Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Alan Finger. Welcome to the Genius of Nothing podcast. Nothing is no particular thing.
Speaker: It's all things at once. Genius.
Speaker: All right, let's roll. Hello everyone. This is Katrina Repka and I am here in London with Sebastian Forsman, who's in Sweden.
Speaker: Hello and good evening. And Al, who's in Florida. Namaste. Welcome everyone. We've been cycling through the yamas and now we've hit the spicy brahmacharya,
Speaker: the yama about restraint channeling sexual energy. And it's quite interesting because we're a tantric school and there's a lot of kind of...
Speaker: info out there about tantric sexual practices, but actually brahmacharya is about restraining the sexual energy or more so channeling it towards the divine, which I've always thought was interesting. So we can have a cute little talk about sex today and see where that goes.
Speaker: Can I just say, i I think when I started, when I came into Ishta being a tantric school, I thought it would be some hanky-panky, and there was really, there's been no hanky-panky at all since I joined Ishta a lot of years ago, like 16, 20 years ago, nothing really, so... I thought the same early on in my relationship with Al. I went to Florida with him for a retreat. It was like a yoga journal conference. And he we wrote up what he was going to teach. And it was all about like the tantric sexuality and blah, blah, blah. And he basically just like, so I was expecting big things. Yeah.
Speaker: He basically just like put students back to back and had them breathe and do the chakra meditation. was like, hmm, interesting. This wasn't quite what I was expecting. There were 400 people in the room. Okay, yeah.
Speaker: but Anyway, so yeah, so it's a spicy subject, but actually kind of like not that interesting really when it comes down to it. We're not going to like illuminate anybody. We're not going to knock your socks off today.
Speaker: but will we Hold on guys, i um I think I'm going to. Okay, great. Because, good you know, first of all, the word Brahma Acharya means one who's living in tune with the forces that create our universe, our planet, our senses, our lives.
Speaker: That's what it really means. And sex is the act of procreation. We're given that. we're given the ability via sexual contract union to procreate.
Speaker: So it's very much part of what we are given live by. And unfortunately, it it got this dark coloring where people have kind of clouded sex as some kind of I mean, it's like brushing your teeth.
Speaker: It's part of life. It's procreation. We're built to procreate. so And it's a tremendous, powerful force, procreation. the it It releases the grip, the kundalini,
Speaker: it has to release all beliefs for in order for one two actually procreate. And you can actually see that in sexual contact.
Speaker: When you're going to make love,
Speaker: You don't come in with an analytical mind. You have to get you get a bit silly even. Look at all the names we call our partners. Cuckoo, Puppu.
Speaker: Right? Because we have to get silly. We have to get simple for the kundalini to release, to create further life.
Speaker: Now, that same release of the kundalini, can be channeled so that we're not using it for procreation.
Speaker: That means in the two lower chakras. we We can release the kundalini, our belief structure, and our karmic pulls so that our energy moves to the higher chakras and the as Yogananda called it, God consciousness, where we became one with a greater intelligence.
Speaker: If you took it from quantum science, it would mean becoming in tune with a quantum consciousness, say and the energy that's infinite and unbound and filled with everything.
Speaker: But it's really... so so one more sentence and then I'll hand back to you. so So when we say that sex is, you know, that it's it's not really bland or not bland.
Speaker: I mean, it's a process. We in our life has made it such a thing. But it's the force of procreation. It releases kundalini.
Speaker: We can use sex to release kundalini and channel the energy or we can have a baby. But brahmacharya means to live in harmony with Brahman, with the forces that we're created from.
Speaker: So you don't want to abuse sexual energy because it can be to ed debilitating to a person, it can deplete the energy, and can create one to become very lustful.
Speaker: When you say abuse it, do you mean having too much sex or having sex that's not like thoughtful, you know, have like promiscuity or because I think there's a lot of, um you know, people nowadays who on dating apps just kind of want to have casual sex and that's freeing for some people.
Speaker: and then there you know But it might not always be like i don't know meaningful, but do you have to be in a committed relationship to have it be meaningful? I've always thought that if the energy is there and it's kind of loving, doesn't you can have all sorts of different kinds of experiences. Very well put, Katrina, because there is no in Tantra there are no rights or wrongs.
Speaker: The only thing is that you do it in tune with you living in harmony with the forces that are driving us.
