Tantra Yoga

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Various Branches of the Tantric System

 

TANTRA YOGA starts from the idea that our sexuality, our amatory impulses

actually represent a debased metaphysical urge, otherwise said that our highest

spiritual aspirations are imprisoned in the matter in the shape of the

sexuality.

 

It is only the wrong directing, the misuse we could say, of this fundamental

force of the sex, which proves harmful for the spiritual evolution of the human

being. Else, basically the sexuality represents the fundamental tendency of

joining together the (+) and the (-), the Solar and the Lunar, the YANG and the

YIN, the Male and the Female, the HA and the THA, for attaining the final

condition of Union, the neutrality of the Absolute, (0), the peace of the

spiritual Androgyne, who has summed up in itself all the potentialities of the

manifestation. This goal, which is actually common with all the spiritual paths

of our planet, is achieved in TANTRA through various ways, and this gives birth

to several branches of the Tantric system.

 

Roughly, the experts divide TANTRA in two main streams: the TANTRA of the Right

Hand, and the TANTRA of the Left Hand. This first division proceeds from the

nature of the practical methods that are used for reaching the condition of

Unity: if the actual, physical methods of sexual union are used, than we deal

with the TANTRA of the Left Hand, while if only symbolical, or meditative

techniques are used (and the physical sex is terefore excluded) we are within

the sphere of the Right-Hand TANTRA.

 

Often, it is very difficult to draw a sharp borderline between the two

divisions, since there are schools which use methods belonging to both paths.

The TANTRA of the Right Hand often corresponds with some of the great ascetic

spiritual paths of our planet, in which union is searched with a divine entity,

personification, incarnation, and so on, or sometimes merely with supernatural

beings of various degrees. Though we deal here with a kind of " sexual "

relationship, it is not an actual sexual manifestation that we encounter here,

but rather a sublimed, spiritual, sometimes symbolical way of interacting,

closer to what we'd call love; one of the most accessible examples for the

common Western understanding is that of the so called astral-sex, or otherwise

said the erotic experiences that occur in the dream-state. Other historical

examples could be the mystico-erotic relationships of the Christian nuns with

Jesus, the erotic devotion of the Indian GOPI-s for KRISHNA, the mystics of love

of the troubadours and knights, the worship of the Ten Great Cosmic Powers in

certain Tantric schools, etc.

 

to be continued...