Osho coined the term "Neo Tantra" for a good portion of his teaching. There is much confusion as to what this actually means. Many of today's teachers of Tantra claim that this is the physical or sexual aspect of Tantra, or that Neo Tantra implies a focus on teaching tantric sexuality as opposed to teaching the spiritual or transformational meaning of what Tantra is. This is, in my opinion, totally incorrect and really not comprehensible as to why this is being done. When one reads Osho's writings about what he meant, what he taught, one gets a very clear picture that Neo Tantra is being misinterpreted.
Neo Tantra is also often referred to as "western tantra" or "modern tantra" as an expression of our modern times being pre-occupied with sexual matters. I understand Osho’s tantric teachings to actually pick us up where we are - with the human preoccupation with sexuality.
The sexual revolution was essentially about women becoming more open to sexual exploration. The discovery of the birth control pill in the fifties revolutionised sexuality by reducing fear of pregnancy which resulted in women beginning to feel more free about exploring their sexuality. The sixties and the hippy movement with it's "free love” philosophy, opened the doors for sexual exploration even more. As a woman, it was no longer necessary to be shameful about sexual escapades. Since then, it has been a slow movement towards what we have today, the signalisation of almost everything in life. The question is whether this serves us or not.
Tantra does not sexualise us, it picks us up where we are and that is with a huge preoccupation of sexuality that has not ended in spite of a deep shift into more esoteric and spiritual understandings of life that have emerged since then. And indeed, it cannot end because of its very nature and importance to our humanity and lives. So we need to take our pre-occupation with sex into account when our intention is to live more spiritually. Not doing so results in, for most of us, a separation of spirituality and sexuality and this, in end effect, inhibits our spiritual growth, let alone our physical pleasure.
How can we live a spiritual lifestyle and in the bedroom resort to animal nature and a testosterone driven, goal orientated sexuality? Spirituality that includes the body, our senses actually changes our experience of sexuality and gives it back the sacredness it was meant to have.
How can we live a spiritual lifestyle and in the bedroom resort to animal nature and a testosterone driven, goal orientated sexuality? Spirituality that includes the body, our senses actually changes our experience of sexuality and gives it back the sacredness it was meant to have.
It was natural that after Osho made Tantra accessible to the West in the sixties and seventies by re-visiting the ancient texts and teaching them for a free-love inspired public, the emphasis would be on experiencing sexuality in all manner or ways, all the while getting rid of inhibitions, as well as guilt. A lot of the tantric work that began in the eighties and nineties focused on sexuality.
In latter years, a new tantric teaching is emerging out of the Neo-Tantra era. Tantra in the west is is no longer "just" about sexuality and although sexuality plays a large role, the emphasis is more on the spiritual aspects of our sexual energy. This Post-Neo Tantra is closer to what Osho actually taught - the transcendence from physical to spiritual and more about transcending sexuality. I personally think that the phase of an almost "free for all" in sexuality where anything goes is done. It is well done and now is the time to go further, but not back into suppression, which is sometimes the case. Having had enough of the sexualisation of Tantra, some schools feel the need to once again reject the sexual aspects of the work. This is unfortunate, it is a step backwards. What is needed is the integration of the polarities that Tantra places us in. Only when this integration has taken place, do we find the complete picture. Only then will we realise fully what it was that Osho actually gave us.
I share the following Osho quotes with you in an attempt to make clear what Osho meant and how the term Neo Tantra should be understood if used correctly. The quotes will also give the reader a good idea of what the path of Tantra in our day and age and in all cultures really is.
Osho quotes
"The first part has to be sex. The second part has to be love. The third part has to be prayer, and the fourth has to be transcendence. So from the gross to the subtle you move. And in the fourth, sex has to completely disappear, love too, prayer too. Make it absolutely silent, peaceful, meditative... not even a trace is left. These are the four stages of Neo-Tantra..."
