Osho's 6 Tips for Tantric Bliss

The Hindu guru Osho, who was famous for teaching sexual openness, had six tips for Tantric bliss.

Osho (a.k.a. Rajneesh) was an Indian spiritual teacher and controversial figure in the New Age movement. He was a critic of orthodox Indian religions, saying that they oppressed followers with fear and shame, and made empty promises of blessings. He is reported to have called Mahatma Gandhi a “masochist” who worshipped poverty, and said that socialism would lead to institutionalized poverty for India. Read more

Tantra and Love

"Become loving. When you are in the embrace, become the embrace. Become the kiss. Forget yourself so totally that you can say, "I am no more. Only love exists." Then the heart is not beating, but love is beating. Then the blood is not circulating, but love is circulating. Then eyes are not seeing, love is seeing. Then hands are not moving to touch, love is moving to touch. Become love and enter everlasting life. Love suddenly changes your dimension. You are thrown out of time and you are facing eternity. Love can become a deep meditation, the deepest possible. Lovers have known sometimes what saints have not known." ~Osho

The Difference between "Normal" Sex and Tantric Sex

Here are some excerpts from an interview with Osho about the difference between "normal" sex and Tantric sex.

Your sex act and the tantric sex act are basically different. Your sex act is to relieve; it is just like sneezing out a good sneeze. The energy is thrown out and you are unburdened. It is destructive, it is not creative. It is good -- therapeutic. It helps you to be relaxed, but nothing more. The tantric sex act is basically, diametrically opposite and different. It is not to relieve, it is not to throw energy out. It is to remain in the act without ejaculation, without throwing energy out; to remain in the act merged -- just at the beginning part of the act, not the end part. Read more

Tantra as Therapy: Was Osho Wrong?

I recently corresponded with an Indian doctor on the subject of Tantra as "therapy," so Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson's critique of Osho's promotion of that idea is timely for me.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) had a profound influence on what is now known as "Tantra" in the Western world. Rajneesh came from an academic background, did not have traditional training in Tantra and was not part of a lineage-based system. He had an extensive textual knowledge and was a very effective popularizer. He fused cutting-edge, Western psychotherapeutic techniques of the 1960s and '70s with Tantric texts and used the phrase "neo-Tantra" to describe his system. He was a controversial figure throughout his life, and he remains one today.

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Many contemporary Tantra teachers were trained by Rajneesh or his disciples, and others have embraced his ideas, at least in part. Rajneesh helped inspire the widely held notion that Tantra is a form of therapy; sometimes this belief extends to Tantric sexual practices and includes the idea that "sexual healing" can be effected through various practices designed to produce emotional release and purge traumas that are often thought to be stored in the genitals. We view these ideas with skepticism. Read more

I disagree with the classical Tantra notion that only healthy, well-integrated people are ready for Tantra, but, on the other hand, expecting Tantra alone to make one healthy and whole is probably unrealistic as well.