Tantra is a Sanskrit word meaning, among other things, “to weave” or “fabric”.  It is an Eastern philosophy that proposes that everything in the universe is One; that everyone and everything is an expression of divine consciousness.  This divine consciousness is named Shiva, and the manifestation of that consciousness is called Shakti.  Together they represent divine masculine (Shiva) and divine feminine (Shakti) consciousness, and together they represent the warp and the weft (the horizontal and vertical threads) of the fabric of existence.

Tantric philosophy states that Shiva willingly and consciously slows down its vibration to express itself through every imaginable vehicle:  humans, animals, plants, rocks, and elements.  The purpose of this is so that it can experience itself in this myriad of ways and find its way back to remembering itself as Shiva.  Taken from a human perspective, this is the dance of evolution and personal development.  When we come into the world as infants, we are pure light; Shiva/Shakti barely contained within a luminous bag of skin and bones.  As we grow and develop, our luminosity becomes dimmer, hidden as we take on the baggage of our caregivers and we begin to act out the lessons we came in to learn.

These lessons are our unique expression of Shiva:  “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to put myself in a situation where I felt responsible for everyone else and didn’t take care of myself?  And wouldn’t it be GREAT to finally realize that I can only be responsible for myself and that when I take care of myself first, I’ll create the space for my loved ones to take care of themselves, too?  Then we’d all get the opportunity to learn that lesson and become more empowered.”  Or not, maybe our loved ones decide not to fully embrace the lesson, and it’s their right to choose that.  It’s not bad or wrong, it’s just another expression of consciousness.

In Tantric philosophy, there is no such thing as bad or wrong.  There are choices that are life-affirming or not, but there’s nothing inherently bad because everything is an expression of Shiva; everything is Shakti.  It’s all about the lessons, and how deeply we are willing to go into self-discovery to remember our divine essence.  For example, in Tantra there is a left-handed path and a right-handed path.  The left-handed Tantrikas were committed to finding the divine in the most mundane and even debased places.  These practitioners would sit on top of funeral pyres, meditating to find Shiva there.  If Shiva is everywhere, it can be found in piles of garbage, or in piles of dead bodies.

Sexual rituals are used to find the divine in yourself, each other and in the union and the ecstasy.  Pop Tantra has lost something in the translation, however.  It’s not about trying new positions and experiencing longer orgasms for the sake of the physical ecstasy.  It’s about deeply connecting to your own and your partner’s essences, maintaining your sense of self and merging not only with your partner, but with the divine consciousness as well.  You learn to harness the prana (life force energy) to create an awareness of yourself as divine consciousness.  The orgasms can be mind blowing, because we have to get out of our heads and into our hearts to experience this consciousness.

Tantra is not for the faint of heart.  It requires a willingness to explore the outer edges of your comfort zone, to allow yourself to be vulnerable with another person, to identify and embrace all aspects of yourself.  All of our qualities and traits are expressions of the divine.  They’re all there; especially the parts we’d rather live without, to teach us something and to help us grow.  It’s all good, because it’s all God.

This information barely scratches the surface of Tantra, but it gives us all a frame of reference for future explorations.