"Sex is just the beginning, not the end But if you miss the beginning, You will miss the end also."
"If you remain aware you will come to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer, deep inside is the love, and even deeper is prayer, and deepest is God himself. Sex can become a cosmic experience. Then it is Tantra."
"This is tantra's proposition, that mind is nothing but subtle matter; it can be changed. And once you have a different mind you have a different world, because you look through the mind. The world you are seeing, you are seeing because of a particular mind."
"The moment you enter love, you enter a different person. And when you come out you will not be able to recognize your old face; it will not belong to you. A discontinuity will have happened. Now there is a gap, the old man is dead and the new man has come. That is what is known as rebirth - being twice-born."
"Tantra's contribution is the greatest, because it give you keys to transform the lowest into the highest. It gives you keys to transform mud into lotuses."
From the Prologue to Osho's book Sex Matters in answer to the question: "Why does the topic of sex make people so uncomfortable? Why is it such a taboo?"
"The simple reason is that people have been for centuries living a repressed sex life. They have been told by all the religious prophets and the messiahs and the saviors that sex it sin. To my understanding, sex is your only energy, it is life energy. What you do with it depends on you. It can become sin, and it can become also your highest peak of consciousness. It all depends on you how you use the energy. There was a day when we had no idea how to use electricity. Electricity was available always - as lightning - and was killing people, but now it is your servant. It is doing everything that you want. Sex is bio- electricity. The question is how to use it. And the first principle is not to condemn it. The moment you condemn anything, you cannot use it. Sex should be accepted as a normal, natural thing in life - just as sleep, as hunger, as everything else. Furthermore, sex can be joined with meditation, and once sex can be joined with meditation its whole quality changes. Sex without meditation can only reproduce children. Sex with meditation can give you a new birth, can make you a new human being."
Osho quotes
"The first part has to be sex. The second part has to be love. The third part has to be prayer, and the fourth has to be transcendence. So from the gross to the subtle you move. And in the fourth, sex has to completely disappear, love too, prayer too. Make it absolutely silent, peaceful, meditative... not even a trace is left. These are the four stages of Neo-Tantra..."
"Sex is just the beginning, not the end But if you miss the beginning, You will miss the end also."
"If you remain aware you will come to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer, deep inside is the love, and even deeper is prayer, and deepest is God himself. Sex can become a cosmic experience. Then it is Tantra."
"This is tantra's proposition, that mind is nothing but subtle matter; it can be changed. And once you have a different mind you have a different world, because you look through the mind. The world you are seeing, you are seeing because of a particular mind."
"The moment you enter love, you enter a different person. And when you come out you will not be able to recognize your old face; it will not belong to you. A discontinuity will have happened. Now there is a gap, the old man is dead and the new man has come. That is what is known as rebirth - being twice-born."
"Tantra's contribution is the greatest, because it give you keys to transform the lowest into the highest. It gives you keys to transform mud into lotuses."
From the Prologue to Osho's book Sex Matters in answer to the question: "Why does the topic of sex make people so uncomfortable? Why is it such a taboo?"
"The simple reason is that people have been for centuries living a repressed sex life. They have been told by all the religious prophets and the messiahs and the saviors that sex it sin. To my understanding, sex is your only energy, it is life energy. What you do with it depends on you. It can become sin, and it can become also your highest peak of consciousness. It all depends on you how you use the energy. There was a day when we had no idea how to use electricity. Electricity was available always - as lightning - and was killing people, but now it is your servant. It is doing everything that you want. Sex is bio- electricity. The question is how to use it. And the first principle is not to condemn it. The moment you condemn anything, you cannot use it. Sex should be accepted as a normal, natural thing in life - just as sleep, as hunger, as everything else. Furthermore, sex can be joined with meditation, and once sex can be joined with meditation its whole quality changes. Sex without meditation can only reproduce children. Sex with meditation can give you a new birth, can make you a new human being."
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