Informative

The Five Shades of Tantra

With an ancient history, a deep understanding, mystery, myths, mysticism, magic, lessons, teachings and a lot many questions, Tantra has been one of the most widely discussed subjects and yet one of the most misunderstood ones. With a series of blogs, we are decoding Tantra step by step for you. There is no beginning or end, so, you can pick up any of our blogs and understand Tantra a little better through it. 

However, when we began decoding Tantra, we thought it’s best to first understand its types and then dive deeper. In one of our previous posts, we looked at Agama Nigama Tantra, which is considered the major two types of Tantra. 

As Tantra grew and its practitioners increased, the practice got further divided into Five Shades, namely White, Red, Pink, Black and Gray Tantra. In this blog, we will discuss each of these shades in brief. 

White Tantra 

When one thinks about the color white, they think of purity, light, brightness, innocence, peace and all things that arise positive and calm emotions in a person. The White Tantra path resonates with this. It works with purifying the mind and the body to an extent that they are ready to fully merge with the divine. 

The practice takes years of hard work and deep understanding of the self. It requires accepting one self fully with all our faults and then working on them and dissolving them. While all of it seems easy, the first challenge practitioners face is to begin accepting their faults. The surrendering of ego and losing of self comes much later. 

Being one of the most difficult to learn and practice, yet very simple to understand, White Tantra is regarded as the highest form of Tantra. 

Oriented towards Spiritual Growth White Tantra is known as the Individual Path, the Path of the Right Hand or the Dakshini Marga. It is interesting how Right-Hand and the Right-Hand Path is always considered good and the Left-Hand Evil. When one looks at the history, there is no clear indication as to why Left was considered evil and Right good. The only association is that women were always placed on the left of men in historical paintings and in ancient scriptures. For instance, Goddess Lakshmi sits on Lord Vishnu’s left-hand side. 

This takes us to understand that just like Yin-Yang, male female and positive and negative, there is left and right and neither is necessarily evil or good. Just two parts of the same coin. This was important to be understood here because of the non-dual nature of Tantra. 

All the Rituals, Mantras, Yantras, Visulizations, Mudras and Sadhanas in White Tantra are done with the purpose of ultimately liberating the soul from this life. 

There are sounds, postures, breath work, Sadhana, Dhyanaa and Jaapa used in White Tantra. The most important of the Chakras used and empowered in White Tantra are the Third Eye, The Crown Chakra, The Nirvana Chakra and the Liberation Chakra. (Yes, Nirvana and Liberation are different) but more on that later. 

The focus areas of White Tantra are awareness, healing, revitalization and peace. The role of sex, sexual practices and intensity is minimal or nil in White Tantra. However, the senses, touch and the body are used to achieve success. 

A Guru or a mentor is very important when walking on the path of White Tantra. 

Red Tantra 

The color Red stands for passion, love, desire, longing, romance, joy, strength, leadership, rage, danger, radiance, sexuality, determination and all things strong. So, when we look at Red Tantra, expect it to stand out and break your comfort level to a point where you start unlearning limited beliefs and start seeing things as they are. 

Oriented towards the divine union of the male and female energies, Red Tantra is known as the Left-Hand Path or the Vama-Marga. The practice is considered rebellious due to the taboos associated with sex and all things that are considered impure. 

Since the substances used in rituals – like meat, wine, fish, parched grains and sexual union – were initially prohibited for the priests, the path got its place in the lesser known and lesser practiced ways. 

Mostly a practice that’s performed with a partner or a group, since it includes Tantric Sex, Red Tantra focuses on bringing people to the extreme point of all pleasures, and then helping them attain peace and Nirvana. 

The Chakras pertaining to Red Tantra are the ones focused on sexuality, sensuality, materialism and grounding. So, the Root Chakra, the Sacral Chakra and the Solar Plexus would be associated with Red Tantra, as even their colors are closer to shades of Red. However, when practicing the Tantra, all Chakras participate.

The Sadhanas and techniques in Red Tantra push people’s limits and are considered not for everyone. One can reach mastery in this with the aim of reaching a multi-orgasmic meditative state. 

It is believed that all enlightened souls were in a constant state of orgasm without ever having sex. Consider Red Tantra as a method to reach the state. What this basically means is people would perform and meditate with pleasure and sensuality until they reach a state where they don’t need it to reach the ultimate orgasm of Nirvana. 

Masters like Osho have been followers and advocates of Red Tantra. 

Pink Tantra 

What comes to your mind when you think of the color Pink? Love, affection, compassion, harmony, peace and approachability, right? Well, Pink Tantra stands for all these and more. It’s the middle path between White and Red Tantra just like in your primary school color book. 

An individual as well as duo path, Pink Tantra’s majority techniques and practices can be performed alone and there are still plenty that require a partner. 

Sexual energy does acquire a role in the practice but there is not intercourse or act of sex involved. Pink Tantra mainly focuses on Hearft Chakra, integrating the lower and higher Chakras in a perfect symphony. 

It is therefore considered the path of both hands. A person needs love and consciousness to practice Pink Tantra. The sexual energy in Red Tantra gets transformed to become the love and life energy. Healing of the self and the world become the purpose of the practitioner. Methods like Pranic Healing and Reiki would come under Pink Tantra. The souls merge with the purpose of pleasure as well as enlightenment. 

Self-love and connecting with the entire existence, while recognizing the differences and embracing them, become a primary part of Pink Tantra. 

The practitioner expands their horizons and learns to look beyond gender, cast, creed, discrimination and just loves. There is no mastery since love itself is infinite and an ongoing process. 

All the conditionings are first made aware of then broken, ultimately leading to an embrace of everything as is. 

Black Tantra 

Mostly practiced in secrecy, there is still little information available on Black Tantra and hence it is often misunderstood. In reality, Black Tantra is oriented towards exercising magical powers (siddhis) to manifest things in the 3^rd Dimension (Our current reality). The color black is associated with mystery, power, fear, rebellion, authority, death, aggression and authority. Black has the quality to absorb everything into it. That is why we don’t wear black colored clothes in summers. Because it absorbs the Sun’s rays and transforms it into heat. 

Black Tantra uses the power of the body and the mind to achieve powerful manifestations, primarily in the material realm. However, the myth of sacrifice and unfair exchanges is just that, a myth. 

However, manipulation, control and power do comprise as powerful tools in Black Tantra. Sexual practices and sometimes painfully long hours of Sadhana are part of the practice as well. 

This is all we have on Black Tantra for now. We will be sharing more as we learn more. 

Gray Tantra 

The in between, Grey Tantra uses all the magical powers (siddhis) of Black Tantra to achieve spiritual growth.  Cultivating the Kundalini Energy and using the sexual energy to envision goals during orgasm are also parts of the practice. However, Grey Tantra insists on Spiritual Growth and only uses the magical powers and knowledge for it. All the Chakras are used in the practice and the middle path is adopted to achieve enlightenment powerfully, yet simply. 

We hope this blog helped you understand the Shades of Tantra a little better. We will be back with more information on each shade soon. Until then, feel free to write to us with your queries and suggestions at info@chamundaswamiji.com