presence of Sarita and her co-teachers the couples travelling on this unique course shared an intimacy that comes from authentic relating and total honesty. We all learned so much from each other and felt privileged to be in the presence of teachers who lived, breathed and glowed with the truth of their work.

Over the course of this training I gradually experienced an unravelling of my being. Layer upon layer of hurt and disconnection in the areas of love and sex were brought forward to be healed.Although Vincent and I began ourTantric path in the dawn of our love the so-called honeymoon period where all appeared scintillating and precious, we pretty soon entered territory that was hugely chaotic and challenging. Having survived a deeply troubled childhood, I thought I knew pain. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the shattering and tearing I felt in the fights and arguments that became such regular features of my relationship with Vincent. And yet the love between us pulsed with such power.

The first time Vincent expressed his love for me I felt his words enter my very cells,my body trembled then shook chaotically. I felt the barriers I had put up against love as a young child being shaken loose by the vibration of his love penetrating me.This was my first opening to love.

Tantric practises showed me many more ways to open to love.The couples meditations revealed a myriad of ways in which I was lost to myself, held in separation and suf- fering.Of course in these places I was also lost toVincent.With time I began to see this chaotic territory as one that lies within me rather than as I had presumed a territory that lay between Vincent and myself.