About Tantra from the book "The Mirror of yoga" by Richard Freeman

The misperception that tantra is exclusively a group of practices
having to do with sexuality also stems from the fact that yoga involves
the awakening of the power of the serpent ltundalini, which is imag-
ined coiled up and asleep, blocking the opening of the central channel.
When awakened she uncoils, opening the mouth of the central channel;

she then turns around and enters the susumni. Her movement in this
central channel, the middle path of the subtle body, causes the mind,
the citta, to drop into deepening layers of profound meditation. There
is an obvious parallel between the sexual potential that rests within the
body and the presence and awakening 0F this serpent that dwells above
the center of the pelvic Floor. This coiling of the sexual energy, which is
the normal state For most people, blocks the central channel and causes
us to project our sexual desires externally onto sense objects. The citta
(mind and intelligence), which follows the prana, also then coils and
superimposes symbols onto processes, creating in the mind the appear-
ance of separate sense objects. In this light we can see that kundalini
represents more than just sexual desire; she is also the desire to know
things, the craving not to sulfer, and the aspiration for liberation For
oneself and for all others. A balanced study and practice of yoga brings
attention to the true nature of others and the mind, and to how many
aspects of life are interconnected. An unbalanced, exclusive Focus on
obscure tantric practices having to do with uncoiling our sexual energy,
without proper grounding in the truth of impermanence, may put us
in the situation of being obsessed by imaginary powers and ruled by
the ego. There are high intoxicated states of mind in which we still split
desire, sensation, and Feeling into subject and object. The subject-object
divide revolves around the ego and stems From the primordial igno-
rance (avidyi), which has gotten us into this situation in the first place.

In the skilled practice of tantric yoga there is the awakening of internal

energy and an experience of the full intensity of sensation and feeling

we term sexuality. In that awakening, when the practice is balanced.

there is a release of the cgo’s tendency to grasp onto the division of sub-

ject and object, so that the cause of great frustration and suflering does

not occur.