Rob and Kelly McKay grew up in the same small Southern town.

His father was

a military man; hers was a minister. Duty was an important word in both of their
households, and it applied to just about everything—including sex. 

“I grew up with the message that sex was a duty that a wife does for her husband,” Rob
says. “That didn’t seem quite right, but I didn’t know anything different.”

“For a long time, I hadn’t been happy with our sex life,” Kelly admits. (Names and some
biographical details have been changed to preserve subjects’ privacy.) “We were still
pretty much repeating what we did 25 years ago when we were inexperienced kids.
There wasn’t much for me to like.”

Then Kelly learned about tantric sex workshops from a friend. She didn’t immediately
warm up to the idea, but she knew she wanted an intimate relationship with Rob that
had more depth than duty. 

“I didn’t just want sex,” she says. “I wanted to connect with my heart in a loving, sexual
act. And a Tantra seminar seemed like the perfect place to learn.”

She signed them up for a workshop. 

In search for a deeper connection

In the past, couples like Rob and Kelly might have sought a marriage counselor,
consulted a sex therapist, or read up on the work of sex researchers Masters and
Johnson to help them revitalize their love life. But an increasing number of couples (and
singles, too) have turned to Tantra workshops in an effort to infuse more love and
passion into their relationships.

The modern “sacred sexuality” movement draws its inspiration and techniques from the
same ancient spiritual tradition of the Indian subcontinent that spawned most of the
practices we now know as hatha yoga. These sacred sexuality teachings incorporate
ideas and techniques from the human potential movement workshops that have been
evolving since the ’60s, from pre-modern Taoist and Middle Eastern sexual teachings,
from India’s extensive texts on the sexual arts (including the famous Kama Sutra), and
from mainstream sex therapy.

Not everyone seeking a consciously spiritual approach to sex are motivated by sexual
dissatisfaction. Rob and Kelly were looking for what many couples seek from a Tantric
workshop—to reinvigorate their relationship, deepen their level of intimacy, and
ultimately to have more satisfying sex. People like them, who already have satisfactory
sex lives, may want an experience has the potential to provide them with deeper
connection with each other.

See also: Is Partner Yoga the New Couples Therapy?

What is Tantra?

An internet search of the word “Tantra” reveals workshops, individual classes, even
entire festivals that offer what couples like the McKays are looking for: a stronger
intimate connection and deeper sensual pleasure. These experiences promise
participants instruction in the arts of lovemaking and techniques that will help them
achieve sexual intimacy.

When we hear the word Tantra, we’re usually talking about Tantric sex. But this “sexy”
side of Tantra is a Westernized and often commercialized evolution of a centuries-old
philosophy and practice that emerged from Asia. While some of those original spiritual
and ritual practices included developing pathways to physical pleasure and heightened
desire, Tantra was originally about awakening the chakras and achieving the ultimate
bliss: connection to the divine.

Every school of yoga has its own particular process and practice for achieving spiritual
growth and insight, and reaching a higher state of being. For Tantrikas, practitioners of
Tantra, awakening and activating desire was one of many tools to achieve this bliss
beyond the physical body.

Yogic practices are often associated with retreat, self study, and inward-looking
practices. Practitioners seek silence and solitude to create space for the Divine to enter.
Tantra does the opposite; it is a yoga of human connection. The practice promises
contact with the divine through deeply intimate connection with one another.

Charles Muir, a long-time teacher of Tantric methods, says, “Relationship is the ultimate
yoga. If you’re in a relationship, it is a yoga, a spiritual pathway. Relationship will bring
up every lesson you need to learn.”

Tantric sex, then, uses sexual union as a gateway for spiritual enlightenment. The
teachings claim to unite sex and spirituality in a transcendent mix that can transform
sexual relationships into both physical ecstasy and a path to personal
growth, liberation, and enlightenment.
History of Tantra

Tantra began to blossom as a movement within both Buddhism and Hinduism around
A.D. 500, reaching its fullest flowering 500 to 700 years later. It challenged religious
orthodoxy and idealistic notions of purity, and grew out of an impulse among the lower
classes to claim ways of worship that were not dictated by the priestly castes.

Within Hinduism, Tantra countered the Vedic practices of the Brahmins, whose strict
adherence to specific, dutifully performed rituals and standards of purity separated
them from the lower castes. In Buddhist culture, “it grew out of a protest movement
initially championed by lay people rather than monks and nuns,” says University of
Richmond religious studies professor Miranda Shaw. Tantric practices confronted the
rules and sometimes broke them.

