Whats Tantra?

Question

I have heard alot about tantra exercises but what is it. Can anyone tell me about or supply a website?

Answer 1

Tantra is classically a form of Buddhist or esoteric Hindu meditation.
It has recently been bastardized into a form of sexual practice in the west. Highest Yoga Tantra is a visualization of male & female energies. Many people now think they have "tantric sex"- but that's not what it was originally practiced as.
I am a Buddhist & we practice Tantra, but not sexual Tantra...
so I guess it really depends on who you are asking.

Answer 2

Tantra
("Loom"): a type of Sanskrit work containing Tantric teachings; the tradition of Tantrism, which focuses on the shakti side of spiritual life and which originated in the early post-Christian era and achieved its classical features around 1000 CE; Tantrism has a "right-hand" (dakshina) or conservative and a "left-hand" (vama) or unconventional/antinomian branch, with the latter utilizing, among other things, sexual rituals

In english: Any of a comparatively recent class of Hindu or Buddhist religious literature written in Sanskrit and concerned with powerful ritual acts of body, speech, and mind.

Answer 3

As a Buddhist teacher in the west I like to break these concepts down into simple language. Tantra is seen in Buddhism and Hinduism as the involvement of Shakti which is universal energy like "The Force" in simple language. Tantric involves deities who are the manifestations of the Divine energy like Shiva in Hinduism or Mahakala in Buddhism and Kali in Hinduism or Tara in Buddhism. The sexual aspect is based on the relationship between Shiva and Kali -- both forms the creative and destructive compliment each other for a truly whole experience. However tantra in religion also refers to protector deities who guide us from the heavens to bring out the best in our own hearts and minds and missions to help other sentient beings.