Tantra Experience Festival Corfu 2018

We were helping to organize and participate at one-day Tantra Festival to celebrate the completion of the two-year Tantra Teacher Training led by Ma Ananda Sarita and her Tantra Essence Team.

The festival have been held by the graduates themselves.

Enjoy the photos from this event done by Dev Ninad.

What is Tantra?

What Is Tantra?

As you embark on this course, it’s very helpful to understand the nature of Tantra. Actually, Tantra is all about our inner nature. It is helping us to remember, to reconnect with who we actually already are but maybe we forgot. By using Tantra methods we come back home.

The Origin of the Tantric Teachings

Tantra was developed in India thousands of years ago. In fact, nobody knows the original time frame for when Tantra was developed. It appears, from what historians have found, that many thousands of years ago, there was an approach to spirituality which worshiped the Mother Goddess. And there was another approach to spirituality which worshiped the male principle, the phallus, the father – God. Eventually, these two approaches to spirituality came together and became one. This developed into the path of Tantra. This was the root or seed of Tantra. In this approach to spirituality, the male and female principles are honored equally.

 

How does tantra work?

Another aspect of Tantra which is important to understand is that it will use methods of meditation. By practicing the method, the devotee is actually awakening a particular life experience within them, awakening a certain life principle, giving rise to inner awareness, love and expansion of consciousness. By practicing these methods, we will be awakening and opening into an enlightened state of being. 

Polarity balancing as a basic

It is not that either male or female is dominant in Tantra. Both of them are working in synchronicity together as one whole. The masculine and the feminine principles are honored equally and both are bringing their attributes into the practice of Tantra.

One of the remarkable things about Tantra is that just as Tantra honors equally the masculine and the feminine, it also honors each and every polarity of life and explores all of these polarities, whether that is birth and death, sex and spirit, night and day, all different polarities are explored.

It was found through Tantra practice, by various masters of Tantra, that when you bring any two opposites together, in the middle of this meeting, you will find Godliness, you will find divinity. Divinity is pulsating in that meeting of opposites, whatever those opposites are. So, in Tantra meditation, there will usually be some kind of experience where you are going into opposite polarities and then you’re finding out what happens when they meet. 

A perfect example of that is Tantra methods that work with breath. You’ll be sitting in meditation and just witnessing the breath coming in, representing life and the breath going out, representing death. And you find out what happens in the space in between the in-breath and the out-breath, because that is where you will find the ‘pearl’ or the ‘nectar’ of this practice. This is just one example of how Tantra meditation works.

Every cell of the body contains the whole universe

Tantra explores the whole human being, recognizing that every cell of the body contains the whole universe. The microcosm contains the macrocosm. And so, in Tantra practice, we will go inside of our own bodies with a refined process of discovery, finding the macrocosm within this microcosm. And it is indeed a very powerful, uplifting and expanding journey! Actually, it’s a journey towards enlightenment.

Is Tantra about sexuality?

Tantra has become very famous because there is a certain interpretation about it that it’s all about sexuality. This is a misconception. Tantra includes sexuality but it also includes all senses, all emotions, Kundalini energy, the whole chakra system, expanded states of consciousness and refined intellect. It is a complete cosmology using the body as the template.

By entering into any of our senses, we will move on a path of expansion of consciousness. For example, I see with my two eyes, but in addition to my two eyes, there is a third eye, clairvoyant vision. I have normal vision and I also have clairvoyant vision. And this is the potential of every human being, to discover clairvoyance.

Also, I have two ears. I hear the outer world. I hear the bird singing, the sound of running water, the sound of the wind in the trees, music. I also can hear the music of the spheres. I can hear the soundless sound, Om, if I go deep enough into meditation. In other words, there is also something called clairaudience, the refined aspect of the sense of hearing. There is also a refined aspect of smelling and tasting and a refined aspect of touch and feeling, clairsentience. We can develop all of these different senses to their very refined potential. And that in turn leads to enlightened consciousness.

Different types of Tantra massage

In this online course, we are particularly exploring the quality that is imbued in touch, in feeling, through the practice of different types of Tantra massage. This Tantra massage that we are practicing is moving through the seven chakras. We are going to be focusing one massage on one particular chakra, another massage on another chakra. In this way, we are taking a pilgrimage through our own body, through our own lived experience, using touch as the jumping board for us into expansion of consciousness and love.

Tantra is such an amazing path! It can be discovered through working as an individual, also working as a couple, working through all that we are, whether that be any of the senses, any of the emotions, kundalini energy, chakras, refined states of consciousness. So, from wherever we are in our life experience, we can move on the Tantra path. 

Tantra is normally transmitted from master to disciple. What that means is that someone who has experienced methods of Tantric meditation and grown and evolved through those, is transmitting those methods to someone who is thirsty, who wants to move on the path. The master will give those methods, the disciple will practice the methods and by living the experience of the method, they begin evolving spiritually. 

Normally, people will do a series of a particular meditation technique. The devotee will do that for a certain number of times, till they have extracted the nectar contained in that particular practice. And then they will let that particular practice go and the master will then give another practice. And so, the evolutionary path continues. 

If a couple comes to the master to be initiated into Tantric meditation, methods will be given to the couple to practice and they do those practices as a series and in this way, they evolve their couple dynamic on the Tantra path. Tantra is very, very versatile. It can be used to enhance your relationship. It can be used to open to new possibilities of love, bliss and fulfilment and it can also be used as a journey to enlightenment. In this Tantra Chakra Journey through massage, we are actually going to use the practice that’s done in partnership, because you are exchanging massages. And we’re also going to be inviting you into incredible bliss states through receiving these massages. At the same time, you will be on a journey of expanding your consciousness, because you’re going to be traveling through the chakra system, opening your Kundalini energy and opening all the life lessons that are contained in the chakras through the pleasure of touch. It is an extraordinary Tantra journey! I know you are going to benefit so much from this. Welcome on this journey!