interview

Andrew Cohen: Some time ago I was sent a copy of your book Stillness Is the Way, and as I was reading it out loud with our editorial team I actually got transmission from the piece and then, in an instant, I felt that I understood what it was that you were trying to communicate to people. I really began to appreciate it in such a way that I was actually very touched by it. What you were describing, I think, was a modern tantric perspective. I'd like to tell you what it was that I understood, and since I'm sure I haven't understood it completely, please do correct me as we go along. Your main point, I think, was that the inner experience of revelation, of oneness, does not mean anything until it's brought into this world, into this very real, actual and material world.

Barry Long: Yes, that is so.

AC: And that the only way, or the most significant way, to bring that revelation into this world is through the perfect union of man and woman.

BL: That is so.

AC: And that through man and woman coming together in romantic or sexual union, an experience of this perfect nonseparation, perfect oneness, will be experienced by both.

BL: Yes.

AC: And in that, both will experience, shall we say, the embodied fulfillment of the inner spiritual revelation.

BL: Well, yes, although that might be giving to people too much as an expectation of something for themselves—because there's nothing in it for themselves. But what this experience does bring into the woman is utter and complete love of the man, and when a woman utterly and completely loves a man—a man who loves her, of course—she sees the God in him. And that's all woman can do, and all that she needs to do. Because when she sees the God in her man and she is being perfectly loved, she is in the state of woman.

You see, a woman doesn't have enlightenment; she only thinks she does. A woman is already enlightened when she is in a state of love such that, for instance, even if I died, Sara here would not suffer because I am already in her, and she knows what I am. And so she is protected from suffering anymore at the hands of man because she has realized or seen God in man, and she has that consciousness that is just woman—which is to say, pure love. There's no great blinding consciousness. That's only a parlor trick of spiritual commentators. I don't have any blinding light now. I mean, I used to have what we call realization and great wonderful insights when I was ignorant because insights occur in darkness; and therefore you get lovely lights. But eventually when the ignorance disappears there's just a constant state, whatever it is. There's neither light nor dark, and so what have you got?

So this is where woman—a woman—becomes or is the love of God. That's what she does. Now she can't know anything in that state, and that's the extraordinary thing. Because in the love of God, the true love or union with God, you know nothing. Isn't that right, Andrew?

AC: Yes, absolutely true.

BL: And she is brought into that state because woman's nature is utter and complete love. She is God in female form in existence. And if she can reach that place through the love of man, who is God in masculine form, then you have God making love to God in the two forms that God has created so that God may know love, because unless you have two forms, you don't have any distinction. If there were only one form, you would have no distinction and therefore, in this existence, no possibility of realization.

AC: No self-recognition.

BL: Yes, that's right.

AC: Now, what I also understood from the piece I read was that in this practice of making love, or of man loving woman or woman loving man, there is an absolute imperative that the ego completely surrender in the face of the demand on the man to utterly, totally and completely adore woman, and on the woman to unconditionally and absolutely embrace man.

BL: Yes.

AC: And I understood that in truly making love, in man's truly embracing woman and woman's truly embracing man—for this ultimate union to actually be able to take place—the ego has to completely subside. And that is really what makes this particular practice so powerful. In order for it to work, an absolute surrender has to occur; otherwise the fulfillment inherent in it could never be realized.

BL: Yes, otherwise you would have only what we call human love, which is the love of all couples on earth. And that's why there has to be a preparation, which my teaching also includes: How do I get there? How do I do this? Well, for one thing you've got to be honest, or you'll have a dishonest love and a dishonest connection. And therefore, for the sake of honesty, the woman cannot allow her man to get away with anything. She's not allowed to say, "Oh well, I don't want to tell you what to do," or anything like that which she might be tempted to do. She's got to say, "Wait, I may not want to tell you anything, but we agreed when we first started this relationship that we were going to be honest to God, honest to truth. And what's the good of a relationship if that's not what it's about?" As they've agreed to that, she must say, for example, "You have just spoken to me in a way that endeavors to pull woman down. You might not be aware of it, but you have. Now I'll tell you what you said. You were pulling me down"—which is fundamentally man's human nature, to pull woman down—"You were trying to undermine me. Now, is that true or false?" And the man, if he's already said, "I want to be honest with you," will look at what he said and then he'll say, "Yes, I see. I laughed when I said, 'Well, you often make mistakes, don't you?' I laughed, didn't I?" Now, that's a form of pulling woman down under the guise of some sort of humorous aside. And she has to put a stop to all that stuff because that's what man does. He uses everything to undermine her. That's just one example of how woman has to watch man.

