Meet Jaiya
Award-Winning Somatic Sexologist, Author of Your Blueprint for Pleasure, Star of Netflix’s Sex, Love & goop
Jaiya is an award-winning Somatic Sexologist, Author, Founder/Creator of The Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough™ and Star of Netflix’s Sex, Love & goop. For over three decades, Jaiya has been immersed in the study of turn-ons, ancient erotic rituals, tantric sex, mastery of sensual touch, pure erotic play, kinky dynamics, and the biology and psychology of attraction and sexual fulfillment. She works with all kinds of bodies and sexual orientations, and through observation and clinical research, she discovered the Erotic Blueprint™, a map of arousal that reveals one’s specific erotic language and patterning and helps create a path forward to greater sexual fulfillment. She recently released her fourth book, Your Blueprint for Pleasure, which outlines the Erotic Blueprints.
Instagram: @MissJaiya
Website: https://missjaiya.com/
Link to book: LINK
Link to Erotic Blueprint quiz: https://theblueprintbreakthrough.com/
Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform.
Podcast transcript:
Welcome to the urban monk, Dr. Pedram. Shojai excited to be here. Happy to be doing the podcast again. I’m really enjoying and learning. I hope you are too. Today, we’re talking about sex. We’re talking about sensuality. We’re talking about spirituality. Um, found through our sensuality. Uh, my guest, , is lovely. Um, Jaya has been teaching in this space for a very long time. We get into the nuances.
We get into some of the wiggly stuff and you know, some of the issues I’ve seen in the industry, Um, and she’s just exquisite. I really, uh, appreciate her, her presence and how she carries herself. Um, you know, every once in a while you just, you meet an embodied human. And you could tell the difference.
And you could probably, if you don’t see this on video, if you’re listening to this, hear it in her voice. So without further ado, I give you Jaiya.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Welcome to the show. Um, really happy to have you and happy to be talking about, um, a provocative topic.
Jaiya: It’s such a pleasure to be here, and I love provocative talk
Dr Pedram Shojai: So just so my audience gets to know you, um, you have come to a subject that is, you know, risque. It’s, it’s a tough one. You’re out on a limb a lot when you’re talking about sex in our culture. Um, how did you come to making this your work?
Jaiya: It started when I was very young. I must have seen Dr. Ruth somewhere, and I said that’s what I wanna be when I grow up. Besides an opera singer, I also wanted to be an opera singer, So I went to school for music and sexology, and when I was in school I had a vocal cord injury, and so sex, it was.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. What was that? Like, as a little girl, like what was your family life like, growing into the like, you know, you know, as a little, if, if my daughter came and said to me, Hey dad, I wanna be a sexologist. I’d be like, how did you get there? Right? Like, what, what, I,, I think I’d be cool with it.
Dr Pedram Shojai: But like, you grew up in a different era at a different time. Like, were your parents, uh, in, in therapy were, were your parents, um, sexologists, like who were your parents to, to have blossomed a girl like that?
Jaiya: I grew up in rural Ohio. I was very different than my parents. My dad was what people call a Bible beater and basically had religion grilled into me. Uh, one of my favorite phrases from my dad was, don’t get swell belied. That was my sex education So I had redneck Ohio Catholic upbringing, but my mom was a spicy, indigenous Latino woman. So I had this dichotomy growing up of dance and Latin culture, but a lot of Ohio religion. Bible beater and sex is something you should be ashamed of. And so one of the things I would do when I was like a teenager, I was wanted to be an erotic dancer. And so I would dance on the weekends as soon as I turned 18 and I sang in the church choir. So I always had this dichotomy of sex is bad, but I wanted to be close to God and I wanted to have spirituality, and it didn’t make sense to me that these two things were separate. And so I was lucky in my teenage years to find tantric sex and tantric spirituality and a path that wasn’t shameful about our bodies or sex.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Love it. Um, what, just so we’re on the same page, what tradition of tantra, um, did you fall into and study?
