Transcript

 Hello and welcome to the Tantra four Gay Men podcast hosted by Jason and Ingo Tantra. Here we’re exploring spirituality and personal growth through the practice of Tantra, the body, energy and sex.  Hello there, I’m Jason Tantra and welcome to episode 21 of the Tantra for Gay Men podcast. Today, Ingo and I are talking about dangers of the ego on a sexual spiritual tantric practice and how not to get caught up in different traps along the spiritual  But actually to kind of align yourself with the bigger picture of a spiritual practice.

 

This is a really beautiful podcast. So listen all the way through because there’s actually seven, several nuggets of gold, different insights as we go through the podcast. Also at the end, we talk about the. Tantra Diploma Retreat in June in the USA next year and in July in the UK. Birth, sex and death.

 

Limited places available and if you want more information on that you can find that on our website tantra4gaymen.  com. Hope you enjoy this episode and um, yeah, I really hope that it serves you. Thank you. Hello, beautiful Ingo. Hello, Jason. How are you doing? I’m good. Thank you, my love. How are you? Yes, we are here in episode 21 and just before we get into today’s topic, I just wanted to talk about what I’ve been working on this week.

 

Oh, Yes, it’s been quite a week, hasn’t it? Because we are in the middle of Basically preparing for next year. We are all these things that we’re going to be doing and I’ve been going through all of the little video Footages and all of the images that we made at the Tantra love festival in August in Preparation for this one and I am just in awe of how much love how much?

 

Connection how much beauty how much fun how much sex how much? Spiritual how much inside? I’m just looking at these pictures and just really in awe of what was created at the Tantra Love Festival this year. I thought it was beautiful.  Yeah. It’s like when I look at those, at those photos and videos, especially, um, I’m transported right back to, and what really strikes me is  it’s actually  those four or five days  how everything works.

 

According to very, very different rules from our everyday rules. I mean, how, the way that people just open up to each other and touch each other and fall in love, fall in love and, and negotiate what they want to do with each other from a place of, of, of, uh, really, you know, Connected to themselves  These are all things almost like yeah, it’s a very very very different rule set a very very different world That they enter or that we enter with them for those five days.

 

I just look at these photographs There’s so much fun. Joy. Warmth.  I challenge dear listeners challenge you to  Go and have a look at our website. We’ve got a brand new updated page  on the website for the festival Oh Oh my and even a spangly new video with nice sexy graphics with things that move across the page  Yes, and if if something if you feel that something calls you in there, um, why not give it a try?

 

Yes Yes, we want you to come we want you to come because we are busily behind the scenes working on the 2025 tantra love festival very exciting Yeah, okay.  So I’m going to read this out. I’m going to have to put this up. This is a bit of an unusual topic. Yeah. And you and I may have different perspectives.

 

Um,  and the topic is ego trips, exploring the trap of sexual identity on the Tantra journey. So ego trips, exploring the trap of sexual identity on On the tantra journey and i’m going to put it up there because i might need to come back to it a few times  So i’ve got some ideas. Have you got some ideas too, but we may go in totally different places Why don’t you start?

 

Are you sure? Yes. Okay, so  for me, um At my tender age of 52. I can’t believe i’m 52.  I think my definition of my spirituality Has evolved and changed um You As I’ve gone through this  spiritual journey, I perceive that I’ve been on a spiritual, conscious journey since about the age of 16.  And I’ve been When I look back and I’m only talking about me personally, I’m not really here to talk about other people but when I look back at the shifts of Awakenings that I’ve had in my spiritual journey Each shift that I’ve had has felt very true in the moment Until a new realization came across, and then a whole new, you know, realization then happens that becomes my truth.

 

Until I, like, reach a new layer, and I think my  relationship with Tandra, when I first met Tandra, I was utterly, well I was utterly captivated with the practice. Yes. But I was equally captivated by you, Mr. Ingo. Yes, we met on that very workshop. We did, we did. No, it was not your first one. It was your second or third one.

 

I was utterly captivated by you. Felt madly in love with you. Oh my God. When I talk about how madly in love with you I felt, I thought my whole world was going to break apart. I thought my heart was going to burst about how in love with you I was utterly, I think we were stuck together like glue weren’t we for the first years not even the first weeks or months It was it was years But I’m just gonna move you aside for a moment and focus on the other Aspects of my early tantra journey  when I had my first anal massage as a process for healing  I was so totally involved in that, and the process was about catharsis, the process was healing, and it was massively traumatic for me.

