Tantra and its practices

The seven chakras of Kundalini

Basically in India we see various popular practices form them Tantra is a most popular practice basically started in India is approximately 600 AD.

The word Tantra connotes "Looms" or "Weavings". Tantra is basically esoteric traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism that co-developed most likely about the middle of the 1st millennium AD. The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable "text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice".

Starting in the early centuries of common era, newly revealed Tantras centering on Vishnu, Shiva or Shakti emerged.

Hindu Tantra (classes)

The word tantra is made up by the joining (sandhi in Sanskrit) of two Sanskrit words: tanoti (expansion) and rayati (liberation). Tantra means liberation of energy and expansion of consciousness from its gross form. It is a method to expand the mind and liberate the dormant potential energy, and its principles form the basis of all yogic practices. Hence, the Hindu Tantra scriptures refer to techniques for achieving a result.

The Hindu Tantras total ninety-two scriptures; of these, sixty-four are purely Abheda (literally "without differentiation", or monistic), known as the Bhairava Tantras or Kashmir Śaivite Tantras, eighteen are Bhedābheda (literally "with differentiation and without differentiation" monistic or dualistic), known as the Rudra Tantras), and ten are completely Bheda (literally "differentiated" or dualistic), known as the Śiva Tantras. The latter two (Rudra Tantras and Śiva Tantras) are used by the Śaiva Siddhāntins, and thus are sometimes referred to as Shaiva Siddhanta Tantras, or Śaiva Siddhānta Āgamas.

Tantra are mainly two types Agama and Nigama. Agamas are those texts in which Goddess asked questions and the God replied. In Nigama texts God asked questions and Goddess replied. This dialogue between God and Goddess is special feature of Hinduism Tantra.

Origin

In the Nāth Tradition, legend attributes the origin of Tantra to Dattatreya, a semi-mythological yogi and the assumed author of the Jivanmukta Gita ("Song of the liberated soul"). Matsyendranath is credited with authorship of the Kaulajñāna-nirnāya, a voluminous ninth-century tantra dealing with a host of mystical and magical subjects. This work occupies an important position in the Hindu tantric lineage, as well as in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.

Tantric Practices

The early Tantric practices in Indian history are sometimes attributed to the Kapalikas (literally, "skull men", also called Somasiddhatins or Mahavartins). Little, however, is reliably known about them, and there is a paucity of primary sources on Kapalikas. The historical information about them is primarily available from dubious fictional works and the disparaging remarks made about them in the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain texts of the 1st millennium AD.

In Hāla’s Gatha-saptasati (composed by the 5th century AD), for example, the story calls a female character Kapalika, whose lover dies, he is cremated, she takes his cremation ashes and smears her body with it. The 6th-century Varāhamihira mentions Kapalikas in his literary works. Some of the Kāpālika practices mentioned in these texts are those found in Shaiva Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism, and scholars disagree on who influenced whom.

These early historical mentions are in passing and appear to be Tantra-like practices, they are not detailed nor comprehensive presentation of Tantric beliefs and practices. Epigraphic references to the Kaulas Tantric practices are rare. Reference is made in the early 9th century to vama (left-hand) Tantras of the Kaulas. Literary evidence suggests Tantric Buddhism was probably flourishing by the 7th-century. Matrikas, or fierce mother goddesses that later are closely linked to Tantra practices, appear both in Buddhist and Hindu arts and literature between the 7th and 10th centuries.

Sex and eroticism

Sexuality has been a part of Tantric practices, and in particular sexual fluids have been viewed as "power substances" and used ritualistically. Some extreme texts, states Flood, go further such as the Buddhist text Candamaharosana-tantra advocating consumption of bodily waste products as "power substances", teaching the waste should be consumed as a diet "eaten by all the Buddhas" without slightest disgust. Although Tantric sexual practices are popularly associated to methods to achieve a long lasting orgasm without ejaculation, in early Tantra intercourse was done precisely as a mean to generate the sexual fluids that constituted the "preferred offering of the Tantric deities." Even in Buddhist Tantra, intentionally prolongued bliss is still required to end in sexual emission in order to produce the substances. Only later preservation of semen is emphasized, such as the ceremony known as asidharavrata and the Hatha Yoga technique of vajroli mudra, possibly adopted from ancient, non-Tantric celibate schools.