Jaiya: So had a couple of different ones. Um, I started with Ipsalu, tantric Kriya Yoga, which is a lineage that comes from the Kriya tradition. So a lot of people have heard of Paramahansa Yoga Nanda, um, but Sri Yukteswar. My teacher came from that lineage and didn’t take the sex out of Kriya, so it was a tantra crea yoga form. I also have studied Kashmiri Tantra, which is a tantric shivaism, um, coming out of the Shiva worship and then, um, getting a deeply involved right now with Shia. Uh, which is a goddess worship tradition of tantra and also tantric Tibetan Buddhism. So I’ve gotten deep into that as well in terms of the vini cults and some of the practices that, uh, involve invoking the female Buddha.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Oh my God, I’m so happy about this. We’re gonna have some fun. Um, the . The, the serpent is not to be trusted. The serpent lies. The serpent is, you know, judged in, in, in the, the biblical traditions, whereas, you know, the serpents rising up the spine and following the sexual female principle leads to enlightenment and bliss and all sorts of wonderful things we could get into in the tantric traditions.
Dr Pedram Shojai: so.
Jaiya: right? Yeah. I mean, it’s so interesting how one religion will make another’s spirituality bad and wrong as they take over. So I think that that’s fascinating. And so the serpent became a symbol of evil and, uh, you know, we all know the Garden of Eden’s story and how that went. And so what I also find Along with the demonizing of the serpent is the demonizing of the feminine principle within spirituality. And so this idea that the serpent representing this kundolini and our awakening and wisdom, and then that being bad and wrong within Christian tradition is fascinating to me. I, I, I’m endless fascinated by how we have taken these things and put them underground and made them bad and wrong.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. And, and potentially for reasons of control, potentially for reasons of subjugation, potentially for reasons that you know, you’re not gonna follow authoritarian dogma if you’ve woken up to the truth.
Jaiya: exactly. Someone
Dr Pedram Shojai: ain’t, it ain’t good for business
Jaiya: Right, right. Someone said to me recently, I thought this was a really interesting thought about the feminine going underground too, is protection. And I thought, well, that was, that’s a thought. ’cause I’ve always thought of what you were saying, you know, like, oh, subjugation and these negative thoughts, but maybe there’s also an aspect of protection that needed to happen as we switched from more matriarchical culture to a patriarchal culture.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Um. . It reminds me of a quote from a, uh, Don Juan, um, who, I know who said it, but you know, the lover Don Juan, not Don Juan the, uh, shaman. But so something to the order of, um, women is the closest thing man knows to God, and sex is the ultimate form of worship, which.
Jaiya: Hmm. so yummy
Dr Pedram Shojai: is, is kind of delicious, right? And, and it really, it flies in the face of the entire sexuality that you learn in the West, right? You, you learn about sex, sex being wrong, don’t get sw belied. Um, and then, you know, you learn the birds and the bees and, and you’re not to do it. And it’s, and it’s judged. Yet this exploration of our sexuality and our sensuality, um, was never.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Never disassociated from her spirituality in the ancient traditions. So I’d love for you to expand on, you know, in my audience, let’s just assume they know little to nothing about tantra. Can you give us like a primer on Tantra 1 0 1? You obviously come from different traditions, but you know, they, they, they, they hail from, uh, a source, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, so we’d love to just get a primer on it so that we could explore more.
Jaiya: I think one of the perennial philosophies within the tantric systems is this idea of unification through polarity. So we have masculine principle, we have feminine principle, and when those two unify, we wake up to who we truly are. Or we have a cosmic experience or an a oneness experience, a mystical experience. And so it’s utilizing these polarities and those polarities coming into union is where those realizations happen, and that sexuality is a tool for that. Awakening sexuality is a place where we naturally merge. These energies within our own bodies, but also because of the external force of these polarities coming in together into union. And what I love is that there’s no shame. The sexual act. The sexual act is a tool for our awakening. The word tantra means to weave. One of the things I love in Tantric Tibetan Buddhism is talking about how we don’t have to become renunciate. We don’t have to, you know, denounce the world, that we can actually be householders in the world, and that that Actually was an advanced practice. The high tantra is, oh yes. You become enlightened with enlighten, enlightened in the world, and that’s easy to go do in a cave. It’s harder to do while you’re living in the world and having to make money and raise children and all of those things was part of the point of view. Um, I love to come to, again, here’s two polarities. Can we unify even the renut and the householder? And I think that, again, tantra weaving. We’re weaving these ideals into unification and there is our liberation.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love that. And, and just to echo the, the place where we started and then I’d like to leave that place is the, the judgment of the sexuality takes a vast part of our, I. Experience. It takes a, a vast part of the, the, the, the power source behind our enlightenment vehicle in this body away from us. And so, you know, um, the aesthetics have a hard time.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I was an aesthetic monk for a minute. And, you know, those, those urges you have to meditate off. But if you don’t have the, the, the training to take that energy and transmute it and understand what to do with it, you get what we get in the Catholic church. You get what we get in all these kind of abusive
Jaiya: It has to come out sideways.
