Tantra Yoga: A Timeless Practice to Energize Your Life

Are you searching for something that can bring real change in your life? Maybe you’ve tried different spiritual practices over time, but they don’t seem to stick or truly transform the way you feel.

You’re not alone. Many of us crave something more — a connection to something bigger, and a path that not only clarifies the mind, but also nurtures the body and spirit.

That’s where the ancient wisdom of Tantra Yoga comes in. Authentic Tantra Yoga includes a vast range of practices designed to purify and elevate your body, mind, and soul. It’s not just exercise — it’s a science and a proven system that has guided people for thousands of years toward greater physical and mental health, as well as profound spiritual awakening.

Rooted in the ancient traditions of India, Tantra Yoga works with energy — your energy — to help unlock your potential so you can experience life in a deeper, more meaningful way.

In this article, I’ll explain what Tantra Yoga is, why it’s so unique, and how it can help you live a fuller, more conscious life. I’ve also included a free Tantra Yoga video class at the end, which you can follow along with at home.

If you’re ready to explore a practice that goes beyond the surface and truly supports your growth, keep reading. Tantra Yoga may be just what you’ve been looking for.

List of contents:

• What is Tantra Yoga?
• What is energy, and how does it relate to Tantra Yoga?
• Energy governs the physical body
• What is the difference between tantric yoga and other forms of yoga?
• Is Neotantra the same as Tantra Yoga?
• The role of Shaivism in Tantra Yoga
• Top 4 Benefits of Tantra Yoga
• How do you do yoga?
• What is the best way to start practicing tantric yoga?
• Try Tantra Yoga for yourself — with a free video class provided here!

What Is Tantra Yoga?

Tantra Yoga is any type of yogic practice or teaching that involves the purposeful and concentrated use of energy. Tantra Yoga is not limited to physical postures. It includes a wide array of different practices, such as purification techniques, mantras, yantras, visualizations, and meditations. This is why Tantra Yoga, and traditional Yoga in general, is often called a spiritual science.

The word Yoga comes from the root word yug in the Sanskrit language, which means “union.” This refers to the fact that the ultimate goal of any yogic tradition is the union of the individual consciousness with universal consciousness, or the Divine.

However, spiritual awakening or enlightenment is not the only purpose of Tantra Yoga.

For thousands of years, devoted practitioners (or yogis) have been able to achieve very practical results in all areas of life, such as excellent physical health, consistent emotional balance, enhanced mental abilities, and greater personal vitality.

Authentic Yoga is scientific because it is a system of knowledge that brings proven results and guaranteed, predictable outcomes.

Many different types of Tantra Yoga exist, such as:

• Kundalini Yoga — an advanced form of tantric yoga that uses kundalini energy as part of the practice. It consists primarily of the teachings of ten secret kundalini mudras, which are rarely taught or even known about in modern day.
• Hatha Yoga — works with opposite polarities of energy, which are also known as Shakti and Shiva, or yin and yang. The name reflects this polarity; the word ha means “sun” and tha means “moon” in Sanskrit. Hatha Yoga is the yoga that uses body positions or asanas. It is the origin and root of all asana-related Yoga practices that have developed since then.
• Laya Yoga — focuses on dissolving individual consciousness into universal consciousness through the awakening and channeling of inner energy. Laya Yoga uses sounds (mantras), colors, yantras, and many other tools or practices.

You can see all these different forms of Tantra Yoga have one thing in common — they use energy as the main tool of yogic practice. This energy is called Shakti in the tantric tradition, and all forms of Tantra Yoga are meant to promote and cultivate Shakti energy. I’ll explain this in more depth in the next section of this article.

If you’d like to practice a Tantra Yoga class in your own home, check out our free online Tantra Yoga video, taught by our senior teacher Liisa Maimon. She will guide you through a one-hour sequence of Tantra Yoga that’s great for beginners or more experienced practitioners alike.

Try Tantra Yoga for Yourself!

Tantra Yoga is any type of yogic practice or teaching that involves the purposeful and concentrated use of energy.

What Is Energy, and How Does It Relate to Tantra Yoga?

In Tantra, the energy that makes up the universe, in all its forms, is referred to as Shakti. And all things in the manifested universe are composed of Shakti.

