Tantra Yoga is an updated version of ancient Vedic spiritual practices. Tantrics created innovative and unorthodox methods to allow one to experience reality, the oneness of all creation. Tantra focuses on the body rather than expanding one’s awareness and focusing it outwards. Yoga techniques concentrate on renunciation and conscious effort to detach themselves from the suffering experienced in the body. Tantra discovered that the body’s inner world is a source of joy and awareness. It is crucial to understand the goals and techniques of Tantra as Hatha Yoga was derived from this system. Tantra also provides context for modern yoga practices.

What is Tantra Yoga

Tantra’s meaning has evolved as it is used in various yogic texts. Tantra originally meant “weave, loom” and was later used to describe “technique, device, or method.” A more recent and relevant definition is from the Kamika tantra text.

Tantra is an ancient form of yoga that combines many techniques to cultivate and increase kundalini energies. The kundalini is then encouraged to move up the nadis, chakras, and eventually to the crown chakra to create samadhi.

Tantra Yoga Techniques

Tantra yoga’s energetic focus is derived from the worshiping of Shiva and Shakti, the dynamic and static principles that govern the universe. The play of Shakti’s (emotional, creative, and feminine) energy with Shiva’s (static, destructive, and masculine) is seen as an ongoing manifestation of their energies.

Tantra Yoga focuses on the purification and cultivation of prana and the activation of kundalini. Energy is developed through asanas, pranayamas, mudras, and shakti. The Tantra yogis created the most common Hatha Yoga postures and breathing techniques. Mudras are hand gestures that combine asana, bandha, and pranayama. Shatkarma, also known as kriya (esoteric techniques and exercises), is a purification technique that cleanses the energy channels and the body.

Devotional practices such as mantras, yantras, and pujas are used to develop the spiritual body. Sanskrit Mantras represent manifestations of divine power. Yantras are sacred geometric shapes used in Tantric rituals for visualization and concentration. Puja involves active devotional worshiping a deity by offering food, incense, water, gems, and light.

Tantra Yoga and Sex

Tantra yoga, a sexual-spiritual practice that deepens intimacy and connection, was introduced to Westerners in the 19th century. Tantra was popularized by the interest in Eastern spirituality and the sexual revolutions during the 1960s and 1970s. Tantra is a sacred sexuality technique related to tantric teachings about the subtle energy body and embodied presence in sexual union. To simplify and conflate interpersonal intimacy and sexual scenarios with tantra practice is to distort this elaborate system of enlightenment.

Tantra: The Goal of Tantra

Tantra Yogis’ emphasis on personal experience and experimentation led to radical techniques for cleansing the body and mind to break the knots that bind us to physical existence. Tantra schools like the “Left Hand,” famous for using illegal practices such as consuming alcohol, sex, and meat, were powerful transformational tools. Tantra Yoga is a vast array of techniques that focuses on using the body as a sacred temple for worshiping the all-encompassing unity of life.

Tantra allows the practitioner to experience the Divine directly and taste the unity of the universe. Tantra is a collection of yogic practices that can bring you into ecstasy.