Tantra Made Easy

1. Tantra: A path to wholeness and sacred sexuality

Tantra is about merging. It is about uniting. It is about making love.

Unifying opposites. Tantra is a spiritual path that seeks to weave together all aspects of life, particularly those that seem opposed. It aims to heal the splits we experience internally and externally, such as between sexuality and spirituality, masculine and feminine, or light and dark.

Sacred sexuality. Unlike many spiritual traditions that view sexuality as separate from or opposed to spirituality, Tantra embraces sexuality as a potential path to the divine. It teaches techniques to transform sexual energy into a vehicle for spiritual awakening and higher states of consciousness.

Holistic approach. Tantra is not just about sex, but encompasses all of life. It includes practices for:

• Opening the heart
• Healing past traumas
• Awakening energy in the body
• Cultivating presence and awareness
• Developing conscious relationships

2. The heart as the foundation of Tantric practice

An open heart is the essential requirement for union to occur and for this reason Tantra is often described as the 'path of love' or 'the way of the heart'.

Self-love and healing. Opening the heart is the first step in Tantric practice. This involves developing self-love, compassion for one's wounds, and the ability to transform pain into love. Practices like Atisha's Heart Meditation can help cultivate this openness.

Creating safety. An open heart creates a space that feels safe for deeper exploration and healing. When we feel loved and accepted, we naturally begin to open up and heal. This safety is essential for exploring more advanced Tantric practices.

Connecting sex and spirit. The heart acts as a bridge between sexuality and spirituality. By opening the heart, we create the possibility for sexual energy to be transformed into spiritual experience, and for spiritual awareness to infuse our sexuality with deeper meaning and connection.

3. Healing sexual conditioning and awakening energy

Tantra transforms your sexual conditioning back into your sexual nature.

Addressing shame and guilt. Many people carry negative conditioning around sexuality, leading to shame, guilt, and disconnection from their natural sexual energy. Tantric practices aim to heal this conditioning through awareness, acceptance, and gentle exploration.

Awakening life force energy. Sexual energy is seen as a fundamental life force that, when awakened and channeled properly, can enhance vitality, creativity, and spiritual growth. Practices to awaken this energy include:

• Sound and movement
• Breathwork
• Working with the elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether)
• Chakra activation

Balancing masculine and feminine. Tantra teaches that we all contain both masculine (Shiva) and feminine (Shakti) energies. Awakening and balancing these energies within ourselves leads to greater wholeness and harmony in our relationships and lives.

4. Cultivating full-body orgasm through meditation

Meditation is the foundation of full-body orgasm. This is because presence is the space that holds the energy.

Beyond genital orgasm. Tantric practices aim to expand orgasmic experience beyond the genitals to involve the entire body. This involves learning to circulate sexual energy throughout the body rather than releasing it quickly.

Meditation as a foundation. Cultivating presence and awareness through meditation is essential for experiencing full-body orgasm. This allows practitioners to stay conscious and present with intense sensations and energy, rather than getting lost in them.

Self-pleasuring as practice. Tantric self-pleasuring practices, done as a form of meditation, are a powerful way to learn to work with sexual energy. These practices involve:

• Creating sacred space
• Moving energy through breath and intention
• Staying present with sensations without rushing to climax
• Circulating energy through the body

5. Conscious relationships as a vehicle for awakening

Relationship is about commitment. But not about committing to each other's personalities, nor about making a promise to feel the same way forever, happily ever after. These commitments would be impossible to keep in the long term and one would have to violate the Higher Truth to keep them. Rather, it is about commitment to love itself.

Choosing love over ego. Conscious relationships involve a commitment to love itself, rather than to specific outcomes or expectations. This means choosing to act from love even in challenging moments, rather than from ego defenses or fears.

Tools for conscious relating. Tantric relationships employ various tools to maintain connection and work through challenges:

• Setting clear intentions for the relationship
• Practicing deep listening and conscious communication
• Using energy practices to move through stuck emotions
• Creating regular sacred space for intimacy

Personal growth through relationship. Relationships are seen as a powerful vehicle for personal and spiritual growth. By committing to love and consciousness within relationship, partners support each other's awakening and healing.

6. Embracing polarity to attain unity in relationships

Opposites attract and awaken each other.

Polarity as creative tension. Tantra teaches that the interplay of opposites, particularly masculine and feminine energies, creates a dynamic tension that can lead to growth, passion, and ultimately, union. This applies both within individuals and between partners.

Playing with polarities. Tantric practices often involve consciously embodying and playing with different polarities. This might involve:

• One partner dancing (feminine) while the other witnesses (masculine)
• Exchanging giving and receiving touch or energy
• Exploring different sexual dynamics (e.g., active/receptive, dominant/submissive)

Unity through embracing difference. By fully embracing and expressing these polarities, partners can paradoxically experience a deeper sense of unity and oneness. The goal is not to erase differences, but to use them as a pathway to experiencing underlying unity.

7. Sublimating sexual energy for spiritual growth

From sex to superconsciousness.

Raising energy. Sublimation in Tantra involves learning to raise sexual energy up through the body, rather than quickly releasing it. This is seen as a way to access higher states of consciousness and spiritual experiences.

Healing and transformation. As sexual energy is raised and circulated, it's believed to have a purifying and healing effect on the body and psyche. This can help release old traumas, limitations, and negative patterns.

Practices for sublimation:

• Breathwork and energy circulation techniques
• Delaying or avoiding ejaculation/orgasm
• Tantric meditation practices
• Conscious lovemaking with a focus on energy exchange

8. Transfiguration: Seeing the divine in everything

To honour everything as sacred, is to treat everything like a ray of that one divine sun. Through loving one another we can remember who we are.

Shifting perception. Transfiguration involves learning to see the divine essence in all things and beings. This is both a practice and an ultimate goal of Tantra.

From judgement to love. By choosing to see beyond surface appearances and behaviors to the underlying divine nature, practitioners move from judgement to love and acceptance. This applies to oneself, one's partner, and all of life.

Practices for transfiguration:

• Eye-gazing meditation with a partner
• Conscious intention to see divinity in daily life
• Devotional practices towards deities or nature
• Cultivating gratitude and wonder

Last updated: August 9, 2024