Tantra

Tantra is a precise system of knowledge, a science, that provides specific results and much inner transformation if employed correctly. The best way to understand Tantra is as an expanded form of Raja Yoga. Like the Yoga Sutras, and in more detail, Tantra teaches asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi, but providing many more specific forms and techniques. It gives the details of the methods that are only alluded to in the Sutras.

Tantra's methods are primarily mantras, yantra, kriya, pranayama and meditation, often done in a ritualistic way, inner and outer. Tantra also shows us how to employ other Vedic systems as Vedic astrology, Vastu and Ayurveda for deeper levels of protection and healing, as well as to promote a higher awareness.

Tantra works with chakra energy in a much deeper way that one might do 'chakra healing' or 'connecting with the chakras' through other means such as energy work, pranic healing, massage or other approaches to Yoga which are more on a physical and emotional level. In tantric practice, chakras are worked with as separate and unique expressions of kundalini, spiritual energy, through intense sadhana, mantra, pranayama and meditation. Tantra goes far beyond the physical into the energetic and spiritual practices.

It is in Tantra that we find the most detailed explication of the power of mantra, the use of yantras or geometrical meditation devices as important tools of concentration and meditation. For example, the worship of Sri Chakra and Sri Yantra, probably the most important and detailed of all the Yoga teachings, is the most important Tantric teaching. The entire universe and the subtle body are present in the Sri Chakra. Its worship integrates the individual with all existence.

'Neo-Tantra' or Westernised or hybrid approaches to Tantra that focus on sex cause us to miss the fact that Tantra in the broader sense is a deep, profound, highly spiritual and very aesthetic way of understanding the conscious universe in which we live.

(see David Frawley's article Tantra and its Misconceptions: Reclaiming the Essence from the Illusions - https://www.vedanet.com/tantra-and-its-misconceptions-reclaiming-the-essence-from-the-illusions/)