Is intense stimulation without release harmless (physically)?

09. Tantra - A Holistic View of Spirituality
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Perhaps related to this topic: Thoughts on pushing it, energetically speaking?

Recently I managed go a little longer than usual since my last orgasm (16 rather than 12-14 days), which has been a bit of a challenge (primarily some difficulty sleeping and occasionally uncomfortable sensation of fullness in that area significantly helped by cold baths) but also, I think, fruitful. I have definitely felt some openings (e.g. a kind of loosening of the lower back), in addition to more ecstatic feelings in e.g. the stomach, heart, and head.

Based on timing of various factors (when I will be alone, when I will likely have sex with my wife), I decided to indulge the urge for tantric manual stimulation. This experience surprised me because it was so intense it felt like, well, a religious experience, with benefits on mood continuing into the day.

Now generally, when I get to this point, that is, to the point where maintaining brahmacharya is a challenge, I do not indulge in any sexual stimulation unless I intend to release the pressure sometime that same day. This goes for manual stimulation and sex, though as I have mentioned in another thread, sex is paradoxically a little gentler in some ways.

Anyway, because this experience was so intense the desire occurred to me for it not to end today. I thought to myself, “Well I have managed to sleep and otherwise function well with a significant level of sexual tension… Maybe I can just, keep going? Maybe I don’t have to release?”

It has definitely reached the point where genital orgasm, while often intense, seems like nothing particularly special compared with what I experience in asanas, sitting practices, and especially, pre-orgasmic stimulation (sometimes combined with some mudras, bandhas, and/or pranayama), especially as the time in brahmacharya grows longer. That is, the desire for release is no longer primarily a desire for pleasure but just a desire for relief from the tension in that area and associated difficulties that arise with sleeping especially.

But I suppose, given that there is no harm in stimulation, solo or with a partner, without release earlier on in my usual window, there would probably not be any harm, at least physically speaking, of pushing this even further? Of course, it might not be a great idea in terms of sleep, etc. but it should be biologically harmless since the body can reabsorb any fluids generated, etc. in any case (plus some fluids are visible in the urine even without genital orgasm anyway)? Maybe I have reached a level where I can “hold on” longer than I think I can/am accustomed to being “normal”?

Thanks for any thoughts or experiences on “pushing the tantric envelope,” be it through the sort if thing I am describing or otherwise going for longer periods of brahmacharya but not in a way that avoids all sexual stimulation.

Edit: I changed the title to take out the word “edging” because I saw, in another topic, that Tristan defined “edging” as “repeatedly getting very close to an orgasm and then backing off,” which is not exactly what I am doing; I am doing something more like the counting method or a form of stimulation much more intense than basic cupping but usually not intentionally getting close to orgasm unless I decide it is time for that.

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Hi Casey,

I have only very occasionally heard of anyone having physical problems because of practicing pre-orgasmic sex for long periods of time. In those rare cases it was men experiencing “blue balls”. This is an extremely painful sensation felt in the testicles, but it usually only lasts for seconds, or minutes at most.

Otherwise, I have not heard of any physical health issues. There can be issues with energetic overload, as Tantric sexual practices are spiritual practices. So, that is worth watching out for.

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Casey, Another deeply thoughtful and thorough exploration. I can join you in your enthusiasm for finding the truth. It is truly intoxicating staying in the preorgasmic state particularly after a long period of bramacharya. Insomnia is certainly one of the first symptoms that comes up for me with increasing energy. I pay attention to how disruptive the overall sleep architecture becomes as sometimes sleep is more limited but deeper and I feel refreshed. Yogani emphasizes this is a marathon and not a sprint.

I think it is really important, and difficult, to be completely honest with myself regarding how I am doing as the time grows and prana builds as it is intoxicating at a very deep level. I often find these enriched states do bare much fruit, although not always in a good way. Many of my greatest moments of deeper awareness, often painful shadow aspects, emerge in these states. Honoring what comes up and avoiding just focusing only on the positive requires some effort (something I sense you are very good at).

Keep sharing, your curiosity and depth are refreshing.

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Hi Interpaul, thanks for your reply.

I do wonder sometimes if my posts here are not a bit “TMI,” but since sex is not entirely avoidable on the spiritual journey, I think it is worth talking about. (I have somewhat recently realized the truth of what Yogani says about this because, even if I engage in no overt genital stimulation, as the period of brahmacharya gets longer, orgasmic feelings increasingly seem to occur with performance of mudras, bandhas, even asanas and shatkarms like neti, so it seems like even a monk or nun who assiduously avoids sex and masturbation must at some point on the journey embrace sexuality on some level, because these orgasmic feelings and some movement of fluids and energy in the genital area are part of the overall energetic awakening.)

