The Tantric Experience

            Last winter, I took a wonderful course with Dr. Shreena Gandhi titled “Intro to Hindu Traditions.”  The class discussed different aspects of life as a Hindu in terms of holidays and festivals, history of the religion, daily rituals, the different gods and deities, and the role of sex in Hinduism as a more fulfilling way to worship the gods.  One of the more prevalent texts in the class was a book called “The Hindus” by Wendy Doniger, who tends to be quite elaborative and graphic in her writing.  The idea for me to write about sex from a different religious background was interesting to me not just because it gives offers new knowledge and a different insight on a particular subject, but it also provides a common ground in that people discover similarities and appreciation on a new point of view.  “Tantra,” or achieving the “Tantric experience” was resurrected in my mind when I pondered different topics for this blog post.  Like the start of most research, I Googled “sex throughout history” (the focus for our group’s blog) and I had come across the practice of Tantra yoga.

            Tantra, estimated to be thousands of years old, is, arguably, a Hindu practice.  The Tantric text is one of the oldest, well-preserved, sacred texts about sexuality.  For some, Tantra is a form of yoga that encourages oneness with everything around you, and for others, it is guide to mind-blowing sex. But no matter which way you interpret it, the bottom line is that Tantra is all about oneness.

Tantra derives from Sanskrit and it has two parts.  “Tan” means “to expand, join or weave” and “tra” means “tool” giving Tantra its two-fold meaning “a tool to unite.”  Tantra Yoga accepts and embraces desires as natural and that as long as were are personified, we will experience desires through each of our senses that serve as windows for them to enter.  Tantra yoga acknowledges desires as the driving force of the universe; therefore it does not ask one to renounce their desires.

Passages from Doniger’s “The Hindus,” chapter 15 goes beyond the demonstration of sexual positions and more into the rituals that bring forth the Tantric experience: “Tantra in its earliest documented stage, a ritual in which…”precious bodily fluids” were swallowed as transformative “power substances”” (Page 425).

“For the Tantras do say things like “The body of every living creature is made of semen and blood.  The [deities] who are fond of sexual pleasure drink semen and blood.”  Drinking blood and seed together is a very Tantric thing to do” (Page 425).

“But it is not semen-blood but female blood…that plays the central role in the Tantras.  The menstrual blood of the female participant is connected to the polluting but life-giving blood of her animal victims, decapitated and offered in sacrifice” (Page 426).

            Hinduism has never really been popular for its oral history; most traditions have either been passed down orally or through various personal lessons.  The purest form of Tantra has never been recorded, but people have created many forms.  The most common form of Tantra is preserved in such writings as the Kama Sutra, which is more commercialized and made out to be more directly about sex.

Sources:

“The Hindus” by Wendy Doniger

http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_and_meditation/tantra_yoga.htm

http://www.spiritualtantra.net/history-of-sacred-sexuality

Picture: http://www.tantra.us/