of all castes. Tantric texts taught that all men and all women had equal capacities for enlightenment within themselves. In contrast to orthodox Hinduism, many early teachers were among the lower castes. Tantrics came from a wide range of backgrounds. Tantric meditations were designed to be adapted to any situation or occupation – a wine maker could distill bliss from the grapes of experience, while a weaver could weave passion using threads of freedom to produce a rug of enlightenment.
The goal of Tantra is to merge the phenomenal world with the divine, in one integrated, unified reality. Tantrics believe that in order to fully experience this reality all that is needed is a change of awareness. You are already divine, you just have to wake up to that fact. You don’t need to change anything about yourself or work to achieve anything – you are innately divine.
Robin, 37: I thought it was normal to lose interest in sex as you got older. But I’ve discovered that my sexuality had just been put in a box to be brought out now and again. From childhood I’d been indoctrinated with the idea that sex is something good girls shouldn’t do.
Now it feels like a natural part of life. I can experience things sexually and it doesn’t have to involve sex. Sexual energy is just like any other quality produced by the different centres in the body – like the heart – but we don’t allow the sexual feelings out. I realized it’s always been part of me. If I hadn’t learnt to hide it, it would be such a natural thing. Just to touch each other more. Sexual energy isn’t just about sex – it’s about aliveness.
On the workshop I got in touch with the more sensual side of sexuality – through touch and movement. We did some wild dancing, and afterwards standing still, someone touched me. Waves of intense sensation passed through my body. We don’t know half of what we can experience, if we only just allowed ourselves.
Like all spiritual paths, Tantra is a philosophy with core values, which can be a problem for Westerners who are attracted to the open sexuality and the aura of permissiveness around Tantric practices. It is a spiritual path, which means that the search for bliss is not about pleasure for its own sake, since that is always transient and ultimately unsatisfying. It is about using worldly experience as a gateway to another perspective on our existence. A perspective that allows us to realize that we are already in a state of bliss – if we can only open ourselves up to that awareness. Paradise is here and now.
Unlike religions that separate existence into the earthly and the divine, Tantrics believe that our own reality is inseparable from the divine, and that you can’t split them into two realms. Christian, Judaic, Islamic and Hindu traditions all split existence into a polarised duality of good and evil, heaven and hell, above and below. The path of Tantra is a direct path that cuts through dualism, not judging things as either good or bad.
We so often view our world as split into polar opposites, such as male/female, solar/lunar, heat/cold. Sexual union is considered to epitomize the essential unity of all things by the joining of male and female energies. Sexual ecstasy is the perfect example of the ways in which our experience of dualism can be transcended through experience – the experience of two bodies and souls merging into one.
Catherine, 43: I no longer feel Tantra is something I need to do with my partner, or that it’s just through sex. Ecstasy is very simple. It’s not that intense, cathartic experience people think of, it’s something very simple.
Ecstasy feels cool and still to me, and I can access it easily. I get into very ecstatic states through dancing, through pleasuring myself, or through simply looking at a flower. It’s more a state of being. I feel it’s about relaxing and opening up to that life force, that sexual energy.
It’s a feeling of being at one with myself, and very much in my body. It’s a sense of aliveness in my body. I can feel energy streaming inside me, little pulsations here and there. There’s a warm feeling around my heart, a free and open feeling in my chest, and in my mind – the area around my third eye.
I find I’m accessing intuition more and more, and opening up to inspiration. There’s a sense of unflappability, which comes from a deep sense of trust that I’ll be able to deal with whatever comes my way. At the same time I’m much clearer about what I choose to do, how I choose to do it, and where I’m coming from in making that choice. I don’t have to worry around in my head wondering what’s right for me, I know it. Tantra has changed the way I am in life. I won’t agree to do things that don’t feel good anymore, whether in relation to work, or other people. I also just get on with what needs to be done – the boring, mundane things – without struggling against them.
Life isn’t easier, but it’s better. It feels richer, more meaningful, and I feel more in tune with myself. I feel heartful – more compassionate, but also more discriminating. There’s a paradox between going with the flow, and somehow knowing that the flow is already chosen. All this is a conscious discipline. In every moment I can choose whether to deal with things in the old way, or with the consciousness I’ve developed through Tantra.
All humans are divine, and it is the discovery of and identification with the divine essence within that inspires seekers to follow the Tantric path.
Hilary Spenceley, Tantra teacher: I love working with women, seeing the great healing that takes place with Tantra. I love seeing them step into their own unique beauty, which is totally independent of outside approval – that’s what we call the place of the Goddess.
Tantra celebrates sexuality as a path to ecstasy. Tantric couples consciously honour the powerful sexual charge of the connection between them, which Tantrics consider to be a manifestation of the primal energy of the universe, called Shakti. Shakti is considered to be especially concentrated in a woman, and for this reason women are particularly venerated. Shakti, the energy of creation, and Kundalini, the individual powerhouse of energy that we all possess, are both thought of as feminine – and sometimes described as one and the same Shakti-Kundalini. Kundalini is also referred to as our inner woman, regardless of our actual gender. Each woman is honoured as an embodiment of divine Shakti, and each man recognizes and honours the feminine energies contained within him: the Kundalini. Tantra regards the powerful Shakti energy as innate. It’s not something you need to build up or create, it’s something you merely need to uncover in order to access.
Tantras creation myth pictures the goddess Shakti making love with her consort Shiva. From this ecstatic union rains down a golden nectar which bathes the created world in bliss. Tantric writings describe the Hindu goddess Shakti as achieving seven peaks of ecstasy, each peak higher, stronger, and more powerful than the preceding one, until at the topmost she releases her nectar (female ejaculation). This nectar, amrita, is considered spiritual food for the universe, a pure joy, which radiates into the hearts of mortals.
Divine couple in yab-yom. The image of divine love-making evokes associations of unity and complementarity; two interdependent aspects of existence.
The Tantric concept of oneness with the divine is often shown as Shakti-Shiva together in sexual ecstasy, a unification of both energy and consciousness. This image of divine unification is mirrored in what happens during mortal conception. During love-making a spark of bliss unites with the female and male generative fluids, and then creates a body