I have never had a “sharp” pain in the testicles as Tristan describes, and I think it must be the case that there is no physical harm that can arise just from not having an orgasm, though there can be some discomfort (colloquially, I thought “blue balls” just meant the feeling of uncomfortable heaviness that can occur, but maybe there is something more painful and short-lived I haven’t experienced).

I recently started trying to up my brahmacharya time because I read that Tristan’s first experience with amrita occurred at a time when he had been celibate for at least 2 or 3 months, and my discussion with Chen here Cool breeze on belly made me wonder if longer periods of brahmacharya might not be important for the “nectar cycle.” In this case, I did not go through with the experiment to attempt continued retention after a session of intense manual stimulation. This was not because it seemed impossible, necessarily, but more just a matter of practicality, knowing that I would be very busy today and have little privacy for any further “experimentation.”

There was one interesting effect, which was that when I had a blocked orgasm, I could clearly feel the semen moving back up toward the bladder in a way I had not before–presumably a form of pratyahara. What was surprising was that it “further down and back” as compared with where I might have thought, which I guess might be what Yogani means when he refers to natural vajroli as a release of semen at the root.

When I first came across AYP (in my early 20s), Yogani’s suggestion that orgasms should be limited to “once a week or so” seemed pretty challenging. Having read about much more extreme demands of spiritual and, sometimes, martial practitioners in the interim, and having raised my average time well above one week with some practice, Yogani’s view actually seems quite accommodative. Some people apparently manage even to go for years without a genital orgasm, and some traditions insist that such long periods are necessary for such-and-such level of attainment.

Clearly, Yogani does not seem to believe that very extended periods of brahmacharya are necessary for enlightenment (or any other particular purpose, such as achievement of some siddhis?), or he would not say that an orgasm once every week or so will not be much of an impediment to progress. At the same time, I have seen him comment that one poster (Victor, I believe it was–Rest in Peace) was fairly advanced in tantric matters because he had managed to average more like one orgasm per month. And again, we have reports of practitioners like Chen going much longer (and again, Tristan said he was probably two or three months in brahmacharya when first experiencing amrita).

So the two main questions for me are: is there any particular level of spiritual attainment that might require longer brahmacharya than just say, two weeks, or can continual progress be made ad infinitum while remaining at that level (of course there may also be a tendency to naturally extend it as the nervous system purifies and can handle a higher level of energy without it seeming to accumulate in the genital area)? And is there some optimal level of brahmacharya and sexual stimulation for the fastest possible spiritual progress, assuming that really long periods of brahmacharya (e.g., three or four weeks, in my case) are not compatible with sexual stimulation (that is, I can either avoid all sexual stimulation past a certain point–say around two weeks for me OR I can continue to have some level of stimulation through e.g., cupping the genitals and occasional pre-orgasmic sex with my wife, but I can’t comfortably do both, e.g., go for three, four or more weeks with sexual stimulation and no orgasm)?

And on top of these are the practical matters that A. not having sex at all is not really an option for me because I am married, and it does not seem to bother my wife that I don’t want to have an orgasm every time we have sex, but it would definitely bother her if I didn’t want to have sex with her at all, and B. I feel like I am by nature an at least moderately “sexual” person, and I would probably feel “deprived” or tend to develop obsessive-compulsive/repressed feelings about sex if I were e.g., only allowing myself any sexual stimulation once every three months or longer. That said, there is also a fine line between “I don’t want to develop a complex” and “I simply don’t want to challenge myself.” I do want to be willing to challenge myself, especially if there are spiritual benefits, as I think there were in this most recent case of slightly-longer-than-usual brahmacharya.

One way of thinking of it might be something like a “battery” for our spiritual practices, with the practices becoming more powerful the higher the power level of the battery. Let us take as an example:

Battery level 1 is maximally drained, and occurs for about a day or two after unblocked orgasm. It is not “0” because spiritual practices are still worth doing at this level, but if one were having unblocked orgasms every day, progress would be very slow since one would be running at “low battery,” energetically speaking, all the time.

Battery level 2 is drained, and occurs for a day or two after a blocked orgasm.

Each day without an orgasm, let’s say the battery level increases by .5, so an unblocked orgasm takes 2 days longer to recover from than a blocked orgasm (this is roughly true in my experience though recovery might have been faster when younger).

Based on this calculation, one would reach battery level 10 sixteen days after a blocked orgasm. Let’s define “battery level 10” not as “maximum possible energy,” but “maximum possible without genital stimulation (it may not actually be true that maximum energy levels of without genital stimulation occur after sixteen days–it could be longer, but I also don’t think it is unlimited: based on personal experience going past about three weeks a few times in the past and, I think, most reports of those engaged in very extended brahmacharya, it is not as if one just grow more and more lustful ad infinitum; rather the sexual energy reaches some highish level and plateaus, I think).