Speaker: So if you are having sex and you're obsessed by the sex act, You're not living in harmony. You've now become obsessed with one of the, the like almost one of the senses that we have.
Speaker: It's actually a product of many senses. But Tantra is kind of interesting because it doesn't really label sex as good or bad. Because in in other traditions, in Hinduism, for example, they practice Brahmacharya as... Being a monk. Yeah, being a monk, exactly.
Speaker: and And it's... It's a way of restraining yourself from sex, but Tantra kind of looked at sex as it does with Kriya and sees how you can move energy and how you can take those three seconds when you're like having an orgasm, when everything kind of goes and you're in that bliss state.
Speaker: And you bring that in to becoming a technique and to develop it to really move energy's most effective way. And it so it becomes a practice of love, unconditional love.
Speaker: As you have an orgasm, you go into that state of just loving. You're not then loving your partner on orgasm. You're just loving. And that unconditional love can lead you to samadhi and enlightenment.
Speaker: But the problem is most of us have that sensation, as Sebastian said, for three seconds, and then we start getting busy with something else.
Speaker: so But you need to channel the energy to the higher chakras and to the crown. then the sensation of loving will last for an extended period of time, definitely two three minutes, and you'll just feel loving.
Speaker: I think we need to elucidate this though, because the actual practice in Tantra of my Thuna, which is the sexual um channeling means that you don't actually have an external orgasm, but you somehow like,
Speaker: invert it so that that energy goes up the spine. That to me has always seemed, I mean, I think a woman's orgasm is more internal than a man's, but to actually stop yourself from like orgasming and thinking, you know what, I'm just going to like draw this in and like move it up the chakras. Like, I don't really think that's like a thing, I'm honest.
Speaker: Well, no, at Ishtar we give you a clamp. ah Yeah. Because like, who's doing that? I mean, is that really a thing? and Listen, the way these things are often interpreted are interpreted by Swami's religious people.
Speaker: And so they made it more scary. Because from Kriya Yoga and Ishti Yoga and Ishti Tantra, which is what I teach, And what I've developed, because it's not about you trying not to have an orgasm.
Speaker: It's about you channeling the energy upward and the orgasm becomes less and less. In a man, the sperm becomes less and less.
Speaker: But who wants that? Well, orgasm is there, but it's just you're not spritzing as much because you don't need it. But the sensation, the sensation becomes much stronger and deeper because it's not just in the genital.
Speaker: It raises to your mind, to your feelings, to your heart, to your communication, to your brain, and to the... Atman to the soul, which is free from making love.
Speaker: It's definitely something you work stuff up to. It's not something you do a day one, really. But hold on a second. I want to know like the actual facts of life here. like What are you doing? You're like you're just kind of, i don't know. like How are you moving it up the spine the crown of the head? So the practice. Okay, this is an interesting one, Katrina.
Speaker: The practice... to do this is by practicing Kriya and Ishtadiksha, the meditation I teach you. Yeah, I've been doing that for 25 years. learn it.
Speaker: You don't learn this during sex. So that's why when I went with you to Florida, i didn't put a coach cap on and coach you all how to have sex because that you know.
Speaker: What you don't know is the Kriya, where to channel it. So you have to find the channel of Brahmanadi, Shashumna, Brahmanadi, the central cord and the silvery streak in the center of you.
Speaker: When you know the cord, on orgasm it's easy to, it's common sense. And it's so, it's so much more deep.
Speaker: the experience of samadhi moving up into meditation than it is ejaculating and making a mess.
Speaker: The times I've done it, it's it's been weird or it feels like a warm and kind of... It's a lot of thinking, which is like, yeah, it can get out in the way of things and you should kind of try to concentrate a little bit. If you're thinking, you haven't. Exactly. You haven't done it. But but for me, when I think I've been able to practice at least, it felt like a warm kind of wave that goes down to my legs and up to my arms and like my whole body a little bit.
Speaker: um So are you saying you didn't have an ah orgasm? you just sort of i did i did, but I think a lot less than than I normally would have. forget Forget about having or not having an orgasm.
Speaker: Because the orgasm is part of the kriya, the energy moving up. So, yeah so, so it's not, you know, we get wrong because now we read this one thing by some ah yogi that wrote this thing. And now that's, that's the rule.
Speaker: It's nonsense. You don't try and stop orgasm, although some of these ancient yogis tried by drawing mercury up the penis and making it so they can hold and not do first ghee, then water ghee.
