KAMA SUTRA AND TANTRA

VATSYAYANA'S CONTRIBUTION

The Kama Sutra, is the earliest surviving example of a written Hindu love-manual. It was compiled by the Indian sage Vatsyayana sometime between the second and fourth centuries A.C.E. His work was based on earlier Kama Shastras or "Rules of Love" going back to at least the seventh century B.C.E., and is a compendium of the social norms and love-customs of patriarchal Northern India around the time he lived.

Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is valuable today for his psychological insights into the interactions and scenarios of love, and for his structured approach to the many diverse situations he describes. He defines different types of men and women, matching what he terms "equal" unions, and gives detailed descriptions of many love-postures.

The Kama Sutra was written for the wealthy male city-dweller. It is not, and was never intended to be, a lover's guide for the masses, nor is it a "Tantric love-manual." About three hundred years after the Kama Sutra became popular, some of the love-making positions described in it were reinterpreted in a Tantric way. Since Tantra is an all-encompassing sensual science, love-making positions are relevant to spiritual practice.

SPIRITUAL SEX POSTURES

Generally, Tantras only recommend the use of only a few different love-postures during spiritual sex sessions. Five principle positions, all of which are found in the Kama Sutra, cover what is normally appropriate. These five principle Tantric love-making positions (which have many variations) are:

l) Man on his back, woman on top;

2) Woman on her back, man on top;

3) Woman and man on their sides, facing each other;

4) Woman with her back to the man;

5) Seated positions, normally face-to-face.

Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is divided into seven parts; general remarks, amorous advances, acquiring a wife, duties and privileges of a wife, relations with other men's wives, and a section about courtesans and occult means. The seventh and last part of the Kama Sutra is an appendix to the main work. It includes detailed formulations of substances familiar to Ayurvedic (Indian indigenous) medicine, with the emphasis on virilifics and aphrodisiacs. Some magical procedures of a type that in later times would be described as Tantric, are also found in the last chapter of the Kama Sutra.

The terminology used by Vatsyayana is context specific. For example, when he uses the word Yoga he is referring to sexual intercourse, the word Tantra means to him "method," "technique," or "mechanics," and he uses the word Yantra to mean the sexual organ "utilized as an instrument," or to mean a dildo or "artificial love device." Lingam specifically refers to the male sex organ, while Yoni refers to the female sex organ.

The Kama Sutra has hardly any resemblance to any known Tantra, nor do any Tantras resemble it, except in their common inclusion of brief descriptions of love postures. Nevertheless, the Kama Sutra is the earliest surviving sexual "how-to" and set the stage for many others, including those in which sexual techniques, postures, potions, charms and superstitions were promoted over the centuries.

SIR RICHARD BURTON AND THE KAMA SHASTRA SOCIETY

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), the famous Victorian orientalist and traveler, kept an Indian girl as his mistress during his stay in India. Eventually he returned to England and in 1873, he and several friends founded the London Anthropological Society, issuing the periodical, Anthropologia. Concerning this, he wrote:

My motive was to supply travelers with an organ that would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their curious information on social and sexual matters.

This periodical was instrumental in educating many Victorian persons of influence about the diversity of human sexual behavior.

Later, Burton co-founded the Kama Shastra Society. This small and highly secretive organization privately published the Kama Sutra (in 1883) and the Ananga Ranga (in 1885), the first ancient Hindu treatises on the arts of love to be translated into the English language. Amazingly they could not be "officially" published in English until the mid 1960s, following a landmark court case.

DR. ALEX COMFORT AND THE JOY OF SEX

One of the ways that sexual barriers have been broken down in the West has been through the publication of sexual "how-to" books. Undoubtedly the most successful of all has been The Joy of Sex: a Gourmet Guide to Love Making by Dr. Alex Comfort, first published in 1972, now with more than eight million copies in print.

Alex Comfort's Joy of Sex was not his first erotic work. In 1961 his Darwin and the Naked Lady, was published and drew attention to the value of Indian erotology. And in 1964, following in the footsteps of Sir Richard Burton's translation of the Kama Sutra, Alex Comfort's The Koka Shastra and other Medieval Indian writings on Love, another Hindu erotic classic, was published.

In the introduction to his English version of the Koka Shastra, Dr. Comfort points out that India and most other cultures have a rich and refined erotic literature, whereas Judaeo-Christian culture does not. He writes:

The Sanskrit textbooks on the art of love form a continuous sequence from remote antiquity to the sixteenth century AD. or later, and on to the present time in vernacular versions and inspirations. Most great cultures, as well as many tribal societies, have had a literature of this kind -- our own Judaeo-Christian tradition is almost unique in lacking one.

Dr. Comfort then explains how, because of Western culture's fear and rejection of sexuality, persons interested in sexual topics had either to turn to the classics of antiquity or to certain ecclesiastical or medical writings.

Alex Comfort's Joy of Sex and More Joy of Sex gave many people "permission" to explore their sexuality, to have sexual adventures without feeling guilty. The tremendous success of his books indicates the great need for "sexual liberation" that many people seek.

