Tantra Yoga

By Chris Gladwell

In the beginning she rested as Shakti, the formless unmanifest, floating like a golden egg on the ocean of the silent, still and eternal Void.

Endless and awesome power spontaneously flickered within her as she as both latent and undifferentiated continued to rest, containing within herself the power seeds of all universes and all time.

Spontaneously she explodes into manifestation as she flowers into the evolved cosmos of separate vibrant dancing parts, then slowly reaching the completion of full blossoming withdraws herself back into her centre in the process of dissolution or pralaya.

Throughout all of eternity, like cosmic day and night the multiverses alternately expand into energy and matter and resolve back into herself as primal energy, the hiryanagharba.

Within her great heart rest her forms of Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati, these energies of matter and form (tamas), movement and transformation (rajas) and serene grace (sattvas) weave in a balance of harmony.

In manifestation her forms both create, sustain and destroy as they permeate the whole cosmos, woven through the heart of all energy, matter and life, so this universe as we know it rests in, unfolds from and returns to her awesome heart.


From the Sabdabrahman or soundless sound reflected in the human heart chakra as anahata or the unstruck sound arises the causal sound or Nada as the vibration of undifferentiated wisdom and intelligence that sparks into evolution this cosmic unfolding. From this vibration of OM, there arises a deep primal shudder running through the resting equanimity of Shakti and rajas arises and the process of manifestation begins.

Out of this movement and cosmic vibration Shakti splits into two fields of force as being, Nada and Bindu. Bindu is the male pole, Shiva the centrifugal ground of being as consciousness from which Nada operates. Nada as vibration expands outward in centripetal flow, female, she is nature unfolding the manifest million forms of this universe.
This polar duality in unity provides the forces of magnetism, gravity, levity that hols together the phenomenal world in their state of vibrating molecules.

Cosmic evolution flowing from the superconscious, unmoving, beyond knowing and un-manifest into both the unconsciousness and conscious of the moving, knowable and manifest universe.

The journey of the individual in Yoga is a stepping into greater consciousness and beyond the beyond into super-consciousness. It is always a return from perceived separation to that source which is in our hearts, reflected as a balance of Shiva and Shakti with the upward and downward triangles in Anahata (heart) chakra of the six pointed star.


In Tantra, since all is a facet of the divine there can be no impurity, everything, every event, every experience can then become grist to the mill, an opportunity for greater and endless awakening into eternal super-consciousness.


The first practices of Tantra include Yoga asana practice as initiated by the Lord of Yogis Shiva (consciousness) and initiated again through his re-incarnation as the great Tantric master Adinath. Adinath taught Matsyendranath who taught Gorakshanath. These famous Tantric masters of the Nath lineage formulated many practices and techniques to assist the knower to step into greater wisdom and love.


Yoga asana is the first of these.

Tantra can mean weaving, the experiences of life being an opportunity for awakening. Tantra can mean liberation or awakening through expansion, this is different to the ascetic practices of denial, abstention and belief in impurity.
Tantra can also mean technique, in this way teachers outline parameters within which the students as knowers then engage with and explore, experiencing in their own mind and body the results of their exploration.


Tantra uses Mantra as a prime tool. Mantra meaning both Mind expansion and also protection from mundane or small mindedness is the use of specific vibratory patterns to free the limited small mind into greater and more expansive awareness. Traditionally a teacher will empower a mantra and then initiate the student into its use.


Tantra also uses Yantra as its tool. Yantras are geometric often colourful diagrams that represent the sacred geometric movement from the source through the bindu or seed into manifestation. The movement flows from one-point (bindu) into the first possible enclosure of space the triangle and from there into the wide circles of possibility before manifestation in the square of the earth element. Different Yantras represent different feminine and masculine energies.


Tantra uses visualisation as a means to embody and actualise, to remember ones existence as divine.


Tantra uses the focus of one pointed concentrated mind (dharana)to step beyond limiting conceptual frames into greater freedom of awareness.
Tantra uses massage and also spontaneous dance. The dance is the counterpoint of the linear Yoga asana practice and unfolds the tensions of perceived or felt separation into greater spaciousness.

Experiencing oneself as space, knowing one self as empty of concept, as empty of separate inherent existence, the whole of life becomes the play of practice and presence with no outcome and no goal.

Sitting in sacred silence, one just sits, there is nothing to be attained that is not already here, sitting merely rests us in this spacious presence.

Sacred sexuality may also be used as a playfulness and tool to rest in deeper presence, yet like licking honey off the razors edge, such practices can easily drop beings into greater egoic belief in their own power, their own magic, their own strength. In truth, from a place of ‘realised emptiness’, power, strength and magic are all possible manifestations of love and wisdom and merely flow as functions of the all pervading divinity. They rest exclusively in no-one and belong exclusively to no-one. So as no-one we may freely play with licking honey off the razors edge.

Tantra is a means to bring into everyday presence, into the marketplace, into the home, into the whole world the super-conscious.

Christopher teaches the various aspects of TantraYoga on his retreats, the foundations are asana practice, dance and silent sitting.

chris@theartofyoga.co.uk