Science supports this same principle. The fields of physics and quantum physics have shown that everything — from the human body to inanimate objects — vibrates at a certain frequency or resonance. In other words, everything is composed of energy.

In addition, there is also an aspect of the universe that is unmanifested. It is not energy anymore — it is pure consciousness. This is what’s known in Tantra as Shiva.

Rather than simply talking about manifested energy and unmanifested potential or consciousness, tantric masters were able to make these concepts more accessible and usable by personifying them and giving them the names of Shakti and Shiva.

Giving a face to these universal principles gives the human mind a much better way of connecting, understanding, and eventually uniting with them.

In Tantra, there is great worship of Shakti. But there is also great worship of Shiva. Ultimately, tantrics say that when you spiritually develop yourself to a high degree, you will eventually realize that both Shakti and Shiva are the same. They are like two sides of the same coin.

That kind of profound realization — not just intellectually, but through practice — can take a person to liberation. However, until we’ve reached that point, working with both energy (Shakti) and consciousness (Shiva) principles is a fundamental part of Tantra Yoga. This is what tantric yogic practices are specifically designed to do.
 

Energy Governs the Physical Body

Think about the last time you walked into a room and immediately felt someone’s “energy” — maybe they were angry, sad, or radiating joy. You weren’t imagining it. That energy you sensed is real, and it’s exactly why working with Shakti energy through Tantra Yoga can be so transformative.

The yogic tradition recognizes that you are much more than mere flesh and bones. Beyond your physical body exists an energetic substructure, known as the human aura, which surrounds and overlaps with your manifested form.

This substructure consists of five different layers. Your physical body is the densest layer, which makes it the easiest to feel. The remaining four layers of your being are subtler and more difficult to perceive.

However, it’s important to know that your physical body does not govern these energetic layers. Rather, these energetic layers govern and regulate your physical body.

When your energy gets stuck, blocked, or starts flowing chaotically, this shows up as symptoms in your body. Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself — chronic headaches that doctors can’t explain, digestive issues that come and go without reason, or a heavy feeling in your chest when you’re stressed.

These aren’t just random physical problems. They’re your body’s way of telling you that something is off in your aura.

For example, maybe you’re dealing with ongoing stomach or digestive issues. From an energetic perspective, this means the life force — also known as prana in the tantric tradition — around your navel area has become congested or blocked.

That energetic blockage can be cleared by doing Tantra Yoga to revitalize the energy in the area. However, if the digestive symptoms are only treated superficially, such as taking pain killers, the issue will most likely persist or show up somewhere else because the deeper energetic blockage causing the issue has not been dealt with.

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The same principle applies everywhere in your body, and this is why Tantra Yoga can become a seemingly miraculous healing tool. Instead of just treating symptoms, Tantra Yoga works directly with your energy field to restore natural flow and balance.

Through specific breathing techniques, sacred movements, and consciousness practices, you learn to sense where your energy is stuck and how to get it moving again.

When your energy flows harmoniously — the way it’s designed to — your physical body naturally returns to health and vitality. It’s like removing a kink from a garden hose so water can flow freely again.

The yogic tradition recognizes that you are much more than mere flesh and bones. Beyond your physical body exists an energetic substructure, known as the human aura, which surrounds and overlaps with your manifested form.

What Is the Difference Between Tantric Yoga and Other Forms of Yoga?

You’ve probably rolled out your yoga mat dozens of times, maybe even hundreds. Perhaps you’ve sweated through hot yoga classes, flowed through vinyasa sequences, or melted into restorative poses. And yes, you likely felt better afterward — more flexible, relaxed, maybe even a bit more centered.

But here’s what might surprise you: most yoga experiences like these are only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

The biggest difference between Tantra Yoga and other styles comes down to one thing — energy awareness.

When you practice common types of yoga like Ashtanga, Bikram, or Vinyasa, you might notice:

• Your muscles feel worked and stretched.
• You break a sweat and burn calories.
• Your mind quiets down temporarily.
• You sleep better that night.

