Tantra

Tantra is a form of yogic practice leading to divine ecstasy through certain rites that emphasize the erotic and the forbidden. Tantra is centred upon ‘shakti’, the divine female power worshipped by the sadhakas (male practitioners) through the ‘shaktis’ named after the goddesses who are her earthly incarnation in the tantric ceremony. While traditional Hindu spirituality emphasizes abstinence from physical, emotional aid tactile pleasures as well as the negation of the mundane world, tantra cultivates and makes use of them.

In place of liberation through renunciation, tantra teaches liberation through bhoga (enjoyment). The core of Tantra is the feminine, generative, reproductive principle ‘shakti’, without which the world would not function.