Tantra: The Yoga of Sex - 1964

"Perhaps the clearest way of beginning to explain Tantra to Westerners is that it transforms sex into a sacrament. By its means, ordinary mortals partake of the divine and their sexual lives become cosmic in scope and intensity. Tantra is the yoga of sexual ecstasy. Tantra has been practiced in India and Tibet for thousands of years but became known to a few people in the West only within the last seventy years. Until a few years ago it came to us veiled in impenetrable symbolism. Puritan developments in India had led to doctoring the literature of Tantra to conceal its sexual import. Moreover, it came to us first in English translation from proper Victorians! In this book, for the first time, the actual rites of Tantra are plainly and accurately described by a student trained in Bengal, one of the great strongholds of Tantra since 600 A.D. Where other forms of Yoga repress sex or renounce it entirely, Tantra achieves the elevated state of consciousness of samadhi through the power of sex. While other forms of yoga are difficult and even impossible in the West, it is the explicit teaching of Tantra that it is for all people and all times..." - Tantra: The Yoga of Sex - Omar V. Garrison Published 1964, Causeway Books, New York Hardcover. Approx. 6.5x9.5in. 252pp. Dustjacket has some wear, particularly at top of spine. Name of a previous owner on first page. Book itself is in good shape.