What Is Tantra?
A Spiritual Practice… or a Sexual Technique?
If you’ve ever searched the word Tantra online, you’ve probably been met with images, courses, or headlines that make it seem like it’s mostly about sex.
Sacred sex.
Better sex.
Mind-blowing orgasms.
And let’s be real, those are all great. I’m not here to pretend otherwise. They’re just not the whole story.
While sexuality can be part of the practice, it is not, and has never been, the heart of it.
So let’s slow down for a moment and clear something up.
Tantra is not a sexual technique.
It’s a spiritual path.
One that’s been misunderstood, oversimplified, and heavily sexualized in the modern Western world. Somewhere along the way, nuance got lost and marketing took the wheel.
Why Tantra Gets So Misunderstood
In Western culture, these teachings have largely been framed as tools for intimacy or sexual expression. You’ll often see this labeled simply as “Tantra,” when in reality it’s a modern blend of Eastern philosophy, Western psychology, embodiment practices, and sexuality.
For many people, this becomes a genuine doorway back into their bodies. And that is valuable. Especially in a world where so many of us live in our heads, on our phones, and disconnected from our own felt experience.
What’s rarely acknowledged, though, is that this modern expression is very different from classical Tantra, which is where these teachings originate.
The original path points toward liberation.
It leads to awakening through embodiment.
(You can read more about this in my post embodiment as a path to becoming whole.)
Yes, some traditional texts reference sexual practices. But those moments are symbolic and initiatory, offered within very specific contexts. They were never intended to be recreational, performative, or the main focus of the path.
Another common misconception is the idea that Tantra is something you do with another person. While partnered practices exist, and are how many people encounter this work today, the practice itself is primarily solitary.
It is practiced through breath, movement, meditation, contemplation, ritual, and direct personal experience.
Working with a guide can be supportive at certain stages. But the work itself is deeply personal, rooted in self-relationship rather than interaction with another person.
This is also why I write about Tantra the way I do. Not to simplify it, package it, or pretend it can be learned in a weekend. But to help clear up the confusion and offer grounded education for people who may never have access to these teachings in their original context.
Tantra isn’t something you “get” from a book, one class, or one teacher. It’s a path that unfolds over time, through lived practice and discernment. I’ve been teaching Tantra Yoga for over six years, and I continue to study, practice, and refine my innerstanding. What I offer here isn’t the whole map, but an honest orientation from someone who has walked the terrain and values sharing the truth.
More Ancient Than Yoga
Before yoga was reduced to postures. Before meditation was stripped of its spiritual roots. Before spirituality became a business… there was Tantra.
It was once a complete spiritual system and it wasn’t meant for mass consumption.
Not because it was elitist, but because it required the discipline to actually practice rather than sample.
Traditionally, these teachings were passed verbally from teacher to student, often in private settings. Monks and devoted scholars were the ones who preserved them, as they were the ones prepared to meet the responsibility that comes with powerful, esoteric work.
That discretion protected the teachings, but it also meant things were lost or misunderstood over time… almost like the game Telephone, where a phrase is whispered from person to person until, by the end, it barely resembles the original message.
Non-Dual Spirituality
At the heart of this lineage is a non-dual philosophy that offers a refreshingly grounded view of spirituality:
The divine isn’t separate from the world. The body isn’t separate from spirit. Matter itself is sacred.
That includes this body.
This breath.
This very ordinary, human life you’re already living.
Rather than encouraging transcendence or escape, this worldview teaches immanence, that the sacred lives here. In the mundane. In the messy. In the real.
Surrender Not Control
Another common misunderstanding is that this work is about control. Controlling energy. Controlling desire. Controlling outcomes. This may be true for men who want to increase stamina and vitality during lovemaking… but that’s about it.
In my experience, it’s more of the opposite.
This path teaches surrender.
“Tantra invites total surrender not of awareness, but of the ego.”
– Osho
Instead of bypassing discomfort or chasing peak experiences (which, let’s be honest, most of us have done at some point), the invitation is to stay.
To stay with sensation and stay faithful to the breath.
To stay with desire, fear, pleasure, grief, sadness… without collapsing or checking out.
That willingness to stay is what makes it so transformative and somatic.
It doesn’t ask you to rise above your humanity. It asks you to inhabit it more fully.
It’s no mystery…
Sex sells.
Sexuality became the focal point of modern interpretations of Tantra because it’s one of the most charged and repressed energies in Western culture. People really started paying attention in the early 90’s, thanks in part to Sting openly talking about his Tantra practice. Once a rock star put words like “Tantra” and “sex” in the same sentence, curiosity took the wheel.
