Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78807 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .39" h x .39" w x .39" l, 1.10 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 314 pages

Synopsis
In Tantra, the world is the union of the male and female as manifested in human life as sexual and spiritual love. Sexuality becomes a form of meditation, a sacred and magical act. Tantra is millennia old, yet brings us a fresh vision of ourselves, our life, and the world. It is exotic and archaic yet close to our own roots. Van Lysebeth's book reveals secret sexual techniques to enhance relationships and open the doors of perception. He also explores how the repression of the feminine in the world's patriarchal cultures is the esoteric cause of the modern world's crisis. Van Lysebeth's book, illustrated with eight colour pages of Indian paintings drawn from the Tantric experience, is for all readers looking for new dimensions and understanding in their lives.

From the Author
This book rectifies popular misconceptions about Tantra.
The popular Western (and even Eastern) opinion about Tantra is that it is "spiritual sexuality" at best or "sexual libertarianism" at worst. In actual fact, only some schools of Tantra employ ritualized sex as one of the five "ingredients" of its path to liberation. But even these more radical (left-hand) schools emphasize bliss rather than pleasure. I wrote this book with the intention to help correct that widespread misconception and to show the Tantric tradition in its real magnificence. I regard Tantra as post-Vedic India's greatest spiritual tradition.

Customer Reviews

Hindu Tantrik
Georg Feuerstein is a respected author of a number of works on esoteric traditions of India and here attempts a guide to a notoriously difficult subject.

Tantra is so difficult because of the number of different traditions, the multitude of various texts, many of which remain untranslated, and the subject matter itself, which has many pitfalls for the unwary student.

This book, however, is written by someone with an understanding of the subject matter, and is organised in a way which gradually draws the reader into the essentials of tantra, including the often neglected ritual aspect, including mantra, yantra, mudra and nyasa.

Feuerstein draws on a number of texts, some translated and others not, to explain the essentials of the tantrik tradition. He relies particularly heavily on the Kularnava Tantra (available in an English translation) which is, we feel, one of the more accessible of the texts.

The author stresses the importance of initiation and of the guru, and also spends some time examining those forms of tantra which have sprung up in the Western World.

"Many are attracted to Neo-Tantrism because it promises sexual excitement or fulfillment while clothing purely genital impulses or neurotic emotional needs in an aura of spirituality...Today translations of several major Tantras are readily available in book form, and many formerly secret practices are now, in the language of the texts, 'like common harlots'. This gives would-be Tantrics the opportunity to concoct their own idiosyncratic ceremonies and philosophies, which they can then promote as Tantra." (Tantra, page 271).

While Feuerstein warns that some tantrik practices are dangerous in the wrong hands, we feel that in many ways the tradition protects itself. There is, undoubtedly, a great number of groups and individuals peddling "tantra" as a way to greater sexual enjoyment - for example, some of the links to these pages are from hard porn sites - but the written tantras themselves were (and are) intended for the "in groups" and supplemented with oral information from the yogis and yoginis in the groups.

In passing, it could be noted that tantra in India suffers from its association with sexuality. So much so, that the term tantrik taints the people it is applied to. But some of this is due to the Western colonisation of India. A quick look at a Sanskrit-English dictionary demonstrates the sensuality of the language, while the temples of Khajuraho show that shame, guilt and modesty played little part in the civilisation of Bharata.

Feuerstein's book mostly succeeds in navigating a difficult subject. This is a well-written guide to a complex area and easily accessible to the layman. It is probably too late to dissociate this powerful and rich spiritual tradition from neo-Tantra. But now that even the Pope has decided that Indian spiritual traditions are worth examining, this book will go some way to redress the balance.

Difficult subject only partially covered.
The author seems to have missed the spirit of Tantra. Making sense of the huge field that resides under the banner Tantra is almost impossible. So much of it is deliberately contradictory or written with dual meaning so that the precise sense is difficult to ascertain. Without the context of the environment in which it occurs, missing in this book, it is pointless to examine the details of Tantric schools. Nik Douglas` book, Spiritual Sex is much better on the Sexual aspect throughout history, and Mookerjee and Khanna`s Tantric Way is fairly good on other aspects. Both are preferable to this book

A great introduction to tantra
Tantra is a method for obtaining enlightenment; this is what you do when you have graduated beyond hatha yoga and routine meditation. It is an esoteric tradition and here is the way to get to understand it!