 

Um, because of, you know, stuff  that had happened all through my life. This was the first time, I think, that my body  Had the opportunity to really, um, express itself, express trauma. I mean, I remember I expressed an awful lot of trauma and also ecstasy. I mean, there’s always that book, isn’t there? Agony and Ecstasy, a Tantra book, an old Tantra book.

 

And I kind of feel like sometimes the Tantra journey is both of those. But what I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to point to here  is that, um, at that time,  What was happening there was absolutely true and absolutely right, but now, 19 years later, actually I feel that my spiritual journey has shifted massively, and for example, the practices and techniques I would have done in my early Tantra journey kind of don’t serve where I’m at right now, and how those things shift.

 

And the reason I’m naming that is because I think in Tantra it’s very easy to feel like you’re getting accolades. Now what I mean by that is, for example, once you master how to become multi orgasmic  You can almost like wear that as a badge that you know how to do that and you’re expert in that and you know where that is.

 

Or if you’ve had like anal massage and you’ve done it as a process of healing and catharsis, um, again you can own that as a badge  of honor. And you know what I also see in some of our early tantra. workshops is, for example, when people first master the ecstatic body and they learn to listen to the hundred thousand volts of energy going through their body.

 

Just stay with me for a minute. But what happens is I think there’s different layers. What happens to people first, the, because the experience is new, there’s like the soul or the body, body and soul meet. The experience for what it is unfiltered. So at the moment there’s no brain involved. There’s no minds, there’s no ego involved, and actually there’s like a wonderment.

 

Like if you remember some of the early tantric experiences you had, there’s like a wonderment in the experience of those.  Just to just to clarify because you were talking about this  Actually, I remember that session this super super deep session all the group was they were going through lots of stuff in that session So are you basically saying that? 

 

Um,  you in in, in, in that session? What, what, what I remember from, you know, how, what you talked to me about your sexual trauma before. Mm-Hmm. and your sexual trauma afterwards,  that that session actually completely changed. Yes. Your personal relationship Yes. To that trauma. Yes. In the sense of  a kind of. 

 

Liberation or how did what well I want to go back a step because when I want to take you through so that for me In that session, okay, there was a total wonderment wonderment Okay, my ego hadn’t had time to put my ego is like what the fuck is going on Yeah, and it’s like completely pulled away by a million miles and it’s like what the fuck Yeah, because you are in a state.

 

Yes, very anxious  Unusually you are not used to that and the point that I’m leading to is there’s several things that you do in the tantra journey ecstatic body multi orgasmic practice anal healing massage Tantric sex practices and the whole wide array of the more subtle energy practices the danger  and I’ve seen this in several ways.

 

There’s a danger the way that we structure and package Tantra because it leads itself to people ticking off things off the box  and also for people becoming expert in those things or because they’ve done it once they feel like they’ve, they’ve got it. or that they learn how to do it to other people and they forget themselves as a receiver and the journey and the process of those.

 

And what I’m saying today is I think that’s a trap.  I think there’s a trap in practicing tantra that you can get to a point where you think that you’re the master of it.  You do it for other people, but actually what happens in doing that is you remove yourself from the opportunity to deepen those practices and deepen your spiritual journey as you go through those.

 

Does that make sense? Well, um, coming back to something like that session and, and coming back to my, you know,  digging into, uh, my experiences. Yes.  Especially when you work through  Let’s say traumatic things that you thought you were them  through those  Um, through those experiences, you can actually, you experience yourself as something that is way bigger and that completely changes your relationship to, let’s say, that previous identity.

 

It happened to me. I thought I could only have sex in certain ways and not the other ways, you know, complete rubbish. My, my sexual identity was much more,  Um, malleable and much more, much wider than I thought before. But what you’re saying is basically once you step into that, wow, I’m not that limited self.

 

I’m much more than that. You could then think,  oh, well, now I’ve got it. Now I’ve got it. No more work to do. And that is, that’s the trap. Exactly. And that is a massive, massive trap because Let’s, for example, look at multi orgasmic, okay? Once you master those techniques, and there is a level of mastery In those or for example in the ecstatic body where you all you feel like and we should just to say what the ecstatic body is for dear listeners that maybe haven’t experienced that it’s the ability to recognize that your body not only holds erotic energy, but holds other energy fields and one of those is is the ecstatic body that can be activated with simple touch but also what we’re trying to do is help you realize who you are before any thoughts come in.

