With your heart open to the Great Mystery

The essence of Tantra 

is not concerned with sex.

But the methodology of the Maithuna mystics has created a lot of confusion over the centuries.

Tantra is about Liberation.

Or you might call it “Self-Realization”.

A skilled Tantra teacher will not just teach you which “Magic buttons” to press on your lover’s body.

SHe will be able to pass on to you tools which you will be able to use to navigate through life with an open heart.

To navigate in such a way that, in all activities and in all circumstances, you can find your way to the sacred dimension of Beingness - in whatever circumstances.

All circumstances are viable portals for opening to the divine...

... whether in sexual stimulation, in your greatest successes, in the most challenging failures...

Or even in the face of death.

Tantra helps us see all as Divine Intelligence - and as the Play ('Leela') of the Divine Power ('Shakti').

Tantra enables us to experience life as a flow of Grace. 

But it is not for suppressing “negative feelings”, not for overriding what we truly feel,  not for bypassing reality in any way.

We are not asked to just passively accept all that we experience as 'good'... 

The Tantric methodology is a way of accessing the creative power within us so that we may live and love to our fullest capacity... 

... so that we can experience That which has been called 'Divine'.

It may sound ambitious, or “utopian”...

But ultimately, as much and as long as we may try, nothing less will satisfy us. 

Tantra does not depend on any specific belief system.

• But who can be a Tantrika?
• What does it take?
• What beliefs do I need to adopt?
• What is this talk of “Shiva”, and of “Shakti”?

Shiva is auspiciousness itself... Blessedness... Bliss.

The Space of unlimited, unconditioned Consciousness.

Shakti is Energy, Power, Lifeforce, Vitality.

All of existence, the arising and subsiding.

Really Shiva and Shakti are already One.

Exotic names for something you have always known.

You do not need to be a devotee of Hindu gods to be a Tantrika. 

As long as your heart is open to the great Mystery, it does not matter whether you call her Amma, Ma, Kali, Durga, Shakti, or Mother. 

It does not matter if you call it Shiva, Brahman, God, Babaji, Father, Allah, or Beloved.

But your heart must be calling. 

Your heart must be bursting open or you will not recognize your Beloved, you will be far from understanding Tantra, and you will be far from knowing the fullness of yourSelf.

Your heart must be bursting for you to taste the Divine... to live and move and love, and bathe in Grace.

• Can the Divine be reached?
• Can that Sacred Intimacy be sustained?

It sounds impossible says the mind.

Of course.

The path to Liberation leads out beyond the frontiers of the mind.

You know this.

The path to Self-Realization is the path that walks you already.

Not all paths to Self-Realization are Tantra.

But all of them contain some fragrance of Tantra.

You may know Tantra by some other name..."Spritual Alchemy", for example.

Tantra is a non-sectarian, spiritual 'technology'.

It opens us to experiencing our full potential as incarnate spiritual beings.

Enables us to drop our limitations and conditionings, and ultimately, intimately, know the Creative Mystery...

... as our very own Self.

This is the gift.

Why accept anything less?

Peter Littlejohn Cook