From www.sex-info.info

To some, Tantra is a free-love cult, a survival of the psychedelic sixties; to others, it's New Age spiritual sex therapy, part of the California lifestyle, and a slice of 1990's pop culture. Recently popularized by the mass media, the art of Tantra is receiving increased attention and research. Believed to date back 5,000 years, Tantric sex is an ancient Eastern spiritual practice. Like yoga or Zen, it is practiced for the purpose of enlightenment - and the philosophy transcends the bedroom into all aspects of life. Tantra teaches that lovemaking, when entered into with awareness, is a gateway to both sexual and spiritual ecstasy.

In the Tantric view, sex and orgasm equal spiritual awareness at its peak. When Shiva, male energy, and Shakti, female energy, come into a sexual union, it is believed to be the highest point of enlightenment.. Tantric sex is a deeply spiritual, meditative, spontaneous and intimate form of lovemaking. Tantra is said to teach participants how to prolong the act of making love through channeling, rather than dissipating, potent orgasmic energies. These channeled energies flow throughout the body, thereby raising the level of sexual consciousness. There is no goal in Tantric sex; the participant aims only to increase bodily awareness and be spiritually present in a perfect and harmonious union with their partner.

Sexual Preference and Tantra

The art of Tantra teaches followers to revere their sexual partners and to transform the act of sex into a sacrament of love. Tantra places no moral judgment on sexual preferences. In Tantra, the focus is not on with whom you do it but, rather, on how you do it. Hence, Tantra can be practiced by anyone who is attracted to this path. Tantrikas People who practice Tantra are called Tantrikas. They view sexual energy as a divine, all-encompassing life force that sleeps within the individual, permeates the universe, and affects everything we do from birth to death. As sexual beings, we have the ability to raise that energy within ourselves and use it to directly experience alternate or mystical states of consciousness. In effect, we become "gods" and "goddesses," our bodies transformed into temples of male and female divinity.

In India, traditional Tantrikas spent many years under the guidance of a spiritual teacher and engaged in elaborate yogic rituals to purify and master their bodies and minds. These practices were intended to awaken the powerful psychic energies through which the adept could enter into higher states of consciousness. Through the sacred act of love, they sought to merge the dual nature of their sexuality into an ecstatic union. Tantric Wholeness The Tantra vision is one of wholeness, of embracing everything. This is because every situation, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is an opportunity to become more aware about who you are and how you can expand your capacities. Everything that a person experiences, regardless of whether it is usually judged as good or bad, is an opportunity for learning. For instance, the situation in which you feel sexual frustration is not viewed negatively in Tantra, but as an opportunity for learning. It provides an opportunity to understand the motivations about going into sex. What does it mean to you? When have you repeated this pattern of behavior in the past? Why you are tolerating the situation? What opportunities for change are available to you? Through this questioning, a sense of how to make sex better can be developed.

Tantra and Gender Equality

Because Tantra believes in wholeness, it embraces opposites, seeing them as complements instead of contradictions. The concepts of male and female therefore are not set apart, forever divided by a gender gap, but are viewed as two polarities that meet and merge in every human being. Tantra recognizes that each human being, whether man or woman, has both masculine and feminine qualities. This means that, by discarding our gender stereotypes, we can expand our sexual identities tremendously, honoring a polarity within ourselves that has been largely ignored. In Tantra, the male can be encouraged to explore his soft, receptive, vulnerable, feminine aspects. He can slip out from beneath the weight of his male responsibilities, stop performing, and relax, taking his time in sex, making love without a specific goal, allowing himself to receive while his partner initiates.

For her part, the female can explore her masculine dimensions, recognizing that she is capable of dynamic leadership in lovemaking, taking the initiative, creating new ways of guiding, teaching, and giving herself and her partner pleasure. The male does not give up his masculinity, nor does the woman abandon her femininity. They simply expand their potential to include the other polarity. The Tantric Life Force In Tantra, when the male and female polarities merge, a new dimension becomes available -- the sense of the sacred. When the sacredness of sexual union is felt, it is possible to experience your connection to the life force itself, the source of creation. This connection lifts human consciousness beyond the physical plane into a much greater field of power and energy. Then, it is believed, the participant will feel linked, through their partner, to everything that lives and loves.

Tantra says yes to life. It is not a belief or a faith, but a way of living and acting. On this path, pleasure, vision, and ecstasy are celebrated rather than repressed. The Tantric path encompasses beauty, sensitivity, and exhilaration through eating, drinking, tasting, smelling, touching. It embraces and enhances all forms of creative expression, such as movement and dance, massage, martial arts, the fine arts, healing, and music. Through experiencing and glorifying the delights of the body, the body becomes a temple in which you experience the sacred. It becomes a doorway to spiritual evolution.

Kama Sutra

The Kama Sutra is the earliest surviving example of a Hindu love-manual. The Kama Sutra was compiled by the Indian sage Vatsyayana sometime between the second and fourth centuries (about 1600-1800 years ago). His work was based on earlier Kama Shastras, or "Rules of Love," going back to at least the seventh century, or about 2,700 years ago, and is a compendium of the social norms and love-customs of patriarchal Northern India around the time he lived. Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is valuable today for his psychological insights into the interactions and scenarios of love, and for his structured approach to the many diverse situations he describes. He defines different types of men and women, matching what he terms "equal" unions, and gives detailed descriptions of many lovemaking positions.

The Kama Sutra was written for the wealthy male city-dweller. It is not, and was never intended to be, a lover's guide for the masses, nor is it a "Tantric love-manual." About three hundred years after the Kama Sutra became popular, some of the lovemaking positions described in it were reinterpreted in a Tantric way. Since Tantra is an all-encompassing sensual science, lovemaking positions are relevant to spiritual practice. Generally, Tantras only recommend the use of only a few different love-postures during spiritual sex sessions. Five principle positions, all of which are found in the Kama Sutra, cover what is normally appropriate.

These five principle Tantric lovemaking positions (which have many variations) are:

• Man on his back, woman on top
• Woman on her back, man on top
• Woman and man on their sides, facing each other
• Woman with her back to the man
• Seated positions, normally face-to-face.

Websites and Further Reading

www.tantra.com The Art of Tantric Sex, By Nitya Lacroix

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