What is Tantra

In popular culture, Tantra is often associated with marathon sessions of love-making in a variety of different positions, the Kama Sutra, or just another way to spice up your love life.

The reality is Tantra is so much more than that. Tantra is a pathway, not just to sexual ecstasy, but to personal healing and fulfillment.

What is Tantra?

Tantra (meaning “woven together” or “connecting with inner self”) relates to the Hindu philosophy that encompasses all levels of perception including spirituality, science, biology, anatomy, meditation, medicine, art, music, nutrition and sexuality. 

Some Tantra schools focus on teaching the sexual unification of the divine feminine and masculine energies within individuals, and also within interpersonal relations. In practice this has led to the development of several forms of sexual rituals that create an intense unifying energy that leads us to experience oneness, spiritual ecstasy and conscious connection with our partners, as well as to the universal life force.

 Is it about sex or something more?

Tantric sex is about devotional and erotic love, basically sex and spirit and how you can integrate spiritualty into your sex life. Many people short-change themselves when they focus on sexual goals; tantric sex is about pleasure, communication and connection. One of the first practices you might try, for example, is ‘soul gazing’ — simply finding a quiet space and sitting face to face with your partner, looking into each other’s eyes. It is such a simple, yet beautiful way to connect with another person.

Tantric sex also takes us on an inner journey that lasts a lifetime as we learn to access within us sensations of intense pleasure, and an incredible range of beautiful emotions. It reveals an inner place of deep knowing. 

Tantric sex is also used as a form of sexual healing. Many people carry old wounds that prevent them from opening to the sacred, enjoying their bodies and expressing their sexuality.

Essentially, Tantric healing can be defined as releasing emotional wounds or armouring that manifests past traumatic experiences into the physical realm, where they are stored in the muscle tissue of the body including the genitals. The physical symptoms can include vaginal pain during intercourse, inability to orgasm, numbness, premature ejaculation, inability to ejaculate, dry vagina, burning sensations, weak or loss of erection, cramping and loss of libido. 

This armouring needs to be dissolved so that our bodies can release tension and function properly — and so we can be free of old memories that create unhealthy beliefs that steer our lives in directions we may not necessarily want to go, causing us to limit our full range of sexual and spiritual experience.

A lot of people are so used to this armouring that they are not even aware of it. It has become their understanding of reality, and it is only brought into their consciousness during sexual experiences that trigger old hurts when they are with their present lover/s. Tantric healers can create a safe space where people can go within and become aware of their wounds, and support them in healing the shame and hurt that binds them.

People who practice Tantric sexuality understand that the mind cannot change the mind; real change and real happiness is not a mental process, conscious sex that achieves bliss is the greatest healer there is. Conscious, physically and emotionally integrated sex is a powerful way to heal ourselves and our relationships — the resulting ecstasy heals the unconscious.

Why are some people uncomfortable about delving into Tantra?

Many people in our society have been conditioned from a very young age to see their bodies, their sexuality, their pleasure as something that is wrong or shameful or just something not to be spoken of. There seem to be only a few contexts within our society where the discussion of sexuality is considered appropriate, those being in a medical, religious or seedy context. As Tantric sex is outside of the western medical and religious contexts of sexuality, people usually automatically put Tantra into the context of the seedy side of life and therefore feel uncomfortable about it.

At this point in time there is no context for ‘pleasure’ or ‘sexual healing’ to be considered as important parts of health and wellbeing or to be considered as an appropriate treatment plan when working with sexual dysfunction. Our society does not even honour sexuality or view pleasure as a celebration of our humanity, which is exactly what it should be.

Some people may feel that Tantra is something only practiced by more enlightened people, or those who’ve traversed a deeply spiritual path. Nothing could be further from the truth: everyone has the ability to tune in to their own and universal energy.

Another reason why people may feel uncomfortable about Tantra is because they may have low sexual self-esteem. This is a term that most people are unaware of even though the effects of low sexual self-esteem may permeate all areas of their lives. During childhood is when we start to develop our sexual self-esteem, which in turn affects how we see ourselves sexually. We learn our sexual values from our social environment — our parents and families, media, schooling, television and our religious background. Our sexual values and attitudes determine our behaviour and conduct, as well as our judgements about people who may participate in behaviour that is outside of what we were taught was right or wrong as children. In other words, we use our childhood interpretations as a way to determine our course of action in adult life, so it is natural for people to feel uncomfortable with Tantra if it is outside of our family’s values and attitudes to sexuality.

Some people do break free of their programming, although I do find a lot of people are living out their lives, never really being able to let go and experience their bodies in a healthy, sexy way and to reach their full range of sexual expression.

Many women live through their roles, i.e. mothers and wives, suffering in silence, living in ‘mediocre chronic depression’. And it saddens me at times to hear how many women have lived their lives never ever getting anywhere near reaching their full potential sexually, some never even having had an orgasm. They tell themselves they are happy in their lives or that they are happy if their partner is satisfied, maybe saying that is enough for them. While deep down inside, if they are honest with themselves, they know they are abandoning themselves and probably feel a deep sense of loss from never having come close to a spiritual experience through sex or to understanding the beautiful power that lies dormant, waiting to be discovered, like a majestic bird that’s never been able to fly. With awareness comes choice and once people realise that their life experience is essentially self-created they then have the power to choose.

How will Tantra improve my relationships?

Couples who want to sustain love and passion for a lifetime together, and who are open to new ways to make their sexual relationship richer and more meaningful, may find some valuable lessons in Tantra. We all want psychological security from one another: we want to be able to trust one another; we want to support one another, emotionally as much as economically; we want to share similar experiences, to be playmates as well as responsible partners; and we want to improve ourselves through our relationship and we hope that the relationship will improve with us.

Tantric ‘lifestyle' was designed centuries ago specifically for householders—that is, couples. The tantric texts are explicit on how the differences between the sexes can be used as a positive force in a partnership, how the proper combination of these differences can produce a near alchemical reaction, an ether in which everything flourishes, in which the garden of your relationship bursts with colour and a new life and growth, and you and your beloved thrive.

Lovemaking in the tantric sense, conscious lovemaking, does not come naturally; it must be learned, and couples must learn it together and at times be teachers as well as students to each other.

Some people talk about how Tantra sounds exhausting and not something achievable for the average person with work and other commitments. It is true that practising Tantra does take more time than having a quickie once a week to keep things ticking along in a relationship. However in practising Tantra we become energised, rather than exhausted and this feeling stays with us beyond the sexual experience.

It’s important to note that Tantra is not an easy fix for personal or relationship problems. Although practising Tantra together can be a powerful way for two people to deepen their intimacy, it can also magnify existing tensions. Just as individual practice — particularly meditation — can often help to relieve personal problems, this is not always the case, particularly if the problems are serious in nature. That, however, is simply a cue for healing.

Where to from here?

Whatever you discover on your journey with Tantra will be useful to you throughout your life. So many of us get caught up in the day-to-day of life, it is easy to neglect ourselves. But if we dedicated as much time to tending our sexual selves as we do to tending our family, work and domestic commitments, we would have so much more energy and clarity in all aspects of our lives. 

Tantra is not just about having full body orgasms or feelings of pleasure that might last for hours — although these can be very pleasant side effects — it is about enriching your life, visiting your truth and reaching your full potential as a human being.