And to be fair, when these practices are approached with reverence and awareness, they can be incredibly healing.
But when an entire spiritual tradition gets reduced to sex, something essential gets lost.
We miss how this work actually supports emotional regulation, nervous system awareness, and healthier ways of relating… even when no one is naked.
At its core, the emphasis is on:
- energy
- presence
- consciousness
- sensuality – being immersed in the senses
When sexual expression appears, it’s an expression of alignment and embodiment. It is not the destination as the practice itself is non-destination oriented.
Sensuality Is Not Sexuality
This is where a lot of confusion begins.
Sexuality is about putting parts together.
It’s oriented toward procreation and pleasure. It involves activation, direction, and often a goal.
Sensuality is different.
Sensuality is not done for procreation.
It’s done mainly for sensorial exploration and yes, pleasure too.
It’s the experience of sensation for its own sake. Breath moving through the body. Skin registering warmth. Energy circulating when attention is present. There’s no finish line. No performance and no requirement to turn sensation into action.
In this work, sensuality comes first.
Learning to stay with sensation without needing to do anything with it builds nervous system capacity. It restores intimacy with the body. It teaches presence before expression.
When sexual energy does arise, it comes from alignment, not urgency. From embodiment, not hunger. And because the practice itself is non-destination oriented, sexual expression becomes an option… not the point.
This distinction matters. Without it, people chase intensity instead of intimacy and stimulation instead of awareness.
Sensuality teaches you how to receive life.
Sexuality becomes something you choose, not something that runs you.
Types of Tantra
Yes, There’s More Than One!
Tantra isn’t one thing, and it definitely isn’t one vibe.
There are many branches of Tantra: White, Red, and Black Tantra, Tantric Buddhism, Classical Tantra, and what’s often called Neo-Tantra. Some lineages focus heavily on meditation and inner awareness. Others emphasize ritual, devotion, and Goddess worship. Some explore peak states of consciousness. Others are quiet, disciplined, and deeply subtle.
In other words, not all Tantra looks, feels, or functions the same.
The challenge is that modern culture tends to lump all of it into one mysterious, candle-lit category and call it a day. As a result, many people think they’re signing up for one thing, only to realize they’ve wandered into a completely different classroom.
That’s why discernment matters.
When choosing a practitioner or teacher, it’s important to ask what kind of Tantra they’re trained in and teaching. What lineage informs their work? What is emphasized: meditation, ritual, embodiment, sexuality, devotion, nervous system awareness, or spiritual discipline?
These aren’t small details. They shape the entire experience.
Tantra has become so generalized and mythologized that most people don’t even realize there are sub-paths within it. Understanding the differences helps you choose a practitioner that aligns with your intentions instead of relying on vague promises or alluring aesthetics.
What Tantra Offers
At its heart, this work supports:
- embodied spirituality
- nervous system regulation
- emotional sovereignty
- a devotional relationship with life
- integration of body, mind, and soul
- deeper intimacy with oneself and others
In other words, it’s not about becoming someone new.
It’s about learning how to be with who you already are.
It tends to resonate with people who:
- Feel tired of disembodied spirituality that negates your human needs and desires.
- Want to know where spirituality and sexuality merge.
- Crave more intimacy and depth in their relationships.
- Tired of surface level connection and seek more aliveness in their life.
It offers a spacious framework that holds desire, power, softness, discipline, devotion, and truth without asking you to cut off parts of yourself. This is what appeals so much me about it: It’s inclusivity and how it supports wholeness.
Why Depth Matters
I approach this work the way I do because it is genuinely healing and life-expanding.
Not because it promises constant bliss (though that is a major bonus) but because it creates real, lasting change over time.
In this work, you often receive more when you slow down and do less.
Classical yoga philosophy speaks of non-grasping: learning to stay with what’s here rather than reaching for an outcome. Working with a skilled guide reveals where effort turns into striving, where seeking becomes another form of avoidance.
It doesn’t offer something to chase.
And as simple as it sounds, it truly is about the journey… not the destination.
Tantra invites you to soften, notice, and release.
And when you do, life begins to move through you more freely; no longer colliding with the invisible walls built through protection, habit, or fear.
Tantra is something you do. It’s what you return to again and again – in how you show up to your life. How you breathe, how you feel into the moment, how you lean in instead of close.
That’s where it begins.
And that’s where more of you becomes revealed – through the unfolding.
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