Tantra as a spiritual way of life

Tantra as a Spiritual Way of Life

Tantra is ideal for a spiritual way of life.

Even though Tantra has ancient origins, it is very well-suited for living a more spiritual way of life in today’s modern world.

The key basic premise of Tantra is that it embraces everything about the world and our reality as being part of the same Divine essence. As such Tantra does not reject the world or material things, and is all-inclusive in its path towards spiritual awakening.

As Tantra scholar-practitioner Christopher Wallis says…

Tantra teaches that though the Divine is more than meets the eye, it is also everything the eye can meet (or the ear can hear, or the senses can sense, etc.)

Christopher Wallis, August 2nd, 2015.

Divine essence is inherent in everything, everywhere, all around us, and within us. From the perspective of Tantra, anything in our day-to-day experience can potentially be spiritual and can aid us in living a spiritual way of life by awakening our consciousness to our Divine connection.

This is quite a different view from many other spiritual traditions, which often teach that the Divine is to be experienced beyond the physical senses, in some other dimension of mystical consciousness, that is only achieved after you have beaten your lower human nature into submission.

In ancient times, and even up until relatively recently, a traditional spiritual way of life was about withdrawing from the world, becoming a monk or a celibate hermit to dedicate oneself to meditation and enlightenment.

Traditionally, spiritual practice emphasised denying oneself of pleasure, repressing desires, and controlling the body and ego through the practice of severe austerities.

With Tantra the path to Divine consciousness and liberation is accessible to anyone living a busy everyday life. Living a Tantric life means that you can live in a spiritual way without having to give up your everyday pleasures. You can still use and enjoy the material things of life, as long as you are not going to extremes. Excess over-indulgence is never healthy, neither physically nor spiritually.

As Osho once said, in a talk in 1977…

Tantric experience means neither to be repressive nor to be indulgent […] Tantra is not a way of indulgence; it is the only way of freedom.

Osho, 2024/1977

Tantra is more than doing some set practice or technique. It’s about cultivating an attitude of love and open-mindedness.

Tantra as a spiritual way of life means constantly reminding yourself of the Divine nature inherent in everything and everyone around you…

… In the people in your life… your relationships, friends, and family.

… In your actions, in your work, and your play, and the way you treat other living beings.

… In the things that give you joy and pleasure, such as food, sex, nature, travel, and anything you are passionate about.

It’s also about embracing the darker, uncomfortable aspects of life, and realising that those things too are all a part of the Divine nature of the Universe.

Ancient Tantra teachings provided guidance for a spiritual way of life.

The early Tantric texts contain many accounts related to how to practice Tantra as a means to live more spiritually.

In the Tantrasāra text, which was composed over a thousand years ago by the Tantrik master Abhinavagupta, we see detailed descriptions for how a spiritual aspirant should cultivate the right attitude and perspective for living a spiritual way of life (Wallis, 2013).

Abhinavagupta writes that true worship is to realise that everything is an expression of the same Divine Awareness. In your prayers and meditations, when you offer anything to the Divine, whether that be a physical offering, such as flowers or incense, or a mental offering, such as your love or your struggles… you who make the offering are an expression of the same Divinity to which you are directing your worship. And the offering itself, and even the act of offering are also expressions of that same Divinity.

A simple daily practice to help you cultivate this attitude is to chant the Brahmarpanam prayer, The Food Blessing Prayer.

The translation is approximately something along the lines of…

“This act of offering is God, this which I offer is God, it is God who makes the offering into the Fire of God. God is that which is realised through complete absorption with this action.”

Brahmarpanam Brahmahavir Brahmagnau Brahmanahutam

Brahmaiva Tena Gantavyam Brahmakarma Samadhina

– Brahmaparnam food prayer

Abhinavagupta also talks about how, when we worship in a formal or ceremonial way, it’s helpful to use things that are pleasing to the senses, such as flowers, nice fragrances, and even wine that has a good bouquet.

Sensual pleasures can be part of a spiritual way of life.

The reason for this is because when we see, smell, taste, or touch beautiful and delicious things, it’s easy for our mind and our being to repose in blissful awareness, even if just for a moment. As can happen when we listen to music, or read or hear a beautiful poem, or stop to appreciate a beautiful sunset… for a moment our attention is fully absorbed in the beauty of those things. As we are briefly immersed in the sensual experience, we momentarily lose ourself, lose our sense of egoic identity, and become one with the pleasure of the experience. In that brief moment we exist as pure awareness.