Dr Pedram Shojai: like Yeah, exactly.
Jaiya: if you’re always
Dr Pedram Shojai: right? And this is not
Jaiya: go, uh, push that thing down.
Jaiya: It comes out in negative ways.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, and we see it and it leads to problems.
Jaiya: Absolutely, absolutely. What’s also interesting, what you’re saying is this,
Jaiya: um, idea of our power. And so when we’re pushing down sexuality, we’re pushing down our power and then we make it taboo. You know, we put it in the place we least likely think to look. We joke, you know, enlightenment is in the place we’d least likely think to look, and so yeah, I a hundred percent agree with what you’re saying around That willpower to push that down and then it comes out in the wrong ways.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It’s not natural. It’s not natural, and that’s why the, the path of the householder makes a lot of sense. But then the pa path of the householder needs to have tantric principles built into it so that we truly can . Use our life as a workshop to figure out who we are and grow as humans.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, just to, to, to talk about language and versioning a little bit.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Just the, the world I come from so we can kinda set the stage and play from there is, so I come from Daoist tradition and you know, we have the Jing Chin in the shed, right? And the jing is the essence from which we, you know, drop. Three treasures, right? And the jing is that treasure that we, we use as the base of our bioelectric energy system.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And then we, as we bring up the energy, we cultivate the shen or the mind of the spirit. And so we wake up to who we truly are. And then there’s personal cultivation where you can, you know, you do all this breathing to your lower abdomen, not for arbitrary reasons, right? You bring that energy up, but then you have dual cultivation, which is a capacitor, and it becomes a, a very powerful.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Path to enlightenment and, and awakening done. Right. Right. And so the, the tantric traditions, they all talk about it differently, but you know, we’re talking about a, a, a sexual vehicle into a spiritual awakening. So I would love for you to expand on what, what that looks like. And you, you’ve been teaching people this for so long, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Like, what, what does that look like for people who come in and start to open up to this?
Jaiya: Mm-Hmm. . Well, when people start at the very beginning, the first thing is just can you be aware of your breath? Are you aware of the in breath and the outbreath? And can you focus your attention? In breath out breath until the mind starts to wander and then we bring it back in. Breath out, breath. And then can you be aware of that in breath? Out breath while you’re making love and as arousal gets higher and are you utilizing that breath to enhance arousal? ’cause the more we breathe, the more we feel, the higher the arousal, the more oxygen we need. And so just that focus, that simple focus, everybody can do it. It’s free just to focus on your breath. So that’s the first tool. And then after breath, how about sound? Can we add a little awe on your exhale? Can you hold eye contact as you breathe in with an exhale with an awe as you’re making love, and so you’re staying present? That idea of presence, I always say, if I could teach one thing to people, it’s awareness that holding presence during sex. Are you aware of your breath? Are you aware of your partner’s eyes? Are you aware of how your bodies are moving together? Are you aware of your pelvic floor? How many little points of awareness can you hold while you’re making love and as the arousal increases and increases? And then you mentioned transmutation. So are you transmuting the sexual energy through the body to revitalize Jing or Q or prana or all these different names that we have for things? Um. So that you are building more, shen, um, so that you are bringing that up into the brain and bathing the brain and all of that sexual energy that awakens the latent genius and brings us more deeply into the center of who we are.
Jaiya: So very simple tools, breath, sound, movement, where we’re placing our attention. But doing that, even though they’re simple, can be the challenge.
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Dr Pedram Shojai: One of the challenges, um, in the school thought that I, uh, trained in is really around, , . Misunderstanding or misconception of climax and that being the end, all of a sexual encounter. And , a lot of the way that Daoists have taught it, how I’ve taught it in the past is, , it’s usually the dude, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: In a, in a, you know, hetero, heterosexual relationship that, that, you know, ruins the party. And so , learning how to stay under climax to build that baby fire and . Build the fire into something that then becomes something greater than two. Right. That’s so something that becomes powerful. Um, what is that like in the traditions that you hail from?