When you practice Tantra Yoga with energy awareness, you can experience completely different effects:

• You may feel currents of aliveness moving through your body during poses.
• Emotions that have been stuck for months, or even years, can suddenly release and be expelled from your system.
• You may feel energetic activation of your chakras, which can bring about deep states of awareness, clarity, and enthusiasm.
• Your intuition often becomes sharper and clearer.
• You might experience waves of bliss or deep peace that can last for days.
• Physical issues will start resolving from the inside out.

In a regular yoga class, your focus is often on the physical posture you’re holding, such as keeping your arms parallel to the floor, engaging your core, or whatever physical aspects are part of a certain yoga pose. This is all great for building strength and flexibility.

But in Tantra Yoga, a physical posture becomes an energy awareness and activation practice. The focus of a tantric yoga pose is not holding the pose in the right way. Instead, it’s about holding your mental concentration on a specific point — often one of your chakras — and focusing on how you may or may not be perceiving energy moving in your body.

You might actually feel tingling, warmth, or pulsing sensations. Some people even experience emotional releases or sudden insights while in the pose. Or you may feel nothing at all, which is also fine. Learning how to focus your mind is a key part of Tantra Yoga, even if you can’t perceive more subtle energies at first.

Other than body-based forms of yoga, there are also certain types of related practices that focus on consciousness or self-awareness, such as in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. These practices involve concentration of the mind, and while they can be beneficial in many ways, they are not tantric because they do not deal with energy.

Tantra Yoga combines the physical awareness of body-based yoga with the consciousness practices of meditation traditions, but adds the missing piece — direct work with your life force energy. Some Tantra Yoga practices in Tibetan Tantra Buddhism, like Tummo (inner heat) or Phowa (consciousness transference), also include this energetic component, which is why they can produce such profound transformations.

So, what’s the final result of a Tantra Yoga practice? Instead of just getting a good workout or some temporary stress relief, you’re rewiring your entire energetic system — physical, emotional, and spiritual — from the ground up.

I explain this further in an interview I did a few years ago:

The focus of a tantric yoga pose is not holding the pose in the right way. Instead, it’s about holding your mental concentration on a specific point — often one of your chakras — and focusing on how you may or may not be perceiving energy moving in your body.

Is Neotantra the Same as Tantra Yoga?

No. Neotantra is a modern body of thought that is loosely based on very limited aspects of ancient tantric teachings. It typically focuses on sexuality and developing relationships that are more sexually rich.

While this can be beneficial for a couple, it cannot be considered Tantra Yoga for the same reason we’ve already discussed — Neotantra, being a non-authentic form of Tantra, does not properly involve the use or study of energy. It also does not include the true purpose of any tantric practice, which is to assist with personal and spiritual evolution.

Authentic Tantra does include the Yoga of sex, where sexuality is handled in very specific ways that are meant to help the couple reach high states of consciousness, and even liberation, through sexuality.

However, true Tantra encompasses far more than just sexuality. In fact, less than 10% of the original Tantra teachings relate to sex and sexuality. The vast majority of the teachings are on a host of other topics, ranging from physical practices, to meditation techniques, to principles for leading a spiritual life.

Tantra Yoga is a part of the tantric tradition and is a whole and complete spiritual system that has existed for thousands of years, and any attempts to “modernize” it will simply dilute its original purpose and weaken its effects.
 

The Role of Shaivism in Tantra Yoga

Shaivism is a tantric form of Yoga. It exists in various parts of India; however, Kashmiri Shaivism is the form of Shaivism that Somananda Tantra School comes from. It’s considered the most advanced and elevated form of tantric practice.

In Kashmiri Shaivism, the teachings do not include anything about sexuality. Instead, they focus on extremely advanced methods of transformation of human consciousness and how to reach incredibly high levels of enlightenment. They explain how to expand your mind and consciousness and how to perceive reality at the most supreme levels using techniques such as Trika meditation.

Despite the powerful nature of these practices, they are not difficult. Kashmiri Shaivism states that any human emotion can be harnessed and used for a person’s development. For example, you can take the intense energy from anger or joy and turn it inward to fuel spiritual growth.

You can also find this energy in the stillness of nature, such as watching snow fall or listening to a stream flowing, and use the experience to develop higher states of awareness.

