Reddit reviews Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

Indian here. I have been studying Hinduism and other derivatives (Buddhism) for a while now. I will attempt to explain.

The end goal of Hinduism is the state of Nirvana - a state of eternal bliss, free from the cycle of birth and death and free from its physical pains. That is that in a nutshell. There is more to it, but assume that every spiritual practitioner's end goal is to "liberate" himself/herself from the physical body.

The means of achieving this goal is to elevate something called the kundalini (or the coiled latent energy) that is believed to reside at the base of every person's spinal column. This in itself will require great exposition, but just take it that all spiritual aspirants practice different forms of yoga/meditation in order to elevate this latent energy. When this energy begins to rise, it is believed to hit 7 chakras or wheels. These wheels have been known to corroborate with the endocrine glands, but not much research has been done. As this energy rises due to the practitioner performing various austerities and techniques (breath retention, meditation, etc), the body begins to experience various sights, sounds and smells. Finally, when the energy reaches the crown of the head, the person is enlightened. One such enlightened soul was the Buddha.

Now, with this background, the missing link is what does one do to reach Nirvana. Many techniques exist. Broadly, most of them are slotted into the left-handed path and the right-handed path. Most Hindus follow the right-handed path. This involves practicing yoga, meditation, following a vegetarian diet and complex breathing techniques that force the kundalini up the spinal column.

However, it is believed that in these times (the Hindus believe in 4 Yugas and in each Yuga, man ascends/descends towards materialism) man is in his most primal state of attachment with the earth. Hence, the traditional right handed path of pure meditation fails. As someone who has tried to meditate, I can attest to this. The mind if fickle and it is impossible to focus!

Thus, Tantra Yoga was born. Tantra Yoga was taught to man by the Lord Shiva himself. The Sanskrit root for tan means the body. Similar to Tantra are Mantra and Yantra. These are tools given to the yogic aspirant to still his/her mind. A Mantra is a phrase that is attuned to a person and when repeated many times over in the mind, it can lead to Nirvana. A Yantra is a visual image and the aspirant is asked to visualize and contemplate it in his/her mind for the same reason. One of the popular Yantras that the Hindus consider sacred is the Sri Yantra. Hindu temples (and many mosques) are adorned with these motifs to give the aspirant a means to focus.

This leads us to the last of the lot - Tantra. As I said before, Tantra is that form of yoga that uses the body as a vehicle to attain Nirvana. Now, the West has been guilty of reducing this sacred, ancient and left-handed path of yoga into Tantric Sex and there are many widespread wrong notions about it. A Tantric practitioner has to be initiated into a school. there are a few schools now still extant, but have been driven out of public eye due to their practices. While I can talk a lot about Tantric Yoga, I will address the sex aspect now.

In the Tantric Yoga school, it is believed that the kundalini's essence is carried in the body fluids. Thus, they place a great deal of importance on the semen and the vaginal fluids of the woman. The student of the Tantric Yoga will let you believe that there is nothing erotic or sensual about the ritual sex and is what it is - ritual. Most of the times, the women are middle aged and initiated specifically for this purpose and it is not anything like the porno and sleazy films that the West has pandered to its audience. During the ritual, the woman takes on the physical form of the Goddess Kundalini. She is propitiated and then stimulated. It is believed that as the woman slowly ascends to a state of ecstasy, her kundalini elevates and the devotees worship the goddess via the form of the dakini (this is the official word for the goddess when she enters the human form). The ritual will last for an hour or so. Animal sacrifices are normally made. Lots of meat and wine are consumed and then this sets the stage for more intense rituals which are not shared to the uninitiated.

Now, it is interesting that one of the core tenets of the left-handed path is idol worship. Because of the belief that man cannot let go of the material world easily, in order to facilitate his kundalini rising, he is asked to visualize the god and goddess via a stone carving. Today, this has been adopted by the right handed path and virtually every Hindu temple has dozens of idols. An example Traditional right handed followers eschew idol worship and entreat their brethren to focus on yantras in their mind if they so need to be visual!

A final word - the rising of the kundalini is exoterically explained to the masses as the meeting of the goddess with the Lord Shiva (who resides at the crown of one's forehead). This meeting results in a state of eternal bliss (Nirvana) and that it literally springs forth from his head. These images are metaphors and have sadly been lost in centuries that Hinduism has existed. Today, idols and murals of Shiva are made, yet few people understand its esoteric meaning. Similarly, the goddess Kundalini is represented as the ferocious Goddess Durga who is shown as a kick-ass woman, riding a tiger and stabbing a demon. Again, this is metaphoric and represents the destruction of the pleasures of the flesh as the Kundalini rises to meet Lord Shiva.

Hope this helps. A fascinating, thorough and a "for dummies" exposition of Tantra can be found in Georg Fuerstein's Tantra - Path Of Ecstasy