Potent, fluid and vibrant, Tantra Yoga is a living legacy that continues to evolve as yoga practitioners attune themselves to its power. Strangely, Tantra keeps its veil of mystery and secrecy, even though it has reached the spotlight of today's global commerce.

From their rise to prominence in India starting about 1500 years ago, the tantric teachings have always been a peculiar combination of adherence to tradition and freedom from convention. Tantra draws many of its rituals and beliefs from indigenous cultures thousands of years ago. Yet, in name and practice it is a fairly recent phenomenon in the history of yoga and spirituality. It relies on discipline, practice and understanding; yet it is associated with darkest India and radical blood-chilling cults of sacrifice and madness. Most of all, Tantra is linked with an array of sexual practices that have spawned an entire industry of Tantric workshops; yet it actually is an extremely subtle process of accessing the inner Self and expanding personal consciousness.

How did this happen, this odd mixture of the sacred and the wicked? Some scholars say it was created when individuals reacted against orthodox religious practices. The traditional ascetic approach to yoga was a path of renunciation and turning away from the world. In contrast, Tantra embraced the world, to the extent that certain tantric practices defied the established dogma, for example, rituals including the forbidden "five Ms": wine (madya), meat (mamsa), fish (matsya), parched grain (mudra) and sexual intercourse (maithuna).

Women as well as men were allowed to participate and even to become teachers of elevated status. And, in a culture of strict class structure, Tantric practices did not exclude anyone. In this way, Tantra was a grassroots movement that transcended arbitrary limitations and opened philosophy and spirituality to everyone. It presented possibilities for individuals to explore and interact directly with their own internal powers. Released from cultural constraints, tantric practices spread throughout the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain communities.

Interwoven in Time

The word tantra comes from early Vedic times, and means to weave, extend, stretch or explain. It may refer to a kind of text that is woven of threads of words, similar to the word sutra, which designates aphorisms or lines of verse, as in the famous Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

The threads of Tantra first draw on ancient village practices, such as reverence for the feminine in nature, rituals, symbols and song. It became interwoven with Vedic teachings, such as mantra, and the belief of one underlying reality or universal divinity. It emerged in Tantric texts in the first millennium C.E. as specific practices and meditations on the unity of the individual and the universal. It entwined and absorbed the rise of movements of devotion to great beings about eight hundred years ago. Then it remained as a series of disciplines both mainstream and secreted underground to be practiced in small groups.

Throughout its history, Tantra was concealed through initiation and closed circles. Some of the secrecy was that it was no single movement and was practiced by numerous obscure groups who passed it from guru to disciple. In addition, the Sanskrit texts, if they were even available, could only be read by educated individuals.

For the West, Tantra was revealed in Colonial India as "vile and abominable to the last degree". In the early 20th century, Sir John Woodroffe, the first Western scholar to translate and promote Tantra, called it "highly metaphysical and scientific." A dynamic and evolving philosophy, Tantra continues to be woven back and forth from East to West as the West absorbs and modifies the practices, the East looks to its roots, and the West again reinvents it and promotes it commercially.

Tantric Philosophy

Simply put, Tantra is a pathway that sees everything in the world as divine and divinity itself. Its focus is on direct spiritual experience and the possibility of enlightenment and spiritual power. Key is the integration of the individual self with the higher self, or universal consciousness. When all of life is seen as one consciousness, everything is sacred, no matter how mundane, and everything is spiritual, no matter how sensual.

Yoga As Union of the Individual and the Universal

It is well known that the word yoga means union or joining together. But what is being joined? The Tantric texts identify two levels of awareness. One is the consciousness of an individual person with the inherent potential to become seated or realised in the continual experience of the divine. The other is universal consciousness itself, the oneness of the universe. The union is the complete seamless integration of the individual and the eternal.

And how is it done? The Kularnava Tantra says, "Yoga is the main process. The Tantra seeks to weave it into every detail of life, give a different meaning to each of man's activities by making all of them means for the effectuation and expression of the inner yoga of progression from the human into the divine."

By weaving the awareness of yoga into every detail of life, anyone can heighten his or her experience of life. By applying the spiritual viewpoint to all mundane activities, the inner yoga, or expansion of the feeling of oneness, naturally evolves from the limited human state to the exalted divine experience.

Tantric practices are designed to enhance the interplay between the contracted human state and the expanded state of universal consciousness. They help us question and explore our dual experience as the knower and the known, the enjoyer and the enjoyment.

Shakti: The Universal Energy of the Mother

The Tantrics advocated the return to power of the female principle known as Shakti, which is universal energy. In tandem to the male principle, which represents being and unlimited potential, the female principle represents action and creation. Shakti is the force that manifests, maintains and reabsorbs everything in the universe.

