Tantra

abeadle
1 day ago
2 min read

Through the precision of B. K. S. Iyengar’s teachings, I enter a tantric relationship with the body—where nothing is excluded and everything becomes a doorway.

At its root, Tantra is a spiritual path of integration. It weaves together body, mind, breath, ritual, devotion, and yes—energy—but energy is just one thread in a much larger tapestry.

For me, Tantra includes:

• Embodied practice — working with the body through posture, breath, and awareness

• Ritual and devotion — honoring the sacred in form (mala beads, mantra, altar, gesture)

• Philosophy — understanding reality as non-dual, where everything is divine

• Conscious relationship — how you meet others, not just sexually, but energetically and emotionally

• Energy work — working with prana, chakras and kundalini

What we often see today—especially online—is a very narrow way of looking at Tantra that emphasizes:

• sexuality

• polarity dynamics

• “energy transmission”

These can be part of Tantra but they are not the whole.

A more traditional understanding would say: Tantra is a way of including everything—even desire, even chaos, even the body—into the path of awakening.

So rather than escaping life, Tantra says: go deeper into it, but with awareness.

Classical Yoga, as laid out in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, is often about:

• discipline

• stilling the mind

• moving toward liberation through restraint and clarity

Tantra, expressed through texts like the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, tends to say:

• nothing needs to be rejected

• everything can be used as a doorway

• the body, senses, and even desire are included

“Iyengar Yoga gives me the structure through which tantric awareness can be experienced.”