Since the Sexual Revolution of the '60s, western culture has increasingly embraced sexuality as a normal part of being human. We have come a long way from the days of the double standard for men and women, and rigid views of acceptable couplings. As a culture, we have developed a strong theoretical understanding and tolerance for the vast variety of personal choices an individual may make regarding with whom and how they choose to be sexual.

For all of this liberating progress, the sexual experience remains embarrassingly uncomfortable and dissatisfying for many people. Why? Because there is a world of difference between the theoretical understanding of the mind and the physical/emotional experience of the body. Tantra bridges this discrepancy.

Tantra, a Sanskrit word meaning "expansion through awareness", helps us to quiet the mind and disarms the mind's tendency to worry and distract us from the realm of the body. We know how difficult it can be when we want to exercise our mind yet feel distracted by the pain of an injury or some other health ailment. In a similar manner, when we want to exercise our body through sexuality, the mind can distract us with its vortex of worry and preoccupation.

Tantra teaches us how to contain these mind tendencies, thus freeing our physical selves to expand into new and wonderful realms. The benefits include deeper, heartfelt intimacy than most of us realize is even possible, yet for which we all yearn. Learning to honor our sexuality as loving energy that we can sculpt as an expression of our Highest Self transmutes sexuality from the prevalent view as brief action driven by instinct and horniness.