Tantra is oftentimes considered to be the “black sheep” of the yogic disciplines. People who know of it only casually often associate its practices with the most basic carnal impulses – and, typically, with “loose moral” connotations. This is a shame, because one of the chief aims of many Tantric practices is to refine the root sexual energy – usually, with the influence and commingling of the heart’s energy – with the goal of making the practitioner more energetically balanced and less at the mercy of the sex drive. That root drive, which is the most basic and primary energy that human beings possess, can be refined in such a way that it brings more warmth and vitality into our partnerships, in and out of lovemaking.
Various Tantric exercises achieve this goal through the combination of breathing, muscular manipulation, and visualization. Although Tantra is often referred to as “partnership yoga”, many of these exercises are ones that you can do on your own. Conscious breathing is the primary means through which energy is moved throughout both the physical and the psychic body. Breathing can be used to arouse or calm yourself, depending on your goal. But conscious breathing, in every Tantric exercise and meditation, is always used in conjunction with the two other elements of the practice: muscular manipulation and visualization.
The muscle that is most often used in these practices is called the PC muscle, for short. It lies between the buttocks and the genitals. If you’re urinating and then quickly squeeze to stop the flow, you’re using the PC muscle. This muscle is so important because it lies in the region of the body that Tantric yogis identify as the location of the root chakra. This is where raw, primal energy lives, and it can be refined as it is moved upwards through higher chakras. Many Tantric techniques involve squeezing the PC muscle with every inhalation and relaxing it with every exhalation, to get that basic, root energy moving.
The chakras are highly important with regards to the third key element of most practices, visualization. While breathing and manipulating the PC muscle moves the energy, practitioners then visualize it passing through the various chakras. Yogis identify at least seven, and sometimes as many as ten, of these energy centers in the psychic body. Moving energy through the chakras is the essential way to bring it into more refined states. One sought-for result of all the practices that employ this technique is the movement of basic sexual energy into the heart center.
The advantages of achieving this are manifold. Practitioners report feeling enhanced awareness, energy, and vitality. The sexual impulse is no longer experienced as indiscriminate and forceful. It becomes tempered with the caring, empathy, and openness that are the hallmarks of the heart chakra. This is an oft-overlooked goal of many Tantric practices, which enables yogis to feel more heat in their hearts and more tenderness in their loins with their intimate partners – a wonderful commingling of sexuality and heart energy.