The Function & Awakening of Chakras

The chakras are energy transducers in the aura. They serve to integrate physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual facets of the human into a coherent whole.

The Function of the Chakras

Each of the seven chakras plays vital functional roles in our physical body and in our normal subjective consciousness. The chakras are the means by which the functions of the all of the vehicles - including our physical body - are carried out. The actual functions and attributes of the chakras with regard to our physical body is an involved topic, many complex claims are put forth in this regard. There is generally an overlapping and sharing of functions amongst the chakras. Also, the description of the functions of the chakras is not simply physiological, but psychological as well. Thus, when discussing the chakra's functions we are relating physiological functions with psychological behaviors.

Generally speaking however, the three lower chakras (the root, belly and solar plexus chakras) correlate to basic primary needs - those of survival, procreation and will - and have a larger physiological component to their functioning. The four higher chakras are more related to our psychological makeup: the heart, throat and third eye chakras are more advanced and more mature, defining love, communication and knowledge; the crown chakra is purely spiritual, providing the connection to the universe beyond.

The physiological roles of the chakras are roughly as follows:

• The root and belly chakras are related to generative and sexual functions.
• The solar plexus chakra is related to digestion.
• The heart chakra is related to the heart and circulation.
• The throat chakra is related to the lungs and the voice, including the ears, nose, and throat.
• The third eye chakra is related to vision, the eyes, and the pituitary gland.
• The crown chakra is related to the brain, and especially the pituitary and pineal glands.

In terms of psychological functions, the three lower chakras are related to our raw emotions and biological instincts ranging from sexual desire and hunger, into passion, anger, pleasure and joy and other relatively simple emotional states. The four higher chakras are related to higher cognitive states. The heart chakra is related to empathy and understanding. This is where what is seen, heard, felt, touched, is absorbed by the inner self and given a final okay. It is there where you find the Golden Gate, or doorway to all other chakric doors. If this median point is not clear, nor can your third eye be clear and insightful. The heart is a river through which all time flows. The river comes up from within through the other energy centers beneath it. The physical world is tied to the spiritual world here. The throat chakra is related to vocal expression, hearing, and the ability to communicate. The third eye chakra is basic to all spiritual work. It is the heart of the matter and is related to discriminative cognition and the ability to understand. The third eye can communicate what you need to know about the aspects of your life, which are hidden from you. It is the center through which you see the world and others in it. The best way to keep the third eye open is to make sure that you have enough energy going through it from the heart chakra. The crown chakra is also related to understanding and comprehension, but as well serves as an integrative factor, and is thus related to the gestalt nature of the mind.

The Awakening of the Chakras

Above and beyond the ability of theory to view our normal physiological and psychological behavior in a unified fashion, this theory also provides the rationale for psychic abilities. It is by enhancing the activity of ones chakras that one develops psychic abilities or siddhis.

The changes in anatomy by which this is accomplished is as follows. Again, this will only be a rough sketch because the actual range of psychic abilities and the processes involved is very broad and complicated. The lowest chakra (the root chakra) reserves a special function housing an energy called kundalini. It is through the use of the kundalini energy that the chakras get enhanced in their activity. The enhanced activity of a chakra is called the "awakening" of that chakra and is supposedly accompanied by a flaring up of the color of the chakra and a large increase in its speed and energy processing capabilities. Awakening a chakra confers psychic abilities (or siddhis) as well. The awakening of the chakras is effected in actual practice is through certain yoga exercises or hypnosis, though spontaneous occurrences are known. It is also known that certain drugs will stimulate the chakras. Click here to check out a variety of excellent Chakra recordings.

Now, the psychic abilities that are associated with the chakras are roughly as follows. The awakening of the lower three chakras are associated with what they call "psychism", which is considered to be a relatively crude exercise of psychic abilities. This includes mediumship, the ability to dream (dreaming being considered as a crude form of astral projection), and the occurrence of sporadic psychic abilities such as the type studied by parapsychologists (isolated cases of telepathy or precognition, for example). The awakening of the four higher chakras produce what are generally regarded as "legitimate" psychic abilities, involving the conscious use and control of these abilities. These are the siddhis described in various literature, these are often possessed by those who have studied and practiced yoga to a great extent. The awakening of the heart chakra produces enhanced empathic abilities and the ability to heal. The throat chakra leads to clairaudience, which is the ability to hear on the nonphysical planes. The awakening of the third-eye chakra leads to clairvoyance or the ability to see on the nonphysical planes. And the awakening of the crown center is associated both with the ability to consciously travel on the nonphysical planes and with the process of enlightenment.