This is the amazing potential of Kashmiri Shaivism, and why it is considered the pinnacle of Tantra Yoga.
 

Top 4 Benefits of Tantra Yoga

Tantra Yoga is one of many different branches of Tantra. The overall tradition of Tantra encompasses a range of different topics, such as metaphysics, relationships, and chakra science. If you’d like to learn more about these branches, our Taste of Tantra course gives an overview of the various areas of tantric study.

A beautiful thing about the field of Tantra is that, above all, the tantric tradition respects free will. Tantra does not expect anyone to follow specific practices or pursue a tantric path that does not resonate with them. Everyone is free to choose how they want to be involved with Tantra, including Tantra Yoga.

Tantra Yoga can provide a clear path for spiritual advancement and enlightenment if that is your interest. It can also be used for a wide variety of other objectives, such as to improve your health, boost your energy and creativity, or simply be able to function better in everyday life.

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All these goals can be supported by numerous tantric yogic practices. In Tantra Yoga, there is something that can benefit everyone, regardless of your life situation and personal interests.

However, you will not achieve great results in Tantra Yoga if you only consider it as a hobby. It should be approached as a calling or a discipline — investing time into it means investing into yourself.

Committing yourself to Tantra Yoga enables you to unlock hidden potential within your mind and body.

1. Physical Health and Healing

I have personally experienced, and seen in others, nearly unbelievable healing take place from practicing Tantra Yoga. This is because Tantra Yoga addresses the underlying energetic blockages that are causing health disruptions, so truly deep healing can actually happen.

This is also very personally liberating because it means you can take greater control over your own health. Instead of relying on external healthcare professionals, you can support your own health and well-being by adopting a committed tantric yoga practice.

These are just a few personal experiences from our Tantra Yoga students (names have been changed for confidentiality):

• Angela, a woman in her 50s, had a persistent skin rash on her left arm that had resisted pharmaceutical treatment for several years. She performed the yogic cleansing practice of shankhaprakshalana, and her skin condition disappeared permanently within a few days.
• Tom had been injured in a car accident where his left lung collapsed. He was only in his mid-30s, but doctors had told him he would need to live with this impairment for the rest of his life. On the advice of his Tantra Yoga teachers, Tom started practicing the gomukhasana pose for 30 minutes per day for several weeks. Gomukhasana is meant to bring energy to the heart chakra, and by focusing his energy there, Tom was able to completely heal the damage to his lung and regain its full function within six months.

• Natalie, a mother of three in her mid-40s, had been experiencing digestive issues for years that conventional medicine had not resolved. Many different foods would cause intestinal pain and discomfort, so she was on a very limited diet. She enrolled in our Tantra Yoga Level 1 course, and after committing herself to the practices she learned in the course, she entirely healed her gut within two months and could eat a normal range of foods again.
• Philip was already skilled at pranayama, which is a form of practice in Tantra Yoga that focuses on controlling prana, or life-force energy. He accidentally spilled boiling water on his left arm and was burnt badly. However, he knew that heat can damage a person’s prana, so he did intense pranayama right after receiving the burn, focusing his attention on the burnt area. Amazingly, the area healed without leaving a scar, unlike a previous burn on his leg, which left a deep mark back when he didn’t yet know pranayama.
• Many women who have taken our Tantra Yoga Level 1 reported a significant reduction in cramps, moodiness, and other menstrual symptoms after practicing yoga for a few weeks. For some women, their symptoms disappeared entirely.

You can also read Jan’s full story of how Tantra Yoga helped him reshape both his personal and professional life. His journey is truly inspiring and it shows the incredible potential of Tantra Yoga to transform your life.

2. Personal Achievement

Most of us have many dreams of what we want to accomplish or experience in life. But we often fail to achieve these dreams, primarily due to the energetic blockages present in our bodies.

These blockages can impair your mental functions and prevent you from taking action to achieve your goals. Counterproductive habits, such as procrastination and self-doubt, stem from blockages within your energy bodies.

That’s why they seem so mysterious and like they’re out of your control, because they’re hidden in the deepest layers of your being. Tantra Yoga can help clear these blockages, which, in turn, will free up that energy to be used more constructively.