Dr Pedram Shojai: How are, how is that instruction if, if it’s any different? I’m just curious how, how you all talk about that to, to build this, this ritual that isn’t so dopamine oriented. Right. We’re so results driven in our culture.
Jaiya: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just on a biochemical standpoint, orgasm or climax goes up. You get that dopamine spike, and then you get that prolactin that then causes the refractory period, and that’s the like, oh, I’m tired after sex feeling. And what I love About tantra, but just from a biochemical standpoint is okay, we’re riding a wave of excitement and then we drop into enjoyment. We ride another wave of excitement, we drop into enjoyment, and a biochemical shifts starts to happen where we’re getting little bits of dopamine and then we’re dropping that down. Love a little bit of dopamine. Then we’re, we’re riding on oxytocin as we prolong that. Some, from a biochemical standpoint, it’s very different from just going to the average climax. And then from Tantra, we talk about transmuting sexual energy, and as long as you’re transmuting the sexual energy, sometimes a certain number of times it’s okay to ejaculate. Um, I know there’s different points of view. Sometimes people say like, don’t ejaculate at all. Um, but within tantra it’s like once you’ve taken the essence out of the sexual fluids and you’ve drawn those up through the spine, magnetizing, the cerebral spinal fluid, bringing it up into the brain, and then Then you can create hydraulic pressure on the pineal gland as you’re holding all of that with breath and different contractions in the body, or bondages locks in the body, and then that pineal gland. Um, the theory is, is that you’re starting to get a DMT release. From the ejaculation that happens at the pineal gland.
Jaiya: So you’re getting ejaculation in your brain instead of an ejaculation from your genitals, which I find very exciting. I’ve had a lot of mystical experiences doing that kind of practice, um, and bathing my brain in this and have changed my life in so many ways from a poor Ohio Girl you know, to building a million dollar business, writing books, you know, teaching all over the world. Um, I, I owe my tantra practice and this transmutation to that I.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Well, the proof’s also in the pudding. Um, you know, I hadn’t met you until minutes ago. Right? In person. And as soon as we get on the video feed, I go, oh, I like her. I. Because your energy has, you exude somebody who has done the work. Right.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And that is, it shows,
Dr Pedram Shojai: right? Yeah. When someone is doing the work, it shows, you could see the, the serenity in their face.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You can see that the work shop is the body. Right.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And, and you, you, you alluded to something that’s just very fascinating to me is, you know, we have the, the best chemistry lab. On planet Earth in our own bodies, and based on how we breathe and use our minds and do these practices, we can elicit all sorts of neurochemistry and engage in different neuroanatomy and really change the state of our existence.
Dr Pedram Shojai: just in doing these types of practices, no pharmacy needed, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so I, there, there’s, there’s this immense body of work for thousands of years that have been showing people how to do this. That shit doesn’t last if it doesn’t work.
Jaiya: It’s true and I’m so much more interested in endogenously creating that meaning it’s coming from my own pharmacy, it’s coming from my own body than an exogenous source where I have to take something to create those experiences. Someone you know recently said to me like Oh, I love being high. Like I just wanna be high as fuck on all this ecstasy.
Jaiya: And I, I looked at them and I said, do you know how you never come down? And they’re like, no. How do you never come down? I said, be you, be you as fuck. And you never come down, but you have to recognize who you is.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, but that’s, that’s the inconvenient truths, right? Like that’s the actual work that we’re, we’re taught to avoid is the awakening. It’s like, you know, the sex is the, the fireworks, and then, you know, let’s go Netflix and chill, right? Like it’s, it’s not. The love making doesn’t become the night.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It’s just a, a quick part of the night instead of turning it into this ceremony of, of worship and, and really engaging in this thing that, that steps out of time, that really builds something that’s really powerful and beautiful. Um, who the hell’s got time for that? Who the hell makes time for that? And so these types of practices I’ve seen bring people to life better than most.
Jaiya: Yeah, because it’s our liveness, our sex hormones or our youth hormones. And I think also something that you’re pointing to that one of my teachers taught me is we have all these things in life that we’ve made recreational. Dance music psychedelics. Our sexuality becomes recreational, and in that we lose the power of the tool. These are actually recreational tools. They’re here to help us remember and recreate who we are and expand who we are, involve who we are, and it’s all in how you’re using the tool. So, how are you using dance? How are you using music? How are you in relationship with your sexuality? So this comes down to this idea of right relationship, which is something that the ancients have been teaching us.
