When we think of the word tantra the first thing that comes to mind for many is wild, lascivious goings-on. Without stopping to see beyond the physical act of sex, the whole point of this ancient yoga is missed. It touches on emotional and spiritual, as well as physical components of a deeply pleasurable, experience. In our culture, we communicate such conflicting messages about the nature of sexuality.

After interviewing Charles and Caroline Muir, I came away with a clearer picture of why this is so and an awareness of at least one remedy…the beautiful art of sacred sexuality. Charles and Caroline live in Hawaii, but at the time of the interview, Charles was on Maui, while Caroline was on the mainland. Because we were not able to master modern technology and configure a conference call, I needed to conduct two separate interviews that together merge into a lovely tapestry of ideas.

New Visions Magazine: How would you define the word ‘tantra’?

Charles: Tantra is an ancient word and if broken up would actually be two words: ‘tan’ and ‘tra’ which is indicative of an expansive weaving. It was usually thought that it was an expansive weaving of information, most of it metaphysical that developed into a yoga.

New Visions Magazine: The word yoga means union, so it’s a natural combination. Is yoga the basis of the practice of tantra?

Charles: Well, one could say that tantra is sort of the grandfather of what we know as hatha yoga. There were two forms of tantra in ancient India. One was more esoteric and one was more exoteric; hidden knowledge for the few and then the red tantra dealt with the same energies. It dealt with how those two energies could be joined between two individuals. Red tantra was usually seen as a sexual tantra and white tantra would be more like a very meditative form of hatha yoga with a lot of emphasis on meditation and the chakras.

New Visions Magazine: I read an article you had written many years ago in which you said, “Relationship is the ultimate yoga.”

Charles: Living that, I certainly came to see that it was true. Relationship is a difficult yoga because it involves another person. It’s a lot easier to find that inner union in a cave or where there are no distractions. It is hard enough to reach equanimity by yourself, when you’re alone, but to do it with.

New Visions Magazine: Is it so that in order to find that kind of balance with a partner, you first have to find it with yourself?

Charles: I wouldn’t say that, but I would say that it makes for drawing in a much more evolved partner. I think that all relationships have been our teacher. They’ve taught us what we did like and what we didn’t like and maybe helped get a clearer picture of what we want the beloved to be. What one learns in tantra is that the beloved, besides being a friend and lover and all those wonderful things, is usually a teacher and will usually be a master button pusher for your buttons.

New Visions Magazine: In your relationship with Caroline, what has been the biggest lesson?

Charles: That friendship is the highest form of relationship and to treat your beloved as you would your best friend.

New Visions Magazine: How can we love consciously when we carry so much baggage about love and sex?

Charles: First off, you have to value love. Most people agree that love is a wonderful thing and they praise it in so many forms…the love of God, the love of fellow man, the love of a child. It’s an emotion, but it is also an energy that you can harness and unify with another. That kind of high-energy union with another, that sexual…not just pleasure, that sexual bliss, ‘ananda’, goes beyond sexual ecstacy. Most Westerners somehow will look down on that. Even relatively enlightened individuals, if they’re on a path of spirituality, often say, “Well, sex…if you’re going to be spiritual, you can’t be sexual.” What tantra provides is utilizing the sexual energies and the differences between the two sexes and making it the shortest road to enlightenment.

New Visions Magazine: How can couples use these teachings to enhance their relationships overall, not just in the bedroom?

Charles: First I would ask them to take a look: “Did you ever get a formal education on how to really be an incredible lover? How to really relate to the opposite sex? Most of us are conditioned and our parents become our gurus in these things and as a general rule, they weren’t good at it. I ask them to take a look honestly: “Were you ever educated on how to be the best you can be? And if you weren’t, maybe a course or some information that would help you know what the opposite sex needs, know some techniques that would allow them to feel both valued and intimately connected and with great passion. It can ultimately improve how one relates with one’s partner. The second question I would ask them: “Is your sex life as good as the components of the rest of your life? Are you as good as you are at your job or your computer or whatever other passions you are into?” Our sex life should be as good as that.