And then it goes on, of course, into sex, where he gets excited. And she's got to say, "Well, I can't have an excited man inside my body because what you do then, you see, you transfer your excitement to my body. And if you continue to make love with me like that, which is what happened to me in the past when I was an ordinary woman and with sexual men—I was dragged down; I got self-doubtful and I got depressed every now and again. I didn't have self-confidence, and so I lost my way. And I know that's because sexual men with sexy desires—'sexman'—was in me. And now I don't have any sexman in me. I have a man who is not excited, who just wants to love me and does that with his body and not with his mind." Because the mind has never made love in its life and never will. It's only made sex.

AC: So what you're speaking about when you use the term "making love" is the renunciation of aggressively pursuing an experience and using the other person—man using woman, in this case—just to have some kind of sensual experience for himself.

BL: Well, that is utter selfishness, isn't it? It's not honest, not honest to God, not honest to anything. Certainly it's not honest to the woman. Now that's all finished where I'm concerned. And the way to do that is what I'm endeavoring to impart as much as I can.

AC:Is it true that in approaching lovemaking as a spiritual path, the personality—for example, the personal identity of the man—has to be transcended in order to embrace what it actually means to be man?

BL: Yes.

AC: And the same for the woman? By personal identity I mean neurotic self-fixation and everything that would include. Would that have to be transcended in order to embrace what it really means to be a woman? So that a man could allow himself to experience who he really is when there is no neurotic self-fixation, and the woman could experience who she really is, and in that they would each experience the ultimately impersonal Self?

BL: Well, I don't use the word "Self." I use "Being."

AC: In that impersonal Being then, would there be the living, conscious knowing of who they really were before there was ever a thought of being the separate personality?

BL: Well, I wouldn't say it that way. What I'd say is that they are completely and utterly in the knowledge of love. And the knowledge of love is the knowledge of nothing. So there is no self experience. There's no description at all except to say, "This is beauty. This is beautiful. I love you. You are beautiful." There's simply nothing more to say.

AC: Would there be, in that, an experience of fullness?

BL: Yes, but it's not a fullness that you can get. It's a fullness of Being, and you would understand it and realize that the fullness of Being is nothing to speak of. That's the thing: Nothing to speak of. Because people get terrified when you say, "God is nothing." So I add after that, as best I can, that it's "nothing to speak of" because they will get frightened when they find it out for themselves. "Oh, my God," they will say, "am I going to be nothing?"

AC: So in this path, in lovemaking and relationship as a spiritual path, what it is that puts such enormous pressure on the ego is the demand to surrender all the separate and false notions of self in order to be able to be man or be woman. Is that how it works?

BL: Yes.

AC: That's very powerful—and very beautiful. And as I said, I feel that I have only really begun to understand for the first time how and why it could be a genuine practice of liberation and how it really could work.

BL: Yes, well, it does work because I am living that. And you see, what I've lived is what enables me to teach. If I didn't live it, I'd only be a commentator.

AC: Of course.

BL: I am a tantric master. And I live the tantric life and have lived the tantric life and am still living the tantric life, but I only do that with my one woman now. But I have brought several women to consciousness—sufficient consciousness. And they are now in the world and doing what I want them to do, which is to help man come to a greater knowledge of God, which is love. I am now living, with Sara, the impossible, which is a divinely given thing: how two bodies, which will die, can have eternal union. That's what I am living with Sara because if I live this, then I can pass it down, or it will be passed down, to those who are in my teaching and are practicing this love, this honest love. But I have to live it first because I am the master. And if the master doesn't live it, the people haven't got any chance to. They're getting it because there's a transmission through the psyche that goes on in us: If I live it, then that's transmitted down the line for those who are also trying to live it to the best of their ability. That's what is being done here. It is my way to have made love to women in my teaching, women in whom I have seen the light or in whom there is sufficient love to bring them to a greater realization of God. When a tantric master makes love to a woman, it's different from anyone else making love to her because he gives her a greater knowledge of the love of God.

AC: Could I ask how he does that?

BL: He does that not with his mind but with his physical body and his innocence. How else could he do it? He's got to be innocent.

AC: Through his purity.

BL: His body's got to be pure. That's all that every man is endeavoring to do on the spiritual path—to purify his body. First he starts with his mind, which is always impure; he's got to get rid of his mind. Then he's got to get rid of the ground of his mind, which is his emotions and all these wrong things that he says he loves: He loves this, he loves that, he doesn't like this, he likes that—all emotions. So there are those two things he's got to get rid of in order to start to be innocent. And then he's got to be in his body, which still remains after he has purified himself of those things. We're always where our body is, aren't we? You can't be anywhere else unless you're a magician. You've got to be where the truth is, and the truth is where your body is. So when I'm making love, it's absolutely paramount that I be in my body because only my body can make love. If I'm fantasizing, I'm in my mind, and that leads to emotions; I've left my body and I cannot make love because I am no longer innocent.

AC: No, of course not, because you're not even with the person you're with. You're not loving them.