Jaiya: It’s, it’s across the board. In almost every culture, there are teachings on sacred sexuality. On sexuality as this tool for health, wellbeing, happiness, connection, love, and our own awakening, and then we made them taboo and less than what they really are.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve denigrated them. We’ve, you know, kind of taken ’em down, you know, listen, there’s, uh, America has been infected, in my opinion, by porn, which is an aberration to everything that we’re talking about here. It really moves us away from the, the, the. The spirituality of the act. Right. Um, I have a, a question.
Dr Pedram Shojai: This may or may not be provocative. Um, I personally, I’ll start, I’ll start by saying I, I personally have taken a more traditional path as a householder, pure monogamy. Having a cohort, one cohort I’ve found, I’ve seen shit go wrong. Right. When people start playing in kind of polygamous ways, in the tantric arts, is that a requirement in how you teach it?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Have you, you know, how do you, how do you counsel people to, you know, hold the sacred space with someone in this practice?
Jaiya: Mm-Hmm, So I have a lot of different viewpoints on this, and it really is what works for you. What’s your style? Do you have the level of consciousness to hold more than one person and their attachment traumas and their attachment and what people need and how do all that works? The majority of people. Can’t do that. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Like I’m not like, you have to be monogamous. You have to be polyamorous. I don’t think there’s any one way. I think there is what feels like It’s right for you. It’s helping you evolve. It feels helpful and you are not stressed in it. Um, and for some people, monogamy and going really deep into sacred relationship and sacred union and what that means. Is the absolute right choice for them and for other people. They can have more than one beloved, and it doesn’t, doesn’t, it doesn’t go poorly. It goes very, very well for them, but that’s rare. Because I see, I still see the same dynamic show up because they haven’t done their e inner work. The healing that’s necessary, regardless of what kind of relationship you’re in, you know, you can have the same thing show up in monogamy.
Jaiya: That’s gonna show up in multiple partnerships, so don’t think one’s better than the other. And there’s stuff in between. Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s more of a container issue really. And you know, to me, the elephant in the room, um, I, I used to teach this stuff and kind of ran outta time, if you will, because it’s so time. Consuming to do it right is . The elephant in the room is on the, you know, came off on a puritanical boat, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Is we have a lot of history of sexual trauma, pedophilia, molestation, and all sorts of things that are just under the radar in our culture that people just can’t even talk about. They don’t have a container, and then they’re like, oh, well, tantra, and they flip over to this, what, where my wound is, is where my healing is without the proper
Dr Pedram Shojai: Healing in the containers and the, you know, trauma-informed therapy and all that. And then it, you know, I’ve seen it get ugly. I’ve seen it get ugly. So I’m just curious as to how you manage that because you’re, you’re, you know, I have a lot of respect for you ’cause you’re, you’re in the ring doing this and teaching this, which is fucking hard, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: To do it right and hold all of the stuff that comes up in a room. So I’m just very curious as to how you manage that.
Jaiya: Yeah, I mean, thank you for asking that question and bringing it up. The shadow aspect of sexuality and again. From suppression, things come out sideways, and then don’t talk about it. And where do we go to get healing and help and non-judgment? Someplace where we’re gonna be held with a lot of love. One of the things I set out to do is just end rape on our planet, which is a really huge endeavor., Because I see every day There’s not a day go bys that I hear a story of one of those things you mentioned, these forbidden, you know, people who’ve been harmed. I think we don’t walk through this world without having some kind of sexual trauma, even if it’s just from the culture and it’s unhealed. Yeah. And then when it’s unhealed, we perpetuate those traumas and it becomes a generational curse. they’ve they’ve done studies where it shows that trauma gets passed down between seven and 14 generations. So if you had trauma from your mom, her mom, her mom, her mom, all of that is continually getting passed down in regards to our sexuality. And then we don’t wanna look at it. I think sexuality is the final frontier of personal growth because it’s the shadow, it’s in the trenches, like you said. And so I think over 30 years of doing this, I just expect it. I’ve heard, I’ve heard so many stories, and so how do we work with it? Like you said, don’t.