New Visions Magazine: You’ve spoken about increasing our ability to be intimate, to let the other person know you. How can we get past the fears that many of us carry that allow the partner to see into us?

Charles: I don’t always define intimacy that way. I think another definition would be ‘innermost’. How much of my innermost essence can I bring out and how much of yours can I let in, can I be vulnerable, can I be open? When you’ve been in relationships and been wounded, you usually shut down and you don’t know you shut down until you open up again. The same is true with our sexual energy. Until we open it again, we don’t realize it. Again, it comes back to education and experience. What are the things I can do to open my closed places? How can I let you in? How can I trust you with what I have to share and let you touch the places in my heart that have been wounded by men just like you or women just like you? There are skills to do that; there are techniques of communication and instead of closing one’s eyes in sexual sharing, learning to keep them open. They’re the primary organs of intimacy. The eyes directly connect to the back of the brain; the reticular formation and it connects with the other chakras. It allows more of the connection to happen, not just with the second chakra, but all of the chakras.

New Visions Magazine: Your focus throughout this interview has been on heterosexual relationships. Do same sex couples attend your workshops?

Charles: We do get some same sex couples. We don’t modify our language. Tantra certainly embraces that two people of the same sex can share love, can play with energies of being yin or yang, giver or receiver. So, mostly we get both couples and singles that are heterosexual that come to our courses. Same sex couples learn about the energies and learn techniques that they can take into their lovemaking.

New Visions Magazine: I understand that your relationship with Caroline has changed over the years and you have experienced what you referred to as a peaceful divorce in 2001.

Charles: I think we’ve both changed over the years. Any relationship that lasts over a year can’t help but involve itself in the energetic intertwining of these psychic umbilical cords. We learn from our interaction and we grow. Tantric yoga is a path and relationship is a path. It’s not unusual in any relationship that values change and one wants to do something different than they did years ago. It’s really how you unravel those umbilical cords; maybe you could even call them co-dependent attachments.

Caroline said: “I’ve been married to different men for over 40 years and I want to be single for a little while and have the house by myself. I think I want to explore a relationship with another man.” Well, for most couples, that would blow the relationship apart. What Caroline and I saw was the enormity of what she was asking and what we decided to do was take what we called a sabbatical. We were so attached. What if we could unwind our energies and be apart for a period and see “Who are we now that we’re not Charles-and-Caroline? Who is Charles and who is Caroline after being together for 12 years?” We did that and during that year, we grew a great deal. We both explored different forms of relationships and when we came back, we decided that we were still best friends and still teach tantra great. We’d speak to each other daily. When it felt right to make love, we made love. Let’s see how it is to go on the road and teach together. Let’s see if we can teach this subject if we’re now friends teaching it. We shared our path with our students right from the beginning and after two years, there came a time when Caroline became involved with a man who only wanted to make love with one woman and have it be the same for her. Caroline thought this relationship had a great chance for growth and so she told me just what she’d like to do. I really didn’t think we could continue to teach if we weren’t practicing the art form. Then we’d go on the road for a month and sleep in the same bed and harmonize and breathe and reconnect and we would be right back where we were and often times even better as teachers. We both practice tantra in our own way now. We’ve taken some of the best parts of relationship and ended some that needed to end. I got remarried. Now my wife assists at seminars where Caroline and I teach. I think it’s a wonderful thing. In an age where there is so much divorce, most people end up hating one another. When you practice the techniques of harmony over years, you discover that harmony and love are the most important things in your life, not being right and proving the other person wrong.

New Visions Magazine: So the form has changed, the essence hasn’t. Is there anything you want to add to your portion of the interview before I call Caroline?

