Transcript 

Hello and welcome to the Tantra for 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 11 of the Tantra for Gay Men podcast. Today Ingo and I are talking about open relationships.

We talk about what they are, we talk about how to navigate them. We talk about the spiritual aspects of love and truth and how that weaves into open relationships. We talk about our own experiences about open relationships. We talk about our relationships. This is a really juicy, full podcast. Be sure to listen to the end.

We’re going to give you Our top tips to how to negotiate an open relationship. So if that’s something that something that you’re wanting to do, listen to our top tips. Also at the end, we talk about the Tantra Love Festival, and we talk about the Ashram, our online practicing community. If you’d like more information have a look at our website tantra4gaymen.

com that’s the number four and if you’re interested in the ashram community. tantra4gaymen.  com Hope you enjoy, take care, bye bye. Hello beautiful Ingo. Hello Jason, good morning. How are you? I’m fine. Today we ‘re in Brighton, aren’t we? We are in sunny Brighton. It’s a beautiful sunny day. It is gorgeous blue skies and beautiful sea, beautiful seagulls.

And here we are episode 11. The ideal day to do a podcast. The ideal day to  record a podcast. Yes. So should I jump into today’s topic? Yes, do that. Okay. So the topic today is About open relationships and one of that is about what is a open relationship And how do I negotiate one? and you know, how does it all work?

and The reason I wanted to suggest this topic for the podcast Because at the surface of it, it looks like it has nothing to do with tantra or to do with spirituality Spirituality And in my personal view actually I think the idea of open relationships from a certain perspective is a hugely spiritual practice because there’s something about truth and there’s something about listening to what feels true for you inside of you.

And being able to communicate that on the outside. So I think one of the processes in Tantra is how to bring that inner voice or that voice that, as I say, sits in the back of shop, how to bring that forward and how to speak your truth, how to actually be able to say the thoughts or wishes or dreams that you have and to bring those forward. 

I think yeah, I, as you are saying, I think it has to do everything with Tantra even on the surface, I would say, because, you know, so many people ask us, Oh, when I come to Tantra, do I need to have sex with other people there and what’s my partner going to say, or is that going to impinge on my partnership, all of these things. 

And. The first thing to say on a very superficial level, I would say,  well, this might be controversial, not everyone shares this, but  I personally feel that if you really want to do tantra, you need  to, to, to put yourself into sharing  Intimacy, sensuality, and also sex possibly, depending on what it is, with more than one person  because you learn things about yourself if you do this with other persons that you wouldn’t otherwise.

Learn. And as we are always saying tantra takes intimate experiences. Mm-Hmm. , and takes them to, to, for, for us to learn about ourselves. Mm-Hmm. . What can we, what can we learn from that? Mm-Hmm. . And how can we use these, these experiences for personal transformation? Mm-Hmm. and.  I feel that the learning often happens in situations where intimacy happens  in a setting where you not, where you wouldn’t usually allow yourself to have intimacy with people that you wouldn’t usually share that with.

And that’s where, where, where certain things happen. So I wanted to, to, to, to, to put this in 

well and all my alarm bells are going off as you’re saying that. Yeah. And that is a good thing. So I think let’s take this all the way back to as we experience people that will arrive at our events, typically a weekend event, or maybe they’re coming to the festival and they’re interested and intrigued in this thing called Tantra.

And, you know, one of the conflicts that I think people have Starting tantric practice Is what what are my agreements at home? What do I have in place that enables me? to feel free and to practice with to join in the practice of tantra  and you’re right from A men who love men community, and I’m specifically talking to them.

We’ve said before, and I’m not sure if I’ve said this in a podcast, but there are the three relationships. Yes. Yes. Let me talk about that. So in the start of a tantra journey, you are going to have three core relationships as part of a spiritual path. One of those relationships is with yourself. So, you know, whenever we talk to people in Tantra, we always say, what are you feeling?

What are you thinking? What’s coming up for you? What does this remind you of? Because one pathway of the Tantra journey is your own internal experience and exploration and learning and discovery.  The second relationship, I don’t know if you want to talk about that or do you want me to? Okay, so the second relationship for me then, is about your relationship with others.

So, the other people in the room, your relationship with each and every one of those, And you’re right, there’s going to be all different types of sharings that are potentially available to you. Some of them are going to be sexual, some of them are going to be highly intimate. There’s also like energetic experiences that go beyond sex, go beyond, you know, the normal way that we experience us ourselves.