Jaiya: Don’t go running to Tantra, necessarily and doing tantra and expecting that to be the place to heal all of your traumas. Work with a trauma therapist. Work with someone who, this is their specialty, to really work with how these traumas show up. Then work with someone somatically. So you might wanna work with a somatic experiencing therapist or EMDR, some cognitive behavior, the therapy. Um, and then there’s something called sexological body work where someone can actually work on your body. And, and then the other thing that you have to be aware of. Is then there’s all the people who haven’t healed their trauma, who are now doing work, being teachers, and that’s a whole other shadow aspect where then we’re re-traumatizing people because the leaders in sexuality haven’t done their own work. And look, we’re all a work in progress. We’re all doing our own work, and we’re doing as best we can and working in this dharma. And I’ll say, make sure you’re interviewing your people. What work have they done? Where’s their consciousness in this realm? What’s their experience? Really know who it is you’re working with, when you’re going to get these types of healing therapies. I.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, I really appreciate that because you know, in this . Wild world of mystical stuff. There are, uh, there are people who have run to it away from a lot of wounds and trauma, and then there are people that have become experts to hide their shadow and. I’ve often talked to my students about learning how to identify a bullshit expert who you know is, is just too good to be true because usually it is you want raw authenticity.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You want to hear that they have scar tissue, that they’ve been healing, and you want to hear that it’s not all just a bed of roses. Um, and that they’ve been working right, working on themselves. ’cause you can’t learn from someone. Not get stuck if they haven’t been working on themselves. Right. It, it really, I woof that.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Trips up the wires, right?
Jaiya: Yeah. And then we expect perfection. You know, when vulnerability is together, is actually where we start to heal these things. You know, I think
Jaiya: vulnerable leaders who aren’t afraid to say. Here’s what I went through. Here’s how hard it was. Here’s what I’m still learning. Here’s why I fuck up shit. You know, I do it all the time. I’m gonna
Dr Pedram Shojai: and yeah, here’s the shit. Here’s the shit that still gets me right. And here’s the shit. This is, this is the shit that triggers me. I don’t think I can talk to you right now about this or whatever it is, but just knowing where the landmines are is, is a big deal. Um, I. Because, , that’s the muddy waters that you know, I have to talk about because, , we’ve seen you, you and I have been in the trenches.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You’ve been in these trenches much longer than I have. Um, you’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you’ve seen the bad teachers take people to bad places. And so, uh, work with the good teachers, the moral of the story, um, and work with someone who, has done the work, but also understand that, .
Dr Pedram Shojai: Doing the trauma-informed work will allow for this to happen. And then doing, and then being able to do this in a safe container, not necessarily at, you know, some, some orgy at Burning Man. There’s a lot of stories that come out in that way too, is like, you find liberation in places that, without
Dr Pedram Shojai: Of the tribe you’ve studied with traditions, , there, there’s rules to this shit, right? There’s ways of doing it that are, um, not just drugs. Drugs and sex at a party.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so, , I’d love to talk about the, the path of tantra and how one gets into it and learns to do it the right way.
Jaiya: I think one thing is finding a good teacher. And you pointed to like, how do we find good teachers? How do we know one of my little Sticklers is, are they pointing to you or are they pointing to themselves? So I am the answer, praise me, versus you are the answer. Are they always leading you back to looking at you? Looking inside of you, or they more, and that’s where we get cults. That’s where we get wrapped up in it, is the distinction of the cult leader becomes the thing that’s the answer versus you and your own inner work. Being the answer. And so where do we start?
Jaiya: Where do we begin? There are great books out there, um, depending upon the tradition that you want to start in. I started in ipss. Lura. There’s a book called Jewel, no Lotus that I highly recommend by Bodhi, Ava Naasha. And then there’s just finding someone in a tradition that you love who can be your teacher. And spend a lot of time with them, learn from them, listen to them. I think there’s an amount of surrender too, you know, which could be tricky and what we’re talking about, ’cause there is a dark side to all of this, but my personal experience has been the more I can surrender to the teaching and surrender to my teacher and follow the path and do the discipline, then the more results that I got out of it. And to, to not lose your agency in that. That’s the
Dr Pedram Shojai: there’s a tremendous amount of trust and, um, , due diligence that goes into that surrender. But once you’re in a safe place, then , know that you’re, the work is the work. And the work is very, very illuminating.
Dr Pedram Shojai: One of the, one of the things that, um, does come up whenever I talk about this, um, in the audience is, but what if you don’t have somebody?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Right? I’m alone. I’m alone. I don’t have someone as a, as a. Cohort. What, what advice do you give someone who is in that space and is feeling that loneliness, but you know, loves what we’re talking about?
