What Is Tantra? The word Tantra is becoming increasingly familiar, as a practice embraced by celebrities such as Sting, Woody Harrelson and Scarlett Johanssen, to name a few, and as an exotic, somewhat laughable approach to sex, as depicted in movies and on television - from ''American Pie'' to ''Meet the Fokkers'' to ''Sex and the City.'' Sting's famous assertion that he and his wife, Trudy, make love for seven hours at a stretch created a stir, but his subsequent explanation that this included dinner and a movie, and his more recent statement that Tantra is about experiencing the sacred through relationship, attracted far less attention.

The general public seems to have a vague sense that Tantra has something to do with sex, while those with a bit more knowledge are likely to think of it as a form of sexual Yoga. The former impression, however limited, is far closer to the truth, but Tantra is a vast subject and not an easy term to define. We hope this overview will both provide some insight into and debunk many of the misconceptions that have developed about this remarkable spiritual path.

Many people who attend our introductory workshops give voice to the popular stereotypes and answer that it is something celebrities do, that it is about better sex and marathon lovemaking sessions. Others suggest that it is a way of bringing spirituality into sex, as if the two were ever separate. As Westerners and products of our culture, we cannot avoid the influence of this popular mythology, but in our practice and study, we strive to arrive at a deeper and, we hope, a more authentic understanding.

The myth that Tantra is primarily sexual originated in either scandalous or scandalizing 19th-century accounts of Tantric rituals. In the early 20th-century, Sir John Woodroffe, also known as Arthur Avalon, a British judge serving in India and a Tantric initiate himself, attempted to legitimize the tradition as part of a pro-Independence effort to celebrate Indian civilization; Avalon was one of the few Westerners involved in this effort, which included a number of influential upper-class Indians. Avalon and his circle de-emphasized the sexual aspects of Tantra, since these aspects remained scandalous to much of the general public and perhaps to Avalon himself, even though there is some evidence that he and his wife practiced Tantric sex together.

Today, most ''New Age'' Tantrists have taken the opposite approach and focus on sexuality almost to the exclusion of everything else; we have even heard Tantra defined as ''sacred sexuality''. In many instances, New Age practitioners blend together aspects of Hindu Tantra, Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, Taoism and Western psychotherapy - among other things - and invent something that has virtually no relationship to the original tradition. As a result, most people who contact us think that Tantra and Tantric Sex are synonymous, and that Tantric Sex is synonymous with extraordinary lovemaking abilities, with some ''emotional clearing work'' thrown in for good measure, and that it must last for hours.

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next