Also, in this group of other people, there’s going to be all kinds of projections that we’re going to have. We’re going to fall in love with people. We’re going to, you know, hate some people or get triggered by some people. We’re going to be following other people around. 

I love what you just said. And I want to, I want to, I want to stress that doubly to experience yourself in ways that you do not normally experience yourself.

And that’s what it opens up. Right. If you engage with people in a way that you, you. With types of people that you would normally not necessarily engage with, and that can be just having a chat with people you would never that would never normally cross your path,  let alone even go into eye gazing or some intimate, more intimate connection to share, you know, to maybe even share stories that you wouldn’t, you know, Even share with these kinds of people and that can open something up.

That’s what you’re talking about, right? 

For me the the practice of tantra say that you’re on a week’s retreat We literally take you into another paradigm another way of experiencing yourself and way of ways of experiencing others like sometimes we’ve been there and go in the middle of a workshop And i’m like, oh fuck it’s monday afternoon and most people are at work and it’s raining and there and here we are In the you know, we’re on planet nunu somewhere in the universe completely having these amazing And like oh, it’s it’s a gray monday afternoon in england, right? 

So I think that’s the other thing that’s hard to convey to people that Tantra as a spiritual practice will take you to other paradigms, other experiences, other realities, whatever language we want to use. But I want to finish these three relationships So you have relationship with the others the other thing to say here about this relationship with the others Is that is fertile ground for learning about you exactly because you’re not going to learn everything in tantra just on your own Doing your own meditations your own sexual practice.

That’s a third of it. But the other third of it is Is your relationship with the other people in the room for good and bad for everything is fertile soil To work through the ego work through different lessons work through experiences And you know for me people leave a tantra retreat Totally in love with every single person in that room and totally in love with the world.

Yeah, I I always compare this to you know, Imagine you have been living in a kind of local bubble. You have filtered the people you’re interacting with, you have filtered how far you go,  you have filtered them. So you’re only gonna, as your mother always say, you’re only going to get what you’ve always got in terms of world views, in terms of living life. 

And what I what I really love, you know, we, we just, I remember just two weeks we taught this  weekend in London, we did. I was blown away how diverse that group was. Yes. You know, like, like anything from skin color to career to age, to body shape, to  you know, on the spectrum of gay, queer, you know, it’s  And what always really, really opens my heart is exactly that people actually really engage.

I also start engaging with people that I would never, I would have never, never met before in, in, in, in, in ordinary life. And they can, they can open my mind. These encounters can open my mind in a way that feels like opening myself from a kind of echo chamber or bubble to something.  That shows me the beauty of the world and and that’s something that that feeling that that that experience is something that then Teaches you something about the nature of reality in my mind. 

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely the third relationship The relationship what I call with the universe or the relationship with everything that’s beyond your mind beyond the ego kind of outer space both internally and externally and Also in this kind of area. It’s your relationship with the divine the relationship with your definition of God your relationship, you know, if you feel that you’re religious or Or your spiritual, it’s your relationship with all of that that’s beyond you as the individual and the other personal persons that are there in the room.

So for me, there’s those three relationships. Now you’re right to engage, to be able to engage, you need to be able to be free to. Explore other people and what I say by free what I mean is, is that you need to kind of have things in place that enable you to do that. So one of the key things here is that people will arrive at Tantra and I would say 90 percent of our participants, 90, 80, you mean our singles are, no, have a partner at home.

Yeah. Yeah. No,  

I would I would actually  I would say it’s about half and half. 

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So half the people, the men that arrive into Tantra have a relationship at home. Yes. And when we think about open relationships,  you know, we’ve seen men. Say a number of things some of them say they have a don’t ask don’t tell Relationship.

So in their relationship either party is free to go and do what they do But let’s not talk about it and let’s not let’s not  Let’s not even mention that that happens. So that’s one one way Another way is that you know couples are completely open they play with other people they play with each other they play with with everyone and life and everything and That would be like another kind of  another percentage and then we have 

we have another scenario that is quite frequent is  There is a relationship.

Yes, sometimes Sometimes a you know, a longer term relationship form has been there for many years  One person is interested in pushing their own boundaries and somehow they came across Tantra and the other person isn’t. And then usually we get that a lot. Don’t we have this question arises? Oh God, how do I tell my partner?

