"Tantra loves, and loves unconditionally. It never says no to anything whatsoever, because everything is part of the whole, and everything has its own place in the whole, and the whole cannot exist with anything missing from it."
~Osho
The term "tantra" means "interconnectedness." It is sometimes called "The Resultant Vehicle" because it teaches the practitioner to visualize the desired results, "bringing the result into the path". Tantra emerged in Sixth Century India where it was incorporated by some into Buddhist practice. It was brought to Tibet where it developed in a Tibetan framework and beame a basic part of Tibetan Buddhist practice.
Tantric practices include many systems of visualization, mantra and other skillful means. Today, Buddhist tantric practice usually consists of two stages, "the generation" stage, wherein one visualizes ones self as a buddha or diety with all the attributes of that enlightened being, and the "completion" stage, which is often based on some variant of the Inner Heat Yoga, a practice of managing energy flow in the body in order to support the non-dual awareness needed for enlightenment.
Tantra is an accumulation of practices and ideas which is characterized by the use of ritual, by the use of the mundane to access the supra-mundane, and by the identification of the microcosm with the macrocosm. The Tantric practitioner seeks to use the prana (divine power) that flows through the universe (including one's own body) to attain purposeful goals. These goals may be spiritual, material or both.