The fundamental thing to know about tantric sex is that it's based on a loose collection of religious texts in Sanskrit known as tantra that come from the non-mainstream of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain tradition. The tantra were very much, in other words, challenging normal religious practice, and haven't necessarily had the best reputation throughout their existence. They're also heavily focused on a lot of different things, from magic rituals to spells and mantras. Their overall perspective is complicated, but is often based on the idea that concentration can evoke relevant deities inside people and unleash their spiritual energy. They also emphasize that the body needs to be used to reach higher states of consciousness, maybe through yoga, or through gratification. Sex, as Loriliai Biernacki notes in "The Yogini and the Tantric Sex Rite," is sometimes not a high priority in the tantra; ones focused on yoga don't mention it at all, and it's not nearly as "ubiquitous" among tantra texts as you might imagine.

Kamabandha (erotic sculpture) at Khajuraho temple

Sadhanas

There are number of techniques used as aids of meditation and achieving spiritual power

• Dakshina: Donation or gift to one's teacher

• Diksha: Initiation ritual which may include shaktipat

• Yoga, including breathing techniques (pranayama) and postures (asana), is employed to balance the energies in the body/mind.

• Mudras, or hand gestures

• Mantras: reciting syllables, words, and phrases

• Singing of hymns of praise (stava)

• Mandalas

• Yantras: symbolic diagrams of forces at work in the universe

• Visualization of deities and Identification with deities

• Puja (worship ritual)

• Animal sacrifice

• Use of taboo substances such as alcohol, cannabis, meat and other entheogens.

• Prāyaścitta - an expiation ritual performed if a puja has been performed wrongly

• Nyasa

• Ritual purification (of idols, of one's body, etc.)

• Guru bhakti (devotion) and puja

• Yatra: pilgrimage, processions

• Vrata: vows, sometimes to do ascetic practices like fasting

• The acquisition and use of siddhis or supernormal powers. Associated with the left hand path tantra.

• Ganachakra: A ritual feast during which a sacramental meal is offered.

• Ritual Music and Dance.

• Maithuna: ritual sexual union (with an actual physical consort).

• Dream yoga

Hinduism

Shiva

In Hinduism, the tantric traditions are found in Shaivism's Shaiva Siddhanta and the Mantrapīṭha (Bhairava-centred), and in Shaktism's Vidyāpīṭha and the Kulamārga traditions.

The Tantra texts of the Vaishnava tradition are the Pancharatra, and typically called the Agamas in the Vaishnava traditions. The term "Tantra" in Hindu genre of literature is usually used specifically to refer to Shakta Agamas. The Agamas literature is voluminous, and includes 28 Shaiva Agamas, 77 Shakta Agamas (also called Tantras), and 108 Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancharatra Samhitas), and numerous Upa-Agamas.

Each Tantra-Agama text consists of four parts:

• Jnana pada, also called Vidya pada – consists of doctrine, the philosophical and spiritual knowledge, knowledge of reality and liberation.

• Yoga pada - precepts on yoga, the physical and mental discipline.

• Kriya pada - consists of rules for rituals, construction of temples (Mandir); design principles for sculpting, carving, and consecration of idols of deities for worship in temples; for different forms of initiations or diksha. This code is analogous to those in Puranas and in the Buddhist text of Sadhanamala.

• Charya pada - lays down rules of conduct, of worship (puja), observances of religious rites, rituals, festivals and prayaschittas.

The Tantra-Agama texts of Hinduism present a diverse range of philosophies, ranging from theistic dualism to absolute monism. This diversity of views was acknowledged in Chapter 36 of Tantraloka, the 10th century scholar Abhinavagupta. In Shaivism alone, there are ten dualistic (dvaita) Agama texts, eighteen qualified monism-cum-dualism (bhedabheda) Agama texts, and sixty four monism (advaita) Agama texts. The Bhairava Shastras are monistic Tantra texts, while Shiva Shastras are dualistic.