Am I going to be okay navigating this? Because I actually do not want to, to put my primary relationship in danger,  but. There is a dimension that my partner says this is not for me But it is but I want to want to explore this and how do I how do I navigate this? Yeah, that  scenario 

is quite frequent. I just want to talk about this dynamic for a second Cuz yeah, we’ve come across this quite frequently Where as you said somebody arrives wanting to expand wanting to grow and then they have this person at home that Doesn’t want to grow not interested in anything spiritually and likes life in the routine and the way that it is  And I think it’s really easy to demonize the person at home That you know, they’re stuck.

They’re they’re not not willing to talk about it And you know all these different reasons why this relationship dynamic has existed  I just want to introduce the notion that in that relationship  between these two persons, the man that’s arrived at the at the Tantra and the other partner, the other half of the relationship that stays at home,  for me, these are. 

both sides of the universe Both sides of everything like again, we haven’t yet talked in tantra And we’re going to in future about what I would call the divine masculine and divine feminine Not to be confused with gender whole other big discussion, but we talk about polarities And I feel that relationships Have polarities that swing backwards and forwards between the partnership Mm hmm, so You know, if one one part of the partnership is wanting to explore and wanting to go out and create The other part of the relationship wants to stay Stable wants to stay on solid ground.

Let’s stay with what we know and so if Even for the person that is exploring growing and expanding and attending Tantra  Already within that relationship that’s at home there are changes afoot or different developments and things  That can’t but help happen You know, I know like in my relationship before I met you beautiful ingo I was in a 10 year relationship  And I signed up to the age of 23 24 to a total monogamous relationship  And I signed up to that because that was what I and my partner wanted at that time  And you know, there was a time where we did not have sex for like over two years Wow, and I wasn’t touched by another human being for over two years 

That must be so frustrating well frustrating to 

a point where I literally had nails That were clawing through the walls and I was in my, you know, mid 20s 20s Had a lot of sexual energy.

So was it your, your your agreement that no one would do anything else with anyone else? Between the two of us, 

utterly monogamous. However, after five years in this relationship, kind of sex waned. I mean,  You know, sorry to say this it wasn’t that great to begin with but it was okay It was never amazing and it just kind of went downhill from from there on And I was there two years and I was like i’m gonna go mad I don’t know if you if anyone’s list dear listeners as you would say if anybody’s listening I spent two years  Like I’d had a wank and it didn’t even touch the longing that was inside of me I can’t begin to say how my hormones anger Frustration, do you know I made I started a candle making hobby Out of sheer sexual frustration.

That’s horrendous. I made  two thousand candles.  Two thousand candles that were highly decorated. At the end, these candles looked like drag queens. They had so much jewelry and jewels on them. And I just, Utterly suffered this whole time because I was trying to keep up this paradigm of this agreement that I had And this monogamy that that I thought was what we were meant to be doing now.

I’m not saying for a second That monogamy doesn’t 

work No, but this hurts when i’m hearing this and whatever I want to want to ask is you know This number one thing the number one thing in any if yes any any person who? An expert in this Is.  Did you not have a relationship yet where you were talking about these things?

Did you not have a routine to talk about? a a a A established practice no to talk about what’s happening for you. 

No, it was totally totally not possible To be able to talk about anything that was about Open, you know about  well anything about relationship. It was absolutely impossible to be able to  Even name that there was a problem.

It was like it was secret. There was there was no possibility to even say Help, I’m really struggling here And the only point that I was able to raise how I was struggling was when the relationship was breaking down when I was saying this relationship and when I So this so this period of monogamy for two years Of sheer frustration I then out of pure frustration Started to have sex with other men outside of my agreements and the guilt and the hate That I felt for myself And the guilt And the punishments I gave myself for doing that, but I just didn’t know how else to survive and I hated  being dishonest because that was utterly against my my values 

So this is almost like, you know, you’re almost like a case study about yes and how not to do things.

So From what we from what we know, now after after a lot of practice, what would have been You Well, I said it already. What would have been the first step to in a practice to, to, to, to  put that onto a more productive trajectory?  

I don’t think the relationship was able to hold this, hold that conversation.

Right. I think that because even when I said at the end, I, the line was, I said, listen, I’ve been doing some things with other people that I’d like to talk to you about.  And it was like, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want you to tell me I just utter denial. 

So again, the very beginning of all, just the start of everything lies in  honest conversations.

I think 

one of the hardest things I’ve had to accept about myself.  And this is quite profound for me, actually, as I’m saying this. One of the hardest things I’ve had to accept myself is that I am a multi sexual being,  and that I need different sexual experiences with different people for me to feel whole.

