September 2006 | Tune In
Yoga-Tantra
The path to self-development and liberation
By Dr. Swami Shankardev Saraswati and Jayne Stevenson
Tantra is the ancient science of liberating energy in order to expand consciousness. This energy is called kundalini, the coiled cosmic creative power that lies dormant in our body-mind, but which can be tapped to awaken our potential.
Today, the word tantra is associated with techniques for attaining sexual ecstasy and longevity. While it’s good to have pleasure and fun in life, this is not the essential aim of tantra.
Tantra is a system to embody higher awareness and to make every aspect of life more potent and joyful. It does this by charging our body-mind with energy and awareness. What we do with this energy and awareness is up to us. We can use it for our own pleasure or we can use it to create a better world and to support other beings, or perhaps a combination of both.
Tantra has two main aspects: theory and practice. Tantric theory teaches us the philosophical basis of tantra; tantric practice uses the techniques of yoga and tantra to create the process by which we can attain higher experience. Tantric ritual combines theory and practice to link us to luminous subtle forces that sustain our being and our lives.
Ritual is at the heart of tantra. It is psychic technology for the transformation of individual consciousness. Ritual is participation in cosmic cycles, a method of hooking into the vast power that lies at the core of our microcosmic and macrocosmic being, leading us to exalted states of experience and realization.
In yoga-tantra we practice a number of individual techniques simultaneously, thus engaging several aspects of self at the same time. For example, a simple practice may combine asana and pranayama and visualization of a symbol. In more advanced practices, we may combine asana, pranayama, mudra and bandha, mantra and visualization of a yantra or symbol.
In its simplest form, yoga-tantra allows us to begin to manage unconscious destructive patterns that may have stubborn roots in the lower mind. Combining techniques addresses unconscious thinking and emotional patterns while we aim our attention towards higher experience. This prevents destructive patterns from interrupting our practice and our lives while we create new, more useful patterns. In this sense, yoga-tantra has the ability to remove the causes of our suffering.
Jayne Stevenson is a filmmaker with a deep interest in art and spirituality. Dr. Swami Shankardev Saraswati is a yoga Acharya (authority), medical doctor, yoga therapist and author. For more info go to bigshakti.com.
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