Tantric Relationships & Sexual Alchemy
The myth of Psyche & Eros is absolutely fascinating because if you really apply yourself to the meaning of the myth you can see that people thousands of years ago already understood the ways in which love can lead to transformation and consciousness expansion.
The word “tantra” means “tool for expansion.” When it is applied to relationships, it means “tool for consciousness expansion.” The word “alchemy” means “transformation.” So to state it very clearly, I am interested in relationships that lead to transformation and consciousness expansion.
When people get into relationships (particularly the intimate male-female relationship) they are obsessed with the questions, “Will it last?” and “Will we be happy forever?” or “Will this relationship end up a failure?”
The answer to the first question is “maybe.” There is no way to ever know. Even people who get married often end up divorced. The answer to the second question is “no.” You will sometimes be happy, but other times angry, sad, afraid, disappointed, confused, disgusted, bored, annoyed. Relationships take us through the whole gamut of emotions.
The answer to the third question is “no.” I realize now that there is no such thing as a failed relationship. There are on-going relationships and relationship that end, but there is no such thing as “failing to relate.” You can relate in ways that are healthy or unhealthy, honest or deceptive, supportive or destructive, open or closed, alive or dead, deep or shallow, unconditionally loving or ego-centric, and you can choose to learn from these experiences (leading to transformation and consciousness expansion) or you can choose to remain blind to your own unconscious patterns, repeating them over and over again with the same negative results. But each time you repeat the same pattern, you actually increase the chance of bringing that pattern into your conscious awareness. So there’s no such thing as a failed relationship.
In the article mentioned in my last post, Eleanor Bertine wrote, “When two people ‘fall in love’ they are not yet truly loving but are caught in a tidal wave of nature (sexual attraction), which for the time being, lifts them up and hurls them together. But it will just as surely set them down again in disillusionment, unless in the moment of togetherness, they have built a solid bridge of communication and relatedness. For modern man, this must be a new kind of relationship, one which incorporates whatever increase of consciousness has been achieved during this era of struggle and transition.”
It is through disillusionment (the shattering of illusions and fantasies) that we can move toward psychological maturity. Some people never do. They end up bitter and cynical, always blaming the other person, while others stay endlessly stuck in the fantasy, never settling into a relationship, but forever searching for the perfect partner, addicted to the ego gratification of the initial attraction and conquest, then moving on when reality shatters their illusion and they realize, “Oh, this person isn’t perfect. Must not be the right one.”
Some people choose the path of staying in a relationship, but rather than seeing it as a dynamic living entity, they get stuck in unconscious patterns until the relationship deadens and becomes little more than a hard, petrified shell.
None of these options are very attractive and that is probably why I chose to be single and celibate for five years. Deep down inside I knew there was some mystery that I would never be able to understand if I kept running from one relationship to another. That would only be a way of distracting myself from the truth and deeper meaning of relationship.
I also didn’t want to close my heart, becoming cynical and bitter, blaming someone else. Instead, I wanted to keep my heart open, learning to love unconditionally.
I still feel tremendous love, passion, and desire in my friendship-relationship with Tom. It does not at all feel dead or petrified. But the fact is that relationships require growth, transformation, and adaptation on the part of both people or one person will very likely outgrow the other.
The desire to move to a deeper, more honest, more intimate level in my relationship with Tom definitely exists on my part, but there are still many unknown factors:
1) I have no idea if the desire exists on his part. He didn’t give me the impression that he wanted to end our friendship, only that moving to a deeper level was “not going to happen at the moment.” I’m waiting for him to be ready, while at the same time doing the work on myself that I need to do, which is to be more independent.
2) I have no idea what the status of his relationship with Chloe is. The last I heard on December 15th, she was still in a relationship with another man, but that was ending, and she wanted to get to know Tom. I assume for the purpose of getting into a relationship with him. Makes me wonder if she’s even capable of being on her own, but they’re going to do what they want, so my opinion of her is irrelevant.
I’ve decided to let go of the outcome. He either wants me in his life or he doesn’t. Even now the alchemy is taking place in both of us, perhaps in Chloe too. That’s what happens in human relationships. The chemisty and magnetic energy between people catalyzes them into transformation.