That doesn’t mean I have a dependency on other people, and that’s really profound, because it’s fucking profound, because we grow up in a society 

Yes, 

that you know, tells us about monogamy, you know It’s drilled into us at school in a very heteronormative way and one of my fears for gay marriage I mean we are married that was my biggest wish to marry you and and for me, you know One of the most joyous experience of the most joyous experience of my life  Yeah, and I loved marrying you and I’ve loved being married to you and for me, you know, our our  Agreements in our marriage is I love this.

It was your idea. You said this ingo you said to me Listen, you know, we we both agreed. We didn’t want traditional marriage vows Our marriage vow is to help the other person Be the most that they can be and to support them 

Yes, and I’m so happy that you’re saying otherwise I would have said this and this is  What’s coming up from me, you know, if I if I sum it up if I had to sum up  well you know, I’m not bragging but the something like a few rules to live a Relationship like ours where we are totally committed to each other Happily married but at the same time we are we are a sexually open relationship.

We have all, each of us have all kinds of, of, you know, sexual encounters, experiences relationships outside, even, even to use a boyfriend, you know, other boyfriends, things like that. So  three rules that, that we touched. I just wanted to really put this out here. The first rule is to learn the art of honest conversation. 

The second rule is what you just said. It’s to approach, to for me, this has been just the most joyful path to, to, to approach a relationship in a way where it’s my job to, to,  to prepare the stage for you and the stage of your life where you can become the complete full potential of yourself. And it’s not, it’s, it’s.

It’s not up to me to prescribe what this potential should be, but I’m, I’m, I’m helping you to, to, to, to open that stage and, and, and you are helping me. That’s the second one. And the third one, we might talk about it later. How, however, and this is, this is maybe at the core of what, what. So many people, why so many people get freaked out this in this topic  is where is our core as in safe space, the safe space, because We have safe spaces  that are just us.

No one can touch this.  We would not share any of this with, I would not share anything out of that, of that realm with anyone else than you. And I know that you wouldn’t. It’s vice versa. That’s, that’s It’s not, it’s not so much about sex. It’s about other things. Maybe we’re going to talk about that later.

It’s something more, in our case, it’s something more spiritual. But what I’m saying is that safe core where you can rest and you know you are safe there. And having that, you can allow the other person to do, you know, to be whatever they want and to be whatever.  The stage of life is wanna it wants to come through for them, you know I just want to can I go back a couple?

Yeah, you talked about honest conversation. Okay, that’s rule one. So to 

speak 

Yeah,  

I just wanted to have some compassion for the people listening. Yeah where honest conversation may not be possible  Because I think we might be in danger of totally over expecting because we have that so good. I’m 

not, I’m not expecting.

I’m, I’m like, this is, this is, this is something.  This might take, may take years to learn. 

Well, I don’t know, because I would even say that in my previous experience, and in what we’ve heard in other people experience, that honest conversation has been next to impossible for some people. Okay. And I just for a minute, just want to have some compassion. 

Just some compassion and some empathy for that feeling of stuckness. Cause I get it. I know that place really, really well. And the, it’s almost like you go into a denial of yourself.  And you know, again, we’ve experienced this where some people arrive at Tantra and they just feel like they’re functioning.

They’re just functioning in life. They’re just doing their job. They’re doing their friends They’re doing their family and there’s nothing there for them  Nothing there for them. They’re doing their pets. They’re doing they’re just doing everything for Everybody else and they’re doing nothing for them 

the feeling of living another person’s life 

Well, just not even living a life living a shell of a life Or I would I would argue living a life based on other people’s expectations of  you.

Yeah And I think that is a very very lonely miserable place a place of real suffering And for me, you know, my freedom, my liberation has been part of my spirituality. And I think this, you know, I passionately banged the table on this because I passionately believe that the spirituality is about listening to the truth inside of yourself and letting nothing Nothing, nothing, nothing, no one and nothing ever, ever, ever get in the way of that. 

And there’s a huge responsibility to take in doing that, because there’s the responsibility of, or the consequences and responsibility  of that. And it might destroy the life around you. And for me, if it destroys anything, then it was never of any value anyway. It never had any truth to it.  And for me, if you’re, if everything is destroyed around you, then it wasn’t in truth.

And it doesn’t serve you. And it’s not who you are. And it’s not who, who, what, what, what is your, the essence of you. I feel passionate about this. 