 

So normally we hold our bodies with attention, we kind of hold, we’re gripping ourselves all the time to stand upright. If we didn’t hold ourselves we would just collapse on the floor so it’s almost unconscious. It’s a very, um, it’s a very visceral experience. Yes. The ecstatic body. You, you, you abandon yourself.

 

To the, the, the, the exercise. Yes. Partner to receive.  And then all of a sudden is as if someone like switch for me at least. It’s always as if, wow, someone switches a light on and I’m like, wow, I feel, I feel mega alive. It’s almost like.  For me, it’s it’s it’s a um similar way to  when you  Take certain  psychedelics and all of a sudden.

 

Wow, you you you you are like the world is hyper acute And and and everything is hyper brilliant here. And this is you know, you can do this  This is in Tantra. This is actually this ecstatic energy when it’s switched on and it’s it’s relatively simple to switch it on. And people describe that as a hundred thousand volts of energy going through their body and they feel it all over their body.

 

And then the session comes to the end and people move on to whatever else they’re doing.  What can happen then  is that the ego then starts to take hold of the experience  And one it either starts to sow seeds of doubt. Did that really happen? Was that really like that? Was I making that up? Were the other people making that up? 

 

And then there’s this other danger for me of feeling like you’ve got that down and then becoming an expert in that  Without actually for me the ecstatic body practice is like a meditation practice What would it be like if you were still doing that 10 years later? How would your relationship? be different to your ecstatic body and could your ecstatic body Be the gateway Will be a gateway because I think we’ve got different gateways and different portals Into those places that are beyond the mind and actually how does that portal?

 

How does that gateway into that experience change? Well, if you think you’ve already got it down and you’ve got the expert you’re the expert and you know that that’s happening What we’re doing what you’re doing is castrating Your ability to be open to the rest of the experiences that are equated to that practice And I also say the same about multi orgasmic. 

 

Well, there’s this I think you know, this is even this is even much bigger it’s what’s just coming to my mind is  someone saying to me And this happens  I have done meditation. I know how meditation works  and actually this is This is an you know, this is a contradiction in itself  meditation is An infinite path it deepens it deepens it deepens it deepens And and you can never say I have mastered that or I have done that and in that sense I say, you know that  the the The tantric techniques that you mentioned actually all tantric techniques are like meditation  You you can maybe physically you can you can physically master them.

 

You can for example physically master. Let’s say You know not to ejaculate in certain situations or something like that, which will bring you closer to uh, mastering You That thing that we call multiple orgasms, but  then once even once you master that physically  layers and the more you do it layers and layers and layers of, of, of, of depth,  uh, open up in the same way as, you know, in meditation, you can master it. 

 

Let’s say, you know, just being with your breath and, and, uh, depending on what the meditation is, maybe, um, maybe shut everything else out or not shut everything else out, but you can master the meditation technique, but where it takes you, the journey on which it takes you and the depth. The process in of depth in which into which it takes you you can never master that because that’s infinite and that’s the same in tantra and but yeah, we We observe and this is probably you know where the idea for this podcast title came from Is that people? 

 

Uh, almost, almost fall off the path on certain occasions and one of the most  difficult and treacherous, you know, moments, occasions when you think, ah,  I’ve done this, I’ve mastered this.  I can,  I can have multiple orgasms for five hours without ejaculating.  And this, this is it now, but actually this isn’t it.

 

Because you see what I mean, that’s there’s something in there for me about the litmus test Yeah, and the litmus test is are you enlightened?  So in any of these spiritual practices if the answer’s no, there’s more to go up Yes, but I think the other thing that I would offer here is  For example, you know when we talk about the ecstatic body, I’m using X.

 

It’s quite a simple exercise and And as you said, you know, people can easily think, Oh, I’ve done that now. Tick, tick what’s next. And I think that there’s a danger that Tantra can be like on a consumption model. Like, you know, Oh, I’ve done that now. And maybe we’re guilty of it in our program structure, you know, like the diploma, you know, Oh, I’ve done that week.

 

I’ve done that week. Now I get a certificate. Well, um, I would say that, you know, what  we offer this, you know, our, our workshops and everything we are.  For the good or for the bad, we are part of a, a, you know, capitalistic,  uh, world. So, you know, we, we need to play certain things. So this is, this is what people come from.

