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It all sounds like a training camp for
Patpong showgirls, but the lessons arc supposed to be crucial
to having good sex, and if you have good sex, you have a key
stepping-stone to health in mind and spirit.
Prasert Jirapongsathon who's well known
overseas as the Taoist master Mantak Chia, stresses that
sexual energy - like fire - is neither good nor bad in itself.
It depends on how it's used.
Taoists do not shy away from sex, he says,
they transform its force into spiritual energy. Sex thus
becomes an aid in. the spiritual pursuit of enlightenment.
The explosion of energy at orgasm is usually
merely dissipated, but in Tao practice this energy is
harnessed and drawn back into the body as chi, the essential
life force that keeps us alive and young and is a potent
remedy to any illnesses.
To ensure a full orgasm, all the sexual
organs must be fit, and that's what the courses at Tao Garden
aim for. There is also the abdominal massage called chi
nei tsang and the higher Tao practice of lean
and li dark-room meditation. Former Lufthansa
airline attendant Jutta Kellenberger became a student of
Master Chia in 1987 and is now herself, at 53, a senior
instructor. She teaches the Cultivating Female Sexual Energy
course.
The slender, red-haired German has facial
wrinkles indicating her age but she's beautiful, radiating
inner charm. She has the grace of a wise woman, but childlike
fun glitters in her turquoise eyes.
Tao, Kellenberger says, has transformed her,
both physically and mentally, as it has her husband Walter,
also an instructor at Tao Garden .
"My course is so uplifting," she says, "you
really feel that it's a treasure to be a woman."
She doesn't conduct the classes as a how -to
workshop, but creates a warm and caring atmosphere in which
the .students can let down their defences and receive
instruction in a relaxed, spiritual mood.
One student began menstruating again after a
long time without, Kellenberger says, adding that regular
practitioners find their monthly periods shortened by a few
days, with less - or no - discomfort from cramps and sickness.
The practice, she says, balances and heals
hormonal dysfunction in women, and may also be beneficial in
treating hormone-related diseases like breast and uterus
cancer. Celibates, Kellenberger notes, probably need the
practice more than sexually active women, in order to control
their sexual energy.
The real power of women, practitioners
believe, is not something to be exerted over men but over
themselves. In today's stressful world, women need to respect
their sexuality more than ever. They neither have to run
after, nor away from men, and power Struggles with men are
unnecessary.
The best way for women to deal with men is to
be genuinely happy with themselves and their health.
More information on the courses at Tao Garden
is available at http://www.universal-tao.com/ | 
