One way to take the passion out of lovemaking is to come into it with goals in mind. It seems natural to have the goal of ejaculation or orgasm. But these goals are very limited. These are the least interesting aspects of sexual intimacy. These are simply goals of our basic self — the primal self who desires to procreate. All animals have these goals. It is built into our basic survival wiring.

But we are so much more than that.

What else is possible?

Experiencing deep love and connection with another is something that we all crave. We seldom got this from our family as children or presently get it from our friends. Because of this, we seldom know how to cultivate it in our lovers/partners as well. We continue this strange close-yet-distant relationship even with the person that we desire the deepest connection with.

In lovemaking, when we release all our goals, we slow down and really look at this other person. We feel them. We realize what a blessing it is that they are here… right now…with us… wanting to be intimate with us. We are filled with gratitude.

Maybe you cuddle or look into each others’ eyes. Maybe you make out like teenagers. Maybe you have deep tantric intimacy that blows your mind. Or maybe you just have crazy monkey sex. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you laid beside each other, truly saw each other, your emotional selves merged and you went on an intimate adventure together!

This is one of the deepest joys a human can experience.

Infinite Possibilities

Tantra is the journey of integrating the infinite with the finite, the divine with the physical, the known and the unknown. This is the main reason that releasing our goals makes lovemaking so magical.

Imagine that we can actually have infinite experiences here. We often fall into very specific patterns in lovemaking because we believe that there are limited parts to play with. But although the physical parts are limited, the physical, emotional and spiritual sensations possible within each cell of our body are actually endless. So, when we touch our partner slightly differently, they will have a different sensation. If we kiss them while touching them there, it will be slightly different.

If we are gazing into each other’s eyes, feeling totally connected to our partner, and we are inside each other and feeling each other’s breath, we will have a multi-dimensional experience with each other.

Truly the permutations and combinations of experience in the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual worlds are endless.

This is where the focus on a specific goal can be so limiting. We will simply walk through the old patterns that we’ve done hundreds of times. Whereas, when the goals are gone, we slow down and listen within for new avenues of focus, touch, feeling, and pleasure.

So, how do we release our goals?

This begins as a shift in philosophy. We have been well-trained that goals are the way to success in all aspects of our lives. The first step is to wonder if there are areas of our lives where letting go of all the goals is actually the way to expand into NEW possibilities. We can look at where our ideas of the importance of goals come from. Are they true? What if we could actually relax and not have them?

Releasing goals also asks us to have faith in the process. It asks us to wonder what would happen if we took our hands off the steering wheel sometimes. Does this make us nervous? Or do we trust that something interesting will happen?

Once we ponder these things and come to a place where philosophically we can imagine releasing the goals, then we just try. If we are making love, we let go of any goal of ejaculation or even creating orgasm in our partner. This is quite a discipline. We are heavily wired with goals. But we just keep coming back to our breath. We just keep coming into the pleasure of THIS MOMENT. We take on the spirit of an explorer who isn’t sure what island they will discover as opposed to the sportsman who knows exactly where he wants to go.

Then, we start having experiences that are new and unexpected… bit by bit, we start to trust this idea of not having goals. Then we start to shift into a place where we want to keep exploring this unknown place. We want to know what else is possible…

Soon, we’ve had so many unexpected experiences that we can’t fathom having a goal. We are fully aware that we never could have planned what happened — and it was amazing!! We realize on a very experiential level that there is more possible than our minds can imagine or explain to anyone.

So, we happily give up the idea of goals. We slow waaaay down. We gaze at our partner. We listen within for guidance.

And we surrender to the whole process… creating experiences and feeling closer to our partner in ways that we couldn’t have previously imagined.