 

Oh, wow. I can have this diploma. I can have that diploma. And actually.  This is okay, but I think it’s really, really important at the same time that there’s a much, much, much bigger picture to this, you know, and the bigger picture is for me, um, and again, I want to talk about another slight avenue on this in a second,  but the danger is that you’ve done a practice, you’ve ticked it in the box, you’ve had the experience and that’s it. 

 

But for me, the problem is you haven’t evolved. You haven’t changed. You haven’t grown. You haven’t like mastered more. There’s, there’s been no, no, remember as I was saying at the beginning of the podcast, this new layer of awareness.  And the, one of the ways that, um, I, um,  Experience this so I aside from tantric practices I have a silent meditation practice that i’ve done for the last decade  And for me that seems right to my body to do that.

 

I spend an hour and 40 minutes Most days albeit travel in my meditation practice  And I force, well I don’t force myself to do it now, I actually would miss it if I didn’t do it. But I certainly went through years of forcing my arse onto the seat. And the other thing that I do in that spiritual practice is I kind of let myself off the hook for it to need to be a certain way. 

 

And I let myself off the hook. So like there’s times when I may fall asleep or times where I’m so deep. It’s like am I asleep? Am I awake? I don’t know, but I kind of forgive myself those things  to allow myself this Perseverance with the practice and with the technique and what I notice is that over time There’s such a layer of subtlety that’s available, that opens up.

 

It’s like at the moment I feel like I’m on the fringe again. I feel like I’m always on the fringe because I can feel that it’s coming, this like fringe of new awareness, new possibility, new understanding of how interconnected everything is. I feel like I’m still on a new fringe of that. And again I come back to tantric practices in that  the practices that you’re doing in the body They’re not limited to your body, they are gateways and portals to open you up to everything that the universe has to offer is the only way that I can say that.

 

And that in choosing Tantra as a spiritual practice, there’s also something for me about going beyond the techniques. There’s like a part, a time where you’ve learned the techniques, you’ve mastered the techniques, But that you are still an explorer. You are still in the foothills of Everest and you haven’t got to the top of there yet.

 

You’re still in the foothills. You’re still at base camp.  You’ve got the, um, the kit. Yes. To, to, to do it. But you are still, uh, yeah, you’re still in the foothills. Exactly. Yes. Like the ecstatic body. I would be offering as students to be doing that for half an hour every day. Every day as part of a split or even an hour, you know, half an hour, hour every single day.

 

And if you just do this already after a month or two, I mean, you know, how many people do that systematically, but it can completely change the revolutionize you, you  feel in your body. It’s, it’s completely, it’s, it’s, it’s day and night. And if it’s changing that in your body, Then it’s also has this propensity to change the way that you perceive the world To change the way that you deal with the world the way that you see the world The way that you handle issues and you deal with different things It’s like in doing those practices You increase your awareness  And your understanding and your awareness is is I don’t know how to describe awareness, but it’s like seeing it’s like you expand your seeing To a point where you can see yourself As a participant in something But that you’re also observing yourself.

 

So there’s enough space between you and your reaction That you can then You It’s like you’ve got a wider understanding Didn’t would you describe that any better differently? I I’m I would actually ask myself the question um What are these tendencies? Yeah that uh With which we cut ourselves off from that further further  upwards and onwards upwards and onwards These tendencies that that you know when people say oh, yeah, that’s it You  Uh, what comes to mind  boredom jadedness jadedness  by jadedness.

 

I mean, this, this tendency.  Oh Everything is always available. I have seen it all i’ve had it all and especially people who have very, you know, let’s say A very very a lifestyle where everything is always available  We have seen that for example for people who live in manhattan quite a lot because So many things, you know, it’s like you, you, you feel like you live in the center of the world when you live there, you feel that everything is always available.

 

You, you, you, you put your little toe into something and say, Oh yeah, I’ve done this. I’ve seen that I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done it all. And that kind of jadedness.  That is one of the enemies to personal development in my opinion at least Enemy to personal development in the way that I see it because it it cuts yourself off from something So the question there if you’re at that place where you think oh i’ve done it all i’ve been there i’ve done it jaded  The question is what is still existing in you? 

