According to Osho, Tantra sees “sex energy” as the very life-force itself—the dynamic play of polarities (positive/negative, masculine/feminine) pervading all acts of creation, communication, and meditation. Physical reproduction is just one small aspect. True Tantra harmonizes these inner opposites until they unite within, birthing ecstasy, completeness, and non-need, as in Buddha’s inner orgasm; thus every genuine meditative technique is inherently sexual in this wider sense.
Tantra says “sex” really means life energy everywhere, and freedom comes when your inner male and female join in harmony.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
We have always heard that tantra is basically concerned with sex energy and sex center techniques, but you say that tantra is all-inclusive. If there is any truth in the former standpoint, the majority of techniques in vigyana bhairava seem to be non-tantric. Is this true?
The first thing is to understand sex energy. As you understand it, it is just a part, one part, one fragment of the life force, but as Tantra understands it, it is just synonymous with life. It is not a part, not a fragment -- it is life itself. So when Tantra says "sex" energy it means "life" energy. The same is true about Freudian concepts of sex energy. Freud was also very much misunderstood in the West. It appeared to people that he was reducing life to sex, but he was doing the same thing that Tantra has been doing for so long. Life is sex. The word "sex" is not confined to reproduction, the whole play of life energy is sex. Reproduction is just a part of that play. Wherever two energies are meeting -- negative and positive -- sex has entered. It is difficult to understand. For…
Verse (Sanskrit): ओशो, काम-ऊर्जा को ध्यान व समाधि की दिशा में रूपांतरित करने की साधना में तंत्र का क्या-क्या योगदान है? कृपया इसकी रूप-रेखा प्रस्तुत करें। Transliteration: ośo, kāma-ūrjā ko dhyāna va samādhi kī diśā meṃ rūpāṃtarita karane kī sādhanā meṃ taṃtra kā kyā-kyā yogadāna hai? kṛpayā isakī rūpa-rekhā prastuta kareṃ| Translation: Osho, in the sadhana of transmuting sex-energy toward meditation and samadhi, what are Tantra’s contributions? Please present its outline. Tantra is nondual. It accepts the One alone. That which is called evil is also a form of that One. That which is called inauspicious is also a form of that One. In Tantra’s mind there is no condemnation of anyone—condemnation simply is not. G. N. M. Tyrrell has written a book: “Grades of Significance.” In the Tantric vision the differences in life are differences only in degrees of significance.
What is tantric sex? After 'monkey sex' and after 'love-bliss sex', before the highest cosmic and religious sex in which no partner is needed, in which the cosmos is the partner, isn't there tantric sex in which two partners are involved, a sex act which is a meditation based on certain techniques?
Many things will happen to the world. First, wars will become impossible. 'There will be no Vietnams and no Israels, because people will never accumulate so much anger in them that they have to kill, and kill millions. Many things will happen to the world if people are natural. Then they will not shout so much as you think they will shout. Right now they are allowed to shout they will shout -- but for how long? If they are given complete freedom, shouts and abusing and condemnation and fights will start disappearing from the world. It is a vicious circle. It is as if you have been starving a person and you don't allow him to go close to the fridge. And you say 'If we allow him he will eat too much. ' And you have been starving him -- and now you are afraid if you allow…
Tantra is a philosophy of nonduality. It accepts life in its totality -- even the wicked, the inauspicious, the darkness. Tantra accepts them not with a view to treat darkness as darkness or to treat bad as bad or to treat inauspicious as inauspicious, but because there is a possibility of transforming inauspicious into auspicious. There can be light by cleansing darkness. What we call matter is in its deepest sense, nothing else but God? Tantra is nonduality. It is the acceptance of that One only. That which is bad is also one form of that One. That which is inauspicious is also a form of that One. There is no condemnation of anything in Tantra. G.M.S. Torrel has written one book, GRADES OF SIGNIFICANCE which means steps of greatness. According to Tantra, differences that are found in life, are the differences in the importance of steps.
At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.
WHEN IN SUCH EMBRACE YOUR SENSES ARE SHAKEN AS LEAVES, ENTER THIS SHAKING. EVEN REMEMBERING UNION, WITHOUT THE EMBRACE, TRANSFORMATION. ON JOYOUSLY SEEING A LONG ABSENT FRIEND, PERMEATE THIS JOY. WHEN EATING OR DRINKING, BECOME THE TASTE OF FOOD OR DRINK, AND BE FILLED. Once you know this, even the partner is not needed. You can simply remember the act and enter into it. But first you must have the feeling. If you know the feeling, you can enter into the act without the partner. This is a little difficult, but it happens. And unless it happens, you go on being dependent, a dependency is created. For so many reasons it happens. If you have had the feeling, if you have known the moment when you were not there but only a vibrating energy had become one and there was a circle with the partner, in that moment there was…