I think it can help and hinder. It depends. When sex is just pure, then actually it isn’t such a big deal. It’s an energy phenomenon.
        Intimate relating creates an energy field, a circle between the two people. Normally, with sex, it’s between two people, but it could be the energy flowing through twenty people.

What people usually call sex is this banana waggling. This creates an energy that moves between the two people. Something intense and intimate happens and that can have the effect of stopping the mind, sometimes even for quite a long time.
  Then you experience Presence. You can be present in sex. You can be present in washing up. In that way it’s not really different. Maybe you have more fun with sex than washing up, but the feeling of peace, love and contentment you feel when you are present, occurs when the mind stops. When that happens you know the emptiness; you know the stillness.

In Tibetan and Indian spiritualities there is a path to Truth through sex, called Tantra. But Tantra is not just about sex. It’s about ‘yes’. Yes to everything, which includes sex.
     Often sex is taken out of spirituality. In the traditional Hindu and Buddhist ways, people become celibate. They say that if you become celibate there is more energy to come to Truth. Personally, I don’t believe that.

In many spiritual cultures the spiritual and the sexual were not so separate. For example, in ancient times Indians were sexually very open. If you go to the ancient temples you will always find beautiful naked women carved in stone.
       And there is the Kama Sutra. In the temples there were temple girls who would dance and sing, and they would also have sex. Then the Christians came along and spread their ideas throughout the world. Out of that, sex has become something other than spiritual.

I think it’s possible that the spiritual and the sexual can come together. Then you can’t really call it sex because it’s not really so much about the physical any more. It’s possible for a man and a woman to meet, intimately, using this little stick thing. In these times it’s become common for two men and two woman

The little sex stick pumping creates an energy heat that can then flow through the people. and can be shared…Tantra. Then the actual physical bit is not the point anymore. When it creates heat the energy just flows between the two people. Then there can be a meeting of the spiritual and the sexual.

But very often, when you meet together in sex it immediately attracts all kinds of old stories, emotions and dramas…’my man’, ‘my woman’ and the whole thing. This is not helpful for the spiritual path.

My suggestion is to come together when the moment happens. When love is there, share in whatever kind of intimacy, with or without physical sex, and then move on. Don’t get caught up in these ideas about relationship, which cause emotional dramas and all the stories around it.
      It’s very common to find yourself having sex, and the next thing is, ‘I love you. Let’s get married and live happily ever after’. The actual intimate meeting is beautiful, but I think the rest is unnecessary.

For a few people it could be the way to Truth, but I think most are going to get caught up in dramas and stories, which keep them away from their true nature. Tantra is a dangerous way to Truth because maybe you end up in Truth or maybe you end up in confusion and drama; a big mess.