Charles: I want to say that anyone can learn to be a better lover and that singles who come to this course not only get an education, but also great healing. We teach techniques of energy and we practice them and the energy that goes in over the weekend, or if you come to Hawaii where we do a weeklong seminar in a more paradise-like environment, it helps with healing so you don’t carry around the scars of past relationships, to have enthusiasm and say, “I want to love!”

At this point, the interview with Charles ended and I began talking to Caroline.

New Visions Magazine: The workshop you are offering in the Philadelphia area is called: “Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving”. How have you learned to love consciously? (See their Schedule)

Caroline: It required for me to get the education and learning what was possible. Before I studied tantra, I was blindly leaping with faith into relationship without the tools to know what to do; how to keep it alive and how to make the communication frequent enough and fulfilling enough.

New Visions Magazine: What does intimacy mean to you?

Caroline:Intimacy means that I feel the connection with the other person being really present with me. It’s different than being intellectual or hearing information. It’s not a left- brain experience. It’s a deeper feeling experience. To see into me is to want to know what is going on inside of me and for me to want to know what is going on inside the other person. That would be an intimate inquiry, rather than: “What are you doing at 4:00?”

New Visions Magazine: Charles gave me some insight into how your relationship has changed. It sounded as if it has evolved dramatically.

Caroline: He’s right about that! As with any couple that gets married and is in love, it’s hard to believe that you’d ever not want to be together. We can support one another in being true to ourselves and the lifestyle that we chose. Teaching this work continues to be a call to being really truthful to what we each want in life and in relationship. We kept all the best parts of a 30-year friendship and 16 years together as a couple. We kept the love alive through a very difficult time of separating property and lives. Having succeeded in doing that, our hearts are open and feel we could guide any couple that needed to separate into a harmonious way of doing so.

New Visions Magazine: Your new partners must be equally extraordinary to leave room in their lives for the degree of intimacy that you and Charles still have.

Caroline: That’s true. I feel that my partnership is extraordinary. My partner is extraordinary. It does take a very special kind of person to encourage your partner to hold on and nourish the love in the relationship that comes with you.

New Visions Magazine: In some ways, does it feel like the reason why you were called to be together, to do this work?

Caroline: There were days before Charles and I were a couple, I took the seminar with a man I was with at the time and it turned the lights on for me about relationship, love and sexuality. When Charles and I became a couple, we just knew we wanted to take this work into the world and that’s what we did. When it was time to let the form of the relationship go and change, the amount of love, commitment and practice we had and do have to loving has really paid off.

New Visions Magazine: I’m glad to hear that, because it’s an example of how making love is more than what happens under the covers. It’s a 24/7 process.

Caroline:Yeah, exactly. One of the things that occurred to me was that when I was letting go of my marriage to Charles it was yet another level of love. I was holding on pretty tight. To really let go and to be inside myself showed me how big love really is.

New Visions Magazine: That’s remarkable. I was also impressed by the idea you put forth of inviting God into the bedroom. That’s something that really frightens people…allowing God to be a partner in the relationship as well.

Caroline:Yes. That’s so sad to me that it would frighten people, how separate they feel from God, from the Holy Spirit. How separated pleasure, sexuality and sensuality are from their spiritual lives. We try to merge it all back together again with great success. Couples have expressed such deep, sincere gratitude for the impact that this information has had on their lives, as I look into their eyes at the end of the seminar. Even though it might be hard to practice it at times, at least they have some tools to work with. We do have to do the work ourselves. You can build the house, but you have to maintain the house and take care of it. When we build a relationship, it needs attention. What I practiced with Charles was looking into each other’s eyes and touch. We can take that anywhere and we still do.

Edie Weinstein-Moser, LSW is a social worker, interfaith minister, writer, speaker and clown. Together with Peter Moses, she offers workshops entitled: “Happiness Is Just The Icing, Joy Is The Cake”, “Wellness: Longevity and Quality of Life” and “Creativity…Yes!” She can be reached at 215-249-9190 or via her website at www.liveinjoy.com.