Tantra originates from India, where it has been practiced for thousands of years. Tantric practices were at their height between A.D. 500 and 1300. The spiritual, sexual, and personal transformative components of tantra include whole-body health and Ayurvedic medicine. Today, it remains a living system that is designed to promote rapid growth toward enlightenment in the individual.

In India, not everyone has the honor of studying tantra. In order to practice it, you must have a guru who deems you worthy of this art. In tantra, elaborate rituals transform the act of making love to a higher purpose. You need to be the type of person who is able to worship your partner as though she were a goddess.

Adopting Tantric Principles

Although most of you probably won't seek out a guru, practicing even the simplest of the tantric techniques can bring a sense of greater communion with your partner, your sexual nature, and, ultimately, with your soul. We become expansive because our spirit opens up when we engage in more trusting sexual practices that involve communication, the spirit of playfulness, and being open to discovery.

Most of us must teach ourselves the basics of love and sexuality through some form of trial-and-error process. Over time, and especially in long-term relationships, we tend to stop exploring and being inventive. When we can break out of those old patterns and learn new ways of being — physically, spiritually, and emotionally — we expand and open. In a sense, we transcend who we thought we were.

Today in the West, there has been a renewal of interest in tantric practices. Perhaps because our society is maturing, or perhaps because of a widespread awakening of consciousness, we seem to be gravitating toward the lessons in conscious intimacy that tantra has to offer. Most of us know very little about our own bodies and our potential for pleasure. In this age of information, we are attracted to what tantra has to teach us about sex and love.

The spiritual seeking that many Westerners are involved in fits well with the practices that tantra offers. The modern seeker may find that many of the components of ancient tantric practices integrate well with our daily lives. In fact, the experiences one has practicing tantra can be seen as a metaphor for other aspects of one's life and can give one tools for being more present and aware in general.