Oh It’s it’s a really really really old truth. I think I think it’s a bible. It’s it basically says If you bring forward what is truly within you it’s going to be your liberation I can’t believe we’re quoting the bible in this podcast if you suppress that Yes, but if you suppress that it’s going to be a downfall yes That’s roughly the words I think but I I think it’s it’s whether bible or not.

It’s a very  tried and tested ancient truth that I think Shows itself in so many ways I’ve I’ve seen that we both have seen that in so many permutations and people we have worked with right? 

I think spirituality  is undoing the programming that we have. I don’t know about for you, but for me, in my relationship with you, in the choices that we, we make of how we want to be, I am utterly in love with you.

19 years later, I adore you. I support you, you know, several things like, you know, you say, Oh, Jason, I want to go to the middle of the Amazonian jungle to explore plant medicine. My first question is, have you got enough money? You know, what do you what do we need to do to make you go and and recently you were like Oh watch I need to go again and you were feeling a bit down about it and you were like, oh, I don’t know It’s too much and I pulled my laptop off and I’m like, right.

Let’s look at flights. We’re gonna get you there 

Well, this is interesting because I didn’t feel down about going I basically  felt 

It’s like this this this moment I think many people have this like  Can I really do this? Is this too far out? Am I feeling too entitled to, to, to just spontaneously say, Oh, I’m going to go and see my teacher right now, even if he is at the end of class. You know other other side of the 

world in the middle of the Amazonian jungle exactly and 

and it’s about I think you and me have been pushing each other with these things if there’s really something that i’m longing you have pushed me And and vice versa.

Well, 

and also more recently in my case, how long have I been telling you I wanted a dog for? 

Exactly. And as we’re 

recording this, there’s somebody in their crate, a little 13, 13 week old soul in their crate. You know, and you’ve utterly enabled, helped me enable that to happen. So I think there’s something about being passionate advocates for the other beyond where they may not be. 

And for me, you know, when I come back to this, what are your agreements of your relationship? I just want to come back to this point about how typically people are living the programming of how they were brought up in school.  What they were, I went to a catholic school. It was utterly indoctrinated to me that marriage was between two people Was about being nice to each other and making babies more for more for people and going getting a job being Responsible all of your life and that you should only have sex This was one of my big issues in secondary school that you should only have sex  to make children  And I’m like, oh my god, and there was no mention of same sex attraction.

So I just felt utterly wrong, utterly didn’t fit in, didn’t understand. But I did have, at that age of 11,  I did have a sense of knowing that actually what was being told to me was not my truth. And I followed my truth as best as I can through, throughout my life. So what I’m saying to people,  It’s that honest conversation That we are advocating You know, it doesn’t feel good to do things outside of agreements And we know that that gnaws away at people like rot and It may be that you’re not ready to and it may be that that conversation or it goes in steps in micro little steps But we’ve known many people Go home and renegotiate the agreements that they have In line with the truth of what they both who they both are and what they both want 

That brings me to this is this practical aspect to it because I I would reckon that many people would ask now Okay, how  I’m not used to Have these kinds of really honest conversations.

How do I start that and  This is again really interesting because In most of our retreats, we practice that at some point. And again, people practice that in the realm of trying it out with someone else.  And I’m, this is such a simple exercise, but it needs someone to almost to hold space for you. 

And what I’m always blown away when, when I then witness people is you’re going to put in, in, in, in front of someone who don’t know, you don’t know very well, someone random from, from the Tantra group.  And you’re meant to have a really, really honest conversation. What comes up when you, you know, when you, when you see that person what do you feel?

What are your,  your secret desires towards that person? What are the, the, the blocks? And I’m always blown away that after about 30 seconds of uncomfortable,  then, Something opens up for them and they don’t want to stop.  And they don’t want to stop. And afterwards they, they almost lie in each other’s arms because the, the intimacy that comes out of that.

Oh my God. Yes. And, and that’s something that has helped  many many of our people who had that at home and were, were, were never able to have that conversation  to. Experience it a few times and experience the fact that it’s always the same that after a few seconds of uncomfortable  the path to intimacy really opens up and then it opens into something really beautiful  and armed with that experience so to speak then to go home and think about okay I actually do this with my partner.

Do you see what I mean?  

I want to talk about this idea of truth. Yeah, because I think that people can be under the misunderstanding about what spirituality is and I know we’ve talked about it in previous podcasts,  but the point I want to point out here. Is that for me truth  like being in your truth saying the unspeakable truth of you The uns the things you need the things you desire How you feel?