To this system we add a complication which is that, at any time, the battery level may be “boosted” by genital stimulation. The most basic level could be siddhasana, especially with genital cupping. Let us say that simply cupping the genitals with no further stimulation creates a +1 effect, gentle tantric sex a +2 effect, and vigorous manual stimulation a +3 effect (as I said in that other post with Chen, I think masturbation can actually be more stimulating on a mechanical level than sex, even though sex is more “mentally sexy”).

The above means that if cupping the genitals on a day when you would be at “battery level 3,” you can “boost” your sitting practices to “level 4.” If you combine vigorous manual stimulation with say, pranayama, you can even maybe boost from “level 3” to “level 6,” though there is a risk of distraction and this may not be conducive to settling down the nervous system for DM (this “battery” talk is more applicable to kundalini, I think, than inner silence, though of course the two are not fully separable).

Now the problem with the “boosting,” is let’s say once you go past level 10, it becomes uncomfortable not to release. Maybe not strictly necessary, as maybe it never physiologically is, but at least quite difficult to e.g., sleep and otherwise feel comfortable.

This then means that if one goes past say, day 16 with no orgasm, one can continue at “level 10” essentially indefinitely (or at least, I can, based on my current abilities–the frontier does seem “pushable” with practice, as I found, for example, I could recently have sex with my wife on day 9 and it seemed easier to stay well in front of orgasm, perhaps because I had done the longer-than-usual brahmacharya); however, level 11, 12, and 13 are not allowable because these all push one into uncomfortable territory that leads back to level 1 or 2.

Then the question becomes, is one better off just continuing at level 10 every day for as long as possible, even if it means avoiding any “boosting”? It might seem so, for a monk, because the week or two it takes to get back to that level are perhaps not worth the benefits of one day at level 11, 12, or 13. But maybe pushing it to those highest levels is also spiritually beneficial now and again–as Yogani said somewhere, it is not as if that cultivation is undone just because an orgasm was had. And, again, for me, the “+2 boost” is essentially obligatory for purposes of my marriage.

Anyway, that was very long, but thought I’d write down these thoughts I had on balancing the benefits of brahmacharya with the benefits of sexual stimulation and the need to avoid disappointing one’s partner and/or developing a hangup. Thanks for any thoughts or experiences!

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Hi Casey,

I would say that it is not possible to answer these questions about the optimal time to abstain from orgasm and ejaculation. And I would say there are two reasons for this. The first reason is because everyone is different when it comes to sexuality and the effect it has on spiritual progress. For some people, the energy loss associated with orgasm and ejaculation will have a very strong effect on them. For someone else it may have very little effect. Most people lie somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, and need to be aware of energy loss from orgasm and ejaculation. Usually one orgasm a week, or every other week is not an issue, for most people.

The second reason it is not possible to answer the question is because people change over time. During one stage on someone’s path they may be very sensitive to energy loss through orgasm and ejaculation. But, over time, as the flows of prana in the body become stronger, and energy loss due to ejaculation and orgasm, as a proportion of the total energy involved becomes smaller, then ejaculation has less of an effect. Eventually practitioners can do whatever they want in terms of orgasm and ejaculation, and it won’t make any difference.

So, the best thing to do is to get a general feel of where you are on the path and how these things relate to you. Bhakti always wants to push for more. But more is not always actually more! Sometimes less is more. In this case that can mean that not pushing the envelope in terms of celibacy can actually be more peaceful and less stressful. And more peaceful, less stressful meditations tend to lead to a stronger cultivation of inner silence. So, there is a balance to be found.

And of course, honouring your wife is important, and luckily can be done in a way that will not hold you back spiritually at all.

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Hi Tristan, thanks!

Interesting point that the degree to which orgasm is draining may not only vary from person to person and age group to age group but even for the same person at different stages of the spiritual path. Also interesting to know that, eventually, orgasm may have little effect on the energy, presumably because it is flowing very strongly through all the other energetic channels and not so dependent on the prana that tends to concentrate in the pelvis in most people.

Yes, for me, in addition to the marital relationship aspect, there is the issue of being peaceful and relaxed because pushing my brahmacharya limits can make me feel irritated and restless, which may not only interfere with peaceful daily life, but maybe even with cultivation of inner silence. There is definitely an extent to which the extra energy that comes from brahmacharya can be channeled into more activity–especially exercise, seemingly, and a helpful need for slightly less sleep than usual–but that also has its reasonable limits, where it may seem to shift from “good energy for accomplishing things and staying active” to feeling like its hard to sit still or relax.