The definition of Tantra

The word “Tantra” comes from a Sanskrit root that means “to weave,” but it also can
imply spinning out, spreading, or putting forth. It can imply the weaving together of
traditions into a holistic practice. Tantra’s earliest practitioners saw it as a
comprehensive system for extending knowledge and wisdom—for realizing that the
whole world is an interwoven entity.

Otherwise, the practice of Tantra is not easy to neatly define because it encompasses
such a huge, varied, and sometimes contradictory range of beliefs and activities. There
are a few aspects, however, that are fairly consistent across the various Tantric schools
of thought and philosophical perspectives.
 Tantra focuses on spiritual freedom. Tantra is a collection of practical
techniques for achieving liberation or enlightenment. Gavin Flood, professor of
Hindu studies and comparative religion at Oxford University, says, “Tantra is about
gaining liberation and power through meditation.” Practitioners were freeing
themselves from religious and societal constrictions that were seen as necessary for a
“proper” connection with Divine Power.

 Tantra is woman centered. In the Hindu Tantric view, the world arises from the
erotic dance and union of the divine male (Shiva) and the divine female (Shakti).
Shiva plants the seed, but Shakti provides the active energy that brings everything
into being. The divine female energy is present in every person (male, female, and
otherwise) as kundalini, the serpent energy that coils dormant at the base of the
spine. Much of Tantric practice centers on awakening and channeling this energy.
(Tantric Buddhism sees the male principle as the more active, but still emphasizes the
importance of women and female energy far more than do other forms of Buddhism.)

 Tantrikas seek spiritual power. Certain kinds of Tantra emphasize

developing siddhis—a term which can mean either “spiritual perfection” or
 “supernatural power.” Tantra practitioners who begin to comprehend the way the
world is woven together, understand that they have power over their own bodies, and
can also gain power over other aspects of the physical world. In Tantra, the body is
seen as a microcosm of the whole universe.

Tantra is a complex and at times controversial body of knowledge; there may be debate
around the origins, history, and practice. “There are widely different Tantric texts,” says
meditation teacher Sally Kempton, “and different philosophical positions taken
by Tantrikas,” or practitioners of Tantra. One core aspect of Tantric philosophy that’s
taught in the West, however, remains consistent: nondualism, or the idea that one’s true
essence (alternatively known as the transcendental Self, pure awareness, or the Divine)
exists in every particle of the universe.

Embodiment to Enlightenment

Indian spirituality tends to regard the world as an illusion and a trap. It has parallels in
Judeo-Christian thought in the way it leans toward a distrust of the body and of the
sensory pleasures the body desires. But Tantra insists that every natural creation in the
world is the manifestation of divinity, therefore everything and every experience is
potentially holy. This trait of Tantra is perhaps its crucial characteristic: Rather than
regarding the body and its desires as something to be overcome and purified, Tantra
sees the body as a vehicle for enlightenment.

Generations of yogis experimented with ways to prepare their bodies so they could carry
the enormous energy of awakened kundalini. According to Georg Feuerstein, a noted
yoga scholar and practitioner of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, “Hatha yoga grew straight
out of the concern in Tantra for creating…a body that was totally under the control of
the yogi.”

Tantra suggests that everything you do and all that you sense, ranging from pain to
pleasure and anything in between, is really a manifestation of the Divine and can be a
means to bring you closer to your own divinity. 

“In Tantra, the world is not something to escape from or overcome, but rather, even the
mundane or seemingly negative events in day-to-day life are actually beautiful and
auspicious,” says Pure Yoga founder Rod Stryker, a teacher in the Tantric tradition of Sri
Vidya. “Rather than looking for samadhi, or liberation from the world, Tantra teaches
that liberation is possible in the world.”

See also: YJTried It: White Tantric Yoga

So, how did Tantra turn sexy?

Some scholars and teachers of more traditional Tantric pathways criticize modern,
Western interpretations of Tantra as having little in common with Tantra as practiced
over the centuries in India, Nepal, and Tibet. It’s true that only a small proportion of
Tantric texts deal with sexuality. Most focus on the use of mantras, worship of deities,
and the creation of visual aids to meditation.

More conservative Tantric groups—those who practice what is known as “right-hand

Tantra”— leaned in this direction, minimizing the most sex-focused practices and using
them as spiritual metaphors rather than actual ritual practices.

Left-hand Tantrikas turned in the opposite direction. They rejected the traditional
Indian tendency to categorize activities and experiences as either pure or impure. To
them, all aspects of life were holy; nothing was out of bounds. In fact, physical
experiences could be used as vehicles for enlightenment.

