Tantra, Sex & Spirituality

Tantra can be described as the spiritualisation of sex or the sexualisation of spirituality. 

The tantra I teach uses our experiences of sexual arousal and heightened sensuality as ways to generate and hold the increasing amounts of  "energy" or life force in our bodies. This may feel like genital stimulation but it is more often felt as a sense of pleasure or excitement throughout the whole body, of varying degrees of intensity. This state can be reached with or without actual sexual contact, which is why you don’t need to be in a sexual relationship to practice tantra.

One of the misconceptions of tantra is that the point is to have a "giant orgasm" or something similar. This might happen but it is not an aim. One of the effects of tantra is to move away from the focus on the genital excitement of everyday sex in favour of a whole body effect, one of holding more "energy" in your body. This moves the experience into a different dimension, sometimes called spirituality.

Tantrikis work on the principal that increasing your capacity to hold this “energy” automatically  results in a “raising" of consciousness. You can liken this to a ball kept in the air by a fountain of water. The ball is consciousness and the water, energy. When more water flows (i.e. more energy) the ball moves higher and it can “see” from a higher vantage point (i.e. from a place of "higher" consciousness).

How you use this change of consciousness depends on intent, a powerful metaphysical tool. It can be used to attain “Witness “ or "Higher Mind"  consciousness (terms used in meditation practices), to experience the chakras directly, to transcend the paradoxes of the dualistic universe in which we live, or to connect us to the god or goddess in ourselves with the god/goddess place in another. It is this last quality that transforms our sexual experiences from the profane to the sacred.

Tantra is intensely practical but it is not a religion. It does use concepts but only on a pragmatic basis. These concepts are not held as The Truth or even as Universal Truths but only as the bases for practice.

Tantra in the UK today has, in the main, come from the Hindu tantric system. The basis of this practice is an old as yoga.Both are thousands of years old. As far as I am aware, most UK tantra originally grew out of the Osho tradition, which still thrives in it own right. Osho, formerly knows as Bagwan Rashneeh, was a charismatic guru-style leader who emerged in the 60's. He felt it was time, for better or worse, that tantric teachings, which had been handed down from teacher to student as a hidden oral tradition, were opened up to the West. He wasn’t alone in this, as it was in a similar way, that the West came to know of many other, now well-known, Eastern traditions. Thes  include yoga, tai chi and acupuncture. His work has been taken and developed by his students. As time has moved on some of these students have spawned a new generation of teachers, each have incorporated their own style that expresses their own interests and personalities. This tantra is sometimes known as "neo-tantra".

Tantra is one of the most misunderstood spiritual practices. It is also one of the most powerful. It is a largely occult practice in the true sense this word, it is hidden from the uninitiated or unaware. This applies both to the man in the street, who sees tantra as something overtly sexual and therefore perverse, as well as more spiritual and religious types who see it as overtly sexual, and therefore misguided. I am amazed at how long and how well it is has been hidden. It seems that whoever chose the name, and sent it out through the ages to acquire accretions of meanings, had a sense of humour. If you are not able to see beyond this façade you miss out on discovering an amazing world, truly capable of turning the dross of life into alchemical gold.