This book is the fulfillment of a quest to discover how to be an orgasmic woman sexually and a blissful woman spiritually. In trying to bring the two together, I became a “bliss hunter” for thirty years, searching for a hidden treasure within my mind, body, and soul.
In this book, you will get to discover what I found. You will learn everything you always wanted to know and I never dared to tell you, all the secrets I never wanted to share, the escapades I never dared to relate … until now.
This book recounts the mad adventures, the turning points, the breakthroughs on my path from sex to awakening.
“How did you discover Tantra?” people ask me.
“It happened on my first orgasm,” I answer, and it’s true.
The first time I made love was a cosmic revelation, a direct transmission of the illumination of the spirit, which I called a “sexual illumination.”
It was such a phenomenal experience, so above and beyond my cultural and world view, that I had to search for a way to bring this fleeting taste of grace back into my life in a more permanent way.
I set out to understand the connection between sexuality and spirituality. It became my life’s mission. The search became a lifelong quest.
Now, after so many years, I have written this book to offer answers to the questions I had then and that so many people have asked me since:
• What is Tantra? Is there a spiritual connection to the sexual experience?
• What happens when we break the rules of mainstream society and live outside the box?
• Do we need a spiritual teacher?
• What does a woman really need to fully realize her multi-orgasmic nature?
• What does it mean for a man to be a Tantric lover and a teacher?
• What happens when we make love with two partners at once?
• What is a Tantric initiation?
• What is awakening?
In order to find answers, I will take you backstage in the theater of my Tantric drama, where I reveal my hidden secrets and also some outrageous episodes that had a deep and lasting effect on my evolution and on the rediscovery of an ancient Tantric path that I named SkyDancing Tantra.
In each chapter, I have attempted to weave three components:
1. A true adventure that was a key moment in my sexual and spiritual evolution and also in my development as a teacher of Tantra
2. Reflections about this adventure, asking myself, “What did I learn?”
3. A short and easy practice to offer you, the reader, a way to recreate these experiences in your own life
However, this book, Love, Sex, and Awakening, is not a Tantra teaching manual. I have produced five books of Tantric practices and it’s time to move on. Should you wish to explore the Tantra practices in more depth, please check out my previous books, which contain thorough and detailed guidance for personal Tantric practice.
In this book, I invite you to wholeheartedly enter into my exotic and erotic saga. The book will take you beyond what most people think is possible in sex. It may also carry you into shocking, unimaginable realms, as Tantra invariably does.
In order to break through the boundaries of sexual ignorance, I had to have—from the beginning—a strong rebellious side that was not afraid to follow the guidance of the “guru between my legs.” I learned that my sex center has a voice … and I learned to listen to her.
My work tends to polarize people. This split happens all the time and is best illustrated by what happens when I travel. Typically, when I board a plane and take my seat, the person next to me asks me, “What do you do?”
“I am a writer,” I reply.
“Ah, really? What do you write about?” the person asks.
Then I say, “Well, I wrote a book called The Art of Sexual Ecstasy.”
The moment I say this, I know that either the person will never speak to me again for the rest of the journey or they won’t stop asking questions and sharing confidences.
Even though some stories in this book sound unbelievable, I did not invent them. They really happened. I am sharing them because I believe each story holds a message of wisdom, not just for myself but for others. Put together, these adventures serve as a jumping board from which you can, if you wish, dive into the experience of love, sex, and awakening, discovering how they are connected.
In addition, I offer these stories as part of a calling to eradicate sexual ignorance and to alleviate the suffering that this ignorance has created for so many people around the world.
The stories are presented in a loosely chronological order. Yet, as you will see, each story feels as if it is happening now, so that I can more easily take you with me on the journey.
In recalling each story, and writing it, I had more of an emotional reminiscence than a factual one. This is why my focus is not so much on timelines and chronology but more on the impact each event had on my perception of reality and the inspiration it gave me to share it with others.
The journey starts in Paris, France, where I grew up. The book begins with the story of the first time I made love and the mystical experience that gave new meaning to my life.
It continues with my decision to move to London in order to study humanistic psychology, including revelations that emerged from a weeklong experiment in sensory deprivation, exploring the crucial question “Who am I?”
Next, we go to New York, where I look for someone to guide my first LSD trip. I also discover what appeared to be a past life in the perfect Tantric realm of Shambala, the abode of the gods.
From there, I take part in the legendary Woodstock Festival and witness the birth of a loving, wild American counterculture.
In New York, during a Zen meditation evening, I experience love at first sight with a handsome African jazz musician. We live together. I join the Arica mystery school and discover the mystic Oscar Ichazo.
After many years, and a heart-breaking divorce, life takes me to India, where I meet Osho, a master of crazy wisdom and a great teacher. Osho guides me into several powerful realizations, one of them being the transmission of cosmic laughter—the gift of seeing myself as separate from my egoic concerns through the power of laughing at them.
Osho invites me to lead the first Tantra groups at his ashram, which confront sexual taboos and explore uninhibited sexual freedom as a way of unburdening people of shame, guilt, and fear. These radical experiences provided a foundation of trust and strength for my own teaching work.
Next I start to travel, leading Tantra groups in Europe and the United States. On the way, I find myself in a sexual threesome, which gives me deep insight into why the female gender has been—and in many countries still is—oppressed by the male gender.
In the course of helping others, I allow myself to undergo a demonstration of public vaginal massage, or “yoni healing” session. This leads to a spectacular release of Kali-style rage, followed by a deep sense of liberation. This work becomes the first cycle of my Love and Ecstasy Training (LET), focusing on sexual healing.
I meet an accomplished yogi, and together, in a full moon ceremony by the ocean, on a Hawaiian island, we explore the transmutation of sexual orgasm into bliss through the practice of the Tantric YabYum meditation, which becomes the third cycle of the LET, called riding the Wave of Bliss.
In California, I investigate all the teachings available regarding sexual orgasm. I describe these practices and how they provided me with the inspiration to develop a method for honoring both men and women equally. This becomes the second cycle of the LET: developing the multi-orgasmic response.
The three stages of my training are complete and my work becomes popular and widespread. Now it is time to shed light on the dark side of Tantra and attempt to find answers and solutions to these questions: Why do so many Tantric teachers abuse their power and position, exploiting their followers and disciples? What are the solutions?
Finally, moving to the light side in the last chapter of the book, I describe my personal experience of spiritual initiation and an unexpected awakening.
To conclude, we are all bliss hunters. We have all experienced moments of great joy and supreme realization, if only for a short time: while doing yoga, listening to sublime music, giving birth, or falling in love on the beach. In every life there are such peak experiences.
From these privileged moments we start our quest, looking for a method, a teacher, a geographical location, a partner, a situation that will rekindle such sublime moments.
Patiently we remove the veils of ignorance that hide our soul’s light. We drink more of the truth and look deeper into the web of life, realizing that we are responsible to create the reality to which we aspire, and then, having attained it, to help others who are also thirsty.
Sharing the teachings of my Tantric path with thousands of people around the world has given me firsthand experience of our common human purpose. I hope you will recognize that my concerns, my pitfalls, my difficulties, and my search are not very different from your own.
I hope you will feel entertained and inspired by this Tantric saga and that it will bring a sense of the sacred into your love life and a taste of awakening into your spiritual life.