Tantra Defined
The study and practice of Tantra is aimed at enhancing the individual's connection to the source of the life energy and enhancing the channels through which that energy is expressed through the being and into the world.
A living being firmly connected to the source of life has the best chance at expressing the true essential nature of conscious awareness. A few of these expressions are empathy, intelligence, creativity, beauty, and compassion.
These expressions are directed through various channels relating to the various categories of behavior.
1. Our perception of our role in society, family, community, our world
2. Our sexuality, procreative, spiritual, and recreational
3. Our will expressed through embracing, enabling, observing, and manipulation
4. Love and grief
5. Communication
6. Insight, intelligence, and intuition
7. Our relationship to the divine, the unity of all the universe
It is important that the living being is firmly connected to the source of the life energy. This connection begins and proceeds from conscious awareness. The living being must be aware of that source within itself.
When the individual is acutely aware of this connection there is an immediate increase in the available energy and power derived from the source.
As the energy flows through the individual there is a distinct sense of calm, contentment, bliss, and a profound sense of well being. As this energy wells up and flows through the individual and into the conscious awareness of self and others, it becomes behavior.
In practice Tantra is the study of the life force energy as it is perceived and expressed through the human body. The concepts of Tantra are actually very easy to understand, the fact that many find it very difficult to define it is an artifact of our social programming and conditioning.
In the practice and study of Tantra the life energies are acknowledged to a great extent. While our culture has externalized these energies and called them "God", Tantra teaches that the source of these energies are within us and we express them in our behavior, language, creativity, thought, even appearance.
In Tantric practice the life energies are acknowledged as they are expressed from their source within the individual and through the energy channels (often called Chakras). These channels are the paths through which the energy expresses spirituality and intelligence, intuition and insight, communication, love, will, sexuality, and self esteem.
These channels are universally experiential to human expression, many poetic verses have been written about heartfelt gratitude, grief, and love, the "gut feelings" of will and frustration, and the localization of sexual sensations. These are just a few examples of these channels and their relationship to sensation and expression.
There are three possible reasons that discourage the understanding of what Tantra really is. These errors are:
1. Defining Tantra through Hindu terminology.
2. "Americanizing" Tantra.
3. "Sexualizing" Tantra.
The reason the first is confusing is that no one growing up in our culture can understand the deepest meaning of the Hindu. We inevitably interpret the Hindu concepts from a Western Christian perspective. Further confounding the issue is that this Western Christian perspective, whether "Protestant" or not, is highly influenced by the hypocrisy, suppression, and exploitation of the Catholic Church over the span of the last 500 years. Even though the Catholic Church often recognizes and "atones" for their mistakes, such as the execution and later canonization of a number of saints, they continue to promulgate the errors in the present. For example, even though hundreds of priests have ben found to be quite less than "celibate", the church does not change the celibacy requirement for priests as the Episcopal Church has. We do not read about Episcopal priests being charged for the sexual exploitation that the Catholic priests have admitted.
Some of us think we can define Shiva, Shakti, and Kundalini, concepts that are at the root of the Hindu philosophy. However, if 100 of these people that claim to understand these deities and energies were interviewed, each would provide a different definition. Often these definitions, again, would be expressed through filters of conditioning under the influence of the Western "god in heaven blessing and cursing us for our good and bad behavior" paradigm.
Even the simple Buddhist concepts such as karma, emptiness, attachment, and mindfulness are universally interpreted through this paradigm as well. The fact is that we are programmed, conditioned, and brainwashed by the cultural paradigm that God is outside of us, with everything that we think will make us happy.
Once one starts on the Hindu path the understandings of more subtle concepts such as Nadanta, Samhara, and Udana create even further confusion and challenges.
The reason the second error is confusing is that Americans, for example, do not even consider the basic energies of Tantra to be elements of our universe.
If asked, Americans might be able to rattle off the four elements of their universe (earth, air, fire, and water), unless they watched the movie, "The Fifth Element" four or five times and understood the role Mila Jovovich played in the film. Even so, the importance of this element is hardly understood.
The elemental energies of the life force are very mystical and magical, and the dissociation of them from our cultural understandings is perhaps the worst tragedy to befall us in history. However, the Americanization of Tantra is not the answer.
The third "error" creates a misunderstanding around Tantra that makes it less universally understood. Discussing Tantra in relationship to orgasm, controlling bodily responses, stimulation of erotic zones, sacred sexuality, sexual "healing", even our perceptions of sexuality, does little to help the naive individual comprehend the wealth of insight in the world of Tantra.
The approach that makes the most sense is defining Tantra free of the Hindu religion and philosophy, free of the Hindu terminology, free of the sexual focus, and free of the attempts to "Americanize" it..
As such, to reiterate, Tantra is the practice and study of the life force energy as it is perceived and expressed through the human body, both individually and as experienced with others.
The first step toward a Tantric lifestyle is to become acutely aware of that life force, energetically, sensually, and cognitively.
The second step in a Tantric lifestyle is to open, develop, and integrate those channels through which the life energies manifest as behavior, creativity, thought, language, even appearance.