Tantra Yoga is considered to be the highest and most rapid path (the eighth path) to enlightenment. This ancient Eastern discipline teaches control of the physical body, mind, and emotions, through sexual union.

Yet sexual Tantra - the original Tantra - has rarely been communicated openly owing to Victorian ‘moral’ standards and ‘modern’ social conditioning, particularly in India.

Gandhi wanted to tear down all the ancient tantric carvings on temple walls. Today, among tantric gurus and devotees it is ‘whispered in the ear’ - an ‘open’ secret practice.

Only in recent times has the seventh path of Ha-tha Yoga become acceptable to Vedic pundits - and is a faster path to realization and liberation than any of the preceding paths, hence the reason for fear.

The eighth path of Tantric Yoga is even faster, with the possibility of realization and liberation in years, one lifetime, rather than the many lifetimes of other paths.

Any system can be misused, or used for selfish purposes.

Tantra elevates women. It worships the goddess in all woman. Once, most countries worshipped the Goddess and women were honoured. India still does, but its women are not honoured. Men still go to the Temple, do puja, ask the Goddess for blessings, then go home and abuse their wives. Do we blame the Goddess for that?

In Pakistan, on the Indus River in the ancient city of Mohenjo Daro, stands a monument bearing a golden seal reliably dated at 6000 years old. It depicts a person sitting in a Yoga posture performing a Tantric ritual. This is the oldest evidence known of Tantric Yoga, the Royal Path of sexual Yoga. Tantra antedates  Hinduism (sanatana dharma), Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Tantrics use ancient texts such as the Bhagavadgita - many tantric practices stem directly from verses in the Gita - the writings of Patanjali, and the Bible - particularly the Song of Songs - and the Koran, and have a strict (if unusual) moral code.

Stories of using tantra for “black magic” or “unnatural” acts are true, but those who do such things are as blasphemous as those who use the Bible, and the Koran, for the same purposes. The method is not to blame.

It is not that Tantra has been tried and found wanting - it has been feared, and not tried by those who speak against it.  

Tantra is a key to a vast treasure house, an almost unlimited and largely untapped  physical  and  spiritual  power labeled  by  the  non-religious  as  “magic”, by the religious as “miracle”, by Spiritualists as “'psychic”, and in New Age circles as “cosmic consciousness”.

It is Vajrayana, the “thunderbolt vehicle”, said to break through the barrier of the mundane to spiritual awareness faster and more effectively than any other method or system known. As a “way of action”, rather than a philosophy, tantrism can neither be attacked nor defended by argument - it is a pragmatic method of physical healing and spiritual development - “it works” is its one and complete reply to critics.

Tantra is primarily a spiritual discipline, sometimes called  “God’s secret science” or the secular “science of ecstasy”, employing and in harmony with physical and non-physical forces inadequately investigated or even understood by modern science.

There are Christian tantrics,  Neo-Gnostic,  Buddhist,  Jain,  Hindu, Taoist, and tantrics who subscribe to no religious affiliation at all.

Religion and Society today in many so-called “civilized” countries fear sex. It is “whispered in the ear”, and the beauty and sacredness of sex has been buried beneath the social and cultural conditioning that sex is the cause of many evils.

As a result an awareness of the power of sexually generated energy has been lost.

Tantric masters originally devised tantric rites and exercises for initiates only, the inner meanings safeguarded by oaths, a secret language - “twilight speech” - and mantras, passed from Master to pupil, and not to be shared with others. Mantras are believed to be of Divine origin and used by tantric practitioners to focus energy produced by the rites and exercises as a lens focuses the sun's rays.

Om Mani Padme Hum - “hail, the jewel in the lotus” - is both a mantra and “twilight speech” (the penis in the vagina) and is frequently used by many spiritual teachers and tantric practitioners. It produces a resonance and acts like a lightning rod, drawing down power.

There is no “bible” or “rulebook’' for tantric students, and each must find his or her own personal guide.  There was a time when people with an awakened consciousness practiced tantra with an artistic and cultural lifestyle of pure bliss and  armony with each other and the universe.  They lived in a state of enlightenment.