 

That still knows that you’re not there yet  And it’s like what is it in you that wants to go further?  and wants to go beyond where you are,  and it’s like, what exists after the boredom? After the jadedness, what’s on the other side of that? Cause I, I’m banging my fists on the table, I believe that that opens up whole new realms, whole new places, when you don’t, you see in that moment,  If you buy into the jaded and buy into the boredom, the ego has won and it’s kept you exactly in the ballpark of your, your experience of life and you become a prisoner.

 

You’re prisoner back to your ego because you’re prisoner to the same circumstances because you haven’t pushed yourself through the jadedness.  Yes, I I completely I completely believe well, I’ve got my own theory in there so far, you know I I completely believe that as you say this jadedness is something that is not in our nature Yes, it’s something that is Conditioned into us.

 

Yes. And I think, uh, you know, conditioning as always comes from the, the, uh, the personal and social, uh, circumstances into which we are born and in which we grow up. And I can, you know, we can easily see that, for example, living in, uh, In, you know, living for a few years, uh, maybe in the middle of this whirlwind of hyper capitalism, let’s see you, you  work in the city of London and, and, and you work, you, you, you live in LA or in New York or something like that.

 

And you, you are completely connected to that kind of whirlwind that everything is available and everything, you know, easily I could see. That to happen yet  so  I personally believe  um  This is also something  From a tantric perspective from a spiritual perspective  Our soul always wants to go home What is home in there home is?

 

the vastness the absolute  um And by definition, at least in Tantra, that is not something that you can. You can even touch with your analytic mind  it’s always beyond  beyond and beyond Until it’s not anymore. It’s like  I think it’s to quote. I think it’s terence mckenna It’s it’s it’s not about to go somewhere that we can imagine  And that we have where we haven’t been yet, but it’s literally about our soul  Wanting to push towards what we can’t even imagine that would be, would be possible.

 

That means to that vastness of. Of states of consciousness that are actually available to us. And I think  to, to, in that sense, to expand our consciousness  is something that  is part of our true nature. That is part of our soul longing to come home. And the word longing, I think it’s important in there, uh, in there, because I think longing is the way that this, this tent, this, this  desire of the soul, so to speak, shows up in our everyday life and often we don’t know why, why are you,  why are you dear listener, for example,  why are you, um,  when you think of it, why are you  What is it that draws you to the spiritual practice? 

 

And you will find a longing in there, and you can’t quite put words onto it, but it has to do with Potential that your soul wants to become. And that longing, I think is, um, a part of is it shows up in our life in different ways. It can show up as depression, it can show up as dejection. It can show us up as, as, as many things.

 

And that is my theory, that when it shows up like this, that can, that can push us actually. forward beyond, beyond this ego, uh, ego, um, stuff, this is who I am and I want, I don’t want to move anymore. I think the one thing that I’m feeling as you’re talking, one thing I think that you, you need, anyone needs on a spiritual journey is motivation.

 

Yes. And you need persistence and you need, um,  kind of like a sticking, staying power. You need, I don’t know what you call that, a real staying power even  to, and I think this is another spiritual aspect, you need a staying power  beyond, that’s stronger than beyond the boredom and the jadedness and the loss.

 

And you need to have what I call this sense of knowing.  Well, I think that sense of that staying power can come from a sense of knowing or trusting that there’s something beyond where you’re at right now. Yes, it can come from that sense of primordially trusting. Yes. But it really, really, you know, to, for, for it to really, for that motivation to really, really be ignited, uh, in Tantra, Tantra says that something else is necessary for that.

 

And that’s what we call, um,  the glimpse.  So when you start practicing, you know, for some people that happens, I’ve talked about this in this podcast for some people that happens very early in the  Spiritual power for some people it happens later Some point you get like like a bolt of lightning you get a glimpse where you’re like, wow This is what what this can be like  and that once you have had that you you know You don’t just believe you actually know that Human existence can be more than  jadedness and more than being stuck in my current identity, ego.

 

You just know.  The problem is, there’s kind of a chicken and egg problem here, right? Because you usually not, not always, but, but usually you, you, you, you only get these, uh, glimpses through practicing already,  but once you’ve had the glimpse,  the ego  wants to then process it, package it, label it. Own it and then it wants to go.

