American Tantra

So then, what is Tantra? Tantra, in a nutshell, is a Vedic-based spiritual practice that uses physical energy, especially sexual energy, to boost human consciousness to higher states on the path to enlightenment. It's a practice 3,000 years older than the Bible, with just as many different interpretations. It's also very controversial, even in its Eastern strongholds of India and Tibet. What I present here is not Traditional Tantra, and I will never say it is. When most Americans first hear about Tantra and the idea of Sacred Sex, the Western paradigm walls come firmly down, as they try to wrap their brains around the idea of something so crass being holy and sacred. How can something that our society teaches as "wrong" and "dirty" be a path to enlightenment? How could you possibly use sex as a way to meet Divinity? Sex has an interesting effect on humans; we crave it, pursue it, spend time, energy, and money on it for some reason besides just procreation. (Otherwise, pregnant women would not want sex, but they do.) What's all the fuss? Orgasm. The sheer force of one orgasm can send your awareness to far-flung regions of your own imagination. Some even say that they leave their bodies if an orgasm is intense enough. Tantra gives you amazing orgasms. It's that intensity of sexual response that makes Tantra such an effective practice for spiritual enlightenment. But Tantra is about so much more than just sex. Some people think of Tantra as large orgies of people, screwing their brains out, having orgasms with wild abandon. This is not Tantra, although in some American new age communities call it that. It isn't as simple as fueling magickal spells with orgasm, either. That's just sex magick, and while it's a lot of fun, it can't be considered entirely Tantric. Real Tantra includes a particular philosophy, certain types of meditations, and physical exercises that help you become the best 'you' that you can be, which leads to the best sex possible. Several different "schools" and "styles" of Tantra that have been imported to America over the years. Each "school" had it's own devotees, who would interpret the Vedic scriptures individually, and then shun and disdain other "schools" as being too crass for including physical sex or too esoteric for not including it. These exclusive groups, called 'lineages,' can trace their foundations back to ancient India and the Shiva temples from thousands of years ago. While this book is not about a lineage-based system, it is still Vedic-based Tantra. I do include physical sex, but I also advocate lots and lots of training first. Technically, Tantra is a Yoga. A "yoga" is any practice that you undertake to get closer to becoming the Divine you. Hatha yoga utilizes poses of the body to change the mindset. Yantra yoga uses images. Tantra uses all of these, which makes it a yoga of it's own. And…Tantra is the only yoga built for two. We all have a body and a mind. The beginning exercises of Tantra aim to get you to recognize, understand, and balance these two aspects. Balancing duality between body and mind also builds up those mythic Tantric sexual abilities, like orgasm control and incredible stamina. This happens way before a student gets close to doing partnered rites. Twilight Language: Much of Tantric literature has been written in "twilight language," a metaphor-filled double speak that could be interpreted more than one way. For example, in some ancient texts it says to meditate until the student has obtained "release." It does not state release from what. This word can be applied to orgasmic release, stress release, release of muscular rigidity, release of the mental loops we find ourselves in, release from daily slavery, and even release from the here-and-now into some sort of trance state. Many Tantric texts were translated from the original Sanskrit or Arabic without the benefit of the beauty of the twilight language's double-speak. Twilight language typically leaves the student asking more questions than the answers it provides. Fortunately, many scholars before us have done much of the work, and in America we can benefit from most of it. Those mythic sexual abilities: Tantrics have a reputation for being able to have sex for hours on end. The highest rites in paired Tantra allow for –even require—you to control your orgasm to make that happen. The training required for the highest Tantric rites comes in handy during any sexual activity. To control the orgasm, you use your mind to keep control of your body while being intensely sexually stimulated. As you might imagine, this takes lots of practice. Most of this practice involves masturbating in the privacy of your own home. We call this solo work White Tantra. A typical trained Tantra practitioner has those marathon sex sessions due to all the training done masturbating. These exercises, while more fun than work, are still an important preparation for partnered Tantra. When a student gets to a certain point, he or she can begin a series of rituals for two, which don't include sex. Yet. Many students who were originally interested only in the sex drop out way before this point, so only the serious students get extended training for penetrative sexual Tantra. This aspect is called Red Tantra. So, there is White Tantra and Red Tantra…and in American Tantra, we introduce "Blue" Tantra. Now we can ask: What is American Tantra? This country, once referred to as a melting pot, is now a 'tossed salad' of different cultures and backgrounds coming together. You can look at American Tantra the same way. We can’t trace a single point in history where the philosophy entered this country. Many of the local Native American "Indian" religions were embracing similar concepts from the start. There are unique tribal traditions that include a type of breathing during sex that could be compared to early Tantric exercises. The concept of being here and now and in the moment was not surprising when it first fell from Eastern lips on American ears. Some say that Tantra came to America with the Guru Craze of the 1960's. Some state a date earlier than that, during the 1920's, when Sir Arthur Avalon was publishing his first manuscripts of his travels in India. Since both of these events were more prominent in London than New York, they had only a mild impact on America. Osho, (also know as Bagwan Shri Rajneesh) made Tantra in America very popular in the 1970's and 1980's, but he and his organization fell out of favor due to political scandals that surrounded him. There truly is no one date that Tantra came to America. In America, Tantra took root in a culture that focuses a lot on sex. Sex sells everything. We seek out sexual relationships daily. We talk about sex often. We pretend we have more than we do. Even though lineage schools of Tantra poke fun at what they term "neo-Tantra" and "California Tantra," claiming that it is not real if it is not passed down from a lineage, Americans in the 21st century won't blindly follow anyone's beliefs without some science to back it up. We need proof, we need hands-on experience, and we need others to validate what we are experiencing. So, this is what we get with American Tantra. We want diversity; something all-encompassing, that covers more than just the experiences of homogenous, heterosexual, white Christian European culture. We want solid results, not mythology and philosophy. We want scientific backing for our experiences, not parable and mystery. We want our chakras explained in plain English, not Sanskrit. We want hands-on exercises, not contemplations of one-hand-clapping. American Tantra does all that. Americans want results, and we want them now. If there was ever a nation of impatient people in the history of our planet, America here and now is it. This is where the clash comes in, because Tantra, like rising dough or a new pregnancy, can't be rushed. Tantra, when applied to the