Home > Article Index > Tantra > Introduction to Tantra
Introduction to Tantra
Tantra is the ancient science of liberating energy in order to expand consciousness.
Tantra and yoga are intimately related. Many yogic techniques are used as part of tantric practice and ritual. Both yoga and tantra share the common goal of union with higher Self.
Tantra Practices and Techniques
Tantra encompasses a vast array of practices and techniques. What most people call yoga today, is classically a part of tantra practice. Tantra is any process that releases energy to awaken consciousness. Mastering yogic discipline, including posture, breath, concentration and meditation techniques, are pre-requisite to successful yoga-tantra practice.
Yoga-tantra practices begin with simple techniques that balance and strengthen the body, nervous system and mind, and enable us to attain health and mental strength. More advanced practices are used to link us to higher forces and consciousness.
Tantra practices include a vast range of techniques which give each individual spiritual illumination by any means that is suitable and available. There are practices to suit all types of people, combined with the highest concepts that were realized by tantric sages in deep states of meditation.
The techniques of tantra are diverse and include asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, mantra, yantra, purification of the subtle channels of the body (nadis), elemental meditations (tattwa shuddhi), meditations on prana and kundalini, and kriya yoga. The best known tantra practices of today are yoga nidra and chakra meditations.
Common Threads of Tantra Practice
- Body posture – asana
- Breath control – pranayama
- Sound vibration – mantra
- Image or symbol – yantra
- Hand, tongue, eye and body positions - mudra
- Empowering and protecting the body – nyasa
- Ritual
Three Essential Stages of Tantra Practice
-
The first stage of tantra practice is purification. We prepare our bodies and minds to meet with and relate to powerful, higher forces. These forces have to be handled with great care and respect.
-
The second stage is our actual connection to higher forces.
-
The third stage is our identification with higher forces, and ultimately, our integration with the highest consciousness beyond all.
Tantric Ritual
Tantric ritual is an integral part of all tantric practice. Ritual is part of both the external and the internal paths of Tantra.
Tantra has two main aspects: theory and practice. Tantric theory teaches us the philosophy at the base of tantra. Tantric practice describes the techniques of tantra and how to use them to attain experience.
Tantric ritual combines theory and practice to link us to luminous subtle forces that sustain our being and our lives.
Ritual - The Heart of Tantra
Ritual is at the heart of tantra. Tantric ritual is the map and the path through the maze of existence. It is psychic technology for the transformation of individual consciousness. Tantric ritual leads the practitioner from mundane states of existence to exalted states of experience and realization. Ritual is participation in cosmic cycles, a method of hooking into the vast power that lies at the core of our microcosmic and macrocosmic being.
Everyday Rituals to Expand Awareness
All daily acts of living can be a form of ritual, from brushing our teeth, to making breakfast, to weddings, funerals, and all formal occasions. However, we rarely make these rituals methods to expand awareness. Tantra on the other hand creates sacred ritual in order to transform our lives and liberate our awareness.
Tantric ritual acts simultaneously on the outer and the inner world. The aim is to understand and control the forces of Nature.
Two Main Forms of Tantric Ritual
Tantric ritual has two main forms, internal sadhana to awaken higher consciousness and outer worship (called Puja). These forms can both be theistic (worship of a deity - monotheistic - or worship of a number of deities - polytheistic) or atheistic (worship of Self), or they can be a combination of theistic and atheistic.
Internal yoga-tantra practices - rely on yogic techniques and methods. This process uses postures, breathing and meditations, including mantra and symbols, to unify body and mind, consciousness and energy, and to awaken and master the subtle elements of our being.
External tantric rituals - utilize hatha yoga in the form of postures and breathing techniques, hand and eye gestures (mudras), mantra yoga (the use of mantra to attain union), and other practices as part of powerful rituals that often focus on a deity, a luminous higher power that can either be seen as part of us or outside of us.
The tantric practitioner may invoke a 'deity' which is a poor translation of the Sanskrit term deva, which really means a ‘shining one’. From the yoga-tantra point of view a deity is a higher part of us that is outside of our normal waking experience. The tantric chooses a form of the deity, called an 'ishta devata', which appeals to him or her. This gives the practitioner something to focus on with devotion during deep meditation practice. The process opens their heart and mind.
Tantra Philosophy - Knowledge of Liberation
The greatness of tantra philosophy is its teachings of liberation.
The word Tantra is derived from the Sanskrit roots ‘tan’, which means extension, expansion, stretching and ‘tra’, which means to liberate, to release, to emancipate, to make free.
Therefore tantra is ‘that which spreads and saves’. This means that tantra is the path that liberates energy in order to expand consciousness and saves us from the bondage of our limited awareness.
Tantra covers a vast range of philosophical thought and practices. It is used in many diverse traditions, including Yoga-Tantra, Shaivism, Shaktism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The terms Yoga and Tantra can often be used interchangeably. We can call the path that utilizes yogic techniques to liberate energy to attain conscious union with the highest Self yoga-tantra.
Tantra and Yoga
Tantra and yoga share the aim of expansion of human consciousness by liberating the dormant, potential power contained within the human frame, called kundalini. Propitiating and activating this energy fuels the expansion of consciousness.
At the core of tantra philosophy is the concept that all of life can be used as a path to attain higher awareness. Tantra philosophy does not accept religious, cultural, tribal or national inhibitions. Every act in life is a spiritual or sacred act to the tantric practitioner. In this way tantra helps us to purify our personality and our deeply rooted complexes.
However, tantra is not an excuse for indulgence and excess. It is a method that is best used to correct our behavior, and rehabilitate our body-mind; to align with the higher, creative forces that lead to greater compassion and selflessness. Indulging in excess, especially when done with purely selfish motive, usually leads away from these higher forces.
Tantra philosophy teaches integration of head and heart. The faculties of the intellect are discrimination and concentration, and those of the heart are love and compassion. The heart is the passionate center that fuels the journey to attain true knowledge. There is no path without a heart and the infinite space within the heart is also the goal.
About the Author(s):
In 2004, Dr Swami Shankardev and Jayne Stevenson decided to pool their talents to create Big Shakti. They co-create various seminars and workshops, which Swami Shankardev presents throughout Australia, USA, Europe and India.
More...
|