Jaiya: Yeah. One of the things that I like to decouple from sexuality is that it has to happen with a partner. You have your own sexuality. You are your own being. You do not need anyone else to practice Tantra to start to learn these methodologies, to use sexuality as a tool for your own awakening. No partner required. And I know that there’s always that part that’s like, oh, I wish I had a partner. I want my beloved. I wanna be doing that with my beloved. So it’s honor that part. Honor that part in you. That’s longing. Utilize that part. That’s longing, because longing can be a delicious place for your awakening. A longing for the beloved, the longing for God. I mean, in Bhahkti yoga. There’s that devotion to God and that longing to merge with God, but always staying in the longing just so you can play that game of being in the edge of the orgasm with God all the time. Uh, so yeah, no partner required. You can start doing the practices all on your own, your own self-pleasure practice. How are you? Self pleasuring. I think that that’s another place where we go super unconscious when we could be using it as a tool for our health and awakening and longevity and awakeness. So yeah, your self-pleasure practice. Just add breath. Like people say, just add water. Just add breath to your self-pleasure, pleasure practice. And that’s a great place to start.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. I love that. I love that. And you said something in there that I think is an important distinction, especially with the Bahkti, is a longing for God, right? And God, you know, God’s a polarized word and it’s a charged word, but you know that divinity, ? I. The divinity inside of you, whatever you wanna call that, but not longing for Brad or Steve or Carol, but longing for God.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And that distinction is, is a very important one in a spiritual path because longing for God fills you. Whereas trying to find something in in another and not the God in the other or the God in yourself can become a place of, um, . Buddhist suffering. Right. And, and, uh, desires and cravings. And so I’d love to kind of talk about that distinction.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I think it’s an important one to stay on for a second.
Jaiya: Yeah, I mean, we can try to fill that place inside of us. With success, money, car house, partner, kids, all those things external, these circumstantial things that we get or have. And it never fills it. And I’ll tell you from personal experience, I checked all the boxes. I built the company. I had the kid, I had the beautiful house in Malibu.
Jaiya: You know, I had all the things that everybody said that will make you happy. And I wasn’t. I still had that little void inside of myself, and that’s what started an even deeper spiritual pursuit because there had to be something else that wasn’t any of these external things that I thought would make me happy. I. And that’s when I went on the search for self. And it was in that discovery and that longing for God and self. And again, like you said, God is this very intense word for a lot of people. I couldn’t even say the word God a couple years ago because of my religious upbringing in the trauma that came from that, but Now I have a very different relationship to what that word means because I had the direct experience of what that means, and in that realization, that trauma was healed. And part of it was because I set out to answer the question, how could there be a God and all these awful things in the world, how can we let women and children be abused?
Jaiya: How do we have rape on the planet? How do we have war? Why? And it was in really deeply asking that question, and who am I that this direct experience happens? And it’s like orgasm. When you meet God, it’s like an orgasm. So how do you describe an orgasm if you’ve never had an orgasm? And I believe that this longing for God and this union with God. Is indescribable. It’s like trying to describe a strawberry to someone who’s never tasted a strawberry. So I can’t put words to it, and I hope that everyone listening has that experience someday, because Woo is the ultimate orgasm.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, and I think that’s the difference between some of the ancient traditions and where we pull. Over, pulled aside, veered, however you wanna call it, in that having faith in something versus having an experience of something.
Jaiya: Mm-Hmm.
Dr Pedram Shojai: One is I have to have a leap of faith to believe there is this thing and you know, then I start arguing about scripture and , my interpretation of it.
Dr Pedram Shojai: When I met you just, minutes ago I was like, oh, God is in her heart, right? Like there you can see it in somebody when someone has . Experienced the divinity and, and, and to bring it back to what we’re talking about here again, ’cause the G word gets so much polarity on it, is if you think about the root of your sexual being, the, the proliferation of the species, the.
Dr Pedram Shojai: The immortality that comes through you into future generations, but can also be cultivated up your spine to immortalize your consciousness. There’s an actual vehicle to experience the energy of this, whatever you want to call it. Within the workshop of your body, and when you’re getting it right, you feel the pleasure, you feel the awareness, you wake up to yourself.
Dr Pedram Shojai: There are very specific things, and that’s why I love paths. Like what school do you come from? Because there are very, there’s thousands of people that have been doing this for thousands of years. There are paths and experiences that have been well documented to say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s it. Keep going.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Right? And so, the tantra is a path.