 

Okay, we’ve done that now. What’s next? And we’ve talked, you know in this podcast about Consumption tantra. Yes, and I get for most people that that’s kind of how everyone starts how everyone gets drawn in You know, we draw people in with messages of spirituality messages of sex sex and sexuality All of that’s incredibly interesting to us  But there’s a point where that wanes like again, how many people do we see?

 

That are in our community and then leave for a while and then something calls them to come back Which is what you said earlier about how the soul can call you back. Yes, and then you have like another body bite at the cherry, and you’re looking for that next layer of insight, that next layer of awareness, and maybe something motivates, it’s like, how do you keep going or pushing through the limitations of where you met last time?

 

It’s like, and again, what we’re saying there is there’s something about a perseverance, there’s something about a continuation, I feel like I just summarized what we’ve said so far. Yeah, that makes, that makes sense. There’s one other one other aspect I wanted to talk about in in this topic about the dangers of the ego.

 

The world needs more tantra teachers. The world needs more people to, um, to lead and to encourage and to help and support. Um  And I think from my own experience and a danger is that once you move from student and practitioner to teacher and facilitator, there’s a danger that you can become an expert in that.

 

That’s not the danger. The danger is that you, you get stuck and you stop.  So. Again in my our 19 years of offering this and i’m not really talking about anybody Specifically, but this is as a check in For example, let me use a really good example Some of the neo new tantra today involves methods from bdsm things like Ropes, things like, um, floggers, things like all these things to help people into processes of surrender. 

 

Actually, for me, the true path of persistence is how you deepen and deepen and deepen and deepen your journey into surrender. When you think you can’t surrender anymore, there is a whole other realms Of surrender to go through as I said, the litmus test is are you enlightened? There’s more letting go to keep doing what can happen Is sometimes people get stuck on the techniques, for example, you know the rope shibari Beautiful japanese art people go off and become experts in all this rope tying Which is commendable and the world needs and it’s interesting and it’s it’s like but we sometimes forget one thing You Where was your spiritual journey in that or did you surrender your spiritual journey to become an expert in something?

 

Yeah, you could get you could really get  Identified with mastering the technique. Yes, especially in things that are that are as  Stunningly beautiful as shibari. Yes, there is this artistic element to it. Yes, exactly Yeah, and for me from a spiritual perspective is that’s dangerous how yes But well, the question would be how I can still how can I still do this?

 

Yes master this and and create pieces of of in that case pieces of rope art That are amazing yet at the same time always Let go Go off of  who I am in that well and for me if that’s going on for any of you Yeah, or maybe you can relate to it to other things in your life For me the first thing to do here is just to notice and witness This part of you that is compelled to want to become the expert So the way I feel this and I remember this from one of our spiritual teachers for me You I think one of my potential traps  is I have a huge amount of energy to manifest something.

 

Yeah, yeah.  Could you not like say that? I have this huge amount of energy to manifest and create something, and that has been incredibly useful to me in my life. I’ve, with you, manifested amazing, amazing things,  but The danger is that I become so identified in that manifestation and that energy. I’m going to call it like Rajas energy.

 

And as I was saying, you know, previously spiritual teachers talk about riding a bucking bronco. For me, you know, sometimes my creative energy is like, you know, being at a rodeo when they’ve let the horse out and I’m on it and it’s just going crazy all over the place.  For me, The balance is to allow that part of me to be expressed But also to have a part of me that can witness that apart The part of me that watches the part of me that gallops off like a rodeo and that can hold that bit without Judgment because then if there’s judgment you’re still attached to it, but the bit that can hold me with love With compassion with care with understanding and for me that  That bit is far more important than  the bucking bronco.

 

That’s at the other half of the stadium Manifesting and for me as I’m talking about that, it feels like qualities of the divine feminine It’s like the bit that holds me the you know, my being there’s a part of me that is my divine feminine how She allows me to hold me to hold the masculine as it’s going off, running off, doing things.

 

What I’m also pointing to is that there’s something greater in me in play that doesn’t need anything, doesn’t have any desires, doesn’t want to achieve anything, isn’t attached to anything, is kind of surrendered to that. That observes the other part of me that is, you know, how it’s exhausting sometimes that’s kind of running off and manifesting and creating and and I think  Again, as you go through the tantra journey, there may be things you want to become expert in, but actually, I think what I’m saying is, is don’t lose the  overarching spiritual practice of the part that holds you and observes you as you go off to do these other things. 