This repose within pure awareness is called in Sanskrit viśrānti (Wallis, 2013), and is a key element of a Tantric way of living.

This viśrānti is essentially living fully in the present moment, as often as we can. When we are completely absorbed in that pure awareness of the present moment, the veil separating our small egoic consciousness from the universal Divine consciousness, gets thinner and in moments can disappear completely.

When we cultivate viśrānti with a sense of loving self-awareness, we are in a state of ānanda, that sate of bliss which is more than simple happiness.

A Tantric spiritual way of life, then, is to use those sensually pleasant things around you to come back to the present moment, and to still your mind, to immerse yourself in blissful moments as you connect with the pleasurable delights of everyday experience.

So we can easily practice this whenever we are enjoying some sensual pleasure, whether that be eating some nice food, making love, or walking in nature.

However, Abhinavagupta also says in the Tantrasāra that we should offer all things to the highest Divinity. So not just the pleasant experiences, but also negative and uncomfortable things.

Tantra embraces not just the pleasurable, but also the painful.

According to Tantra, difficult or painful situations are also part of the Divine nature of Universe. And the negative, undesirable aspects of ourselves are also part of our own Divine nature. By offering our so-called negativity with that perspective we transform ourselves to become clearer instruments of Divine consciousness.

The practice of using pleasant things is our training to empower us to bring Divine awareness to uncomfortable, or difficult, or challenging situations. A spiritual way of life means accepting both the pleasant and the unpleasant.

By cultivating this practice and this attitude, we are able to view all persons with love, even those we dislike or who annoy us.

And we are able to view ourselves with greater love and compassion, accepting our imperfections, and our own darkness. Key to living a spiritual way of life is to bring compassion and gratitude to the disowned parts of ourselves. We are able to offer to God our problems, our sadness, and even the undesirable parts of ourselves that previously we had tried to hide or ignore.

As a Tantric spiritual way of life, we strive to do this both in our formal practice, and in our daily life.


The Tantric Life Podcast

Listen to the podcast episode of this topic on your preferred platform, here: E33 Tantra as a Daily Spiritual Way of Life.


Tantra teaches us to also embrace our Shadow Self, in a healthy and loving way. By recognising that all is an expression of Divine Awareness we are empowered to accept our own negativity and struggles, as well as those of others. When we start to embrace our Shadow Self we start to integrate into out being aspects of our personality that in the past were fractured or despised.

Tantra as a spiritual way of life helps us remember our true Self.

So Tantra is truly a path to wholeness, integration, and realising that we are complete, already now in this moment, that we have always been complete, that we never really needed to be “fixed”. Our essence is and always has been that of perfect pure awareness, bliss, and joy. It’s just that our individual egoic mind as been obscuring that truth from us, telling us false stories about ourself, creating barriers from our past experiences and conditioning, which is why we have struggled so hard to remember who and what we truly are.

The tools and practices of Tantra give us the means to gradually dissolve those barriers, to heal the limiting beliefs and patterns of our past conditioning.

Tantra offers us the possibility of embracing and enjoying life, of having freedom from our limitations, freedom from our fears and past. It gives us the freedom to enjoy our senses, our desires, and the pleasures of this world, whilst channeling our energies towards a higher state of consciousness.

In this way the Tantric path is ideally suited as a spiritual way of life in today’s modern world.

In an upcoming class we are going to deep dive into some of the specific Tantra practices, simple but powerful, that even beginners can incorporate into daily life, to start living your life in a more Tantric way.


You may also be interested in these other posts about Tantra…

The Shadow Self, Tantra, and Samskaras.

Tantra Basics Part 2: History of Tantra from Classical to Neo.


References:

Wallis, C. D. (2013). Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition. (2nd ed.). Mattamayura Press.

Wallis C. D. (2015, August 2nd). What is Tantra?: Setting the Record Straight. hareesh.org. https://hareesh.org/blog/2015/8/2/what-is-tantra?rq=what%20is%20tantra

Osho (2024). The Tantra Experience: Talks on the Song of Saraha. Osho International Foundation. (Originally published as The Tantra Vision, Vol. 1, 1977). 

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