Worship of Shakti as the divine Mother was deeply seated in the Neolithic villages and overshadowed by the Vedic patriarchal culture. Tantra not only lent respectablility to the feminine cosmic principle, but also invited women to fully embrace it, perform the practices and rituals, and become gurus, or living examples of Tantric adepts.

The Guru: Initiation and Guidance

Tantra is clear on how the teachings, practices and rituals are passed from one to another: only through a highly attained master, or guru. The Kularnava Tantra says, "Only the liberated can liberate; only the proficient in knowledge can uplift the foolish."

In Tantra, the guru, meaning a teacher who brings the student from darkness (gu) to light (ru), must have the ability to provide a spiritual experience to a student who is open and ready. Technically, this power is passed from a guru to a disciple who can develop the power and either sit in this power, or also become a guru who passes it on, through the generations. Yet, Tantra also accepts the idea of individuals who naturally have great spiritual attainment, known as avadhuts, or great beings.

Tantra requires initiation, or diksha. Initiation from a master enlivens the kundalini, the spiritual potential within each human being. This "awakening" of the spiritual energy is known as Shaktipat.

Swami Shankarananda is a contemporary meditation master empowered to initiate students through Shaktipat, or spiritual awakening. He says, "Many people who receive the awakening go deep within. Every meditator will awaken in some way. It may not be dramatic, but it will be real. People feel energy running through them, others waves of love or deep peace. Two of the most useful forms of awakening are the awakening of true understanding and the awakening of the ability to act strongly in life. Once the kundalini awakes, our whole experience of life is revolutionised in the most beneficent direction."

Sadhana: The Student Does the Work

For all its many esoteric and intricate practices, the path of Tantra actually is straightforward and practical. It requires conscious effort, known as sadhana, or spiritual practice. Most important is concentrated focus, or awareness of every aspect of daily life, every thought, word and deed.

Specific techniques are as varied as the many teachers and groups of Tantric practitioners. They embrace the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, always with the goal being union of the individual inner self with the expanded consciousness of the universe.

Kundalini and the Chakras

Today, we've gotten used to seeing depictions of a seated yogi illustrated with the coloured lotuses of the chakras, or subtle energy centres of the body. Although these centres are discussed in the Upanishads, ancient texts of early India, it was Tantra that emphasised the yogic process of opening the subtle energy channels to maintain states of superconsciousness.

In his groundbreaking 1918 book, The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga, Sir John Woodroffe, says, "In kundalini yoga, enjoyment and powers may be had at each of the centres to which the central power is brought and by continuance of the practice upward the enjoyment which is liberation may be had."

The process starts with the same physical asanas (postures) taught in thousands of yoga classes around the world. He says, "By the lower processes of hatha yoga it is sought to attain a perfect physical body, which will also be a wholly fit instrument by which the mind may function. A perfect mind again approaches and in samadhi (exalted state) passes into, pure consciousness itself."

In this Tantric teaching, he says, the awakened supreme power, or shakti, moves upward through subtle energy centres to the crown of the head, the chakra known as the sahasrara. The result is the practicing yogi experiences the expanded state of oneness, or union of the individual with the universal.

Meditation: Power Over the Mind

The principle method of Tantra Yoga is meditation. This is the practice of exploring all of the workings and manifestations of the mind, the fluctuations, fantasies, compulsions and tendencies that engage us in everyday life. While acknowledging the value of the mind, the meditator goes beyond the continual rise and fall of thoughts to the turiya state of consciousness.

The turiya, or fourth state of consciousness, beyond the waking, dream and deep-sleep states, is a place or experience of unagitated serenity, contentment and well-being. It is the seat of the union of the male principle of being-ness and the female principle of spiritual energy. It also is the union of the individual mind merging with expanded universal consciousness.

Through extended practice of meditation, the yoga student, or sadhaka, becomes steady in the experience of this state of consciousness and can live in this higher state while carrying on mundane activities. This is the Tantric state of experiencing divinity in everyday life.

Mantra: The Secret Words

Early Tantric masters recognised the value of the ancient Vedic practices of reciting mantras. Repeating a mantra aloud or silently serves two purposes. It helps to focus the mind, building up the ability to disregard thoughts and sit in a meditative state. These ancient Sanskrit words and phrases also serve to help the practitioner identify with their meaning.

The Kularnava Tantra promotes hamsa as "the great mantra". Among other things, ha stands for the male principle and sa represents the female principle, or shakti. The text says, "All this creation, mobile and immobile, is textured by this great mantra; it is inseparable from the mantra like air from the fan. Like sprout in the seed, oil in the sesame, heat in the fire, light in the sun, moonlight in the moon, fire in the wood, fragrance in the flower, moisture in the water."