 

That holds you and that observes you and that holds space for your spiritual practice being One that will deconstruct everything who you are in the end. Yes, but that’s probably another podcast Well, we’ve got a few minutes left here. Yeah  Let’s just touch on that a little bit because again, you know, I started at the beginning of this podcast talking about  The part of me  19, you know, well, 19 years of teaching Tantra.

 

God knows how many years since I was 16 being on a spiritual practice. The thing that I’ve noticed as time goes on,  as you keep deconstructing, use that word deconstruct, you keep deconstructing  everything,  you realize I kind of hit a point of vulnerability, and a point of nothingness, a point of 

 

I don’t even I’ve struggled to put words to it because it’s beyond thoughts and it’s like a holding. It’s like a vibration. It’s a holding and and you know, there’s as I’ve gone on that’s developed inside of me. It’s like a presence.  There’s a presence that develops that is beyond all of those mental constructs.

 

And it’s like, I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. I don’t need to be anything for anybody. Actually, I could just meet things. I don’t need to prepare for anything. I could just meet life as it is. And I think what arises in the persistence of spiritual practice is the development of presence. The development of awareness.

 

Awareness. Which for me is, you know, more things that you, um, I wouldn’t even say they’re attainments because there’s nothing attained actually. It’s more of a falling away and you become aware that it was there all to all to begin with.  Yeah. It’s not owned by anyone because in that, in that, in, in, in, in, in being that there’s no one that is, that you could refer to as you anymore, but yeah, it’s presence.

 

Awareness, there’s so many, so many words to this, which is basically very, very, very much beyond words. I personally, the, the, the, the, the closest, the, the, the term that comes closest to my experience of this would be vastness, but definitely. The other word that comes up for me is divine. Yeah. Divinity.

 

Divine.  But, uh, yeah. And that’s to, to. 

 

Identity doesn’t exist in there. You don’t exist in there. So you can’t take anything with, no one can take anything into them.  And your life as such doesn’t exist in there. It’s your biography, nothing. So yeah, better.  Better have a spiritual practice to prepare yourself for that falling away, right? Yes. 

 

Okay. I like that. What was that last thing you just said? Better have a spiritual practice. That prepare, that prepares you for, uh, that falling away, for everything to fall away and not to, you know.  Not a panic. Yeah, if there’s still anyone there who  Listen we need to bring this to a close. Thank you  Considering um, I feel like we’ve we’ve really touched on some really good topics  And some new ideas that we haven’t talked about in previous podcasts and I guess like for me.

 

There’s like a development of The spirituality of tantra as we kind of go further into the into these podcasts  Thank you for being part of that Listen, lastly, before we go, I want to talk about birth, sex and death. Yes. These are seven day, one week, deep dive retreats into Tantra. We are doing one week in upstate New York, middle of June.

 

Yeah 2025 And we’re doing the same week again in glastonbury in the uk in about the first week of july second week of july I think it is glastonbury uk details Details are on the website and you know, maybe we’ll do a podcast about birth sex and death But what I can loosely say is this is a brand new week that we haven’t offered before and And it’s a exploration of birth of sex of death related to a spiritual practice Through tantra through tantric practices and some very profound rituals that we’re going to do some very profound experiences um Details are on the website  These two both of these weeks are already  Well, no, there’s only, um, five places on one week available and four places on the other one.

 

So they’re approaching sold out, um, deep transformative personal work. That is, um, really incredible. I can feel it already that it’s going to be very, very powerful week. If you want to work with us and yes, dear listener, if you want to work with us and work, you know, touch all of these things that we. I would say that we talked about this podcast and more if, if, if this calls you consider joining us there.

 

And if you want to  talk more about that, uh, we are also available for discovery calls, which you can book on our website. Yep. Brilliant. Okay, more details. We’ll talk more about that as we’re coming up. Ingo, thank you and um, I look forward to seeing you on the next podcast. See you soon. Bye baby. Thank you for today.

 

Bye bye sweetheart. Hello there. So I hope you really enjoyed today’s podcast. Really in depth, fruitful discussion. I know that Ingo and I really enjoyed offering this to you. If you’d like more details of the Tantra Love Festival that we talked about at the beginning and or the Birth, sex, and death retreat.

 

Details of those can be found on our website,  tantra4gaymen. com. And we look forward to seeing you in episode 22 of our podcast. Take care till then. Lots of love to you. Bye bye. 

 

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