Jaiya: Yeah. Can I give everybody a breath? I think that just to give the listeners a breath a little will help them put something into practice that’s very simple and
Jaiya: I. And so when you’re coming into arousal, either with a partner or by yourself, you start to feel like you’re coming towards orgasm. Take a pause and then take a deep breath in and imagine you’re drawing that breath up the spine and you’re gonna rest that breath in the center of your brain, the third ventricle of the brain, and then squeeze the pelvic floor while you’re resting. Holding the breath, squeezing the pelvic floor. Take a sniff, bring it to the top of the head, and then exhale it back down the spine to your genitals. So I’ll do that really quickly. Again, deep breath in. Draw it up the spine, right into the brain. Contract your pelvic floor. Hold it. Take a sniff of air, bring it to the top of the head. And then exhale it back down the spine. And that’s a very simple way to start getting in touch with that channel. If you haven’t been in touch with the shush na or that direct channel, um, coming up the spine, it’s a way to start bringing awareness to it, but also to start to put some pressure on that pineal gland and. Bring in more awareness of how the sexual energy is moving.
I love that. Thank you for that.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, there’s a, one of the Abbotts of my lineage actually was. Postulating that creating that kind of inter thecal pressure, the pressure inside of the lower pelvis creates a pumping motion that actually circulates sperm aine back up and dumps it through one of the frame and into the brain.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um,
Dr Pedram Shojai: and. And sperm aines a misnomer. ’cause we both have it. It’s not sperm for men and whatever.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so there’s all sorts of really, I mean, , no pharmaceuticals paying for this shit, right? And so no one’s, no one’s doing these studies. But I can tell you there are millions of workshops that have come through Tibet, India, China, now the modern world that have been validating this internal science, if you will, for millennia.
Jaiya: Mm-Hmm.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It works. It’s beautiful, right? It’s, it’s really powerful. Um, I really appreciate that you’re out there teaching this. It’s, it’s not easy, you know, for someone who’s been in this space and has taught it at, at points, it’s not easy holding that and being the container for that. Um, so I, I applaud you for, , applaud, , clearing yourself and being able to be that channel for people.
Dr Pedram Shojai: As you do, how can people engage with you in the work that you do? How can they find you? Do you do workshops? Like how can they, how can they get into this?
Jaiya: Well, I have a new book coming out. So that’s, uh, here, It’s been 10 years in the process of making that. Uh, that’s about the five erotic blueprints, but it does talk about sexual awakening. It really is a book about sexual awakening and how we can utilize this tool for our own self-realization. So that’s there if people wanna pick that up.
Jaiya: The name of it is your blueprint for pleasure, your blueprint for pleasure. ’cause pleasure is a tool. And we can use it to fuel our lives, rather use pleasure than pain any day.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Amen.
Jaiya: And then I’m online, so Jaya Love, uh, people can find me there. Uh, I work privately with clients. We have workshops, uh, we do erotic festivals, which are really fun. Speaking of Burning Man utilizing music, and again, I have this idea of. How do we become recreational versus recreational with all of these tools that we have? Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love that. And yeah, recreation. This is the energy of creation. I mean, this is how life is made. And so if you can study the energy of creation in your body and then with a partner, I. Some really profound things that happen. So really appreciate the work that you’re doing. Um, thank you and, um, looking forward to, um, having you back.
Dr Pedram Shojai: . Let’s get this book out in the world and helping people and, uh, we’ll talk again at some point.
Jaiya: Thank you so much for
Jaiya: having me and having the conversation. It’s been a pleasure.
Jaiya: Bumper
Well, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Um, lovely conversation, lovely human being, run out and get the book, uh, get yourself educated on this stuff. It’s a big part of our life force and, uh, squandering. It has led to much chaos bringing it under the conscious control, bringing it under conscious awareness. Does wonderful things for you, your life and your vitality.
Hope you enjoyed it. Share the show. Subscribe. If you haven’t already. Um, as you know, I’m building these up again. I will be podcasting regularly for years to come. And, , I’m taking, , questions from folks too. So there’s a couple of new formats coming out. So subscribe to the show as more starts coming out, I will open up a forum. , to put in topics. , from you that you’re suggesting, so stay on and stay active.
I’ll see you next time.