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Tantra literally means a tool for expansion. In spite of the Eastern terminology, Tantra is an easy concept to grasp. At its heart is the knowledge that a powerful current of energy flows through us all, which needs to be harmonized.

The word tan translates as expansion and tra means tool. Tantras, the texts outlining Tantric practices, are literally tools for expansion. Tantra involves expansion on an energetic, psychological and physical level, and the teachings have been used for thousands of years as a tool to expand the boundaries of consciousness. Like all Hindu paths, it is primarily concerned with self-realization and enlightenment. Not through the usual route of suppressing desire and renouncing worldliness, but through harnessing the potency of desire, and pursuing bliss here and now. Tantra aims to harmonize life energies and resolve contradictions and conflicts in order to experience life as a flow of intense energy.

The word also connotes embracing. Tantra involves embracing all aspects of yourself. As long as you split off aspects of yourself that you don’t like and hold them at a distance, you have no chance to integrate them and no chance of achieving wholeness. It is a heart-centred path, and invites its followers to embrace all of creation, in the name of love. You and your partner are both manifestations of love.

Tantra aims at total surrender – letting go of mental, emotional and cultural conditioning – so that universal life energy can flow through us as effortlessly as a stream. It’s finding our way back to our existential roots, letting go into a sense of wonder and oneness with the universe, which spiritual teachers of all paths describe simply as love. On a more prosaic level, Tantric techniques aim to rekindle a lust for life through encouraging a more vibrant sense of self. Tantra is not a matter of rules and rituals: although it has its fair share of these, they are just structures to enable us to access what’s really important – the direct experience of life.