Knowra Tantra Tantra Tantra is a body of Hindu and Buddhist traditions that use ritual, mantra, visualization, and initiation to pursue spiritual goals. Its practices and teachings vary across traditions.
Mantra : A sacred utterance, syllable, or sequence used in religious practice. Repeated or installed in ritual, mantras focus attention and embody sacred power.
Dīkṣā : A religious initiation that admits a person into a tradition, practice, or relationship with a teacher. Tantric practice commonly depends on initiation that transmits permissions and obligations.
Śaiva Tantra : Hindu tantric traditions centered on Śiva and related forms of divine power. Śaiva traditions produced influential tantric scriptures, rituals, and philosophical systems.
Neo-Tantra : Modern movements that adapt selected tantric ideas, often emphasizing sexuality, intimacy, or personal development. Neo-Tantra differs from historically rooted Hindu and Buddhist traditions in context and emphasis.
Tantric sex : A modern label for sexual practices inspired by interpretations of Tantra, especially in contemporary spirituality. Popular culture often reduces Tantra to sexuality, a narrow view of its historical scope.
Mandala : A geometric diagram representing a cosmos, deity, or structured sacred space. Tantric visualization often uses mandalas as maps of a deity’s realm and the practitioner’s path.
Guru : A spiritual teacher who guides students through instruction, practice, and religious discipline. A teacher transmits tantric instructions that texts alone may not provide.
Śākta Tantra : Hindu tantric traditions centered on the Goddess and her power, Śakti. Śākta lineages make the Goddess and her power the focus of tantric practice.
Kundalini yoga : A family of practices that seek to awaken kundalini energy, often through posture, breath, mantra, and meditation. It overlaps with some tantric subtle-body ideas but is not synonymous with Tantra.
Orientalism : A Western tradition of representing Asian societies through simplified, exoticizing assumptions. Orientalist portrayals helped shape modern Western images of Tantra as secretive and erotic.
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