Seven Bodies, Seven Chakras Contains excerpts from these books by Osho: The Psychology of the Esoteric - This book takes the reader beyond Western psychology, beyond Freud, Jung and the Human Potential Movement, to the psychology of enlightenment, of the buddhas. In detailed talks on the occult and the esoteric psychology of man, Osho explains man's seven energy levels, how to experience and transcend them, and how different dimensions of dreaming come from the different levels. He also talks on Kundalini and the three stages of sexual energy - sex, love and prayer. In Search of the Miraculous, Vol 2- Guiding the reader through the seven bodies and their corresponding chakras, Osho discusses psychic phenomena, dreams, telepathy, hypnosis, color therapy, Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini, mediums, gurus, and the Tantric dimension of sex. "I am talking about very scientific things," he says, "not something belonging to religious superstitions." The Human Energy Field An overview of chakras, includes a diagram. Healing Properties of Gemstones - applied to Chakras A commercial site, but it includes some information on the application of gemstones. Transpersonal Chakras In addition to the seven regular chakras, there are several more transpersonal chakras which play an important part in spiritual growth and development. The term "transpersonal" is used to identify these chakras because they do not activate until the individual has attained some measure of soul contact and is becoming aware of him or herself as a multi-dimensional being, a transpersonal - rather than simply a personal - self.

Sex and Tantra

Sex
The symbolism of sex is used in Hindu and Buddhist imagery to show inter-relatedness. Rarely does it "refer" to actual contact. In Buddhism, where images are used as visual aids, a male-female pair stands for Compassion and Wisdom, and the pairing of knowledge with "skillful means" or, method.
Yab-Yum at the Holy Mountain site.
As an aspect of Hinduism, tantrism can include maithuna or sexual connection that usually has as its ultimate goal, the union of the individual soul with the Universal. Ecstasy of a sexual nature is only one of the lesser objectives, but that is how it has been most often misunderstood until recently. Sexual yoga can also be practiced with the objective of acquiring certain impressive abilities, accomplishments or siddhis. However, enhanced sexual experience is not the objective of any genuine yogic system or tantric tradition. That would go against the very foundation of a view that sees all beings as part of a greater whole that encompasses several different realms of existence; in which beings are dependant on each other, and where experience has consequences far beyond one's own desires or immediate knowledge.
Chakravarti's article on the Antiquity of Tantricism and its relation to the Vedas.
In the Shurangama Sutra the Buddha is quoted as warning that there are teachers who have been misled and continue teaching the false doctrine that the male and female organs are the means to liberation or enlightenment.
The Role of Sex
Lama Thubten Yeshe (Introduction to Tantra, 147) wrote: "There is a certain point in the mastery of the completion stage where physically embracing a consort is necessary . . . ."
There is no doubt that for most people, sexual activity provides a powerful and even sometimes, an overwhelming, experience. It is those qualities that can be used in an advanced stage of practice. Then the partner can be "used" as an activity support, or "action seal" (Skt. karma mudra.) When both partners are practitioners, then there can be further benefit.
John Powers (Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, 1995) explains:
In these practices, one visualizes oneself and one's partner as specific deities,and one's sexual union is used as a way of generating very subtle minds.. . . . In the practices using seals, the experience of orgasm is conjoined with techniques that draw the winds into the central channel. The result is an indescribable experience of bliss and direct perception of emptiness. The partner is referred to as a 'seal' because the practice seals the realization that all phenomena are a union of bliss and emptiness. According to the second Dalai Lama, one relies on a seal "as an external condition and the experience of the compression process as the inner condition . . . ."Tantric texts stress that practice with consorts is not a form of sexual indulgence, but rather a form of controlled visualization that uses the special bliss of sexual union. It is restricted to very advanced practitioners, yogins who have gained control over the emanation of a subtle body and have awakened the mystical heat energy . . . . Those who have not advanced to this level are not qualified to practice with an actual consort; people without the necessary prerequisites who mimic tantric sexual practices thinking that they are practicing tantra are simply deluded, and may do themselves great harm.
A karma mudra (sexual partner) can also be imaginary, since one is ready for this kind of practice after having attained skill with Completion stage visualization. However, even Je Tsong Khapa who founded the Gelugpas, agreed that to attain buddhahood in one lifetime, it is necessary to use an actual consort (karma mudra) saying, "A female companion is the basis of accomplishment of liberation." That is, in order to generate an illusory body as that of a particular deity with all the qualities of existence, another person must interact with it.
Powers says further:
The only other way to accomplish this is to transform the clear light of death into a deity, but this can only be done when actual death occurs. According to Gelukpa tradition, this was the choice that Tsong Khapa made. He was concerned that some of his followers might go astray if he were to practice with an actual consort, and so he postponed the generation of an illusory body until his death. When the clear light of death manifested, he effected the transformation of subtle body and arose as a fully enlightened buddha.
Powers quotes Daniel Cozort (Highest Yoga Tantra, 1986):
"Shakyamuni Buddha, in his last lifetime prior to enlightenment, used an Action Seal, but it is said that although [Tsong Khapa] became a Buddha, he did not use an Action Seal, becoming enlightened in the intermediate state instead . . . because he feared his followers would imitate him without being properly prepared, thus hampering instead of enhancing their practice . . . ."
Also, many masters from Atisha to Kyadrubje are reported to have noted that there are few people around that can act as the Wisdom (Skt. vidya) consort, since they do not have all the required characteristics (Lessing and Wayman. Introduction to Buddhist Tantric Systems.)