"Tantra is where sex is transformed into love and love is transformed into the higher self."
--OSHO
Tantra is a Sanskrit word that can be translated to mean "weaving." A spiritual belief system that originated in ancient Hindu and Buddhist cultures of India and Tibet, Tantra views the material world as a manifestation of the Divine. Everything is accepted and connected-woven together. The apparent division between body and spirit, between matter and energy, is an illusion. By consciously uniting perceived opposites (male and female, light and dark) human beings can transcend dualism and know that all is one.
The numerous schools of Tantra employ various forms of meditation, sacred sound, breath control, secret ritual, and prayerful thought as aids to enlightenment. Some also incorporate sexual activity as a means of spiritual awakening. The union of ordinary woman and man becomes the eternal coupling of Shakti (Divine Mother) and Shiva (Immortal Spirit). When connected in sacred, ritualized sex, our human bodies-mirrors of the cosmos-rejoin the wholeness of essential reality. Thus, Tantra weaves together sex and spirit. In much of Western society, Tantra has become associated primarily with this sexual-spiritual component. Most of the religious aspects of traditional Tantric sects, their complex philosophies, rituals, and deities are not included in this modern interpretation. Tantra has become a generic term encompassing a wide range of sacred sex practices. This is how we use the term Tantra in our work and in the title of this book: as an integration of sex and spiritual growth.
British scholars and travelers returning from India first introduced Tantra to the West in the middle of the 19th century. Foremost among them was Sir Richard F. Burton (1821-1890), co-founder of the Kama Shastra Society, through which he privately published his translations of the Eastern texts The 1,001 Arabian Nights, The Kama Sutra, Ananga Ranga, and The Perfumed Garden. Given the surface prudery of the time, these works provoked a hostile response.
However, during the same century, a series of Western sacred sex practices emerged. Each of these interpretations was given a unique, and often esoteric-sounding name. Most well known is Karezza, which was conceived by Alice Bunker Stockham, an American doctor who studied Hindu Tantra yoga in India. In Karezza, the sexual elements of Tantra are applied within the framework of Christianity. More recently, Westerners who flocked to India seeking wisdom during the late 1960s and early 1970s encountered Tantra at the ashrams of gurus such as Osho. Inspired by the healing power of these sexual secrets, pioneers such as Margo Anand, Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, David and Ellen Ramsdale, and Charles and Caroline Muir brought the message to Europe and North America.
Tantra is particular to India and Tibet, but other cultures, such as the Taoists in China and the Cheyenne in North America, also developed sacred sex traditions that encouraged the intentional cultivation of sexual energy for spiritual growth, longevity, and creativity, as well as enhanced pleasure. Now, there are varieties of Tantric sexual practice evolving all around the world. Most of them share similar points of view and comparable physical techniques. Our work is an eclectic blend of these sacred sex teachings, current Western psychological approaches to well-being and intimacy, and techniques for energy work, both ancient and modern. Our Tantra philosophy can be summarized with the following four simple, easy-to-remember principles.