Speaker: Wait, hold on. Throwing mercury up. Like you have to suck it up with a straw up your penis. Pure mercury. Yeah, not a straw. you They use ven as thin bamboo shoot, rounded the end and pushed it up the penis.
Speaker: But you can use a catheter. not going to practice that. I'm just telling you that now. I'm not going to do that. However much you tell me to do it, I'm not going to do that. Did women ever factor into this? Like, what did they tell women? Or were women just sort of not? To take round stones that were from the river,
Speaker: And they were smooth and round. And to put d on it and draw them, push them into the uterus and learn to hold these heavy stones in would help woman. Like the jade egg that's big now on goop and stuff. what You're supposed to do that with a jade egg now.
Speaker: It's like back. It's back. It's being sold on websites. Okay, I don't know what the jade. Just be careful. Don't break the egg. ah Well, no, it's like a solid stick of jade that's supposed to like... Okay, well, there you go. So now that's yeah that's because people start finding extra little gimmicks and things. But the goal, guys, is not all the physical things that we're sidestep into.
Speaker: And this is it. The goal is you've got to know the channel. And that you find by doing Hamsa Kriya. by learning to bring the energy up and down, up and down. That's why even in my class yesterday, I said, let's sit for ah five minutes and just feel it. And I kept quiet.
Speaker: Well, I will say, I have to give it to you that when I started this discussion, I really didn't think that it was going to get very spicy at all. But, you know, mercury up the penis and jade eggs. Yeah, hot stuff.
Speaker: So Al, does Mathuna happen to you when you have sex? Is this something you practice or is it something that you know happens to you because you said... great No, no. it it Mathuna when you have sex because it's something you... It just happens automatically after what you said.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, eventually, and I know this is not a good selling point, because you find that the actual sexual act... is very powerful and for Mathuna and that.
Speaker: But when you when you've had it with your partner, you can get it by just being with them and sitting and find your breath goes into harmony and it becomes meditative without even trying.
Speaker: so So do you think that naturally then that kind of wanes in a spiritual partnership? Is it more spiritual not to be physically doing things? and No, no, no, no, no. Let's not make it more or less.
Speaker: Yeah, of course. It's equal. But it is really that that when two people have sex, their chakras kind of connect and kind of become intertwined. You start to tune in that, you know, little things can just make the energy move and you feel blissful.
Speaker: And there's a moment of, ah well, a minute or two even of just silence and being. So we've got to realize that it's like we don't want to focus on the sexual thing.
Speaker: It's all part of the same picture. i've I've always seen Brahmacharya a lot, like moderation and senses, pleasures, and not just sex. I mean, everything like ah shopping, like all these kind of things that we can kind of, you know, when do we feel like we're going past the axis of what we need?
Speaker: And, you know, it becomes like and almost like an addiction. um Yeah. and But you can get to samadhi through shopping, right? Yeah, but you have to be really rich. Because like we always talk about you you buy like the jeans and then you have three minutes of bliss or no, three seconds until you're like, oh, I really need that belt to go with the jeans. And then, oh, need the bag to go with the belt. But it actually is that feeling of completion when you like get a cool.
Speaker: So in the same way, in the same way that you're you've given that example of shopping, Sex is the same. it's But if you did the shopping and when you got it and felt it, if you you know what? I'm going to extend that moment and feel the moment bigger than then what created the moment.
Speaker: You go into samadhi. That's a good new career practice we can have. Shopping in samadhi. Yeah.
Speaker: So Al, what would you say to somebody that was overly sexual, that had more or less of a problem? Sex addiction today is ah legitimate problem that some people actually have. What would you say? How do you help those people? Well, I'll teach them what to do.
Speaker: it's never do or don't have sex. All right, if they so occasionally I might find someone who's really you know become addicted. Then it's a different thing.
Speaker: But usually the answer... is to do the Kriya, try and draw the energy upward, unless you're trying to procreate.
Speaker: Unless you want a child, then you just let the whole body and the lower chakras glow, have the energy. Still very loving and very expansive.
Speaker: And you can spend time in that experience. But ultimately, you're going to channel the energy up. Every time you make love, you want to draw the energy up. like It just becomes, it's not even that way I said that, you're going to draw the energy. yeah It just moves up because you've trained it to do that.
