Tantra, a 4,000 year-old yoga practice, utilizes the life-giving power of conscious breath to bring awakening and pleasurable experience to intimate relationship. Bypassing the trappings of intellectual processing, conscious and intentional breathing provides the way for the God/Goddess within us to dance its own enchanted way through our self-imposed limitations to heal, empower, and pleasure us as only our Spirit can.

In "Sexual Secrets" Nik & Penny Slinger explain, "Prana is a Sanskrit word meaning Life-force. In yoga it is a term for vitality and breath, the name given to the upward moving breath which causes the spirit to evolve. Pranayama is the term given to the science of Prana, and the yoga breathing practices that are aids to Liberation."

Our Pleasure-ful Nature
Unity, spiritual ecstacy, called ananda in Sanskrit, as tantric texts assure us, is the birthright of everyone. Tantric masters affirm: Your true nature is blissful. If you close your eyes and go inside, if you give yourself a chance to go deep enough, past the chatter of everyday consciousness and outside distractions, you can discover that you already have ecstacy within you, 24 hours a day. Tantric couples open to the inner reality of ecstacy through increasing breath awareness.

Opening to Divine Pleasure within
Charles and Caroline Muir in "Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving" offer, "Tantra is practiced in a serene frame of mind, one where attention is turned from the outer world to the pleasure-giving realm of Spirit within. Most of our time in Western culture is spent in left-brain activity which is intellectual and goal-oriented. In this awareness a person is sure to miss the pleasure and intimacy potential offered in Tantra practice. Breath meditations are used to still the left-brain and activate the mystical, sensual enjoyed through right-brain orientation."

Here are some beginning breath practices. They may or may not be sexual. The goal is simply to nurture each other, exploring breath as a vital energy, helping you to experience what it feels like to move loving awareness from one to the other. Often these practices do create an increased awareness of love and harmony that makes partners more open to sexual union than they might have been before. Begin each session by creating a sacred space together and affirming your love for each other.

Practicing the full breath
As a foundation for all future experience, Tantricas develop a full breath to increase the flow of oxygen into the brain to gain maximum awareness from each breath. This is done in three phases of the in-breath:
1. Breath in, filling the bottom section of the lungs, 2. Breath into the rest of the lungs. 3. Top up with one last in-halation, bringing additional breath into the top of the lungs.

The Nurturing Breath
This simple ritual is popular to beginning students of Tantra for it helps partners begin and end each day with quality sharing, enabling them to connect at least in three different levels: physically with warm, nurturing embrace, at the respiratory level, sharing prana, the divine breath, and on the more subtle, chakra to chakra level.

The partner who feels most in need of nurturing takes the inside of a ‘spoon' position, where couples lie on their left side (for purposes of improved energy flow according to Tantric texts). Spend a few moments breathing slowly and deeply, opening to feel the warmth of love in the heart. Synchronize your breathing so that you can open to the feeling of both of you receiving the warmth of love in each other's heart with the in-breath. Now you are ready to try two techniques.

Harmonizing breath
The couple inhales together, holds the breath, noticing how it feels for both to be filled with the warmth of love, exhales, holds the breath out, to feel the quality of release, and then repeats. Here the partner on the inside accepts energy through the back into each chakras in turn, releasing the energy with each exhalation. Practice three whole breaths, (in-breath, hold, out-breath, hold) for each of the energy centers. Imagine and feel renewing, revitalizing breath moving from the base of the spine, spinning through the genitals, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye (between the eyebrows), and the crown of the head.

The Charging Breath
Adopt the Yab Yum position where the woman sits astride the man on his lap. You can do this fully clothed, or being naked and achieving physical union. Begin by practicing the Full Breath. When your breathing is slow and deep move onto the Harmonizing Breath, feeling the warmth of love filling both of your hearts. With each successive in- breath feel that warmth radiating from your heart, gradually filling your whole body. Let your body be as a sponge, gladly receiving this delicious energy.

Cycling the breath
Either partner may start the breathing. Say the man begins by breathing in the warmth of love into his heart for 4 counts and holds for one count. As he breaths out he visualizes the warmth of love from his heart flowing into his partner's heart. At the same time, she breathes in and visualizes receiving his love in her heart, drawing it down through her chakras to her genitals where it glows with golden warmth for 4 counts. Holds for one count.

She breaths out for 4 counts, visualizing the glow of love flowing from her genitals into his. He breathes in for 4 counts, visualizing and receiving the warmth of her love, and pulls the energy up from his genitals into his heart. Enjoy yourselves. Explore how it feels to notice the awareness of love flowing through you and your partner, continuing for at least ten minutes. Close with an affirmation of your love for each other.

Expanding the Orgasmic Experience
In the Eastern tradition Orgasm isn't considered a goal to be reached, but a quality of life that's always present, always available to us. Margot Anand, author of the "The Art of Sexual Ecstacy" adds, "Conscious breathing is vital during lovemaking for it seems that men and women often unconsciously hold their breath as they build toward climax. This blocks the flow of energy and awareness and keeps orgasm from being deep, full-bodied. Deepening the breath opens the energy channels, allowing pleasure to build faster and with greater power."

As passion begins to build, breathe in as slowly as possible. Imagine strongly pulling that special feeling up your body. As you begin to release the breath, do with as much sound as possible, releasing the sound in a sustained tone. The more power you release through your sound, the greater the vacuum you create to allow a greater depth of orgasm to expand. With practice both men and women can learn to keep the orgasmic energy growing until it reaches new octaves of passion and pleasure.

Beyond Right and Wrong
Participants at my workshops invariably ask, " How will I know if I'm doing this right?" When you have the intention of opening to the Divine Presence within yourself and your Beloved, you are always on track. Remember that you are learning a very different way of being, one that, while being simple, brings tremendous benefits mentally, emotionally and physiologically. You are always right on track whenever you practice getting closer to the God/Goddess in yourself and your Beloved.

Benefits for breath meditations
1. Sharing on a daily basis gives a strong message to the subconscious mind: Sharing quality time with my Beloved is important to me. Soon the subconscious mind works automatically to manifest the inspiration, insight, intuition and unexpected opportunity for more magical, shared experience.

2. It is quite common for couples, feeling fatigued at the end of the work day, to practice one of the breath meditations and find a whole new energy, vitality awaken in them.

3. In "Sexual energy Ecstacy" David and Ellen Ramsdale state, Ancient ‘sexercises' were designed to return energy and essential biochemical ingredients, including hormonal substances, from the sexual glands to the phyopthalmic-pituitary region and pineal gland, both located in the brain. The phyopthalmic-pituitary region is responsible for the stable functioning of the sex glands, arsenals and thyroid, all of which play essential roles in maintaining sexual well-being. The ancient experts believed that these sexercises could add many healthy years to our lives.

4. Couples find they are sharing a deeper, more ‘real' levels of their being, such that the ‘unreality' of fear, judgment, negativity has less effect on them in their day-today living. When relationship issues arise, rather than argue or analyze their differences, they find it more effective to breath meditations to increase the flow of love to transform disharmony.

This article is a summary of the booklet of the same name. For further details please see Tantric Breathing for Greater Intimacy and Empowerment.