TANTRA YOGA

Tantra Yoga above all else is elusively difficult to explain with any real measure of reasonable consensus between adherents and scholars not to mention the public at large. Referring to its inherent complexity Benoytosh Bhattacharyya a Sanskrit scholar and an authority on Indian esoteric systems had this to say:

“The definitions of Tantra given by students of Sanskrit literature are not unlike the descriptions of an elephant given by blind men.”

And Herbert Guenther, a German Buddhist philosopher and Professor and Head of the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada once described Tantra as:

“one of the haziest misconceptions that the Western mind has ever evolved”

Tantra means many things to many people. Literally, it’s a Sanskrit word meaning “weaving” and “expansion.” The Tantric community is to say the least, eclectic, containing everything from devout spiritual practitioners to New Age prostitutes. It’s important to ask questions, do your research, and trust your intuition before selecting Tantric teachers or programs if you are interested in pursuing it in depth.

The most common view of Tantra Yoga is its association with sex. Sacred sex, spiritual enlightenment through sex. Worshiping of the female and male deity archetypes, kundalini awakening sexuality, and above all else its reputation as a practice and training methods to not only enjoy sex for many hours at a time but also achieving soul shuddering multiple orgasms. What adds to the confusion is the fact that there are numerous texts out of India both ancient and modern with the word Tantra in the title that have nothing to do with sexuality and conversely books on sexuality that have nothing to do with Tantra. A common misconception exists that the fabled Kama Sutra, the notorious (when it was first published), book of Indian sexual positions and poetry of love was an underground manual of Tantric practices (it was not).

This is what we can reasonably say we know about the subject matter. Tantra was born in India some 5,000 years ago very likely as a rebellion against the strict moralistic codes of the Hindu religion. By traditional, puritanical attitudes of Hinduism, Tantra is known as the “left hand” path, a somewhat derogatory term implying impurity. The ancient Tantric texts were written as a dialogue between Lord Shiva (symbolized as pure consciousness) and his consort, Shakti (symbolized as pure energy). It is said that the entire universe was created through their erotic union. All living things emanate their holy dance of consciousness and energy and the spirito~sexual union must be maintained in order for life to flow and continue to exist.

Although the Western audience is fascinated with the sexual aspects of Tantra, it is actually a broad spiritual discipline with multiple facets. The sacred and erotic art of Tantra depicting the coupling of Shiva and Shakti in the Yab Yom position represents the ultimate unity of the divine, the essential wholeness of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, light and dark. The physical body and sexuality are referred to as sacred gifts and vehicles for enlightenment not hindrances to its realization.

Tantrism was/is a quest for spiritual perfection and magical power. Its purpose, to achieve complete control of oneself and all the forces of nature, so as to attain union with the cosmos and the divine. Long training was required to master Tantric methods, into which the pupil had to be initiated by a guru. Given the nature of the practice it’s not exactly something you can pick up from a book or even an instructional video, despite the proliferation of such products.

The methods of Hatha Yoga, including breathing techniques and postures, were employed to subject the body to the control of the will. Mudras or gestures, mantras or syllables, words and phrases, and mandalas and yantras, symbolic diagrams of the forces at work in the universe, were used as aids to meditation and the achievement of spiritual and magical power.

In meditation the initiate identified himself with various gods and goddesses representing cosmic forces. He visualized them and took them into his mind so that he became one with them, a process likened to sexual courtship and consummation. In other esoteric practices from the Western traditions this process is known as invocation. Notable attention was paid to trance inducing meditations like Yoga Nidra, to alter one’s consciousness and deepen the metaphysical effects.

For some Tantric Monks female partners represent goddesses. In left-handed Tantrism, ritual sexual intercourse was employed, not only for pleasure but as a way of entering into the underlying processes and structure of the universe through a sustained state of altered consciousness. Like a wormhole through space time, a consciously utilized orgasm was the secret gateway to the occult realms of existence.

Sex was utilized not only for pleasure but as a tangible exchange of subtle power between the practitioners, with a practice of respective worship playing an important role in the rituals. This power exchange element has been extended by some of the more recent interpretations of Tantric rituals to involve BDSM elements, or psychological drama. It’s aficionados often referring to themselves as the Dark Tantrics. Apparently even the left hand path needs to have….a left hand path for balance. Although much debate ensues about Tantra being “workable” in a non heterosexual context, thenature of the rituals which blend the distinct polar opposites of female and male energies make that proposition tenuous at best.

Ritual practices are divided into 2 broad types:

A)    Ordinary ritual

The ordinary ritual or puja may include any of the following elements:

1) Mantra and yantra

As in other Hindu and Buddhist yoga traditions, mantra and yantra play an important part in Tantra. The mantras and yantras are instruments to invoke specific deities such as Shiva and Kali. Similarly, puja may involve focusing on a yantra or mandala associated with a deity.