BL: No, you're probably with some phantom woman in your mind. And it is this phantom woman you're thinking about that gives you an erection. Now you don't need that. But my goodness, as men come over to this, and men do live this in my teaching to the best of their ability, they find that if they don't have the excitement that is sex, they lose their erections and they lose their confidence and they lose everything because they've always been dependent on a false excitement called "sex."

AC: Yes.

BL: Well, when you give that up, there's always a trap; there's always an intermission period, isn't there? Just as when somebody comes into your teachings and they're filled with great enthusiasm and they say, "Andrew, you're wonderful. I've never had such a revelation," and then they go away for a few weeks or a few months and when they come back they say, "I've lost it! I've lost it!" It's all gone because they've started to enter a different part of their ground, and there's a confusion as the confluence between the old ignorance and the new change begins to form. They've got to start again. Then they can get rid of the confusion.

AC: In tantric lovemaking, do you stress that it's essential for the man to prolong the period before ejaculation or even to avoid it altogether? So that he's able, for example, to experience profound intimacy with the woman?

BL: Yes. In the beginning, he has to, as much as possible, practice retention, but without doing it by suppression. And it's just very difficult to get the distinction between those two. But eventually, because this is a divine thing and it is God who is making the love, not any person, there's no focus on retention or nonretention; there is just what is. And that's because the person has gone, whereas the retention has a certain person in it, a certain intention in it.

AC: A person who is still trying to do something or not do something.

BL: Yes, and of course, the question is, How do I get between these two—suppression and retention? And that's where he's got to give up trying with the mind. He's got to allow his body to just do it. There are times when he may have no retention at all, when he starts to have orgasms and he can't stop it, and that will lead him to doubt himself. Now the whole purpose of the spiritual life is to arrive at a point where one has no self-doubt whatever. So he's got to give up one of his favorite attachments, which is self-doubt. And so, you know, God takes over more and more.

AC: And as self-doubt is given up or transcended, the ability to make love in a nonselfish, nonaggressive, nondualistic way would begin to occur more and more naturally.

BL: More and more naturally, that is so.

AC: And ultimately, one would be making love for very long periods of time—hours and hours at a time?

BL: What I'd say is that there's no interruption: that attraction is always there, it doesn't come and go, and so you no longer feel like making love. What I teach people is that you must give up feeling like making love, and you must give up not feeling like making love. Because if you feel like making love, that's selfish. And if you don't feel like making love, that's selfish too. At one of my last meetings someone said, "Well, how do you get rid of wanting to make love and not wanting to make love?" This is something we're all familiar with. The man lying beside the woman says, "Am I going to or not? Do I want to or don't I?" And my answer was, "Well, you make love all the time." Now, if you're doing something all the time, you can't want to or not want to, can you? And they said, "Well, how often would be often enough?" And I said, "Well, morning, night, and if possible, at noon." I suppose that shocks everybody, but otherwise you will want to and not want to because you haven't given yourself to love. If you get a pause between making love, you will have a mental or biological urge to make love to a woman—you're a man, you can't help it—but that's a want, and you can't want in spiritual life.

You see, this is tantra. I'm the only Western tantric master. I know that's self-advertisement, but I don't hear anyone talking the truth of tantra, you see. Whereas I am very open; I'm open about the fact that I am a tantric master. I told my people at the time that I had taken on and was making love to five women from among them. Because I don't permit secrets, and I don't have secrets. I don't go into intimate details, but I don't like to mislead people either. So that's the way of my life, and if you don't like it, you leave. But if you listen to the truth that I speak, perhaps you will get something out of it.

Someone sent me an article from America about a tantric master, a Tibetan I think he was. Some women in the States were suing him, and I read in this article that as a result the American Buddhists have decided to lay down a code of conduct for spiritual masters. That is such a contradiction because, of course, real tantra is not abusive. Tantra is love, God loving God in existence. And God is not abusive. What I so dislike is the secrecy of these people. This Tibetan teacher didn't let the people know what was going on—that he was making love to his students. He didn't announce, "I am a tantric master, and this is a holy state." It is because of this kind of thing that tantra is so misused, and we have tantric schools and tantric this and tantric that—everywhere I go I hear it—by people who do not know what they're talking about because what they have is not a God-given power. It's a God-given power to be a tantric master, to have that power in your body; it's a God-given state, just like Self-realization or God-realization is a state, just like enlightenment is a state. This is something given by God and it's for the people. But if you don't speak to the people about it, tantra becomes abused by commentators and frauds and sexualists and God knows what! So I try to avoid that by being open and honest about what I do with my life.

AC: That's essential.

BL: Yes, especially with such a tricky subject. The whole world is sexual, is sex. But I'm talking about God coming out of man and woman making love. I'm not talking about orgasms and sexual indulgence and excitement. I'm talking about something pure and beautiful coming out of it.