That truth when you tell the truth There was something hugely fucking powerful and as you said the intimacy so we Again, I think what you’re talking about is is that authentic feedback what you’re referencing? Well, 

that’s what the exercise is. Yes So we 

have an exercise where you Really truthfully talk about how you feel about another person.

Yeah, and it changes the group 

Yeah, 

and what happens is that because I think there’s a mistake about what intimacy is People sometimes mistake intimacy for needing to be more eye gazing more holding more cuddling more More sex, which is not true. And it’s nothing to do with that. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing to do with that for me What breeds intimacy what is the most intimate thing is where somebody knows your deepest truth? Yeah, your total honesty and I talk about the spiritual path Being about love and truth and it is both of these and I know for me  Like one, I have many tender moments with you Ingo, but one of my most tender moments, I can’t believe I’m going to say this on the podcast, one of my most tender moments is when I say to you, this was a couple of years ago, I was feeling really fidgety, I needed, I don’t know, to blow off some steam, I needed to have sex, I needed, I was itchy, scratchy, I wouldn’t say horny, but I just was frustrated. 

And I was like  in my own thing and I was like, oh god, and I came to you and I have found it very difficult in my life to name my true, actually my marriage with you, one of the biggest gifts you’ve ever given me. And I kiss the ground, I kiss your feet for giving this gift to me as you  have been so trusting and so holding.

I could cry actually. You’ve been so amazing at holding my every request and disarming the disarming the part of me that, that couldn’t be truthful. Like, so I remember coming to you, I want to come to you and say Ingo. 

I needed to go to the sauna and have sex with random strangers.  And I laughed because that was what I just needed. And you were like, yeah, fine. And I was like, what, I can just go? Yeah, go. What time do you think you’ll be back? 

And now it has become you know, each of us can do it as often as they like and we do not even bat an eye.

Well, not 

even that. Anything. Can I go to the amazonia? Can I get a dog? We’re just living our truth. 

Also, can I can I bring  this This  other topic just checking in 

which just okay, which topics this one just 

checking in when  When you a few years ago Met someone. 

Yes.  

And asked me, can I have a secondary boyfriend.

Oh my god, that was massive. Let’s, just before we go to that. Because this is, 

this is very, very beautiful actually. I just want 

to finish naming this previous situation. Yeah. When I, and when you were just like, yes, that’s fine, go and do it. My heart just utterly melted. I loved you so much in that moment. 

What you enabled in me was to express a need and to feel the freedom that I’m okay. I felt validated. I didn’t feel strange. I felt like I was okay and that this was okay. I can’t tell you Ingo, the, the, the release, the feeling seen and, and in that being seen and being held, I just fell in love with you even more.

Like I just keep falling in love with you all of these 19 years.  And that was a really big moment. So, I know you want to talk about this other thing. But, I just really wanted to name how powerful that was. That truth. And that for me,  in that moment, was a massively spiritual practice. Because it was like beyond my ego, beyond my conditioning.

Beyond my background, beyond what I’ve been told by other people, here I was potentially naming the unnameable to my husband of what I would like to do. And you were like, yeah, that’s fine. Go and do it. Go and enjoy it. Have fun. Tell me about it. When you get back.  Hugely fucking profound.  And look the next layer up of that,  

look I wanted to, to, to, to, to, to, to come to, to one really.

One one truth that is really important for me in this and doesn’t matter whether it’s this example or the other example  for me It’s this thing about the safe place  so from 

the beginning of knowing you I had this feeling that We are here to  We are together for a reason that transcends you and me. So we are almost here on the mission  and out of that mission.  Incredible. It’s a very long term thing. It’s a completely long term thing. And, and we.  It’s almost a spiritual contract that we have had almost, you know, if, if I believed in reincarnation, it would be over several lives  and that is completely rock solid, clear for me.

And from that perspective,  you can do anything. You’d like as long as  that  connection, that longterm connection is our safe space. 

Well, and for me, our relationship is the foundation of us. Like for me,  it’s unthinkable that I wouldn’t be married to you. Wait a 

moment. So in, in practical terms, this would mean.

You can have sex with anyone you like  you can even have secondary boyfriends  What my safe space that can’t be touched is the the the space where? We live the long term vision together where we live and plan our life together where we dream dreams Together about  what we want to bring into this world together.

