Survey of the Misunderstanding
One of the more perplexing and most easily misunderstood aspects of tantra is its imagery suggestive of sex, devil-worship, and violence. Buddha-figures often appear as couples in union and many have demonic faces, stand enveloped in flames, and trample helpless beings beneath their feet. Seeing these images horrified early Western scholars, who often came from Victorian or missionary backgrounds.
Even nowadays, some people believe that the couples signify the sexual exploitation of women. Others imagine that couples in union represent the transcendence of all duality to the point that there is no difference between "good" and "bad." They think that, consequently, tantra is immoral and not only sanctions, but even encourages usage of alcohol and drugs, and hedonistic, criminal, and despotic behavior. Some go as far as accusing well-respected tantric masters of plotting to take over the world.
Westerners were not the first to declare tantra a degenerate form of Buddhism. When tantra originally came to Tibet in the mid-eighth century, many took the imagery literally as granting free license to ritual sex and blood sacrifice. Subsequently, in the early ninth century, a religious council banned further official translation of tantra texts and prohibited the inclusion of tantra terminology in its Great (Sanskrit-Tibetan) Dictionary. One of the main incentives for the Tibetans' inviting Indian masters for the second spread of Buddhism in Tibet was to clarify misunderstanding about sex and violence in tantra.
Not all Westerners who had early contact with tantra found the imagery depraved. A number misunderstood it in other ways. Some, for example, felt that the sexual imagery symbolized the psychological process of integrating the masculine and feminine principles within each person. Others, like many early Tibetans, found the images erotic. Even now, some people turn to tantra hoping to find new and exotic sexual techniques or spiritual justification for their obsession with sex. Still others found the terrifying figures alluring for their promise of granting extraordinary powers. Such people followed in the footsteps of the thirteenth-century Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan, who adopted Tibetan tantra primarily in the wish that it would help him gain victory over his foes.
Misunderstanding about tantra, then, is a perennial problem. The reason for tantra's insistence on secrecy about its teachings and images is to avoid such misconceptions, not to hide something perverse. Only those with sufficient preparation in study and meditation have the background to understand tantra within its proper context.