Tantra Made Easy

Auteur
Shashi Solluna is an internationally recognized teacher of the sacred sexuality practices of world Tantric philosophies. After gaining a degree in experimental psychology at Oxford University, she undertook a spiritual quest to India. Now she weaves together the wisdom from the Taoist lineage for the international organization Universal Healing Tao, the Osho Rajneesh lineage of Neo Tantra and the Agama Classical Tantra Tradition.

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An introductory guide to the sacred sexuality practices of Tantra and how you can weave them together to create wholeness in your life. Learn the philosophy of Tantra as a spiritual path; how to activate your sexual energy and experience a richer, more fulfulling sex life; and techniques to open your heart and cultivate sacred relationships.

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Introduction

*'The Tantric way is open to all the richness of human nature, which it accepts without a single restriction.' --*DANIEL ODIER

Tantra is often defined as 'to weave', and can be compared to weaving fabric. Tantra is therefore a path that weaves together. But what exactly is it that is being woven and why?

We experience a lot of pain when we feel a split in our lives. Whenever we feel torn two ways we feel an inner conflict, and it can also manifest as outer conflict too. Often we don't even realize that our challenges in life are due to this underlying split. For example, we may think and say that we want a relationship, but inside we fear commitment and can't understand why we aren't attracting a stable relationship. Or maybe you know you are torn, and suffer: part of you wants a stable job and structure, and another part wants to travel free.

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

Tantra is about uniting all that has become split apart creating wholeness, healing and totality so at last your life can flow with ease and with a sense of 'choicelessness'. There is one way, one truth. Life becomes a river that you can flow along with, rather than a complex planning strategy, a confusing chaos or a painful battlefield.

One of the big places in which our lives can be divided is between everyday life and spiritual reality. In the metaphysics of Tantra, however, the world can be understood to have two dimensions: horizontal and vertical.

The horizontal dimension is the world we see around us: our friends, family, relationships and experiences. The objects we handle on a daily basis, the physical location where we live, and so on. For most people this is reality.

The vertical dimension is the pole that runs between heaven and earth and is, in general, much less familiar. This aspect of reality highlights that we can, at times, experience a very physical solid reality bodies, objects, etc. but at other times we experience a much less tangible universe thoughts, emotions, energies and even states of consciousness. Think of a time you felt extreme joy or ecstasy and felt as though you were being lifted into the skies this is the lift upwards in the vertical reality.

Tantra 101

Horizontal reality: The life around you your relationships, your surroundings and your experiences.
Vertical reality: Life between the solid physical level of awareness and higher states of expanded consciousness.

Ultimately, Tantra points us to the highest level of consciousness in which we merge into what is often called 'oneness', in which we no longer feel like a separate physical entity. This is sometimes called 'heaven', as opposed to the more tangible experience of 'earth' (physical reality). In Tantra, orgasm is one of the key ways to move from a physical solid experience of reality into the lighter more ethereal experience. In other words, orgasm can take us from earth to heaven.

However Tantra also invites us onto the path of creativity, in which we bring the heavenly vibrations back down into this earthly experience. A lot of music, poetry and dance are examples of this. In Tantra you can also channel the divine into your touch, and give healing or loving to another person through your body. So Tantra invites us to move from sex to spirit and from spirit to sex as a creative dance of life.

Now this can be quite startling, if you were raised with any conventional religion, as most of the world's religions give the message that sexuality is a non-spiritual phenomenon, or even anti-spiritual; at best used to create babies and at worst a vehicle to take you to damnation and hell. Tantra does not teach that all sexual experiences take you to higher consciousness, but it does give step-by-step guidance to help put you on the path to sacred sexuality.

This metaphysical theory also explains why Tantra is so often the 'black sheep' of spiritual systems. On many spiritual and religious paths we are faced with a choice: sexuality OR spirituality. Tantra gives a different invitation: choose sexuality AND spirituality, and bring the two together to create a wholeness and completion within your life. This is the weaving of Tantra.
So Tantra is a path that unites apparent opposites into totality or oneness, including:

• Sexuality with spirituality
  
  • Masculine with feminine
  • Playfulness with depth
  • Dark, shadowy parts of ourselves with the light of conscious awareness
  • Relaxation with stimulation
  • Meditation with experience

In fact the list is inexhaustible, as Tantra invites any apparently separate aspects of life to be brought together in union.

The catalyst for this union is love.

The path of worshipping the Divine Feminine

As you enter the world of Tantra, you will find a balance and union of opposites. Yet, in spite of this, some definitions of Tantra are actually about honouring the feminine aspect. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, author of Tantra Unveiled, was the son of a practising Tantric in India. When he asked his father what Tantra was, he usually received this reply, 'Tantra means worshipping the Divine Mother. Tantrics are her blessed children. Whatever they have is by the grace of the Divine Mother.'

Does this mean that Tantra has a female deity in place of the usual masculine God? It is not so simple, although there are Tantric lineages that make rituals to feminine deities, and the famous Mahavidyas the 10 goddesses of Adi Parashakti in Hinduism, often worshipped in classical Tantric practice.

However, Tantra is not about replacing the idea of a man on a cloud with a long white beard with a woman on a cloud with long flowing hair! In fact, once you start delving into Tantra, you'll discover that it has a unique way of honouring the energy of life, and finding the divine within it. This energy is Shakti and its divine vibration within each human is called 'Kundalini Shakti'.

Tantra 101

Sexual energy is generally referred to as Shakti, though this term can be very broad and include anything that is part of life! There is a specific Shakti of each element: a water Shakti, a fire Shakti and so on.

Kundalini Shakti, or just kundalini, is a more specific term to refer to the stream of creative life force that runs through each individual. It may be dormant, but once awakened it brings an animation to a person that might be called spirited. If we say a person has a lot of spirit, we may be seeing their kundalini. It is so alive that it is often described as an 'intelligence'. Some see this energy as the Goddess, though it can also animate a man's body so this can be confusing. One way or another, it is seen as a living manifestation of God or Consciousness.

So rather than looking for the divine beyond life, we look within life within energy. When you walk in lush nature you may feel this divine presence, as many people feel interconnected to all that is when they are in …