Tantra Beyond The Bedroom
Tantra is one of the foundations for the way I practice, coach, teach, and live my life, so I wanted to share some of my favorite aspects of Tantra that you may not know about.
Tantra is an enlightenment tradition.
It’s a framework and detailed roadmap for emotional, physical, and spiritual development and it has existed for centuries.
What I love about it though, is that left-handed Tantra is not a prescriptive framework. It gives you extremely detailed road maps for how to get to enlightenment, yes, but it does so so you can discover your own truth and magic within yourself… It never says not to question everything or anything.
2. The Tantric tradition gave birth to hatha yoga, chakras, the idea of kundalini as goddess consciousness, forms of pranayama, certain powerful mantras and mudras… all cultivated and developed in the Tantric tradition.
3. Tantra goes hand in hand with Ayurveda, because they believe in health and wellness on the 3D physical level while you are on your spiritual awakening journey.
You can visit the 12th dimension and that’s cool, but also how is your liver? How is your intimate relationship with your partner? How vital are you? It all matters so much, and keeping the physical temple well-cared-for allows for the spiritual consciousness to bloom that much more magnificently.
4. Embracing pleasure as a path to enlightenment is a classical Tantric teaching.
5. Understanding your body as a source of divine consciousness that maps to the rest of the universe is a classic Tantric teaching.
6. Working with energy activation in the body to unlock chakric portals and heal energetically is a classical tantric teaching.
7. Your womb as a source of power, your yoni as a source of celebration, your heart as a source of love, your third eye as a source of visionary capacity.. all classic Tantric teachings.
8. The fundamental belief that everything is worthy of love is a classical Tantric teaching.
9. There are portions of classical Tantra devoted to yoni worship and sensual rituals and the maha mudras which are seggsual rites of initiation (we humans and our spiritual journeys are not separate from our sensuality), but that is a small part of what Tantra is all about..
10. One of the most classical Tantric teachings is “all is one,” and that is an awareness that has become so embedded in the fabric of our collective consciousness at this point, that’s it’s commonplace to find all sorts of people from all walks of life saying this, agreeing with it, knowing that we are all connected to each other and everything else..
A big part of the Tantric tradition, specifically, though, is engaging in the Tantric practices until “all is one” becomes an embodied lived experience and your Truth.
11. This is a tradition that has given explicit instructions that all groups of humans and ethnicities are welcome and invited to practice, as long as they are sincere and coming from the heart.
So this big wave of Tantra that is cresting in the collective right now is not cultural appropriation or colonialism, as long as the curiosity about it and practice/teaching of it is heart-centered.
12. Something that really hit home for me was the Tantric fundamental truth that humans truly are magic, and capable of miracles beyond what our programmed minds have been conditioned to believe.
13. And literally everything can be a part of your spiritual practice… working, sensuality, being married, doing daily tasks, kids… It’s all ceremony, capable of enlightening us, and an offering to the divine.
Tantra is not about escaping the real world, but rather holding love and reverence to living in this 3D reality and all that entails (even our shadows and taboos), because it’s an expression of the divine and the path to enlightenment.
14. The process of creating space for Tantra in our lives often starts with finding all the areas within where we are not loving ourselves unconditionally. It all starts there.
This is where psychology and emotional intelligence comes in and blends with spirituality, because we begin with exploring the emotions as teachers with an innate consciousness and wisdom of their own.
Our anger teaches us. Our fear teaches us. Where we hold shame teaches us. Where and how we allow ourselves joy and celebration teaches us a lot about ourselves and how we do or do not love ourselves.
If you do not love yourself, the practices will not work, no matter how often you do them.
So when we emphasize emotional awareness and exploration, and tap into the depth of that unconditional self-love within, we can really create the fertile soil for tantric wisdom and enlightenment to blossom.
I’m really grateful and honored to be able to explore these teachings and practices in order to help myself evolve and grow and deepen into my truth. How lucky to be alive right now with this ancient pathway so readily available to all of us?!
And I hope if you’re at all interested in exploring Tantra as a spiritual pathway, you join us :)
