Tantra body - healthy body - beautiful body - feeling body

If you’ve been looking for a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle, tantra could hold the key to both the spiritual and physical well-being you’ve been searching for.

As you begin to feel more in your body, your senses gradually awakening through the various methods and meditations of tantra, you may start to witness a subtle metamorphosis.  You might notice that you don’t just feel differently in your body, inhabiting it in a more comfortable way, you may also find yourself marvelling at the fact that you seem to look better in the mirror!  Friends may start to pay you unexpected compliments, telling you that your skin is glowing, your eyes are shining...in fact, many people surprise themselves by inadvertently losing weight they’ve been trying to shed for years, quickly and easily after stepping on to the path of tantra.

Why, and how does this happen?

It’s all to do with consciousness which really means 'noticing with awareness.'
It is paying attention to our daily life and the minutiae within it. The very act of bringing your total awareness to an activity, object or person can transform what would normally be seen as  mundane into something sacred and divine.

We create the world around us, including our bodies, with the power of our thoughts and feelings.
In the world of science, it’s common knowledge now that our perception of, and projection onto something changes its very nature.
The ground-breaking research of Dr Masaru Emoto, using photographs of frozen water crystals, has proven conclusively that water changes its molecular structure as a reaction to the thought patterns it’s exposed to.
Our bodies are made up mostly of water. Between 70 and 80% in fact! Taking on board Dr Emoto’s extraordinary findings, you can certainly see how the cellular structure of your body would be affected, positively or negatively by your own habitual thought patterns.
Dr Candace Pert,the highly-respected scientist who discovered the opiate receptor, wrote about the relationship between emotions and physical well-being in her seminal book “Molecules of Emotion”– Dr Pert’s exhaustive experiments led to the indisputable conclusion that mind, body and emotions are inseparable.

If you’ve ever been in love, you’ll know how the world around you transforms in front of your very eyes.  In this altered state, colours appear more vivid, people more attractive. Your energy is boundless and you feel as if you’ve been given the store room key for a lifetime’s supply of happy pills.  Suddenly, it’s easy to lose weight, you find yourself more productive at work, every day is a good hair day, and all the ‘problems’ which seemed insurmountable before, now fade into insignificance, in relation to this miraculous sensation that’s taken you over, body and soul... 

Tantra is a bit like falling in love.  The subtle difference is that you fall in love with yourself – and that includes your body.  In tantra we celebrate the body as it is.  In the loving, conscious acceptance of ‘what is’, the things that don’t serve us anymore gradually fall away and we begin to draw to us those things which contribute to our health and happiness. We naturally start to take care of our body as we notice how we  experience more pleasure when we’re fitter and healthier.  We begin to ‘fill up’ with love, similar to a half-empty fountain that’s being replenished, and just as the overflowing happens naturally after the fountain has been filled, our love and goodwill overflows, into those around us...

As Candace Pert puts it – “We are biologically hardwired for bliss—all you need to do is tap your own body’s unlimited natural capacity for living in joy and connecting to the divine.”

To celebrate your body is to celebrate life

It is a well-known fact that life is speeding up, and as we find ourselves rushing from morning until night in the attempt to achieve more in each day, the relationship most people have with their bodies tends to be a rather stand-offish one, full of wishful-thinking and not a lot of action, care or love.

We are forced to pay more attention to our health if our bodies unexpectedly begin to manifest symptoms that interfere with our comfort or productivity, but generally we ignore the more subtle aspects of our well-being, hoping we’ll just stay healthy enough to ‘get by’.

The happiest people I know are those that give at least some attention to the condition of their bodies on a regular basis. They commit to some kind of daily exercise, give conscious thought to what they eat and drink, and make sure they sleep well and with regularity. All of those aspects of physical maintenance tie together in an efficient system. The more you exercise – the better you’ll sleep. The less tired you are - the more consciously you’ll eat. The better you eat – the more you’ll feel like exercising, and so on and so forth. As you take on board all three aspects, your life will begin to improve in many previously unimaginable ways. The relationships you have with your family, friends and work-colleagues will certainly benefit, your productivity at work will improve, you will be building a positive foundation on top of which you can create more of what you wish for in life.

Practising tantra is a wonderful way to get fitter, but of course the healthier and stronger you are, the more you’ll enjoy, and benefit from tantric meditations.
So at the risk of sending you running to the nearest pub for pie and chips, washed down with a few pints I shall humbly offer you some simple suggestions to help you get on track with a more creative, fun and healthy lifestyle to support you on your tantric path. I want to assure you that I am not a fitness freak nor a compulsive wheat-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, ingredient-free fanatic.
If I sing the praises of raw food, that doesn’t mean that I am a born-again ‘Raw Foodist’. What it means is that I have experienced the wonder of eating raw food for a significant period of time and can vouch for the undeniable benefits.

I am in fact writing this having returned from an indulgent trip to Southern France where I ate things I certainly wouldn’t consume on a daily basis and drank a fair few glasses of the local whistle-wetter – red wine, of which the french are convinced keeps heart attacks at bay, and tell you so any chance they get. Who am I to argue? I just made sure I balanced the wine with copious amounts of water. That’s my motto, everything in moderation.

Yogis and shamans have been known to eat or drink poison that would ordinarily kill another human being, yet it passes straight through their bodies without harming them in any way. Don’t try this at home, but just bear it in mind next time you’re feeling guilty in a gourmet restaurant! The one thing we should forbid ourselves to indulge in is guilt - which serves no purpose and helps nobody. Becoming more conscious through practising tantra has helped many people I know free themselves from this debilitating emotion.
When I return to my daily routine, after an indulgent holiday for example, I feel positive about my time away and that helps to guide me back easily into a more balanced eating regime again. Brown rice and vegetables certainly taste delicious when you’ve spent a week consuming croissants, crepes and cheese!

Through practising tantra we constantly clear away debris so that we can access the freeflow of joyous gratitude. Tantric meditations bring clarity and awareness around the things which hold us back from living life in an expanded way. Love, sex, music, work, family, artistic projects – bringing joy into these aspects of life is the key to creating heaven on earth. As the Dalai Lama so wisely says, "The purpose of life is to be happy"

Don’t deny yourself the things that bring you happiness – dancing, swimming, massage, skiing, making love, painting... find those activities that generate a subtle vibration of ecstasy in your body. This joyous state is our birthright and the more we vibrate in bliss the more the planet will respond with its own blissful vibrations.