A Woman’s Personal Journey to Tantra (Helena describes her path to tantric understanding)

Touch is for me a world of silence, a sacred space without limitations, where words cannot manipulate…

It happens that you know absolutely nothing about tantra, but one day something taps on you. Someone you trust might mention it: what about tantra courses, that could be the right thing. So you try it. Yes, you have already “lived through” a few relationships, you know something about sexuality, about touch, about intimacy, about partnership, but it is all somewhat unsorted. So why not see with your own eyes what this ancient word tantra, which evokes rather sophisticated positions from the Kama Sutra for the public, actually means. And is it even for me? Confusion is accompanied by worries and fear of the unknown, what have you gotten yourself into again. But nothing happens by chance, and suddenly you are in the middle of your first seminar. Perhaps a little afraid and tense, but that is rather because you are being offered the possibility to release that tension, and you simply do not know how to do it yet. And so you slowly learn simply to be, naturally and without forcing yourself. The sexual positions from the Kama Sutra are still very far away. You learn to look at other people, to stand opposite them and truly see them, to breathe in their rhythm, to gently touch them, to feel them. You learn to perceive and enjoy your own body, how it begins to dance and wave, or on the contrary opens into its wildness without boundaries, what a quiet inner joy it is that needs no audience and fears no judgment. It goes slowly, gently, with the gradual uncovering of many blocks that our parents, our culture, or perhaps the last unsuccessful partnership left in us with good intentions. Suddenly you understand that tantra is above all about opening yourself to freedom, your own beauty, your own light, self-expression, the natural right to experience joy, and thus finally also healthy sensual pleasure. And here we are finally at sexuality, the peak experience of joy and vitality. No matter how much we deny it, that is how it is. It is our fire that nourishes and enlivens us, leads us from somewhere to somewhere else, often even where reason does not want to go. It is a force that we often “sell below value”, suppress or misuse, devalue or lock away in secret chambers, while it is so innocent. If we look at it precisely with that innocence.

There comes a day when you find yourself at a seminar once again, and what is “abnormal” seems natural and human to you, while what is “normal for the outside world” seems somewhat stifled and sad. You experience more and more moments when you put down your “roles”, and inside you feel an enormous relief. This is how we wanted to feel deep inside our souls since time immemorial… Absolutely all of us go through this. Sooner or later, now or someday… Tantra is therefore a path not only to one’s own sexuality, but also to people. What I carry within myself, I can offer to those around me, like a cake on a golden tray. Nothing more. Endless discovery, sometimes touching and quiet, at other times a little painful because hidden wounds surface, next time joyful and explosive, but always real.

For those who have tasted it once, it is a joy to accompany others on this path of discovering and honoring their own body. Respect and humility are in place, because the “giver”, or if you wish the masseur, knows very well how much strength it takes to open oneself and offer oneself to the “outer world”, beyond one’s own shell. And also knows that it is truly worth it. It does not matter at all how we have grown, whether small or tall, fat or thin, whether old or young. It is US, and every shape, fold, or size has its clear and unmistakable meaning. This is exactly how we want to be accepted, not under a layer of makeup and in “disguise”. That is why tantric massage is above all a ritual of respect for the body rather than a massage in the literal sense of the word, even though in the ideal case everything blends into a beneficial cocktail of energy, vitality, and human closeness that the mind cannot explain. It does not define rules, procedures, it does not command. For a woman it is a path as natural as water for a fish, for a man a softening force beyond reason, concepts, and words. I am grateful that I am allowed, through touch, to enter again and again into contact with something so deeply human.

Written by Helena K. for Tantra masáže Praha s.r.o.