Speaker: From meditation. Yeah, you that's where you do the training. Not during sex to start trying to do these things. Then you're trying and it's it's awkward and it's, you know, a different story.
Speaker: Nonetheless, practice probably makes perfect.
Speaker: So you have translated a lot of books over the years, different interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and other Indian spiritual texts. Are you ever thinking about doing the Karma Sutra translation maybe? Picture book? No, because we don't need the Karma Sutra. The Karma Sutra was doing different postures in insects to occupy you in a way to prolong the orgasm the period that you're having sex, so the energy would have a chance to move beyond the two lower chakras where it normally moves.
Speaker: So for me, Brahmacharya has this ability also when you can channel the energy correctly. It gives you that extra power boost, which is sometimes can really need to, you know, go deeper into some of these practices, which I think is kind of incredible. So it kind of gives you an extra energy source.
Speaker: But to your point, isn't it just about like managing your energy? like You don't want to dissipate it too much. Even asana practice like should, if you do something too hard or intense, like it depletes you. Whereas if you do it with consciousness, you can be filled up by it. and you know So it's ah it's an energy management system, really, brahmacharya. Yeah.
Speaker: isn't it? Like, have we lost Al? Yeah, he left. No, no, I'm just thinking of what you're all saying. And and i wouldn't like to call it an energy managing. I would say ah it is in a way, but I mean, it's more living in tune with Brahman.
Speaker: Now, the only way to live in tune with Brahman is to know the central chord of Brahman called Brahmanadi. So if you get into Brahmanadi and you know that's strong and you practice it for years and Hamsa Kriya and you every day just can slip into it, no words are necessary and no practices are necessary.
Speaker: It will automatically happen. And you will find that your sexual drive will adjust that this union of people, of beings, can happen without sex.
Speaker: Not always. not you don't, not going to have sex. But it can happen very much just by being in the presence, and look, a glance, a touch, a silence.
Speaker: So everything we do should really be Brahmacharya, to be whole, present, and awake. Of course, everything should be Brahmacharya. That's why when we get into the Niyamas, you end up with Ishvari Pranidhana, which is surrendering everything to the greater intelligence from which we're born and Brahmacharya is living in tune with it.
Speaker: So unfortunately, It gets from religions, from Hinduism, which is much bigger out there than yoga. The yoga's hidden. And so brahmacharya became something that the monks and the swamis had to do to in order for them to get, if you went to an ashram after when you're 49 years old in the old days, people would go to an ashram and give up their life.
Speaker: This is presumably because 49 was considered like over the hill. You don't have anything left to like do or give in your life. You're done. Whereas like now, like, 79 is the new 49. Well, I'm turning 79 in July, so careful there.
Speaker: Exactly. You're going to renounce everything in the world. No no no renouncing in Tantra. You're going to use everything in balance to living in the light, living an enlightened life.
Speaker: I find it kind of interesting though that when the Karma Sutras came to Europe and the US and the Western world really, it became so commercialized so fast and it became this book about freaky sex positions and that you could have sex longer and we totally missed the point, from the majority of people missed the point of what the book was about. to you know have more of a spiritual practice in sex and to move energy and to channel it. To move the energy, to channel it, and to also extend the length of sex so you could have the kundalini released fully.
Speaker: yeah Because when... You know, they say that sex should be 32 minutes oh for the kundalini to fully release.
Speaker: Noted.
Speaker: No pressure.
Speaker: That's because when people are locked in to desires and things and the senses, it takes you longer to get out of it.
Speaker: Yeah. So eventually... Sex is never done for the, it's just for the ejaculation part.
Speaker: I've never heard the 32 minutes before. oh I'm sorry. Cause you, you didn't need it. You never told me that. You didn't need it. But ah just hold on a second. 32 minutes, like that's very arbitrary. Yeah.
Speaker: You'd be very tired of that. Well, I mean... yeah Yeah, but it's not... it's The thing is, it's keeping the erection and the sexual energy going.
Speaker: Doesn't mean pumping all the time. Okay. It means keeping the erection and the sexual energy going that. Whilst looking at your watch make sure you're like it. That's romantic. Yeah, once the channel, you must understand, guys, that our tantric practice is around Kriya Yoga.
Speaker: So Kriya Yoga, it's like my father met Yogananda, and he was a drug addict and shell-shocked in the war. and in and out of homes, alcohol and drugs.
