Q: What is Tantra and what aspects of Tantra Yoga do you teach?
A: One of the key things to understand is that Tantra is an aspect of yoga. Yoga Tantra, as opposed to Yoga Sutra. Yoga Sutra is the practice of training your mind. It’s the practice of purification. It’s the practice of focus, of non-distraction. Anything that gets in the way of you focusing and training your mind you get rid of. You focus, and focus and focus until you get to a certain place of understanding things. This point of understanding things is very important to begin the practice of yoga tantra.
You can’t really begin the practice of tantra before you have taken the foundational steps of yoga sutra.
Tantra, one of its meanings is weaving. It also means liberation through expansion, so finding that place within us, that place of understanding, and living in a place of freedom from inclusivity. Not from excluding things, but including things.
Sutra literally means a thread. Tantra, one of its meanings is weaving. It also means liberation through expansion, so finding that place within us, that place of understanding, and living in a place of freedom from inclusivity. Not from excluding things, but including things.
Tantra is misunderstood in the western world as some kind of sexual therapy. It’s not that. There are aspects to practice that include sexuality, and they are really really important, but they’re not the most important aspects of tantra. Tantra is a lifestyle practice. It’s a way of living; it’s a way of living a vision and making that vision real in the world. So it’s a profound and powerful approach, and probably the most important approach for this time of Kali Yuga that we live in.
Kali Yuga is the time when the biggest things that people respect are force and money. Power as dominance, and money. This is a time of ignorance and the key practices for a time of ignorance, is tantra.