Topics: Sexuality : Tantra
Bookmark or ShareMost westerners use the word "Tantra" to cover sacredand enhanced sexuality. Tantra, as practised in the West,referred to as "neo-Tantra", borrows from manytraditions including Taoism, Hindu Tantra, NativeAmerican Quodoshka, African, Polynesian, Wiccan,Christian Gnosticism, etc. Real "Tantra" is a rigorousspiritual discipline and vast field of study -- the sexualaspect is a small but important part of it. Mysticalexperiences and altered states of consciousness resultfrom many of the processes, especially the ones dealingwith sexual energy. Tantricks use the principle of the ritual sublimation ofnatural impulses to attain altered states of consciousness.Tantrik adepts are trained to direct all their energiestoward the conquest of the Eternal. The ritualsatisfaction of lust and the consumption of consecrated meat or liquor areesoterically significant means of realizing the unity of flesh and spirit, of thehuman and the divine. They are not considered sinful acts but, on the contrary,effective means of salvation. Ritual copulation is, for both partners, a form ofsacralization, tke act being a participation in cosmic and divine processes. Theexperience of transcending space and time, of surpassing the phenomenal dualityof spirit and matter, of recovering the primeval unity, the realization of the identityof God and his Sakti, and of the manifested and unmanifested aspects of the All,these constitute the very mystery of the Tantra. -The Church of Tantra