Tantra is the art of spiritualizing sexuality and offers practical tools to transmute fear and attachment into love and universal power. Put simply, tantra is the total surrender or letting go of all mental, emotional and cultural conditioning so that universal life energy can again flow through us like a river without effort - it is a letting go to universal oneness to love.

The word tantra has many definitions, and perhaps its real meaning has been lost to antiquity. Some scholars claim it comes from the Sanskrit or Hindi word for fabric or tapestry, meaning that it is woven into one's life. Others say that it comes from two Sanskrit words tanoti  and trayati. Tanoti means to expand consciousness, and trayati means to liberate consciousness.

Tantra expands and liberates consciousness, making it the fabric of existence. As the highest possible synthesis between love and meditation, tantra is the connection between this and other planes of existence.

While not a religious philosophy, tantra embraces a deep spiritual understanding of life, and  an  ancient art  of  living  in  harmony  with yourself, and with others. It is a poetic science of sexuality that dates back thousands of years, not only to India and Tibet, but to the Far East, Polynesia, and indigenous cultures of all parts of the world, including North America's native Cherokee culture.

It was used as a vehicle to achieve cosmic consciousness and union with divinity.

Tantra treats sexual energy as a loving friend rather than something to be suppressed or talked about secretly. It does not deny sex, or consider sex a hindrance to enlightenment, instead it says that tantra is the only spiritual path that holds sex as something sacred, not a sin.

Tantrics are god-loving, rather than god-fearing. Tantra doesn't tell you to suppress your sexual urges to reach god, but just the opposite. It supports development   of  this  vital  energy  to  achieve union  with  divinity.  The essence of tantra is the full expression of being - a merging with, rather than a withdrawing from. It is the ultimate yoga - a Sanskrit word for union.

In tantra the orgasm is with the universe. You become part of the primal energy of everything - and merge your individuality with the Absolute.

In the Kama Sutra genital contact is only one way of making love. Tantrics learn to make love in many ways and with everything, letting go of all barriers to pure joy. Sex becomes sacred and divine when you approach it from the heart and body rather than just the mind.

It is common for tantrics to “drop their mind” in tantric lovemaking. When the energy comes from a space deep within you - your essential Self - it connects you to you, to your partner, and to god, shifting you to an altered state of consciousness - into the realm of the spirit.

On the tantric path you learn to use sexual energy in an extended way, not denying the physical but going further, deeper, higher. You dance with the electromagnetic force field of your partner, and that dance leads to cosmic oneness.

The difference between unenlightened sex and tantra, is that tantra declares “the kingdom of God is within you”. In Sanskrit it is called Pinde So Brahamande - the physical  body  is  the temple of God - and the body is the replica or representation of the entire Cosmos.

Social and cultural structure supports separation or dualism and has created  division  among  people  - and nations - violence and war. “Make love, not war” used to be the message of the 60's. Today we're back into fighting each other.

The world uses sex for manipulation - sexy models to sell cars, soap and everything else - while at the same time suppressing sexual expression. With sex being such a powerful force, we have created the perfect environment for neurosis, and sexual deviancy - and violence.

What affects the individual, affects the family, what affects the family affects the nation.

Tantra says we can celebrate life when the idea of separation of dualism, disappears and allows people to meet on all levels of consciousness - physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

While most fundamentalist religions - including christian, Hindu and Islam - focus on the elimination of sensual pleasures, tantra welcomes the full expression of bodily pleasure, recognizing that in the body is hidden the 'bodiless' or the spiritual.

If you can learn to be conscious of the body and the breath, you can be conscious of the Universe. What Buddha said can be said of tantra, “The truth of the Universe can only be realized within the framework of the physical body”. We create our own reality, and it can be anything we want it to be.

It's possible to study tantra for years, learning technique, meditations, and nuances, of the tantric lifestyle, but tantra assumes you already are what you will become, and enlightenment is already yours - all you need to do is realize it. It is like sitting in a dark room when all you have to do is turn on the light.

Tantra doesn’t ask you to believe anything. In fact, it says let go of all belief systems. Find a teacher who can guide you through the essential experience - and in the experience itself you'll discover your own oneness with the universe.