Humanity seems to have fulfilled its dream of freedom. We live in an age of extreme permissiveness; practically everything is acceptable and many live by the motto ‘I can do what I want.’ But, when we are so dominated by desires, consumerism and addictions does mindlessly doing what we think we want lead us to true freedom?

What Tantrism knew centuries ago, Western society has accepted only for a few decades –man is not superior to woman, he is simply different.

The idea of ​​diversity, the right to be ‘the way you are’, to be somehow different, has become almost an obsession.

However, diversity is not a modern concept. It’s as old as the making of the world. God was the first to decree it, since every stone, every leaf, every living being has a unique design.

And he gave to all men the mission to celebrate their uniqueness through all that they are, what they can do, and through all that lives in their hearts. And at the end of this thrilling exploration to find themselves in unity with the source of all diversity.

The obsession with the body

Debates about freedom are widespread. Not only within philosophical debates but also in the political sphere, fundamental liberties, headline News and other media discourses. Western society speaks much of women’s rights and brings it to maximum visibility.

Magazines, street advertisements that cover the facades of buildings, buses, posters, but especially cinema and television, launch frantic messages that use woman’s face, body, beauty and magic. But especially the body.

It’s all about freedom

Because one of the liberties that modern society claims to have conquered is what it calls “sexual freedom”.

Tantrism too speaks about the woman, in fact about the primordial feminine energy.

Shakti abandons herself to the eternal masculine principle, Shiva, and through her the whole creation is born.

That is why the woman is adored as the supreme goddess. That is why instead of denying the energies of the reality, the tantric path masters them and makes them ascend.

Tantrism talks about freedom too. It is a profound freedom, so complete because it does not reject anything in life. St Augustine said ‘Love and do what you want’. People tend to see the ‘do what you want’ and they forget the most important part of this -to love. Coming from the heart, Tantrics can embrace all aspects of reality and integrate them on a superior level. And this happens because of an intrinsic wisdom which comes from the level of the heart.

A paradoxical doctrine

Erotic energy itself is something very natural that can propel us beyond the limits of our body and mind.

After all the fuss that the West has created about freedom – of thinking, faith, association, non-interference in private life – it might seem that the tantric vision could be accepted as serenely as any other.

Or maybe even more easily and with more sympathy than others.

Surprisingly though, it is not. Tantrism, harassed and renegaded throughout its history as a rebellious and paradoxical doctrine, often viewed with suspicion both in the East and in the European culture, today still does not receive its rightful appreciation. And why?

Eros and spirituality

The most frequent misunderstanding is that Tantra is only about sex. This is far from reality. Eroticism is just a fraction of the content of tantric texts.

But this error of interpretation makes victims both among its accusers and its admirers, who hope to find an easy way of evolving.

However, no matter how advanced it pretends to be with reference to principles, the contemporary world looks shocked at what it interprets as a cocktail of spirituality and eroticism.

More specifically, it revolts against, and feels indignant towards, this truly unique synthesis that Tantrism has. Although Western culture claims to have undergone a sexual revolution in the 1960s, the mystical, religious and philosophical beliefs seem to have been looked at only theoretically, regardless of how they are expressed and according to what perspective they are founded in.

The culture of addiction

The fierceness that indulgently transforms everything connected to the Tantric vision into a scandal, speaks for itself. Prior to sexual emancipation, the West imposed and practiced the suppression of the senses.

After the 1960’s, it fell in the other extreme –society madly drives along the avenue of the senses, without a driving licence and without following any traffic rules. And it even glorifies this chaotic race.

The chasm between man and his own eroticism has deepened. Despite sexual liberation, man has not attained freedom. He’s more dependent than ever on his own carnal pulsations.

Transfigured, the senses lead to mystic fusion

The Tantric doctrine, as much as it deals with eroticism, has a completely different perspective.

The senses are exalted only because of the conscious, elevated intensity of the experience, the deep lucidity can produce the expansion and then the jump to higher dimensions.

The Tantric man is no longer swallowed, devoured by a hunger that, being nourished by the usual reflexes, only generates another hunger again and again.

What in ordinary life is the exasperation of desire, in Tantric life becomes the exultation of aspiration. Transfigured, the senses lead to spirituality.

When man passes this threshold, the hypnotic power of the industries that foster the primacy of pleasure in our culture will fall apart. And at that moment, the consumer society really has reason to fear.

Everything that is in touch with the true Tantric vision is a promise of a freedom that man can really fulfil.