Over the last decades, we have witnessed a boom in “Sound Healing” practices, but the use of sound as a means to reach certain states of consciousness and unleash the body’s natural ability to heal itself is an ancient art that was born with humankind.

This sacred art has been transmitted from generation to generation by sound masters / musicians / shamans / mystics, mostly in an initiatory manner, but we can also rely on an immense body of written knowledge and archaeological evidence that dates back more than 20,000 years and continues to be relevant in our time.

The direct transmission from my teachers and my 30 years of research on that corpus of knowledge are the basis of my practice.

Although I own hundreds of instruments, my teachers have taught me that the most precious instrument is the practitioner themselves. The quality of their presence and the ability to create the appropriate soundscape for each particular circumstance and place, and at the right time, is where the secret of this art lies.

The growing interest in Tantra in the West might be a sign that we are heading towards a collective spiritual awakening, but for those of us who are studying the original sources of this refined spiritual tradition, it is evident that there is a high level of confusion and misinformation about the subject. A good start is to make the distinction between:

1- “Classical/Traditional” Tantra
A spiritual movement that appeared in South-East Asia around 1,000 years ago and was articulated in Sanskrit scriptures called the “tantras”.

2- “Serious” Neo-Tantra (this is my way to call it, it is not a category accepted by scholars!) Which refers to Western spiritual schools that combined some elements of Traditional Tantra with Western psychology, personal development techniques and other disciplines.

3- What is known in the West as “Tantric Sexuality”.

4- “New Age” Neo-Tantra
Practices or schools where Neo-Tantra, Neo-Paganism, New Age, Mystery Schools and many other elements are melted together, without a deep understanding of the key concepts of each tradition and the cultural context in which they were born.

In Traditional Tantra, sexual practices were only found in certain lineages, and prescribed to certain initiates, while in “Serious” Neo-Tantra, sexuality is accepted as part of the practice, but still occupies a marginal place.

In “Tantric Sexuality”, the original spiritual goals of this practice are completely lost and there is an almost exclusive focus on sexuality and the attainment of pleasure, and while obviously there is nothing wrong with that, it can hardly be called Tantra. Unfortunately, a lot of people only have this concept in mind when hear the word “Tantra”.

In “New Age” Neo-Tantra we can identify a main focus on the attainment of peak experiences (known as “spiritual materialism”), like “Kundalini activations” and there is a tendency for there to be weak ethical principles between the practitioners and the participants.

The type of Tantra that I am interested in is Traditional Tantra (especially Kashmir Shaivism) and some “Serious” Neo-Tantra schools and teachers. My main focus of research now is the work of the great Tantrik master Abhinavagupta and the role of Sound in the Tantrik ancient scriptures that we have access to and how we can apply them in our daily lives.

When I create a Tantra event, or co-create it with other facilitators, my intention is to invite the participants to pursue the highest goal of Traditional Tantra: “Being awake to our true nature as Infinite Consciousness, and being free of attachment to all that is not our essence nature”. Once this realization and state of freedom is attained, as a corollary to it, a feeling of extraordinary peace and bliss naturally arises.