Some Tantric groups took it to extremes that would be considered shocking in their (and
even our) day: holding their rituals in the charnel grounds, meditating atop corpses,
smearing themselves with the ashes of the dead, eating and drinking from skulls, and
eating meat and fish, consuming aphrodisiacs, alcohol, and other drugs. Engaging in
ritual sexual intercourse was part of this practice—a way of raising, exploring, and
moving heightened energies. Tantrikas didn’t just explore sex as a metaphor; they made
it a crucial activity in their spiritual path.

To avoid attacks from the mainstream of Indian culture, these radical practitioners
remained underground. Today, some tantric practices still tend to be shrouded in
secrecy.

How Tantra came West

The 1989 publication of Margot Anand’s The Art of Sexual Ecstasy was considered a

significant moment that brought Tantra onto the the cultural radar. But decades before
Anand’s best-seller made Tantra a household word, it was being practiced among
esoteric and spiritual-seekers.

In fact, Tantra took root in America a hundred years earlier, when Sylvais Hamati, a
Vedic teacher from Kolkata, took on a young boy from Iowa as his student. The
boy, Pierre Bernard, became the first American Tantrika, responsible for introducing
Tantra in the U.S. Bernard studied under Hamati for almost 20 years: asana,
pranayama, and meditation, as well as ethics, psychology, philosophy, religion, and
science. He was also tutored in Sanskrit literature and “every authoritative Tantra Yoga
Text,” according to Bernard’s biography by Robert Love.

When Bernard completed his training, he began to teach, developing a following among
a set of wealthy, upper-class patrons who joined his Tantrik Order, taking vows of
secrecy and loyalty. But the devotion of his students didn’t protect him and the group
from attack, persecution, and prosecution. Their views were far outside the mainstream
culture of the era.

Over time, other curious yoga teachers and leaders mined Eastern sexual and spiritual
techniques and blended them with elements of Western sexology, psychotherapy, and
New Age self-transformational techniques to evolve Tantra into the form we know
today.

Among the best-known teachers of Western Tantra are yoga teacher Charles Muir and
his wife Caroline, who have been instrumental in teaching the practice. After his first
marriage, Muir began to reexamine his ways of relating with women, and, as he puts it,
“was blessed with the teachings of a number of remarkable women” who initiated him
into their knowledge of tantric sexuality. He started to study the ancient Tantric texts,
and began including the teachings in his yoga workshops. By 1980, Muir made a full-
time switch from hatha yoga teacher to tantric sexuality teacher, and has been
conducting workshops ever since.

Photo: Wesley Balten/Unsplash

What to know about Tantra workshops

The weeklong workshop that Rob and Kelly McKay attended was facilitated by the
Muirs. Called “The Art of Conscious Loving,” it was held at the Rio Caliente spa, about
an hour outside Guadalajara, Mexico. On the first night, nine couples gathered in a
circle. Tom, a psychologist, and his partner, Leslie, a social worker, sit entwined around
each other. Stan and Liz, an outgoing pair of 67-year-olds from Southern California,
chatter about their upcoming nuptials. “It’s the second for both of us,” Stan says, “But
we’re telling people it’s our first real marriage.” Next to them Anja, a healer from
Denmark, and her partner Merle, sit quietly with placid smiles. In contrast, Kelly’s back
is turned like a wall toward Rob, who hunches as though he’s trying to take up as little
space as possible.

Other couples include a retired government bureaucrat now doing volunteer work;
several entrepreneurs, an architect, a secretary, a teacher, an accountant, and a
disproportionate number of healers of various types—from a doctor who specializes in
alternative/complementary medicine, the psychologist and the social worker, an art
therapist, and four bodyworkers/energy healers.

Quite a few turn out to be committed to Eastern spiritual practices. The doctor practices
Zen. Anja ran a yoga school for 17 years, then a school of esoteric energy healing. Merle,
who runs a bodywork school, has practiced vipassana meditation for several years.

The group seems subdued and a bit tense, with a palpable undercurrent of nervous
anticipation. On the whole, though, the couples seem quite reluctant to talk publicly
about their sexual lives. But they have traveled from as far away as Hawaii and
Denmark, dropped more than $3,000 per couple (plus airfare), and set aside a week of
their time to be here. That represents a substantial investment of time, money, and
energy to their relationships—and to the exploration of Tantra.

“This week,” Caroline Muir promises, “we’ll learn how to make sex be sacred again.”

See also: Tantra Yoga’s Key to Vitality: The 7 Chakras