Information for Tantric Practitioners

Following are a few selected practice basics and general rules for tantric masters, tantrikas, teachers, and all tantric adepts that may be applicable in a tantric massage session:

The Understanding and the Abnegation
Tantra forbids those deeds by which the elementary rights of another human being are denied. A tantric master will never try to persuade, at all cost, outsiders to perform special tantric techniques. A client's understanding must come from inside, and the approaching of the tantric way must be done with the participation of one's entire being, and with total self-offering.

The Meaning of Love
In most languages, the Sanskrit word 'pallavastra' is difficult to translate. Tantra regards love as 'a gradual expansion, by which, starting from the finite, one reaches the infinite'. This meaning should be meditated upon for making its significance clear. Love also means the total empathic identification with the innermost being of the other, as part integrated in the harmony of the macrocosmic infinite.

The Polarity of the Energy
Tantra is pre-eminently a science of the polarity. The male and the female are the personification of the two fundamental cosmic poles: Shiva - the male consciousness, and Shakti - the female manifestation. Therefore, it is particularly wise to remember a few elements concerning the polarity of energy.

Any energy of the manifestation (and therefore any thing, being, phenomenon, state) is composed of two distinct poles: the solar (male, active, emissive, +, YANG), and the lunar (female, passive, receptive, -, YIN). The condition of harmony, and therefore the aim of any method of spiritual development, tantra yoga included, is to reach a perfect balance of these two poles. The traditional teachings state that the unbalance of these two energies (solar (+), and lunar (-)), in whatever sense, creates the condition of disharmony that entails disturbance, disease, pain, limitation, and unhappiness. Their balance, on the other hand, creates a condition of perfect harmony, which is the springboard for the higher spiritual accomplishments. Here are some practical examples concerning the predominance of the two polarities in the manifested world:

• the left side of the body is generally of lunar (-, YIN) polarity, while the right side of the body is generally of solar (+, YANG) polarity.

• females are generally predominantly charged with lunar (-, YIN) energy, while men are prevalently charged with solar (+, YANG) energy.

• some food are commonly charged with YIN (-, lunar) energy, while others are primarily YANG (+, solar). This illustrates one of the several ways of balancing the YIN/YANG energies of the being, which is particularly accessible for Westerners.

• various other conditions of the environment such as: cold/warmth, light/darkness, colors, etc., as well as of the personal behavior may entail a YIN (-, lunar), or YANG (+, solar) predominance.

The polarity of the energy is convoluted by the fact that there can be found a related kind of polarity, between the telluric (Earth's) energy, and the cosmic energy. This polarity is by some means different of the left/right, +/- polarity mentioned above.

However, it is deemed symbolically that the telluric energy is also predominantly feminine, -, while the cosmic energy is male, +, although these two forms of energy may each have their solar/lunar (YIN/YANG) polarity.

Quick Truths About Tantra:

• Tantra holds that the universe is both consciousness and energy

• Tantra holds that each cell is a living being.
• Consciousness no longer belongs to the brain alone, but it becomes a property of the entire body as well as the entire universe.
• Spirituality exists at each and every level of our body.
• For centuries, the West has been caught up in the drama of opposing flesh and the spirit, whereas for tantra there is no border between the two.
• One can be monotheistic and tantric at the same time. Yet, if one belongs to a certain religion, it will take on a new dimension, enriched by the tantric outlook.
• A tantric person does not think of his/her God as living somewhere up in heaven, s/he feels His/Her presence here and now.
• Tantra involves inter alia a search for reality and contradicts neither science nor religion.
• For tantra, creation is not a single event that took place x billion years ago. Rather, it’s a continuous process that is here and now.
• To the popular statement “I think, therefore I am”, tantra adds the corollary, “I am, therefore I think”.
• To tantrikas, our brain is in our psyche rather than our psyche in our brains.
• The universe is alive and conscious.
• For tantra, the body is divine.
• Beings are not limited to the present, they are part and parcel of an eternal process.
• For tantrikas, death is an abstraction and only life exists.
• Man must become aware of his own feminine aspects.
• The aim of Tantra is to live life in total ecstasy, to experience the merging of the species pole to that of the individual pole, and to live life in the here and now.

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