You can learn how to be better in business, relationships, education, sports, or any other area you want to master. Just imagine what you could do if you had all your energetic potential available and at your command.

3. Mastery of Your Mind

I have also seen amazing mental development in committed Tantra Yoga practitioners, such as developing greater intellectual capacity, stronger memory function, deeper insights and understanding, and enhanced focus and determination.

More highly advanced yogis have even developed what could be called paranormal abilities. There are many ancient and modern stories of people who have witnessed yogis performing what seem like miracles, such as being able to levitate, read minds, or see human auras.

However, I’m not suggesting you need to go as far as developing paranormal abilities. A consistent Tantra Yoga practice can help you cultivate much greater control and mastery over your mind, which you can use in many practical ways in both your personal and professional life.

4. Spiritual Awakening

A fundamental aim of tantric yoga is to support spiritual awakening and self-realization. This sort of terminology gets thrown around in various spiritual contexts, but what does it actually mean? Who are you, really? And what does the experience of knowing your true Self actually feel like?

These are vital questions to explore as a tantric practitioner, and Tantra Yoga will help you answer them as your practice deepens. Over time, you may start perceiving energy not only within yourself, but also in your surroundings.

You can learn to control energy and use it for your spiritual benefit. You can also become more aware on a subtle level of higher aspects within yourself, and experience the felt sense of these energies.

Tantra Yoga can bring about profound spiritual awakening. All it takes is to simply keep doing the practice consistently and you are bound to start seeing the results.

Tantra Yoga can provide a clear path for spiritual advancement and enlightenment if that is your interest. It can also be used for a wide variety of other objectives, such as to improve your health, boost your energy and creativity, or simply be able to function better in everyday life.

How Do You Do Yoga?

There are many ways to do Yoga — it doesn’t consist of only one practice. Tantra Yoga includes a wide range of different practices, from meditations, to physical postures, to purification techniques. However, the practices you’ll need at any given time will change throughout your spiritual journey.

As you grow and develop your awareness and spiritual maturity, your Tantra Yoga practice will naturally grow and change as well. If you choose to follow the path of Tantra Yoga, these are the most common yoga practices you’ll be working with.  

1. Tantra Yoga Asanas

Most simply defined, asanas are tantric Yoga poses or tantric Yoga positions. In the tantric system, asanas are not reduced to a mere physical practice or a way to stretch and tone muscles. They serve a much more mystical and crucial purpose.

When done correctly — with mental concentration and a focus on energy — tantric asanas will bring great vitality and rejuvenating energy to the physical, energetic, emotional, and mental bodies (the layers of the aura).

Tantra Yoga is a more meditative type of practice where the practitioner aims to hold a certain asana for a longer duration of time. Depending on the level of difficulty, asanas should be held for minimally 2-5 minutes, or even up to 30 minutes, nonstop.

During this time, it’s also crucial to mentally focus your attention on the chakra associated with the particular asana you are holding, and sensing how the energy may or may not be flowing through that chakra.

The longer the tantric yoga asana is held, and the more your attention is focused, the stronger the energetic accumulation and, therefore, the potential to create positive changes in your being.

If you’d like to try a sample Tantra Yoga class, I’ve included a video of a class taught by one of our senior teachers at the end of this article.

2. Kriyas

Beneath the Tantra Yoga umbrella exists a branch called Kriya Yoga. This is the Yoga of cleansing and purification, and it’s not to be confused with the Kriya Yoga of Yogananda. Within this branch of Yoga, 36 purification and cleansing techniques are described and defined.

They range from basic, everyday practices such as rinsing the eyes and scraping the tongue in a particular way, to much more advanced techniques that are often reserved for those who are more spiritually developed.

Kriya Yoga is considered a vital component to the larger Tantra Yoga system simply because it purges impurities on all levels, which prepares an individual for more and more powerful surges of energy to flow through their being.

By reaching the maximum energetic flow, you can become immune to any disease, tap into the fountain of youth, and reach incredible spiritual heights.

3. Pranayama

Pranayama is the art of controlling prana — your life force energy — and it’s much more than simple breathing exercises.

While pranayama is often depicted as a warm-up routine or stress-relief technique, true pranayama is about learning to become more aware of the invisible current of prana that flows through you with every breath.

