TANTRA, THE SIDDHAS AND YOGA

George Atherton

The Indian Tantric tradition 

contains a unique blend 

of spiritual and sexual wisdom. 

It has fascinated westerners for the last century, and Tantra is increasingly recognized as a powerful system for expanding consciousness and cultivating well-being. But its complexity, and our culture’s fascination with sex has led to many misunderstandings, over-simplifications and distortions.

It is in the Tantric literature that the knowledge of the chakras and nadis (lines of energy flow in the body) have been fully elaborated.
It was the Tantric adepts that discovered through self-knowledge and expansion of consciousness the many insights that gave rise to the Yoga tradition that was systematized and handed down through many generations until today.

Even in a diluted form, we find that Yoga has countless health benefits, and Yoga Therapy has been applied successfully to treat a number of chronic diseases. Still, the common health benefits of modern 'gym yoga' pale in comparison with the effects that a comprehensive Kundalini Tantra practice can have on human consciousness.

Tantra, correctly used, is no less than a science of sacred communion and total transformation.

The genuine Tantric adepts were often known in both India and Tibet as the ‘Siddhas’ – those who had attained to the full power of awareness, or ‘Self-realization’, dissolving into Love.

This, as I see it, is the real goal of Yoga and Tantra, and the essence of all spiritual traditions.


Peter Littlejohn Cook