Buddhism

Many tantric traditions developed within Buddhism, over its history in South Asia and East Asia. These are also called the Vajrayana traditions.The tradition has been particularly prevalent in Tibet and Nepal. The Buddhist Tantric practices and texts, states Jacob Dalton, developed between the 5th and the 7th centuries and this is evidenced by Chinese Buddhist translations of Indian texts from that period preserved in Dunhuang. Ryan Overbey too affirms this, stating that Buddhist Tantric spells and ritual texts were translated by Chinese Buddhist scholars six times and these spells appear in multiple texts between the 5th and 8th centuries

Green Tara goddess

According to the Kalachakra-tanta, the Buddha taught that, in this age of degeneration, enlightenment must be achieved through the body, which contains the whole cosmos. Vajrayana specialists warn, however, that the first step toward enlightenment is taken by undergoing instruction by a master who has been initiated into the mysteries and can teach the correct use of the body’s process. The master directs every step so that the pupil learns to control mental and physical processes instead of being dominated by them.

The master, it is believed, leads the student to compassion through meditation on the transitoriness of life, the relation of cause and effect of one’s actions, and the suffering of humanity. After sympathy for human suffering has been aroused, the student is taught yogic, or contemplative, exercises that help to produce inner experiences corresponding to the various stages of spiritual growth. Advancement toward enlightenment involves the identification of the initiate with deities that represent various cosmic forces. These gods are first visualized with the help of mudras (meditative gestures and postures), mantras (sacred syllables and phrases), and icons portrayed in a mandala, all of which are believed to possess the essence of the divinities to be invoked. After this visualization the initiate identifies with the divinities and finds that each in turn is shunyata (“voidness”).

According to Vajrayana traditions, the culmination of this process, called vajrasattva yoga, gives the initiate a diamond-like body beyond all duality. The four stages in the process are described in four different groups of tantras (the Kriya-tantra, Charya-tantra, Yoga-tantra, and Anuttarayoga-tantra) that are compared with the fourfold phases of courtship (the exchange of glances, a pleasing or encouraging smile, the holding of hands, and consummation in the sexual act). The first stage involves external ritual acts, and the second combines these outward acts with contemplation. The third stage involves only contemplation, and the fourth is the unification of all dualities in the sexual act, symbolically or effectively. The last stage is divided into two phases. In the first the initiate uses controlled imagination to experience the union on an ideational level. The second phase is the maithuna, or sexual coupling. Unlike the ordinary sexual act, which gives only momentary pleasure, the maithuna is considered a technique to attain enlightenment and eternal bliss because the initiate has already realized the voidness of all things, allowing perfect control over emotions and a complete absence of attachment.

Jainism and other religions

The Tantric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism spread rapidly within India and Tibet, and from there to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia. They significantly influenced many other religious traditions such Jainism, Sikhism, the Tibetan Bön tradition, Daoism, and the Japanese Shintō tradition. In the Sikh literature, the ideas related to Shakti and goddess reverence attributed to Guru Gobind Singh, particularly in the Dasam Granth, are related to tantra ideas found in Buddhism and Hinduism.

The Jain worship methods, states Ellen Gough, were likely influenced by Shaktism ideas, and this is attested by the tantric diagrams of the Rishi-mandala where the Tirthankaras are portrayed. The Tantric traditions within Jainism use verbal spells or mantra, and rituals that are believed to accrue merit for rebirth realms.

Tantric Yoga

Tantra is not about unbridled sexuality, as assumed by many. Sexuality is a fundamental instinct instilled in our bodies to ensure the species perpetuates itself. This is a basic requirement. At the same time, one must know the limitations beyond which it will not carry us. It is only on recognising the limitations and the longing to touch other dimensions enters, that yoga and tantra become relevant.

So once a great teacher said, "Tantra is about learning to use the body, not as oneself, but as a stepping-stone to deliver this Being to the highest possible dimension.”