***Classic Love Texts and Modern Practices

Classic Texts and Modern Practices
by Al Link and Pala Copeland

The term “sacred sex” may seem somewhat of an oxymoron in western society, a contradiction in terms. Suggesting that you can find your way to God through sexual activity has been a bit like suggesting you can eat your way to thin-ness. Partaking in wildly passionate sex and seeking an intensely spiritual life just haven’t been part of the same curriculum. We’ve been taught that pursuing sexual pleasure, enjoyable as that may be, is at best hedonistic and at worst damaging for our souls. To be a highly spiritual person is to be essentially sexless. It’s an either / or situation.

But that view is changing. The concept of sacred sex, finding spiritual union through a sexual one, is slowly gaining ground in North America. Our psyches are certainly ripe for it. As a society we’re obsessed with sex. In part it’s a lustily healthful obsession, a celebratory dance of life’s great force, but much of it flounders in darkness and neurosis – sex for power, sex for profit, sex for oblivion. We use and abuse sex for everything from selling soap to making or breaking political leaders.

At the same time there’s a spiritual hunger running rampant through the land. The ache for meaning stretches from radical through traditional—from new age spiritual to long-established religious, from pagan to fundamentalist. We’re all screaming for substance.

Well why not unite the two? Bring sex and spirit together and find your magic! The idea’s definitely not a new one. Ritualized sex has been an acknowledged sacred pathway in Eastern philosophies for several thousand years. Tantra, probably the most commonly known form of sacred sexuality, has its home in branches of the Hindu and Buddhist cultures of India and Tibet. Based on a belief that the union of male and female principles (yin and yang, yab and yum) will lead to enlightenment, traditional Tantra uses a complex series of sounds, visualizations, breath control, and sexual positions combined with prayerful thought to reach the heights of godly bliss.

Think about it. Doesn't this make sense? Aren' you a bit currious to explore these ideas and practices a bit more?