Synopses & Reviews
Exercises based on yoga and chakra meditation teach you to transform sexual energy into spiritual and erotic fulfillment.
• Perfect for deepening a life partnership, gaining mastery over one's body, or healing the emotional scars of sexual abuse.
• Well-illustrated positions and techniques.
In this extraordinary celebration of the erotic, Dr. Stuart Sovatsky introduces us to the Tantric art of sexual sublimation, in which sexual energy is redirected toward achieving higher awareness and an erotic satisfaction far beyond that possible through sexual intercourse. The potential reasons for exploring Tantric celibacy are many--including the desire to deepen a life partnership, to gain a new level of mastery over one's body, to heal the emotional scars of sexual abuse, to practice safe sex, or to explore the intimate relationship between spirituality and sexuality.
Exercises based on yoga, kundalini, and chakra meditation make Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini a practical guide to the world of Tantric celibacy. By transcending the boundaries of conventional sexuality, one can learn to harness the divine energy--glimpsed for only an instant by most people--that is at the heart of all erotic yearning.
This is the new edition of the book Passions of Innocence.
Review
"Tantra is widely and grossly misunderstood in the West. In Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini Dr. Sovatsky provides a much-needed corrective, revealing Tantra's most powerful aspect: the conversion of sexual energy into a higher consciousness-altering vitality." Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., author of Sacred Sexuality
Review
"Reveals tantra's most central and powerful aspect: converting sexual energy into a higher, consciousness-altering vitality. Must reading for all who aspire to a spiritual way of life and are wondering just where sex fits in." Georg Feuerstein, author of Sacred Sexuality
Review
"Extraordinary excursion into the realm of Tantric celibacy provides a surprisingly tantalizing portrait of the power and passion of true erotic awareness. Sovatsky's book gives new meaning to the experience of eros and relationship while opening a door to a spiritual dimension we would never have achieved under ordinary circumstances." Napra Trade Journal
Review
"Reveals tantra's most central and powerful aspect: converting sexual energy into a higher, consciousness-altering vitality. Must reading for all who aspire to a spiritual way of life and are wondering just where sex fits in."
Review
"Sovatsky's fascinating and highly readable work belongs to the new sexual revolution, which pays due attention to the spiritual context of our lives." Yoga Journal
Review
"Extraordinary excursion into the realm of Tantric celibacy provides a surprisingly tantalizing portrait of the power and passion of true erotic awareness. Sovatsky's book gives new meaning to the experience of eros and relationship while opening a door to a spiritual dimension we would never have achieved under ordinary circumstances."
Review
"Tantra is widely and grossly misunderstood in the West. In Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini Dr. Sovatsky provides a much-needed corrective, revealing Tantra's most powerful aspect: the conversion of sexual energy into a higher consciousness-altering vitality."
Synopsis
In this extraordinary celebration of the erotic, Dr. Stuart Sovatsky introduces us to the Tantric art of sexual sublimation, in which sexual energy is redirected toward achieving higher awareness and an erotic satisfaction far beyond that possible through sexual intercourse. The potential reasons for exploring Tantric celibacy are many -- including the desire to deepen a life partnership, to gain a new level of mastery over one's body, to heal the emotional scars of sexual abuse, to practice safe sex, or to explore the intimate relationship between spirituality and sexuality.
Exercises based on yoga, kundalini, and chakra meditation make Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini a practical guide to the world of Tantric celibacy. By transcending the boundaries of conventional sexuality, one can learn to harness the divine energy -- glimpsed for only an instant by most people -- that is at the heart of all erotic yearning.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-205) and index.
About the Author
Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., has been a practitioner of kundalini yoga for twenty-four years and is the director of two psychotherapy clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area. A former presenter at the World Congress on Sexology in India and the International Kundalini Research Network, he teaches at JFK University and the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Table of Contents
Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini Deepening Sensuality Through Tantric Celibacy and Spiritual Intimacy
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: There Are Untold Possibilities
A Most Unusual Invitation
The Possibilities Begin to Unfold
Celibacy Becomes Provocative: The Tantric Spin
The Tantric Paradox of an Erotic Celibacy
Reclaiming Your Vulnerabilities Through Tantra
1. From Harry's Bar to the Mysteries Tantric sublimation
The Sublimative Sex Drive
Going All the Way with Tantric Celibacy
2. Eros as Mystery: The Key to Furthering Our Erotic Liberation
The Sexo-Political Burlesque
More Mystery, Less Liberation and Rules
Mystery's Inquisition
Sharing the Wonder
Beyond the Limitations: Can the Sense of Mystery Free Us?
Entering the Mystery: From Cynical to Meditative-Knowing
3. Mysteries Meet: The Celibate Encounter
Tantric Celibacy in the Great Anonymous of Modern Culture
The Shared-Gender Mystery
The Prosthesis of an Owned Sexuality
Homosexual Mystery
4. Choosing Tantric Sublimation
Why You Might Choose Brahmacharya
5. The Ars Erotica of Yoga
Meditation: The Silent Partner to Conventional Sex
Meditation Follows the Mystery: The Yogic "All" in Going All the Way
A Moment of Silence
The Yogic Anatomy of Human Potentialities
6. Yoga Practice as Ars Erotica
The Practices
7. Relational Worship
The Great Gesture
Nyasa
Mystery of Balance
Pranic Mirroring
The Singular Celibate Kiss
Breathing Mystery
Mantra Chanting
Ritual Worship of Mystery
Problems, Difficulties, and Other Knots
8. Grounding in the Ordinary: Tantric Relating in Everyday Life
Spoken Passion
Commitment and Marriage When Eros Is Mystery
Creating New Life: The Passions of Fertility
The Way of Solitary Celibacy
Epilogue
An Open Ending
Appendix 1 What Every Teenager Should Know About Tantric Sublimmation
The Core of Your Body: The Yogic Spinal Pathway
Brahmacharya and Emotional and Spiritual Growth
Appendix 2 The Future of a Mystery: Toward an Ecology of the Erotic
The Contemporary Sexual Scene
Toward an Ecology of the Erotic
The Fourfold Mapping of the Erotic Mystery
Glossary
Bibliography
Index