The mantra, then, serves the dual purpose of clearing the mind of mundane thought and filling it with identification with divine energy, which is inseparable from the human experience.

Yantras and Mandalas: Symbols of the Universal

Tantra also uses visual symbols, such as yantras, which are linear depictions of the cosmos, and mandalas, circles. These specifically prescribed illustrations are usually a series of circles, lotus petals, triangles and squares surrounding the centre, or  bindu. Upward-pointing triangles represent the male principle and downward-pointing triangles represent the female principle. The convergence at the centre is the creative integration of the universe.

Mircea Eliade was an early twentieth-century scholar who made significant contributions to bringing yoga philosophy to the West. He says, "The mandala ‘concentrates', it makes the meditating yogin invulnerable to external stimuli; the analogy with the labyrinth that safeguards against evil spirits or enemies is easy to see."

As the practice of mantra relies on sound, the practice of concentrating on a yantra relies on sight. Both are designed to focus the mind to bring the practitioner to a higher state of consciousness.

Tantric Rituals: Calling Forth the Spiritual

Tantric rituals are exciting and powerful. Here is where Tantra gets in the most trouble, as Tantric rituals throughout the ages ranged from the benign, as in blessing a newborn, to the bizarre, such as drinking wine (and other things, such as blood) from a human skull. Their purpose also varies, from invoking spiritual energy to defying convention by claiming "nothing is not sacred". When Tantric ritual becomes wild, it diverts from its higher purpose of transcending the mundane. When used for benevolence, it is meditative, energised and emotionally moving.

All Tantric rituals start with creating the correct environment by cleaning the space, cleaning the mind and cleaning the spirit. The Kularnava Tantra says, "Purification of oneself is both outer and inner; the outer by bath and the inner by pranayama (breathing exercises) and nyasa (projecting divine qualities by touching various areas of the body) and other prescribed methods. The place of worship is sanctified by cleaning, wiping, anointing into a shine of the mirror, decoration with flowers, incense, camphor, lights and colours."

In general, spiritual rituals require awareness or being deliberate in actions. They are designed to focus the mind and expand an individual's state of consciousness. In this way, they facilitate a direct, immediate experience that the individual and the universal are one. The idea is to become progressively more interiorised. As the ritual proceeds, the practitioners becomes less dependent on the external ritual and penetrate deeper into the direct experience of consciousness.

The individuals performing the ritual recite mantras to become an open vehicle for the spiritual energy to manifest. They may perform certain actions, such as waving lights, offering ghee to a fire, throwing flower petals, or passing foods from one to another. All participants contemplate the meaning of the ritual by drawing on their own spiritual energy and expanding the uplifting feeling into each other.

Continually Evolving

Today, as in its beginnings, Tantra yoga integrates high metaphysical ideas with popular beliefs and practices. Other Tantric techniques include mudras (hand gestures); practices of bhakti (devotion); studying Tantric literature; working with subtle energies; developing personal powers, such as becoming an expert at certain skills; and a wide variety of yoga exercises from internal cleansing and working with the breath to advanced postures held for meditation.

As its popularity spreads, many of its commercial values, such as the ideas of chakras, subtle energy channels, mantras and visual images will reveal their true purpose beneath. All true Tantric practices open the human experience at any moment to embrace and become the all-pervasive, eternal, gentle power of the divine.

Kali caption: Revered in some Tantric practices, the Goddess Kali represents dynamic energy. Rather than bizarre trophies, her garland of skulls actually represents the power of eternal universal consciousness over temporal human life and the promise of transcendence.

Yantra caption: Illustrating the energies of the universe, the shri-yantra draws forth good fortune. Nine triangles representing the male and female cosmic energies are surrounded by two layers of lotuses, symbolising the all-pervading universe and attaining desires, such as power over the mind and senses.

For Further Reading:

• Avalon, Arthur (Sir John Woodroffe), Kularnava Tantra, Motilal Benarsidass, Delhi, 2000.
• Avalon, Arthur (Sir John Woodroffe), The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga, Dover Publications, New York, 1974.
• Eliade, Mircea, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1990.
• Feuerstein, Georg, Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy, Shabala, Boston, 1998.
• Mukatananda, Swami, From the Finite to the Infinite, SYDA Foundation, South Fallsburg, New York, 1994.
• Shakarananda, Swami, Carrot in My Ear, Shaktipat Press, Mt Eliza, Victoria, 2004.
• Urban, Hugh B. Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2003

© Copyright 2005 Nancy Jackson (Swami Dayananda)