Tantra and Technology: Practicing Wonder in Daily Life (Eat, Walk, Love, See)

Tantra offers day-to-day practises to live in wonder in an age of disenchanting technologies. The internet, mobile phones, and social media intensify disenchanting tendencies towards always-on-ness, velocity, elsewhereness, individualism, materialism, and preference for control. Tantric practises of slowness, presence, appreciation and visualization can jolt people out of ingrained habitual tendencies to expand experiences of wonder, wildness, freedom, and spiritual connection. Through inner revolution which alters samskaras, the Tantric extends mantra, presence and visualization to daily life practises of walking, eating, loving, and seeing which can lead to jivanmukti ―the experience of liberation, enchantment, and mystic connection while living in the world. 

The book describes how cyber technology pushes against wonder in contemporary life and how Tantric practise constitutes an alternative technology that can re-enchant living. Inter-views with 30 Americans about their experiences of wonder show Tantric practises are liberating for anyone willing to try them. The book also describes the Tantric theory of wonder as a primary emotion, which in combination with emotions of fear and courage can awaken practitioners from disenchantment.

About the Author: 

STEVE DERNE is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York ―Geneseo. Since 1982, he has occasionally lived for months at a time in Banaras, Kathmandu, and Dehra Dun in the midst of conducting interviews for his earlier books. Over the last dozen years, he has researched wonder experience, while turning to Tantric practise and spiritual pursuit.