WHAT IS HINDUISM?
paradoxically misogynistic ‘Shaktism’ having been carried
to extremes in Tibetan Buddhist tantric practices).
Whereas the practices of ‘left-hand’ tantra associated
with traditional Shaktism culminated in a relation of
outward bodily and sexual intercourse (Maithuna) between
human partners – in a way that also left them more open to
misogynistic perversion – the relational dimension of ‘right-
hand’ tantra understood Maithuna as an experience of inner
spiritual union or ‘intracourse’ within the individual between
the divine feminine and the divine masculine. Paradoxically
then, though left-hand tantra was associated with Shaktism
and the divine feminine, in practice it often was seen and
used as a means for the andocentric empowerment and
liberation of the male rather than the female partner – hence
its association with masculinist and politically right-wing
practitioners. Conversely, it was right-hand tantra – which
excluded in principle all possibility of misogynistic
perversion in the service of male empowerment – had an
intrinsically ‘left-wing’ political character. ‘Shaktism’ then is
itself a deeply paradoxical or dialectical concept, for though
‘Shakti’ means ‘power’ or ‘that which empowers’ – the
question has always remained ‘whose power’ and ‘whose
empowerment’? That of the male practitioner through
spiritual exploitation of females, that of the female as
initiatory guru or a truly mutual experience of ‘awareness
bliss’ (Chitananda) attained through the male partner’s
identifying with the Shaiva principle of pure awareness and