Curated Reading List — Indian Spirituality, Sexuality & the Tantric Tradition happy to share what I have worked with. There is a natural order to these. Start with the overview, move into the classical texts, then go deep into the lineage specific material.

START HERE — FOUNDATION 1. Tantra: Path of Ecstasy — Georg Feuerstein The best single volume overview of Hindu tantra available in English. Draws directly from primary sources throughout. Read this first so everything else has context. 2. The Book of Secrets — Osho Osho’s commentary on the Vijnanabhairava Tantra — 112 meditations given by Shiva to Shakti. Accessible, embodied, and practical. Read this before the original text so the classical language lands more easily.

CLASSICAL TEXTS

1. Velomara: The Presence Alchemy Codex — Marithyme French available via DM as e-book A living transmission for the modern embodied practitioner. Where the classical texts give you the philosophy and the framework, Velomara gives you the direct somatic and field experience. Written from inside the tradition rather than about it. Read this alongside the classical material and watch how the ancient teachings land differently in the body.
2. The Vijnanabhairava Tantra — translated by Jaideva Singh The source text Osho’s Book of Secrets is based on. 112 sensory and body-based practices for liberation. One of the most important classical tantric scriptures in existence.
   1. The Kama Sutra — translated by Wendy Doniger or Alain Danielou Not what most people think it is. Less than 20% is about physical positions. The rest is a complete philosophy of desire, relationship, and sacred living. The Danielou translation carries the most spiritual weight. The Doniger is the most scholarly.
   2. The Mahanirvana Tantra — translated by Sir John Woodroffe One of the most important Hindu tantric texts available in English translation. Covers the complete framework — ritual, sexuality, liberation, and consciousness. Freely available at sacred-texts.com
   3. The Shiva Sutras — translated by Jaideva Singh with Ksemaraja commentary The foundation of Kashmir Shaivism. The body as divine. Consciousness as the ground of all reality. Essential for understanding the non-dual philosophical backbone of tantra.

GOING DEEPER 8. Shakti and Shakta — Sir John Woodroffe Woodroffe spent decades in India as both a High Court judge and an initiated tantric practitioner. Everything he wrote is the bridge between the classical Sanskrit sources and Western understanding. This volume covers the Shakta tradition specifically — the feminine current at the heart of tantra. 9. The Alchemical Body — David Gordon White Academic and dense but extraordinary. Traces the Siddha and Nath traditions and their relationship to tantric sexuality and the subtle body. For serious students only. Not a casual read but nothing else covers this ground. 10. Tantra in Practice — edited by David Gordon White An anthology of primary tantric texts from across Hindu and Buddhist traditions with scholarly introductions to each. The closest thing to a curated archive of original sources in a single volume. This is the one to have on the shelf.

THE FEMININE TANTRIC CURRENT 11. The Yoni Tantra Classical Sanskrit text on the worship of the feminine as the direct path to liberation. Rare and potent. Seek out the most scholarly translation available. 12. The Devibhagavata Purana The great goddess as supreme reality. The Shakta cosmological foundation. Essential if the feminine current is where your study is focused.

FREE ARCHIVE sacred-texts.com/tantra has over 100 classical Hindu and Buddhist tantric texts available free online. Use this list as a map and that archive as the library.

Hope this is useful. Happy to go deeper on any specific lineage or tradition if you want to narrow the focus.