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Will the Real Tantra Please Stand Up

The core spiritual teaching of Tantra is that there is only one thing, and that one thing is consciousness, not stuff. All manifest reality flows from and is sustained by that consciousness.  Consciousness is primary, while all of physical material reality has only an appearance of realness. Nothing in physical material reality will last forever, nor is any aspect of material reality self sustaining.

In other words there is only God, God is everything, and everything is God. Obviously then, this includes you and me and everyone else and everything else. Furthermore there is only one problem, the illusion of separation, i.e., the appearance that everything exists separated from everything else. There is only one solution, enlightenment, the direct personal experience of God-consciousness, a consciousness that is non-dual (without any separation of one thing from another thing).

There are many differences in the world of Tantra, much as there are in, say for example, the world of Christianity; many different beliefs and many different spiritual practices. The main branches of Tantra are Hindu and Buddhist. In Buddhism there are two primary forms of scripture, Sutras and Tantras. The Tantras go back perhaps 6,000 years in India in the oral tradition. In modern times there is a primary split of Tantric practices referred to as White and Red or Right and Left Tantra. White/Right includes only non-sexual spiritual practices, while Red/Left also includes practices of sacred sexuality.

There continues to be a hot (with lots of strong emotional feelings) debate over whether sacred sexual practices are legitimate spiritual practices and legitimate Tantric practices. Of course they are. Anything can be a proper spiritual practice if undertaken with the intention of waking up to God-consciousness, of becoming enlightened. Tantra has always been an inclusive spiritual practice, denying nothing in the human experience. Anything in the human experience can be ordinary illusion sustaining the experience of separation, or true spiritual practice, undertaking with the intent and willingness to wake up to experience one’s divinity directly.

Enlightenment means, to light within. There is only one place to find it, inside yourself. There are no rules, no requirements, no prohibitions in your spiritual Tantric practice. It is not what you do, but rather the quality of your awareness while you do it. If the quality of that awareness is characterized by being in the now moment, rather than attachment to future results, that thing you are doing becomes a spiritual practice, and that certainly includes the profound intimacy and union of the lovers in sacred sexuality.