When we find someone to love who loves us, our hearts soar. The flowers are more beautiful, the air is fresher, the clouds speak to us of truth.

And for most of us, sex is so passionate and satisfying that we can't get enough. Our bodies become divine musical instruments. Our merging tastes like the nectar of the gods dripping inside our bodies. We've even heard that infatuated lovers enjoy driving in rush-hour traffic.

With Tantra, you can change your life and rekindle your love. You can make each moment together fresh and new. You can make every challenge of life a glorious experiment. You can become childlike again, taking joy in learning about yourself and discovering each other in new ways.

In the best-selling series of books Conversations With God, God says that the purpose of life is to find out who you really are. And being in relationship is the best way to find out who you really are.

Is your life structured for self-discovery and for spiritual growth? Does your relationship create opportunities to learn and grow? Are you having any fun yet? For most of us, we just don't know how to do any of this.

Then, for too many of us, something changes. We develop habits, scripts, expectations of each other. The challenges of life stress us. The details of work, home, and kids absorb us. We get overextended, trying to make ends meet. We get tired. We get so damn used to each other. We're too busy to notice our hearts closing.

Too often sex becomes an afterthought to release pent-up biological forces. It becomes an almost boring late night affair with two sleepy ex-lovers going through the motions in a well-known routine.

The conscious ones among us wonder where did all that joyous romance go?

Change All That

We have to face it, life happens. We can't change that. But those who've gone before and sought to prepare us for our lives didn't have all the answers. Our parents, teachers, religious leaders learned

With all this flowery talk, you might wonder if Tantra is a religion? Is it a personal therapy? And you might how can sex play a role in a spiritual practice?

No, Tantra isn't a religion. But it is a nondenominational spiritual practice over 5000 years old from India which has showed people of all beliefs how to raise consciousness by embracing life more fully. Tantra teaches us how to welcome, accept, and use the energy of life to grow. It teaches us how to accept not deny, how to welcome not resist, how to enjoy what feels good without judging.

Our minds have been filled with all sorts of ideas that don't work, instead causing stress, problems, and pain. Tantra says listen to your own heart and spirit. If you're truly awake, you'll hear your own truth. So the Tantric route to revitalizing relationship begins with each of you individually.

Natural Energy Ecstasy

The path of Tantra uses the natural energies of life to help you find your deeper higher self and fuel personal growth. Tantra says accept the intelligence of the universe that drives each of us in different directions. Some might say this is the divine working within us. Regardless of what you believe, just don't

But what if it pisses you off that your spouse is having more fun? What if you don't like what you're becoming and the life you're living? What if your natural essence is blocked? That's where Tantric practice comes in. Seek what feels good inside, focus on what works for you personally, and practice pleasure internally.

Enjoy Tantric Exercise

Tantric exercises help you get in touch with your inner energies, open your channels, magnify these innate forces to strengthen, enliven, and empower. In a nutshell, the therapy of Tantra is enjoying. And then, of course, dealing with the inevitable resistance that bubbles out of most of our minds. This is the individual starting place of Tantra.

At first glance, this might sound like a discipline that reinforces the separation between partners we're seeking to bridge. No, Tantra seeks to create two

The path of Tantra which says yes to life leads to sexual practices as a way to release, flow, and grow. We cultivate sexual energy first within ourselves to wake up every part. Then by coupling our sexual energies, we use this same natural life force to cleanse, heal, and renew relationship.

Tantra is often referred to as sacred sexuality because we believe that this sacred union of two divine beings is the paramount display of love as well as the prime crucible for healing relationships. Though this may appear another example of Tantra's eclectic nature of borrowing any principles and myths that convey its story, one might ask where did this spiritual view come from?

As our teacher Margot Anand says in her best-selling how-to book, The Art Of Sexual Ecstasy, "Tantra was born in India around 5000 BC through the cult of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort, the goddess Shakti. Shiva was worshipped as the embodiment of pure consciousness in its most ecstatic state, and Shakti as the embodiment of pure energy. The Hindus believed that through uniting

Tantrikas believe that each of us embodies aspects of the divine, that we're all perfect and complete the way we are. In Western terms, where things always seem to fall short of our standards, this may seem hard to grasp. But from this spiritual perspective, mental projections of good and bad, right and wrong have little basis. If you find what brings you joy, your divine essence flows and you'll feel and project serenity, inner peace, and compassion.

Osho, the Indian mystic who brought Tantra to the West and one of Margot's key teachers, has taught us that we all include an inner man and inner woman. True love isn't, as many of envision, finding someone who matches the picture hidden within of the ideal lover. Instead true love comes from harmony between our inner male and female.

This kind of deep harmony only arrives through knowing ourselves honestly enough to see past limiting preferences into the soul of our beloved as a reflection of God or Goddess and merging with all energies - body, heart, mind, spirit. When both partners master and project all levels of their innate energies, they bridge the physical separation, resonate together, and create a unique and powerful synergy which propels

In Tantric practice, sex becomes a means, not an end. We open to all aspects of life energy. We learn to relax our bodies, heighten our senses, deeply experience our feelings. We drop goals and standards of how to perform, and don't seek orgasm in bed or ecstasy in life.

In spite of having no sexual expectations, orgasms naturally expand and become stronger, longer, deeper, and more cosmic for both partners. You each take more joy in breathing, moving, and simply being together. A relationship becomes a space of spiritual communion where you float in ecstasy together. You don't strive for reaching any state, you just bask in the pleasure your bodies naturally produces. By letting orgasmic energy pump through your own

In practical terms, Tantra becomes a series of holistic exercises to connect on multiple channels with the beloved, each partner coming from an authentic, honest, deeply self-aware place.

No Script, No Dogma

If you've viewed sex only as getting yourself off, you might think Tantra means to get your partner off before yourself. If you've always been the giver, you might think this means you have to learn to receive. Or you might interpret that coming simultaneously is the goal of Tantra and the only right way.

Regardless of what you believe and want to change about your relationship, any fixed belief will probably be right and wrong. There is no dogma about the right way to do things in Tantra. There's no script, no agenda, no performance standard you need to live up to. It's just about what gets both of your energy moving.

Tantric love play is just that, playful. It's creative, spontaneous, and always different. There are no taboos, inhibitions, or

How do you reach such a wonderful state of sex as meditation? Tantra isn't as much about thinking and talking as it is about doing. So we offer three suggestions: Practice, Practice, Practice. As Margot says "pleasure is a discipline." We're here to help you learn what to practice.

If you want to consider your options, the recommendations at the right summarize our conclusions about what works best in various situations.

When you've decided to learn Tantra, let's make plans for the first two in a series of day-long Tantric Initiations. When you're ready to begin, you can find registration listings there.

If you're already open sexually, know a lot about Tantra, or want to learn by doing, apply to join our sensuous playgroup, Tahoe Crystal Players. This is definitely not for beginners.