When you breathe consciously in this way, you’re not just moving air in and out of your lungs. You’re actually gathering, refining, and directing the subtle energy that animates your entire being.

Pranayama is a highly sophisticated technology of Yoga. When you use authentic techniques in your practice, the healing effects are in many cases mind-blowing and can even seem supernatural.

4. Meditation

Tantric meditation is an essential part of Tantra Yoga. Like the rest of Tantra, tantric meditation is completely based on energy. This is a different approach than many modern styles of meditation that focus on relaxation or mindfulness, which can be quite vague.

Instead, as with all tantric traditions, tantric meditation takes a very scientific approach. Tantric forms of meditation use various aspects and forms of energy, such as sounds, colors, mantras, yantras, and visualizations, to achieve deep transformative effects within the human mind and body.

It’s the use of energy that makes tantric meditation a truly powerful yogic technique. It is practiced in a systematic and precise way, which provides results that can be predicted and replicated. This can also bring faster and stronger results.
 

What Is the Best Way to Start Practicing Tantric Yoga?

The first step to start practicing Tantra Yoga is to find a teacher, mentor, or guru who resonates with you. If your goal is to practice authentic Tantra Yoga, make sure the teacher or teachers you choose are from an established lineage. This will ensure the teachings you receive are genuine and will truly support and accelerate your personal and spiritual development.

The next step is to ask yourself what you really want from Tantra Yoga, and how serious you are about pursuing it as an ongoing practice. It’s fine if you’re only interested in trying it out and seeing if you like it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just be honest with yourself and recognize your real intentions.

If you decide you sincerely want to practice Tantra Yoga, I would recommend taking at least six months to a few years where you truly dedicate yourself to training and doing the practice. Somananda Tantra School’s Tantra Yoga Level 1 training will give you an excellent foundation in the fundamental practices you’ll need to get started.

Tantra Yoga can be downright miraculous in what it can do. However, it typically needs time and consistent effort before you see any significant results.

It’s also very helpful to incorporate the following practices into your daily routines:

• Eating a clean diet with minimal processed foods, additives, pesticides, or other chemicals.
• Physical detoxification, such as herbal cleanses, clay baths, or saunas.
• Reading spiritual books and studying spiritual texts.
• Getting enough sleep and rest to recharge your natural energy stores.
• Eliminating stimulants and psychoactive substances, such as caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and recreational drugs.

These daily habits will all help support your Tantra Yoga practice.

Tantra Yoga can be downright miraculous in what it can do. However, it typically needs time and consistent effort before you see any significant results.

Try Tantra Yoga for Yourself!

Tantra Yoga is a profound spiritual practice that can improve your overall physical and emotional health, enhance your mental abilities, and support greater spiritual awakening. It’s a vast system of knowledge that can help you excel in all areas of life.

To experience the transformative power of Tantra Yoga firsthand, we invite you to join our free online tantric yoga class. This is a Tantra Yoga video class guided by our senior teacher Liisa Maimon:

This free Tantra Yoga class with Liisa offers a guided introduction to tantric Hatha Yoga, a unique yoga style that emphasizes awareness, energy flow, and chakra activation over physical performance.

The session begins with six specific warm-up exercises to awaken the body’s energy channels and prepare the mind for deeper concentration.

Then, Liisa leads you through a series of accessible tantra yoga postures using breathing techniques, visualization, and tips to deepen your practice. Each movement and tantric asana is performed with mental focus on different chakras to promote healing, inner balance, and vitality.

The session concludes with a relaxing guided meditation designed to integrate the energetic benefits of the practice.

Suitable for all levels, this video offers not just physical benefits but a deeper spiritual experience. It invites you to explore Tantra Yoga as a tool for inner transformation and awakening.

For those ready to explore Tantra Yoga more deeply, consider enrolling in our Taste of Tantra Workshop or advancing your practice with our comprehensive Tantra Yoga Level 1 program. Both offerings provide an immersive opportunity to connect with this ancient spiritual science on a very practical level.

Take the first step on your Tantra Yoga path today and unlock the secrets to a more enlightened and fulfilling life!