Tantra is a path for people wanting to know themselves, deepen awareness within themselves and celebrate all aspects of life. The word has been used to describe a wide range of practices and traditions from the Kashmir Shaivism and Buddhist Vajrayana to more new age practices that include psychotherapeutic approaches and bioenergetics. It has been translated variously as “the weave”, “method” or “technique”. The essence of the path is that it is not so concerned with philosophies about life as the direct experience of it, itself. It gives us methods to directly experience ourselves and actualize our potential. It is not so much a believer’s world but one of alchemy and a knowing that comes from living.
Polarity, the interplay between the masculine and feminine is actually a good thing and gives the passion to life. By skilfully playing out these poles we can energize our practice with enough juice to transcend duality (our own limited point of view). If the polarity is neutralized then its like living with a dead battery. The relevance of this is due to many spiritual systems which have actually encouraged us to dampen down our natural polarity, instincts and desires in order to find peace.
Here are a few elements which can be found in most systems and are helpful in our practice:
These polarities are sometimes represented by Deities such as Shiva and Shakti and on a grand scale represent consciousness and its meeting with the manifested world.
Tantra is inclusive – it uses all at it’s disposal in order for us to deepen into our nature. The key word is acceptance – in accepting yourself, your desires and your quirks there is an opportunity to deepen.
Unlike other systems which attempt to shape you through control and effort, Tantra allows you to indulge your desires but with awareness so they deepen beyond surface wants and needs towards the ultimate desire for love and awareness.
So there is no effort involved? Not necessarily, some of the techniques can be quite physical, or involve facing fears and becoming more present. It is not always easy, but they all point toward you as your natural self. Tantric methods are designed to strip away layers of false shells that we've accumulated.
Sometimes this can leave us a little shaky because we are accustomed to the comfort of our beliefs, but ultimately, it leads to a deeply satisfying state which is more rested in our true nature.
It's all about sex isn’t it? Because of the social repression of sex in most culture, the popular view of Tantra is it is all about sex.
The act of lovemaking in all its facets (quiet breathing and passionate ravishing of the other) is included in Tantra but it is certainly not limited to that. In the classic text the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra there are 112 methods for awakening, and only 6 of these are directly related to the sexual act.
However, life is deeply sexual, the whole energy of life can be seen as sexual energy, of creativity, as the interplay of consciousness and love, masculine and feminine energies. When we expand the limited concepts of sexuality to include all of the interplay of life then we can state that tantra is about awakening through sexuality.
James Stevenson
Tantra Teacher
What exactly is Tantra?