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Hi Casey,

Yes, I would favour peacefulness and inner silence over irritability. So, that could give you a sense of when to ease off on celibacy. That can also be a useful measure of the point of maximum progress. In my experience the “comfortable limit” is usually the point of maximum progress.

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I went through times when blocking actually even pushed the overall dynamic due to the re-infusion.

Also… in most cases ejaculation requires some form of stimulation (apart from “overflowing” in phases of obsessive repression while upward channels are not sufficiently open for example - then little to no stimulation is required… which is not advised of course, but bhakti can go that far). And any sort of stimulation first adds to the dynamic. So before the release we have a phase of additional momentum in the equation. So there is also the question how this phase is done… if holdback is part of it, it may be that the upward flow resulting from the holdback can outweigh the loss of the release further down the road. Even without holdback and “only” trying to go straight forward to climax, there is stimulation of the system. And how much all this is influencing the situation in total depends on the system in that current moment.

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I reread this part, and it made me think that, rather than saying the energy becomes more evenly distributed as the nadis open, perhaps it would be more accurate for me to say that, once we “bootstrap” the ecstatic conductivity of the other chakras and nadis by a certain amount of preservation and expansion of the ecstatic conductivity of the pelvic area, which tends to have some ecstatic potential in all adults, we eventually reach a point where that ecstatic conductivity is relatively small compared with that of the nerves and/or nadis of the whole body, so the total amount of ecstatic conductivity in the body will be relatively little affected by whether or not there has been an orgasm recently?

That is, though we describe it as “sexual” or “erotic” energy when it occurs in, or seems to emanate from, the pelvic area, it is not as if all the ecstatic energies of the body “belong to” or “come from” there? Rather, all the nerves/nadis have ecstatic potential of their own but need “awakening” in most people? And once they are fully “ecstatically conductive,” they do not depend on the ecstatic energies of the pelvis to continue being so?

If correct, I would say this tallies with some recent experiences, where I have had e.g., ecstatic feelings in the heart. Although they are a bit “orgasmic” in the sense of being pleasurable in a similar sort of way, it is also not as if these feelings derive from any direct or obvious connection with the genital area, or movement of sexual fluids. Rather, they seem to come directly from the heart (or third eye, or…).

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Casey, Yes, I get the TMI concern. I have expressed it myself. Given how AYP incorporates the ecstatic pole of this process into the fabric of its practices, it is impossible to go deeply into the journey without some vulnerable sharing if you are a true seeker.

With regards to blue balls, I experienced that early on in my practices. It is a real thing for a lot of men but seems to improve with time as the body adjusts to a change in ejaculatory behavior. Bramacharya definitely alters the way the body processes sexual fluids, I found these changes gradual over a couple years.

The perfect interval is complicated and needs to be individualized. I’ve held on to a “goal” of lasting longer over time and found it counterproductive. Studies looking at testosterone levels confirm an increase after about a week but data seems weak after that. I suspect the bodies homeostatic mechanisms kick in and down regulate this short term rise. One can take a deep dive into this and leave uncertain as to the real risks.

Ultimately it seems the biggest issue is too much attention to this process. Yogani cautions about the psychological effects and compulsive behaviors that occur in individuals who take things to extremes. I believe his recommendation for 1-2 weeks makes good sense.

After several years of practice I’ve found the ecstatic energy builds faster and to a greater amount even with shorter intervals offering plenty of “spiritual energy”. Your analogy with the battery is something I came to independently and have shared in posts a few years ago. I think it is a very good metaphor. As you went deeper into the exploration of boosting and levels above 10 I sense this is likely the area where this much attention to these details is counterproductive and likely driven by too much energy focused on the Shakti component. I wonder if refocusing practices and attention on the inner silence/bliss state may be a better way to achieve your stated long term goal.

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Hi Casey

I’ve been experimenting with this for the last few years myself. I’ve found that when I push abstinence to more than a few weeks that purification related experiences/symptoms plateau and my mind becomes very busy, which is then detrimental to the practice. However at the same time Bhakti seems to increase.

It seems to me that everything about this journey requires that we find ‘balance’.

“Too tight and the string will break, too slack and the string won’t play.”

I find it useful too to be reminded that the tantra is an additional practice, and it is possible to reach enlightenment without it.

I think tantra is useful too for demonstrating to ourselves just how powerful the sexual drive is, and how out of control we really are, I mean who the frig is driving this thing?!?!?! :joy:

But yeah, my rule is that as soon as the mind becomes too busy, it’s time :mantelpiece_clock:.

All the best, Tom

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