4 Freedoms Relationship Tantra
Comments from Readers: A Review by Toby Earp
I enjoyed the book at first read, and I will certainly be using it as a reference and guide. What I am happiest about is that it is addressed solely to men and even ( although this may not have been intentional ) to men who are alone. I am not alone but like many, I am with a partner who is not yet ready to embark on a Tantric adventure with me with the intensity discussed in this work. Consequently I need advice on how to manage hot energy on my own and I found it in the book.
I have to say in a general sort of way that I have read lots of books on Tantra, in English and French, and taken a certain number of workshope with my partner and on my own. I have never found everything I wanted to know in one place. Every book or workshop has contained one or more nuggets that have taken a place in my treasure chest, and no single source has given me everything. This book is no exception.
Also, there is some essential understanding that can only come from personal experience. I think one reason for this is that the movement of energy and its consequences have to be understood on a somatic level and the language to describe this is almost all simile and metaphor. People understand the universe of the body so differently! It is a great challenge to communicate in words the route one has travelled and the discoveries one has made. I think of the card "Completion" in the Osho Zen Tarot : the master cannot say the final word. The last step has to be taken by the student alone--there is no other way. I admire Pala Copeland and Al Link for having taken on the work.
I appreciate the chapters on natural pharmacology and prostate health. Most of us are or have been tempted to experiment with medicinals when we feel our functioning is not adequate; and I am one of many who has been alarmed by prostate problems as he moves into his fifties. The authors supply advice and information on this subject which I believe is immensely important to me : for example, the notion that hot energy can get blocked at the prostate but that it can be moved out, higher, and that an ejaculation may be the best solution at times. This has given form to my experience and calmed some anxieties.
I was happy to have the material on accupressure points. Any way to help the energy move around is very welcome indeed. And this sentence is the one which warmed me most to the message : "Possibly the single most important thing a man can do to delay ejaculation is to open his heart."
We have seen a lot of sex manuals which made various suggestions on how to delay ejaculation in the last fifty years. The vast majority of them made it a question of control and domination, a suppression of the urge and a chance to do violence to oneself. To take this approach is to push sexual urges into the realm of the shadow. Copeland and Link don't do this, and I applaud them. It tells me that they understand the heart to be the key to Tantra. From my personal experience, I would add a second statement : the single most important thing a man can do to find and sustain a relationship with a partner willing to explore Tantra with him is to deal with the domain of his shadow, the realm of repression. (Of course, it is the single most important gift he can give himself as a man as well.)
This brings me to the only elements I would have any issue with in the book: on page 3, point 11 and on page 4, point 14. Here, the authors suggest that when a man becomes able to save his energy for when he wishes to spend it, he becomes more powerful, to the point of gaining a charisma and status that makes him a potential "alpha male". There is certainly something to be said about relations between men from a Tantric point of view, but I do not seriously think that competition in the sense our culture understands it has much to do with opening of the heart. There may be another, more loving way to experience it. And the idea that one can do these practices with a goal in view, whether the goal of ecstasy or the goal of "superior alpha male" status, seems counterproductive. Of course since we are talking about sex, the promise of increased pleasure is bound to be delivered, if only because one's partner is more likely to be satisfied if we do Tantric practice. Alpha male status, however, sounds too much to me like an ego inflation to be a useful part of Tantra.
I was grateful for the book's explicit description of the four stages of erection and the ten levels of orgasm. These give me, on the one hand, a Tantric point of view on my personal experience of erection and on the other hand, strengthened hope that the energy work I am doing will have the effect on my sexual experience that they describe early on. I was happy to find they gave attention to conditioned cultural responses in men as they contribute to their view of sexuality and sexual relations. My own exploration has revealed to me (fortunately) how much I was unaware of the effect of this conditioning on me. I was immensely grateful for and touched by Dr. Harold Harrod's piece on his ordeal with prostate cancer. His sharing of his understanding of a man's relationship to life without desire was precious to me, as it addressed my fears of prostate problems. I loved the list of oxymorons and the description of a " quickie ", complete with timing--I bet someone takes it seriously ! I was intrigued by the " dial technique " from NLP and mean to try it.
The ebook format works well for me and there seem to be no technical problems.
Toby Earp