isn’t easier, but it’s better. It feels richer, more meaningful, and I feel more in tune with myself. I feel heartful – more compassionate, but also more discriminating. There’s a paradox between going with the flow, and somehow knowing that the flow is already chosen. All this is a conscious discipline. In every moment I can choose whether to deal with things in the old way, or with the consciousness I’ve developed through Tantra.
All humans are divine, and it is the discovery of and identification with the divine essence within that inspires seekers to follow the Tantric path.
Hilary Spenceley, Tantra teacher: I love working with women, seeing the great healing that takes place with Tantra. I love seeing them step into their own unique beauty, which is totally independent of outside approval – that’s what we call the place of the Goddess.
Tantra celebrates sexuality as a path to ecstasy. Tantric couples consciously honour the powerful sexual charge of the connection between them, which Tantrics consider to be a manifestation of the primal energy of the universe, called Shakti. Shakti is considered to be especially concentrated in a woman, and for this reason women are particularly venerated. Shakti, the energy of creation, and Kundalini, the individual powerhouse of energy that we all possess, are both thought of as feminine – and sometimes described as one and the same Shakti-Kundalini. Kundalini is also referred to as our inner woman, regardless of our actual gender. Each woman is honoured as an embodiment of divine Shakti, and each man recognizes and honours the feminine energies contained within him: the Kundalini. Tantra regards the powerful Shakti energy as innate. It’s not something you need to build up or create, it’s something you merely need to uncover in order to access.
Tantras creation myth pictures the goddess Shakti making love with her consort Shiva. From this ecstatic union rains down a golden nectar which bathes the created world in bliss. Tantric writings describe the Hindu goddess Shakti as achieving seven peaks of ecstasy, each peak higher, stronger, and more powerful than the preceding one, until at the topmost she releases her nectar (female ejaculation). This nectar, amrita, is considered spiritual food for the universe, a pure joy, which radiates into the hearts of mortals.
Divine couple in yab-yom. The image of divine love-making evokes associations of unity and complementarity; two interdependent aspects of existence.
The Tantric concept of oneness with the divine is often shown as Shakti-Shiva together in sexual ecstasy, a unification of both energy and consciousness. This image of divine unification is mirrored in what happens during mortal conception. During love-making a spark of bliss unites with the female and male generative fluids, and then creates a body in which to experience the true nature of reality – which is bliss. Bliss stays in the heart of each individual throughout life. In Tantra, this bliss is most easily realized through making love just as the original Shakti and Shiva did.
As part of the Tantric idea that God is in everything and everybody, you are encouraged to recognize the God and Goddess within yourself and your partner. In Tantra, this is the goddess Shakti and the god Shiva. Tantra also embraces the alchemical idea that each of us has an inner man and an inner woman, and that our sexual partners are external reflections of this inner marriage. When we unite with our partner, we unite with the other half of ourselves, becoming whole.
In fact, Shakti is not so much a goddess, as the creative force behind existence, who manifests in different forms. That’s why she’s not depicted as a single deity, but as a number of goddesses who represent the various qualities of this primal energy. So the wide range of local goddesses and gods revered by the Indians can be considered different aspects of primordial Shakti energy. Shakti is as changeable as the phenomenal world she has brought into being:
As the divine seductress who initiated the act of love-making responsible for creation, Shakti is represented as Mohini – the temptress.
As the maternal principle, Shakti is represented as Lakshmi, depicted holding a lotus flower, symbol of spiritual development.
In her creative aspect, Shakti is depicted as Saraswati, who plays a musical instrument called the vina, and is regarded as the patron of the 64 arts one should cultivate in life – especially the arts of love.
As in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, all Shakti brings into existence returns to its original essence. In her destructive aspect she is depicted as Kali, the sabre-rattling goddess who wears a necklace of human skulls. She is depicted dancing on the corpse of her lover, the god Shiva. Shiva is often described as the footstool, or mattress of Kali – and if she’s not dancing on him, she’s mounting the erect phallus which is the only thing that animates his corpse.
Shakti depicted as Mohini, the temptress.
Tantrics regard Shiva as a corpse without the energy of Shakti to bring him to life.
Shiva is the masculine equivalent of Shakti, the generic term for the male energy of consciousness, which needs Shakti to give him form. Shakti, the feminine creative energy is considered to be pure energy, and as pure energy is formless and flowing, she needs Shiva to give her consciousness. Each aspect complements and provides the identity for the other, as a means of becoming whole.
Shakti is often depicted dancing on her lover’s chest, showing that she is the active principle without which Shiva would be nothing – quite literally a corpse.
The kundalini energy is often depicted as a snake. In this popular image of Shiva, his personal kundalini energy has come to fruition at the crown of his head – the traditional site of his sexual union with Shakti.
Shakti is considered to be especially concentrated in a woman, and for this reason women are particularly venerated. The sexual energy is also thought of as Shakti energy, in both women and men.
Tantra is unique in that it celebrates the power of sexuality, acknowledged in many cultures as the creative force behind existence. As a spiritual path it embodies a feminine awareness, since the divine principle underlying reality is feminine in nature. Just as all of reality is a manifestation of the divine, so too are women and men the embodiment of divinity. Men as well as women are honoured as god-like manifestations of the divine. Tantra advocates gaining knowledge of the divine through practical experience. Ritual sexual practices are considered the key to balancing the polarity in women and men, by unifying female and male energies in the body and aligning them with the cosmos.
Learning Tantra involves learning the art of spiritualizing
