***Tantric Immersion Exercise

Immersing Yourself in Experience

One of the core competencies of Tantra is the ability to stay focused and remain fully immersed in the moment. If your attention wanders during sacred lovemaking, the experience of ecstasy will elude you. The following exercise is from Soul Sex: Tantra for Two, Chapter 6, “Be Here Now”

Immersion is something you do, not something that happens to you. Realizing this is a key to opening yourself to experience immersion, which in turn is essential for experiencing ecstasy. Until you understand this, you may be tempted to give credit for the peak experiences you have, to the circumstances of the experience or to the other person(s) involved if there were any. Once you know that immersion is something you do, you can learn exactly how you do it and you can do it more often. With mastery, you can immerse yourself any time, in any experience you want to.

Immersion Exercise

1. Recall a peak experience from any time in your life, one in which you were aware of some, but not necessarily all, of the following emotions and states of being:

o joy o bliss o ecstasy oeuphoria o happiness o excitement o freedom o sexually turned on

o intellectually excited o extreme sensory richness o pleasure o trust o safe o secure

o comfortable o appreciated o accepted o loved o cared for o beauty o tenderness

o accomplishment o creativity o confidence o fun o playfulness o satisfaction o relaxation

o contentment o peace of mind o spiritual awakening o unity o oneness with all things

o direct connection with the Divine o positive hallucinations o out-of-body experience

o psychic phenomena such as telepathy, remote viewing, moving objects at a distance, etc.

2. Describe the details of the experience.

Here are some of the things you can look for when describing the experience.

- What were you actually doing: making love, dancing, singing, meditating, creating your art, competing, working, etc?

- Were you alone or with someone (a man or woman or many people)? Was it a stranger or someone you knew?

- Was the situation planned or spontaneous, involving surprise and/or mystery?

- Describe the location: Were you inside or outside? Was it hot or cold? Were you in or near water, in the countryside, in a city?

- What did you see: colors, textures, motion, places, people, objects, animals, scenery, movies, theatre, etc?

- What did you hear: sounds of nature, sounds of bodies, words, music (live or recorded), machinery, etc?

- What did you taste: food, drinks, bodies, semen, etc?

- What did you smell: bodies, scents, perfumes, flowers, air, etc?

- What did you touch: textures, bodies, materials, wet, dry, hot, cold, rough, smooth, soft, hard, etc?

- Were you talking and sharing interesting ideas?

- Were you being watched?

- Was fantasy involved in the experience?

- Was what you were doing forbidden, taboo, “bad”, exotic, etc?

- Was there danger or violence?

- Were you in control or did you surrender, or both?

- Were you rescuing someone or being rescued?

- Were you using alcohol, marijuana, or any mind altering substance?

- What emotions, feelings and states of being did you experience? Check the ones that apply.

o joy o bliss o ecstasy oeuphoria o happiness o excitement o freedom o sexually turned on

o intellectually excited o extreme sensory richness o pleasure o trust o safe o secure

o comfortable o appreciated o accepted o loved o cared for o beauty o tenderness

o accomplishment o creativity o confidence o fun o playfulness o satisfaction o relaxation

o contentment o peace of mind o spiritual awakening o unity o oneness with all things

o direct connection with the Divine o positive hallucinations o out-of-body experience

o psychic phenomena such as telepathy, remote viewing, moving objects at a distance, etc.

3. As you recall the experience, notice the part you played in it. Look for the ways that you were responsible for it, how you created the experience or allowed it to happen. No peak experience just happens to you. You are always an active participant in any experience of joy, bliss, ecstasy and happiness. For example, ask yourself:

-“How did I choose to open myself to this experience?”

-“What did I do to help create my own joy?”

-“How did I put myself into the experience?”

-“How did I allow myself to go deeper into the experience?”

4. Recall a second peak experience and describe this experience as you did the first one.

5. Look for similarities and patterns in the two experiences. These similarities and patterns are your keys for allowing yourself to be immersed in ecstatic experience. Later, on your own, you can recall other peak experiences and get a more complete and clear picture of your “immersion pattern” (how you do immersion). Remember it is not the circumstances themselves, but how you responded to them. Here is the checklist for identifying the similarities and patterns. Mark only the items that show up in both experiences. Naturally you can add other things to the list.