Tantra Yoga is a potent, exact and ancient science that has become diluted as it has become popularized in our culture. Each tiny movement prescribed is very important for it to work correctly, and we can thank the ancients for giving us very specific programs to go by. Remaining true to the science of moving energies through the body can reasonably be balanced by adapting Tantra to modern Western daily living. But we need to take it seriously as a whole lifestyle, as it was meant to be, rather than simply focus on the sensationalized sexual aspects which have become so transformed from Tantra as to be going off in the opposite direction. I will suggest ways to live a Tantric life using specific techniques integrated into spontaneous behavior that arises from the core of your Being. The process creates explosive blissful awareness, and addresses realistic situations which allow you to be creative with energy flows.
Mysterious Origin of Tantra
Tantra is a shamanic practice from India that was coaxed from the yogis’ consciousness, extracting wisdom inherent within the human body/mind. Tantra was adopted by Hinduism and Buddhism, but the core practice based on the body’s energy flows are somewhat possible to separate from their mythological and social systems. Other shamanic cultures have also seen the body as a pathway to Enlightenment, mapping the procedures and honoring the effects. We also can tap our innate ability to go with clarity into our core and add to the knowledge that has been carefully tested and passed along by those adepts who have devoted their lives to its study. Taking advantage of Tantric knowledge accrued over the centuries is a wise way to fill your life with light. But Tantra is not a dead science. It is alive, burning within every moment when you feel the intensity of your existence; it is alive, burning in your spine when the Kundalini rushes up, taking you into the glowing geometric shapes inside Life itself. It is alive, inside your hands, guiding you as you touch your lover in ways that send her into spontaneous Kriyas, in which the body bucks as the spiritual energies wave through it ecstatically.
Tantra is the fastest path to Enlightenment.
Why do so many yearn for ultimate, explosive Love that turns the very soul into pure firey Bliss? Why do so many yearn for meditations that convert the body into an ecstatic vehicle for awareness, yet so many are too disempowered to feel these things? This essays can help dispense with that frustration and show how to clear the channels of “gunk”, and to magnetize the spine, so that the energy you can generate will move through you with force. To share this with a partner is not only fulfilling, it is said to be the fastest path to Enlightenment.Tantra does not treat Enlightenment as a solitary pursuit. A non-Tantric aspirant may traditionally leave his wife and children in his 40s to pursue spirituality, retreating to the wilderness, perhaps with his teacher, and renounce the senses to escape this earthly reality. An ideal Tantrik spends the time with his family in a sacred context. His wife is not a hindrance to be cast aside. She too practices Tantra, usually more effortlessly than he, and is, in fact, honored as the embodiment of the goddess Shakti. Many of their lessons come through their daily relations and the woman teaches the man how to be more like her through the practice. Having a female guru is especially prized in Tantra, and advanced women are said to be able to help men become more adept simply by being in relationship. All relationships of any kind in your life can eventually become Tantric. You and others around you can go into the silence together, and let each moment arise out of that silence, treasured, as you approach life with wonder. If you can achieve what I call Lucid Play, you can interact with others Tantrically even in action. Life becomes play, Shiva’s “Lila” (divine play), when you rise above your immersion in your story of your ego and ride the fountaining up of your joyful core. But rather than escaping involvement with the Earth plane, you find your relationship to it becomes more fully Tantric. And your interaction with the Earth gives it what it needs.
