If you’re into things like spirituality, yoga, or meditation, then there’s every chance tantric meditation isn’t strange to you. Even if you’re in a completely different world from these, you probably have heard of tantric sex, which explores tantric practice in sex. What exactly is tantric meditation and what do you need to know about it?
Tantric Meditation is a form of meditation that involves the channeling of energy to transform the body and soul. The energy generated from tantra can spread to every part of the body, providing immense benefits and wide-ranging effects.
What’s the origin of tantric meditation? What are its techniques? What are the benefits and effects of tantra? What are the tantric meditation colors? If you have any of these questions and many more, you’re in the right place. Here, you’ll learn everything there is to get you started on tantric meditation.
What is Tantric Meditation?
Tantric Meditation is a practice that lets “divine energy” flow through us. It combines meditation, sound, breath, and movement to open the seven chakras within us. The energy starts to flow from the root chakra at the pelvis and moves to other chakras along the spine, ending its long route at the crown chakra. This energy, as it spreads around the body, provides healing from trauma, stress, and anxiety.
Moreover, tantric meditation improves your self-awareness and enhances your relationship with others.
History of Tantric Meditation
When it comes to the origins of tantric meditation, there isn’t so much of a consensus. Some experts put the date at 300 CE – 400 CE, coinciding with the earliest Hindu and Buddhist materials on the concept. Some experts believe that tantra started around 5000 years ago.
What we can all agree on is the first home of the concept, which is present-day Pakistan and Northern India. There are also suggestions that the practice began in ancient Egypt, with traces of it still in major religions of the world.
How Many Tantric Meditation Techniques are there?
It’s almost impossible to tell how many tantric meditation techniques are out there. Most people get into tantra via a guide, instructor, or guru, the processes remain in obscurity. The only light we can glean comes from the process of initiation in Buddhist Tantra.
The student will have to first go through ritual acts through the guidance of a master. Then will have to learn different meditative exercises that will help release strong inner energy. The next stage takes the student deeper into contemplative exercises and the last stage is the symbolic or effective unification of the acts.
What are Tantric Meditation Colors?
Tantric Meditation has a set of colors, with each color representing a unique aspect of the practice. There are four tantric meditation colors – red, white, black, and pink – many people are only familiar with the first two.
Red tantric meditation is the most popular one of the set and it covers everything about sexuality and sensuality. In practice, it involves immersing yourself in an intimate sexual experience with your partner via breathing exercises. In red tantric, you put all of your senses into the sexual experience by playing sensual songs, looking into your partner’s eyes, and slowly making love.
White Tantra is centered on channeling your subconscious energy to provide healing for your mind and body. The practice of this tantra, many argue, releases even more beneficial effects than regular meditation. This is the only form of tantric meditation that requires an instructor for effectiveness.
Just like you combine white and red to get pink, the same way you combine red and white tantra to get pink tantric meditation. Those who practice it can live above the stress that often comes with one’s unending sexual desires. Black tantra, on the other hand, is the dark side of tantric meditation. It involved the use of meditation to control other people through the release of dark energies.
How do you Practice Tantra?
Tantra is arguably the most difficult form of meditation. That’s largely due to the level of self-consciousness that is required and you can hardly attain that on your own. Many a time, the initiate will have to need a guru’s guidance.
You can join a tantric group, enroll in a course or you can get an app where gurus teach the practice.
Tantric Meditation Benefits and Effects
Tantric Meditation portends several benefits to the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of any individual. As energy springs from the very depth of the individual, there’s no limit to where it gets to.
- Emotional Benefits: Include stability in one’s emotional life and relationships; emotional maturity, and self-control.
- Physical Benefits: Include increased immunity, lowered blood pressure, healing of body’s diseases, and general well-being.
- Spiritual Benefits: Discovery and connection of inner spiritual force and heightened state of self-consciousness.
- Mental Benefits: Increased mental capacity, enhanced memory, improved learning, and focus,
What are Tantric Rituals?
Tantric rituals are a set of actions you perform in an orderly manner for specific purposes in tantra. These rituals are different from devotional worships, which many people also perform. They include the important initiation rites and rituals to access the favor and presence of some Hindu Gods and Goddesses.
Concerning tantric initiation, the guru will give a personal sacred utterance to the initiate, after which the latter can choose a particular aspect to focus on. There are also tantric worshipping rituals such as mandalas, yantras, chants, visualizations, and tantras. Other important rituals in tantra are the taboo-breaking rituals, which include certain lineages inculcating specific activities into their initiation rituals. These may include sexual intercourse, drinking, and eating.
As the practice of tantra grows, we have many tantric rituals springing up and becoming popular. Some examples include welcoming rituals, tantric bathing, Linga Worship, and Kundalini Energy Awakening initiations.