2) Identification with deities

Tantra, being a development of early Hindu-Vedic thought, embraced the Hindu gods and goddesses, especially Shiva and Shakti, along with the Advaita philosophy that each represents an aspect of the ultimate Para Shiva, or Brahman. These deities may be worshipped externally with flowers, incense, and other offerings, such as singing and dancing; but, more importantly, are engaged as attributes of Ishta Devata meditations, the practitioners either visualizing themselves as the deity or experiencing the darshan (vision) of the deity. These Tantric practices used to form the foundation of the ritual temple dance of the devadasis.

B)     Secret ritual

Secret ritual may include any or all of the elements of ordinary ritual either directly or substituted along with other sensate rites and themes such as a feast (food, sustenance), coitus (sexuality), charnel grounds (death, transition) and defecation, urination and vomiting (waste, renewal, fecundity). The symbolic journey through essential aspects of living.

It was this sensate inclusion that fueled another German Indologist and historian Heinrich Zimmer’s praise of Tantra as having a world-affirmative attitude:

“In the Tantra, the manner of approach is not that of Nay but of Yea … the world attitude is affirmative … Man must approach through and by means of nature, not by rejection of nature”.

In Sir John Woodroffe’s   “The Pañcatattva (The Secret Ritual) of Shakti and Shakta (1918)”, he states that the Secret Ritual (which he calls Panchatattvam, Chakrapuja and Panchamakara) involves:

“Worship with the Pañcatattva generally takes place in a Cakra or circle composed of men and women… sitting in a circle, the Shakti [or female practitioner] being on the Sadhaka’s [male practitioner’s]left. Hence it is called Cakrapuja. …There are various kinds of Cakra — productive, it is said, of differing fruits for the participator therein”

In this chapter, Woodroffe (writing under the pseudonym of Arthur Avalon) also provides a series of variations and substitutions of the Panchatattva (Panchamakara) “elements” or tattva encoded in the Tantras and various tantric traditions and affirms that there is a direct correlation to the Tantric Five Nectars and the Mah?bh?ta

Sexual rites

Although it is what most of Western pop culture equates with Tantra, sexual rites ended up being practiced by a minority of sects.  Sadly, for many lineages, these maithuna practices suffered a decline over the years primarily due to prevailing conservative, virtually Victorian,attitudes towards sexuality in India.  These life-affirming, physically ritualistic forms of spirituality  morphed into strictly psychological symbolism, along the way stripping Tantra  it of its vital energetic essence. 

Sexual rites of Vama Marga may have emerged from early Hindu Tantra as a practical means of generating transformative bodily fluids. These constituted a vital offering to Tantric deities. Sexual rites may also have evolved from clan initiation ceremonies involving the transaction of sexual fluids. Here the male initiate was inseminated or insanguinated with the sexual emissions of the female consort, sometimes admixed with the semen of the guru. He was thus transformed into a son of the clan (kulaputra) through the grace of his consort. The clan fluid (kuladravya) or clan nectar (kulamrita) was conceived as flowing naturally from her womb. Later developments in the rite emphasised the primacy of bliss and divine union, which replaced the more bodily oriented connotations of earlier forms.

When enacted as envisioned by the tantras,  the physical ritual culminates in a sublime experience of infinite awareness and sustained bliss, by both participants. The Tantric texts specify that sex has three distinct and separate purposes: procreation, pleasure, and liberation. Procreation being deemed as the least important function, an emphasis is placed on the male participant eschewing an ejaculatory orgasm, finding satisfaction instead in a more subtle, internalized ecstasy.  Drawing on and sublimating  the energy of ecstasy of their partners is also practiced as a way of compensating for the lack of a full orgasmic release by the man.

In classic Tantra several sexual rituals are recommended and practiced. These involve elaborate and meticulous preparatory and purificatory rites. The act balances energies coursing within the pranic ida and pingala channels in the subtle bodies of both participants. The sushumna nadi, the central energy channel located along the spine, is awakened and kundalini rises upwards within it. This eventually culminates in samadhi wherein the respective individualities of each of the participants are completely dissolved in the unity of cosmic consciousness.

Tantrics understand the act on multiple levels. The male and female participants are conjoined physically and represent Shiva and Shakti, the male and female principles. Beyond the physical, a subtle fusion of Shiva and Shakti energies takes place resulting in a united energy field. On an individual level, each participant experiences a fusion of one’s own Shiva and Shakti energies.

The Tantric practice carries within its an essence a non judgmental understanding of the limitations imposed by the always subjective and relative “morality”. It also celebrates the full acceptance of the physical vehicle as an extraordinary accelerant rather then a hindrance to spiritual evolution.

This attitude of inclusive embracement of all sides of the human experience, as they progress towards self actualization through ecstasy, allows those engaged in this unconventional process to access dimensions of consciousness-altering ecstasy, magick and life energy rarely, if ever, achieved by any other spiritual discipline.