Enhancing Your Sexual Life With Yoga

YOGA AND A MAN’S

SEX LIFE

Enhancing Your Sexual Life With Yoga

Enhancing Your Sexual Life With Yoga

There is a Persian poem that says, “On the ladder of love, reverence is the first rung leading to the person you love.” If a person has no reverence for the beloved one, then he does not have true love.
—Swami Rama
 

“Yoga and sex?” you might ask. “I thought yogis were spiritual people—into the mind, not the body.” If yoga and sex sound like strange bedfellows to you, then you might be surprised to learn that many paths of yoga encourage a healthy respect for sex. In fact, some traditions even encourage the active cultivation of sexual energy and union with a partner to help arouse one’s own latent energy—sexual, creative, and spiritual. Perceived in light of yoga, sex can be a way for a man to achieve complete self-realization—of body, mind, and spirit.
 

When it comes to sex, men in the West are often deeply influenced by the Judeo- Christian tradition that tends to portray sex as something necessary, but accompanied by guilt. In contrast with this tradition is the cultural background of India, where the joy, beauty, and, yes, divinity of sex have been celebrated for thousands of years. Perhaps you’ve seen photographs of some Hindu temples, such as the spectacular complex of shrines at Khajuaro, which are completely decorated with sculptured reliefs of gods and goddesses in a dizzying array of contorted sexual acts.
 

Yoga means “union.” Nearly every variety in which yoga is practiced has always had the principal goal of uniting man’s individual self with the greater universal spirit or principle, known as Brahman (“Absolute”). In fact, the two are seen as one and the same in many traditions. 

Each man is divine. The problem is that his individual ego gets in the way of his realizing this ultimate truth. Yoga practices are designed to help men attain the clear and centered state in which they can see that they are not separate from the universal energy that surrounds them. Once they are able to experience that for themselves, the veil of illusion (maya in Sanskrit) that separates them from other beings and objects disappears: They are enlightened. 

In order to help men achieve this ultimate union of the individual self with the greater consciousness of the universe, yoga has developed sacred, ritualistic practices to help men
achieve union with a sexual partner. In so doing, you are achieving union not just with the limited, individual self of your partner, but also with the divine spirit present within him or her. This union is thus a deep, intimate union that involves not just the physical acts of sexual relationship, but also a true merging of souls.
 

Nearly all yoga practices can help you enjoy a better sex life. The physical postures of yoga will make you stronger and fitter, and so better able to enjoy the physical pleasures of lovemaking. Meditation and breathing practices will help you be more centered, and consequently, more present during the act of lovemaking: Making love can then become more enjoyable both for you and your partner. Yoga will also help you to feel more relaxed, thus helping to eliminate stress related to performance anxiety and its potential attendant disorders.
 

You may find as a result of your yoga practice that some common sexual problems—such as premature ejaculation, difficulty with erections or with orgasm, and even issues related to impotence—
 

spontaneously disappear as yoga helps you become more centered, relaxed, and present. In regard to particular yogic sexual practices, there is a path of yoga that has evolved and developed specific sexual practices as part of its path to enlightenment. This is the path of tantra—a term you may have heard. There is much information currently available about tantra, but there is also a great deal of confusion, so it is worthwhile to take a look at this tradition of yoga practices in greater depth.