Introduction to Tantra
Tantra was developed for people who were foundationally sound, who had already done a lot of preparation work and were prepared for higher level initiation. In the classical texts, there are discussions about liberation and healing – building a big energy body or having a kundalini awakening is only one part of the process of awakening, and the human experience of that can’t be bypassed without unpleasant side effects.
Acknowledging the depth of who you are and integrating yourself so you are in greater alignment with who you really are is part of the Tantric path. The focus is on loving and accepting all parts of yourself and going deeper, then letting that bring things naturally into alignment.
So, my way of teaching and using Tantra in my sessions is holistic and designed to focus on what is most accessible for the most amount of people that is also aligned with classical Tantric teachings and using Neo-Tantric practices to really meet people where they are and help them with their modern issues.
There is a real power in spirituality and awakening, but the work with the body, humanity and sexuality is incredibly valuable and often what people are seeking and not realising. It so empowering to be in your body and to understand the deeper aspects of your sexuality.
3 Core Tantra Philosophies
Three core philosophies from Tantra to help simplify the understanding of this deeply complex tradition.
#1 Awakening
In the Tantric tradition, it’s mentioned that by spending a couple of months being really devoted to the practice with the intention of awakening and liberation, you can get there. It can happen quicker and easier than you think. It truly is accessible to everyone.
You are not what you are raised to believe you are. You are not your ego, thoughts, emotions. On the deepest level you are also all of those things, but the collective identity of who you are is actually not who you are. Awakening is getting woke to the idea that you are the presence and consciousness within you.
You are intimately connected to all of life, and the one thing that is consistent in you is your presence and consciousness. That is the awakening principle and the hallmark of all Eastern mystical tradition and also a foundational philosophy of Tantra.
That means that it is important to meditate, to continuously remind yourself that awakening is part of the process.
Awakening can be a
gradual, luscious and slow process into your true identity
Sitting in your true identity and presence brings a kind of wholeness and indescribable beauty
Don’t feel that an awakening is a huge deal sometimes it’s really silent
You can find yourself feeling super uncomfortable when going through an awakening because what’s really happening are old patterns changing
#2 Liberation
A big part of the Tantric practice is that you don’t have to put your awakening on hold until the circumstances are seemingly perfect – you can do it right here and right now in everyday activities.
Social conditioning and our ideas of ourselves hold us back. We create this literal prison of taboos, fears and discomforts and all kinds of things in the unconscious. Liberation is the decision to be free of that which is not true to the truth of us.
Your consciousness is not bound to the idea that sex is dirty. It is not even bound by the trauma. Or your race or gender. Not being liberated is about artificially constricting ourselves, our flow of energy, our beingness and aliveness, to the ideas given to us by society and external imprints.
Liberation is a willingness to free ourselves from that!
There is a lot of energy bound up in our taboos and beliefs about the world and ourselves, so we also lower our energy, vibration and capacity for being in the world, oftentimes because of this lack of liberation. The more you melt through or break free from the shame, fear and guilt, the more you actually free up tremendous storehouses of energy.
Liberation feels like being able to meet every moment with a sense of freshness and aliveness.
#3 There is consciousness in everything
We can say this in a number of different ways:
Everything is God
Everything is One
There is divinity in everything
There is a unifying presence and consciousness in everything
There are also stages of this:
There is the stage of being uniquely yourself and fully inhabiting your divinity in the unique way that it expresses itself through you.
There is the stage of connectedness. If the consciousness of you is the consciousness of everything, then you get this lovely feeling of connectedness.
There is a stage of connection to the formless ground of being, literally the fertile emptiness that is the creation of everything, the source of everything.
3 Core Tantric Principles
These three principles or ideas have very practical applications from the Tantric system as we are utilising it.
Principle #1: What is here is everywhere and what is everywhere is also here.
This means that you can access anything in the universe at any point, because it’s all interconnected. It also means that there is nothing “out there” that you can’t embody or can’t access.
You can pull in any deity, any vibration, any pattern of consciousness and any flavour of the universe at any time. You can also do certain things to make it even more accessible, and to activate more within you.
This also means that anything that you ever wanted to taste, touch, feel, experiment or explore with – you can! There are limitless possibilities, because you can find everything inside of you somewhere, which makes this a very holistic and integrated system.
Principle #2: The Chakra System
Rather than saying that chakras exist within you, it is more accurate to explain that you can activate certain energy points within you to vibrate in certain ways to have certain qualities.
The Tantrics installed different energy points with mantras and practice inside of their bodies. As you focus on chakras, you create them inside of your body. You are actually awakening certain vibrations inside of your system. Those vibrations are frequencies of the universe that are also frequencies within you.
When you are activating all of your chakras, you are becoming a full-spectrum being and you are coming into harmony with all aspects of yourself.
You want to use chakras as a model for understanding evolution. You can use this in your coaching, and work with activating their chakra system and allowing them to get in touch with all aspects of their being from this and through this work.
In my experience, when you work on all of these layers, you become a much more full- spectrum being, and because different parts of our anatomy are linked to different parts of our brain, as you bring awareness and conscious to your anatomy so you are also activating those correlating parts of your brain.
Chakra work is also healing because it encourages you to access and embody all natural parts of you.
Usually we think of spirituality as basically emphasizing the heart and crown chakra, but in the Tantric system, all parts and chakras are necessary. Freedom and wholeness is freedom and expression in all of those areas.
Through your practice, install and activate those energy centers and you can work with your clients to do the same, at the level that they are receptive to.
Principle #3: Patterns of Consciousness
Consciousness is within everything, but it also takes on certain patterns. Meta-patterns in the universe is another way of saying “god” or “goddesses.” You can actually come into contact with patterns of consciousness that have organized themselves in certain ways.
There are patterns of consciousness in and around, for example:
Humanity
Being full of love and light
Being evil
Fire
Beauty
Pleasure
Death and destruction
Accessing these patterns of consciousness is part of the Tantric tradition. It is accessible to most people by:
Working with a goddess energy: Call in and activate the pattern of consciousness that is the goddess inside of you
Universal orgasm
Awakened being
The force of nature; water, fire, ether or earth
Playing with these patterns of consciousness is very Tantric and you use ritual offerings and pujas/worshipping to bring it alive within you.
You are essentially worshipping and offering to something that is already a part of you and you bring it forth by spending time, focus and attention on it.
For most people, this means working with the forces of nature and goddesses of any culture or tradition.
A goddess is a pattern of consciousness that is recognized. You can call that energy in through your practice, mantra and intention, and you will work with activating this living energy within yourself with such a beautiful part of the Tantric tradition.