And the biggest thing of that is Tantra for gay men. They, when we dream together, what, who we want to, you know, who we want to develop into spiritually when we practice together, when we, and when, when we follow a spiritual path together, that’s something that transcends  a visit to the sauna by a thousand orders of magnitude.

And it even transcends, may I say. Me having, you know, I, I’ve got some fuck buddies or something like that. And you may have you know, you may, may, may, may go to see people. What, whatever you choose to, what we share, that is my rock solid safe space, because I know it transcends all of these things by a thousand orders of magnitude, and that is just so beautiful because.

Resting in that for me, also that eliminates any sense of jealousy because that’s a bitch jealousy, isn’t it? For people, Oh God, I’m jealous when I imagine him in bed with another person or something like that.  And for me, that just eliminates that because I just completely feel,  it’s almost, It’s almost as if all of your experiences, whatever they may be, even if that’s with another person,  they are part of you and you are part of,  you are part of our path together.

So that is as your experience that is still shared and that’s, that’s part of who you are becoming and who you are becoming is part of our practice as a couple. So that is the the rock solid safe space. 

I want to talk about jealousy Yeah, and then we’re gonna need to bring this to a close because we’ve been talking for 40 minutes already.

I haven’t even started  As yeah, but I want to talk so when we first met. Yes, we met in a tantra workshop in germany And we over the next two to three years did we were in peer groups? And I  So when I left my previous relationship The promise I made to myself  was that I was never gonna be in a relationship again where I could not be the truth of who I was.

Yes. And that I was never gonna lie to myself, and I was never gonna be any, in any agreements with anybody that, that took away from my freedom. At that point, when I met you, When I was 34, 35 

30. You 32 were? I was 30. You were 32 though. Oh, wow. Okay. We were old 

young. When I look at our photographs of us back there, we were very young spring chickens.

Let me tell you half the way we are now.  Anyway, so when I met you, I was like, I’m never gonna be, be in a relationship where I cannot be the truth of who I am. Mm-Hmm.  . What then took me by surprise was then seeing you in tantric spaces. Being an intimacy with other men. And suddenly this green eyed monster arose jealousy that  I have never, ever experienced in my whole life.

And I was like, Oh my God, what the fuck is this? And it’s like, Oh my God. And it would eat through the whole of my being and oh my God.  And the first thing I did. So back to what we were saying earlier about on radical honesty, I came and told you. I was like, I don’t want you to change a thing, I don’t want you to do anything differently, but you need to know, I am hugely jealous, and that already disarmed the jealousy.

Yes. And, the other conclusion that I got to, and this was a really profound profound thing for me, was that, if I really loved you, Okay, if I really so and this is this this might be  Helpful to people listening or tricky, but I was like if I truly loved you without needing to Need anything from you if I truly unconditionally loved you then Why would I not want you to have every pleasure in life that you could have?

Why would I not want that and and also do I feel like the only thing for you that can bring you pleasure? That should bring you every pleasure in your life Whether that’s sexually whether that’s you know, I cook for you often  You know 

and specifically tantric spaces. Yes, as many of our our listeners know at that time That was what I was I was really looking for these kinds of spaces to be sexual in 

and I was then thinking well if Ingo runs off with somebody else if he falls in love with somebody else beyond us and beyond our relationship well then our relationship wasn’t meant to be that’s that had reached its natural end but it was this this specific point of if I truly loved you then I needed to let you go in terms of my attachment thank you it was in terms of my attachments I needed to  Hack through my attachments to you So that I you could be free and I could then be free and that was a massive for me I don’t know if I’m how I’m talking about it whether it’s as profound as I’m feeling it and talking about it 

Well, there’s a super profound  There’s a super profound again timeless spiritual truth in there  Osho talked a lot about that, about the, the nexus between love and freedom, where he said it’s, it’s true love as a couple is about radical freedom for each other.

Yes, yes.  And I, I agree. It’s, it’s, it’s a practice because from,  from that point, from that radical freedom, paradoxically, you find your transcendent safe space, something that you share that is eternal and that no one else can touch. It’s, it’s very interesting.  

So let’s summarize this podcast then Ingo. So if we were giving some top tips for people listening to this, talking about open relationship, what would be the top summary tips that we would say?

Tip number one, 

learn. Put yourself into learning the art of honest conversation. 

Okay. 

Yeah. 

Does that make sense? Yeah. And that means honest conversation with other people. Yes. 

And, and practicing that can then have this trickle down effect on, on knowing how to, how to do this with your, your significant other.

