Guest post from Jonathan Goldman, author and sound healing musician: The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing & Holy Harmony

One of the highest levels of tantric practice involves resonating and harmonizing oneself with sound! This is done in order to enhance and energize our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual essence. Both the Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra stress the power of sound. Sound, in fact, is the basis of much tantra—through working with advanced sound techniques, tantric practitioners are able to harmonize themselves in body, mind and spirit.

It was through our work at Healing Sounds, exploring various sonic practices from the Eastern traditions that we came upon the concept of TANTRA OF SOUND. We have discovered, through years of working together using sound, easy methods of achieving this harmonizing effect that the Eastern mystics described. This desired harmony and balance of body, mind and spirit can be both safely and efficiently practiced by utilizing specific techniques and exercises.

Our primary goal in sharing this work is to assist you in reaching deeper states of consciousness and self awareness; first with yourselves, and then, if appropriate, with a partner. We are currently at a crossroads in our evolutionary development. One road leads to an extraordinary new world of hopes and possibilities filled with love and compassion, caring and kindness. The other road does not. This first road offers the potential of us becoming the true, extraordinary humans that so many of the mystics and spiritual teachers throughout time have suggested that we can be. In order to do so, we must indeed be able to achieve harmony and balance within ourselves and then with each other. In order to do so, we must be willing to gaze into the window of our soul, acknowledge who and what we are, and then agree to love and honor that being.

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Guest post from Jonathan Goldman, author and sound healing musician: The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing & Holy Harmony

“Tantra” is Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Hindu tradition. Like many other sacred languages such as Hebrew or Tibetan, there is frequently not simply one singular meaning that can be applied to the words which we translate. Thus “tantra” is often translated as “continuum” or “unbroken stream” and indicates a flow of consciousness from ignorance to enlightenment. The word also translates as “web” or “warp” and encompasses all that is. Tantra represents the interconnecting energies between all things in this and other planes of existence. Other words used to describe tantra are: leading principle, essential part, model, system, framework, doctrine, rule, theory, scientific work, order, chief part, rule, authority, science, mystic works, magical formulas, means, expedient, stratagem, medicine.

The etymology of “tantra” comes from the combination of two words “tattva” and “mantra”. “Tattva” is the science of cosmic principles, while “mantra” refers to the science of mystic sound and vibrations. In the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, tantra is sometimes referred to as “Secret Mantra”. This may be to distinguish it from being confused with Western concepts of neo-tantra. A definition of the meaning of Secret Mantra from the Tibetan Buddhist standpoint is as follows: `Secret’ indicates that these methods should be practiced privately. `Mantra’ means `protection for the mind’ and often utilizes sacred sound to do this. Thus, the function of Secret Mantra is to enable us to progress swiftly through the stages of the spiritual path by protecting our mind against ordinary conceptions through the use of sound.

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Guest post from Jonathan Goldman, author and sound healing musician: The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing & Holy Harmony

TANTRA. The very word conjures up exciting images of incense filled rooms, full of throbbing bodies pulsating and vibrating in various degrees of orgasmic ecstasy. Indeed, if you were to do an Internet search with the word “tantra”, you would find over a million and a half websites devoted to that word. Almost all of these sites focus upon sex. Sex is huge. Sex sells. We are a sex obsessed planet. And to many people, sex and tantra mean the same thing. This, however, is simply not true.

There is great confusion today about the word tantra, and understandably so. Depending upon the culture, tradition, viewpoint, teacher and level of awareness, “tantra” can mean different things to different people. At healing sounds we’ve investigated numerous sources and were astounded by the variety of meanings that were applied to the word tantra and the teachings behind it.

Not surprisingly, here in the West, the meaning of tantra is almost always synonymous with sex and sexual yoga, taken from specific paths and teachers in the Hindu tradition. Yet, in the Buddhist tradition—particularly Tibetan Buddhism, tantra has nothing to do with sex—at least not from the physical aspect of sexual relationships.

An internet search for the word tantra, which found over a million and a half websites advertising aspects of tantra, revealed that the vast majority of these sites centered upon sex. We speculated that at least 90% – 95% of the sites we visited involved some aspect involving sexual relations—with everything from sexual aids to sexual surrogates beings advertised. Many times these sites offered techniques for improving sexual capability in sexual relationships. Many times, however, these sites were not nearly that subtle.

Yet, in our research we also discovered sources that were of seemingly pure tantric traditions, and they were almost all adamant that tantra had little or nothing to do with sex as it is currently perceived of in the West. In Fact, the word “neo-tantra” frequently emerged when talking about these newer perceptions of tantra which many authorities considered a corruption of the word. What then, is tantra?

I will share more on the meaning of tantra in my next post.

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