Tantra has so many interesting meanings…

A “tantra” may be a spiritual practice for achieving “expansion to
liberation.” (it may be a ritual or meditation)…

A “tantra” may be any practice of material transformation or spiritual alchemy…

A “tantra” may be a mundane practice of magic, a talisman, or a totem, used for wealth, power, domination, or protection, or soothsaying…

It may be a scripture or treatise enumerating any of the above types of tantric practice. Most such writings date from 500 AD on to the
present.

A “tantra” may be a strictly oral teaching of either mundane or
spiritual practice. Many of these oral teachings date back several
thousand years, and are reflected by sculpture, pottery, friezes,
paintings, and ritual implements from as far back as 7000BC…

Tantric practice may be highly ornate, with much external ritual
paraphernalia, or it may be completely inside the mind, completely
internalized as a visualization or awareness beginning with a specific
focus.

Some tantra does involve the use of “forbidden” substances – alcohol,
flesh, intoxicants – but these are used within the context of specific rigorous practices, and should not be taken as excuses for debauchery.

Some tantra involves the use of mantra (sound resonance) and yantra
(visual resonance), but not all…

Some tantric schools view existence as “duality” (“I and Thou”) others
as “non-duality” (“i am that i am”). Some are polytheistic, and some
are monotheistic, some are not theistic at all.

There are tantric teachers (for instance, some teachers of Samaya
Tantra) who will tell you there is no sex in real tantra. There are
tantric teachers who will tell you tantra is only about sex. Neither
group is right.

Most tantra works with “sexual” energy, but this may be on the
macrocosmic level of natural, universal forces of creation and
destruction, or on the interpersonal level of human sexuality (whether physical sex, or visualized “divine” intercourse), or even on the microcosmic level of the polar (male/female, solar/lunar, yang/yin) forces within the individual human body. In the most powerful practices, tantra may be all of the above…

There are practices developed only in the last 40 years, classified as “Neo-Tantra”, “Modern Tantra” or “New-Age Tantra”. Some make valuable contributions, in that they can improve physical and emotional health through loving sexuality, but they lack many of the higher spiritual benefits of traditional tantric practices, and in some ways further obscure the power and meaning of these traditional practices. But Tantra has many millenia of history of this sort of obscuration — dilution and syncretism are nothing new.

Any one of the above characterizations of tantra, taken individually,
is only half-truth. I’ll explore them all intimately in forthcoming
issues of Tantra Tips.

Until then,

Smile, breathe right, and keep your tongue up!
Your Friend,
Tao Semko of www.UmaaTantra.com
Smashan Press, Inc., Publishers:

Most spiritual seekers get nowhere fast for one reason, and one reason only…

Boredom.

Nobody is going to do a practice that’s boring.

But there is a better way of practicing.

Just look at the lion cub…

Watch lion cubs play. On TV or on youtube, it doesn’t matter. Watch them play. As you watch them in your screen, you’ll become absorbed in the expansion of their awareness, as the cubs stalk, pounce, hide, chase, frolic, posture, vocalize, seek solitude, negotiate their surroundings, and each other…

It’s fun for them. It’s filled with emotion. It’s playful. It’s relentless. It’s realistic. Their kind of playing requires intuition.

It never stops. It pushes limits. They need stillness and motion, quiet observation and rapid action. They build timing, awareness of distance, self-awareness and awareness of the others of their tribe.

Their practice is motivated by primal drives – hunger, reproduction, social pressures, the need for fun! It builds focus without tunnel vision. This is the kind of practice that creates expansion (TAN-otti) to liberation (TRA-yotti)= TANTRA.

What are we talking about here? Learning games… Lion cubs take each skill they need to perfect in order to survive and prosper, and turn it into an ever-expanding game.

The game never stops.

Even when they’re sleeping, you can see them playing in their dreams – chasing, hunting, sniffing, listening.

They play alone with their environment. They play with phantom “prey.”
They play with their food.

They chase and stalk their brothers and sisters.

They play with (and on) their mother. They learn to hunt, to fight, to find the best places to eat and sleep, they learn what plants to chew to settle an over-stuffed stomach. They learn conceal themselves from each other and their prey…

The cubs constantly create, making more and more elaborate games. They learn to use all of their senses and emotion to intensify and remember these useful behavioral memories.

They learn to trust intuition. They learn the effects of facial expression, posture, roars and whimpers, on themselves and those around them…

They learn to always observe and be watchful, but to mind their own needs… To be both social and solitary.

They learn that a lion who manages his surroundings out-competes the lion who merely reacts…

For lion cubs, practice is never boring. It can’t be.

If a cub does something obvious, boring, or repetitive, the other lions quickly swat him in annoyance…

The more a cub seeks new skills, and the better a cub makes this game a fusion of creativity, aquisition, intensity, repetition, efficiency, variation, sensuality, emotion, intuition, and letting go at just the right time, the more that cub prospers…

Come out of the program for a moment….

This lion’s game is in itself more than most people grasp of the powerful learning process during their whole lifetimes….

Successful tantrics begin here, just like the lion cubs in the program, acquiring new skills by becoming simultaneously absorbed in themselves and in the world outside them. They use all the methods the lion cubs do, but with the goal of discovering their place in nature, but also their conscious relationship to the Absolute, the Universal.

Tantrics seek one-pointed absorption in the Absolute, while enjoying their lives in this world… liberated while in this body, constantly playing (leela) with passion, creativity, sensuality, and intuition…

How can you achieve this feeling?

Pick one tantric practice…

Playfully integrate a that practice with your everyday life. Make it a part of eating, shopping, watching tv, working, relaxing, loving, or exercising. Then, all week, play with variations. Just like the lion cubs, practice constantly while giveing yourself the freedom to have fun, to play, to enjoy, to improve, to integrate.

Connect your practice with extraordinary experiences, emotionally, intuitively, sensually. Make it a part of your daily life… Keep playing and growing.

Soon everything becomes a sadhana (spiritual practice)…

Eating, sleeping, making love, cleaning, negotiation, going to the movies, everything…

It’s simple when you play our way, a little at a time, relentlessly and joyfully…

The Dalai Lama smiles at every person he encounters. If they don’t smile back, he smiles again. It’s simple, playful, powerful, without attachments…

Smile, breathe right, and keep your tongue up!

Your Friend,
Tao Semko of UmaaTantra.com

P.S.
UmaaTantr.com’s “Foundation Practices of Tantric Yoga” teaches the principles and techniques of the tantric path — but more importantly, it teaches the practitioner how to teach her/himself.

Slow, deep,
alternate nostril breathing
improves mental,
sexual,
and physical performance.

For a More Centered Mind
Greater Longevity & Endurance
Easy Meditation
Hightened Awareness and effortless control
During meditation, work, sport, and sex

3 to 5 minutes is enough, but you can do more, gently.

Do it when you wake.
Do it before you sleep.
Do it before you meditate or
before you might make love.

You will sleep better,
think more clearly,
last longer in bed, effortlessly,
and enjoy the effortless flow of pleasure and subtle energy
that comes from clear meridians and smooth, slow, deep breathing.

It’s great for men
great for women
great for children and teens.

Breathe smoothly, deeply, and slowly, and smile!

Tao Semko, Instructor
www.UmaaTantra.com

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Thanks,
Tao of UmaaTantra.com