Tip number two for me would be having rock solid agreements in place. Absolutely. So that you can feel free to explore yourself, whether that’s in Tantra, Whether that’s, you know, trust up like a  goodness knows what goodness knows where, but that you have agreements because it gnaws away at your spirit when you’re living counter to the agreements that you have at home.

So it’s like making sure the agreements you have at home are supporting you to be doing what you’re doing.  

Tip three we didn’t talk about this too much, but we touched this is Have a practice that brings forward  who you really are deep within yourself Yeah, who are you and and and what it is? What is your your honest? 

that which wants to Come forward and learn how to bring that forward and again that that can be learned tip four for me is 

Undo the conditioning. Yes, don’t accept that you need to live your life based on other people’s ideas of what what good looks like actually get used to live defining your own truth Feeling what feels right for you and live your truth and you know, fuck convention Fuck other people’s ideas.

Yeah live nothing, but the truth of you as long as it doesn’t harm anybody and  As long as it’s not illegal, then, you know, you’re free to experience yourself and be the truth of who you are. So for me, live the truth of who you are.  Next tip. Yeah,  

find together what your core what your safe space is.  I Think that I really feel that every couple needs something that can’t be touched  But I think it’s a misconception that that needs to be sex or intimacy with others Something like that.

What is that for you? For us, I would say it’s a spiritual and long term life. Yeah thing Yeah, mainly but that might differ for others, but  In the very end I think you can only find that out through your own own spiritual practice and through meditation But it will come forward. What is that safe space that you  

My next top tip in your relationship, look at what your, your foundations of your relationship are.

What are the marriage values?  Who are you in that relationship? Yes. Okay. And last 

tip,  this ideal of that, that element of relationship that is about preparing the best stage. For your partner so that your partner can realize his full potential In in this life and and really that’s what you are there for in partnership.

Beautiful  

Let’s talk a little bit about the tantra love festival when this podcast  goes out my love We are going to be a few weeks away from the tantra love festival  It’s in Glastonbury. It starts Saturday the 24th of August, finishes Wednesday the 28th. So it’s five days of love, of up to a hundred men.

How many workshops? Have we got up to 40 different workshops? 

Yes something like between 35 

40. And it is a tantric playground. It is a total fun, love, profound, loving, Intimate, sensual, juicy yeah, spiritual, profound, divine just incredible. It’s in its is this our 12th or 13th one? 12th. The 12th Tantra Love Festival.

And what I wanted to say, it’s  what I’m almost, what I’m always so in love with. Is that community that has formed through that of people who come every year, every year again, and then so, so if, if you’re new  and would like to come there, I promise you, you will be blown away. But by. How easy it is to, to, to be completely accepted into it for, for whoever you are into this community and to have really deep connections with people.

And men come to us from all over the world, from the USA, Israel, South Africa, all of Europe, Australia.  Yes. So, you know, if you feel have a look on the website and. Yeah, we would love to welcome you. It’s a total uplifting experience and it just sits in people’s hearts, doesn’t it, Ingo? For months and months afterwards.

It’s, it’s incredible. Yeah. Listen, thank you for today, Ingo. That’s been amazing. Thank you, my darling. So yes, that’s the Tantra Love Festival. If you want to have a look at our website, Tantra number four, it’s Gay men.com. Thank you for everything you brought today. Thank you dear Listeners, we really hope this serves you.

Thank you, dear listeners. Yeah, if you’ve got any questions from today’s podcast you can talk about those in our community app called The Tantra for Gay Men Raam. Mm-Hmm. . We are a practicing community and in the Raam you will see. A section on podcast and there you can ask questions, give feedback.

That’s community. tantra4gaymen. com. 

And also in the ashram we have lots of online practicing  groups. Because when we talk about like exercises that you could. do and, and, and how to, how to actually put these things into practice that we are talking about. We are developing basically online online online, online programs for you to be able to actually practice these things from the comfort of your home.

And you can join at any time. Yes. And if you’re interested again in the community app in the ashram, have a read about it on the left hand side. Okay. We love you. Can’t wait to meet you in episode 12. Take care till then. Goodbye. Bye bye.  So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode 11, all about open relationships.

Listen, if you’d like to take part in the conversation, you can do that in our ashram, our online practicing community. The. website address for that is community. tantra4gaymen. com and if you’re interested to come and join us at the Tantra Love Festival you can do that at tantra4gaymen.  com. We are super stoked to meet you in Episode 12.

Take care till then. Lots of love to you. Bye bye.

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