Speaker: And he met Yogananda and Yogananda didn't say to him, you have to give up drinking, because he was drunk when he met him. He said, you can continue with your drinking habit, but when you practice the Kriya, you will not be able to drink within a year.
Speaker: Of course, it happened much shorter because he was in his presence. because it's around therea the kriya. The kriya is much more potent than trying to do a different posture or trying to stop the orgasm and do, it once it goes in the right channel, the whole, it's just, it's natural.
Speaker: You don't stop anything. But what about like creeper pose and all of that? like what that That's to help people unite together because and to bring them into the same breath rhythm, to bring them into the same chakra rhythm.
Speaker: Because when you're those rhythms are balanced, then the sexual union can happen And you can the energy will go the right channel.
Speaker: Just to like talk about that. So when you did it at the Yoga Journal conference, because they were strangers, you did it back to back. But with people who know each other and want to practice, you would actually do it front to front, right? Yeah, that's the full creeper pose. Yeah, you should probably know each other a little better before you start doing that. Yeah, not some mi rando conference. Yeah, it's little bit.
Speaker: I was trying to, I was being cautious. and even Even with some people, if one is over-sexed, I'll teach them to do it back to back. To have sex back to back.
Speaker: Now we're getting to the advanced stuff. but Speaking of, the Kama Sutra, I haven't flipped through that in a while since it was in the 70s on my neighbor's coffee table.
Speaker: haven't looked. So Katrina thought she was joking ah yeah that you have sex back-to-back. Uh-oh, here comes. yeah When you do Kriya back-to-back, you can actually, people are known to have an orgasm even doing the Kriya back-to-back.
Speaker: Whilst they're doing something else to themselves, I'm assuming. Yeah, much more for women usually. Their body will shake and have an orgasm.
Speaker: Jesus, like where what like why have we just been doing asana meditation all this time? tricked. 25 years of like triangle pose. We could have had orgasms from just breathing, which frankly seems a lot more fun than just having... I've been trying to teach you guys all along. yeah Do your kriya. That's all you need.
Speaker: The rest will happen automatically. And we will publish CreeperPose picture also on our website on Zencaster so you can see what that looks like.
Speaker: So in anticipation for this episode, I flipped through the Karma Sutra a little bit. And there was one passage that I found very interesting, where they basically said that that when two people practice Mathuna and achieve that state, both people's chakras, energy centers or vortexes of energy...
Speaker: align and kind of magnetize together or balance together. it's It's kind of beautiful because it brings it little bit of more away from the more physical part and and focuses a little bit more on actually connecting on a much, much higher, deeper level. think of Think of magnetism.
Speaker: If you take one magnet and one piece of steel and you move the magnet in one direction up and around, eventually the steel becomes magnetized.
Speaker: by the other. Well, it's a similar kind of process between the energies between two people. So when you try and balance the energy between two people, it'll function on all chakras and sex will be one of them, but you'll you'll find that the in the feeling of extended orgasm that you feel, you can have yourself from meditation.
Speaker: So it's an interesting kind of balance because all of this is not, it's not a set rule. You do the kriya, you do it.
Speaker: When you have orgasm, hamsa, draw the energy up and let it fountain in ajna. and And when it fountains in ajna, your entire brain opens.
Speaker: to become in tune with the wisdom of the universe, not the little itsy-bitsy bits and pieces that human beings have, but you reach a universal consciousness, a universal loving, a universal understanding. The world needs more of that for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. That's some deep stuff. Okay, well, that's a namaste from me. Okay, I think we're before we got kicked off the internet, I think that's it.
Speaker: Exactly. So I hope you all can practice your Kriya as that, the up the breathing up and down the spine, find the passage, and the rest will all happen perfectly. Yeah.
Speaker: And we also saved people a lot of money because now people don't have to go out and buy the book because we just gave them the rundown of what's basically about. Probably we should have added a spoiler warning to this episode.
Speaker: God, next week we're talking about like non-hoarding. That's going to be really boring. yeah Actually, I quite like that one. That is a nice one. Okay, well, let's keep that for next week.
Speaker: Yeah. Have a super wonderful week, everyone. Namaste. Namaste. See you next week. And please don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you want to reach us for any reason at all or ask us any questions, you can reach us at sebastian at ishtayoga.com.
Speaker: Namaste.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us today and have a super wonderful week. Namaste.
