Tantrism is an example of such practices. This trend has evolved in India between the third and tenth centuries simultaneously in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Tantrism they differentiate the "right-hand path", remaining at the level of symbols and metaphors, and the "left-hand path", which is more concrete and real. The main principle of the "right-hand path" lies in that spiritual freedom can be achieved not through abstention from desires and passions but along the lines of their transformation. This school of Tantrism involves also sexual rituals, during which the spiritual energy, Kundalini, in the usual state dormant at the base of the spine lying coiled up like a serpent, is awakened and ascends to reveal itself.

However, the teaching underlying the Hindu and Buddhist interpretations of Tantrism are fundamentally different from each other.

The central figures of Hindu Tantrism are Shiva and Devi the "goddess" personifying the all-mighty female principle, the utmost element of the Universe. The female energizing principle is also called Shakti in this name the meaning of "power", "energy" is emphasized. Not only Shiva but each god has his Shakti without which he is powerless and unable even to stir. Devi personifies the energy of life-creating love which has engendered all being. In Buddhism, the female principle is the embodiment of prajna, the supreme wisdom of the god himself cognizing the "voidness of being".

Buddhist Tantrism is one of the methods of attaining the main goal of Buddhism the spiritual awakening, enlightenment. The Tantric practices are based on the reproduction in one's consciousness of specific meditational images taking the form of a couple of male and female gods who are locked in a loving embrace. These sacred representations are extremely polysemantic. They express religious, philosophic, psychological and ethic ideas, notions of man's union with the Universe; the Yoga practices of mastering the energies of man's body and the cosmic ones as a whole.

The Tantric practice is the culminating level of perfectioning on the Mahayana way. Admitted to it are those adepts who have learned the main Buddhist texts, taken austere moral obligations, mastered the techniques of meditation and purified their consciousness from passion, hate, pride, envy and ignorance the qualities which engender all evil things in this world.

In the Tantric practices meditational gods are involved in the form of sexual union, yab-yum ("father-mother" in Tibetan). The most important meaning of this image is the unity of wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is represented by the god's female counterpart. It is based on the intuitive quality which is inherent in the female nature the cognizance of the "voidness" of being: everything in the world is changeable, there is nothing constant, eternal everything is interrelated and mutually conditioned. Nothing has its own essence everything has the nature of "voidness".

There is a text corresponding to each meditational image, yidam, in which the appearance of the god and the rituals of adoration and contemplation are described in detail. Yidams are used for the visualization procedure which takes place in the following way: the adept contemplates the representation so as to remember it to the last detail the posture of the god, the number of his faces, arms, legs, the colour of his body, the attributes (objects he bears in his hands) and so on. He has already acquainted himself in advance with corresponding texts which unfold the teaching featured by the given representation. Further on the adept can reproduce in his consciousness this image without having it before his eyes. During the visualization he imagines the yidam so clearly as it were in reality, identifying himself with it and himself becoming this god, acquiring his qualities. The positive results achieved during this kind of practice are devoted to the good of all living creatures, that is to their attainment of enlightenment.

During the meditation the adept chants mantras, sacred formulas or invocations which express, in condensed form, the main doctrinal precepts. The mantras also serve to call gods to the contemplator from the void. The meditation culminates with the image dissolving in the void again. That is why the Buddhist "gods" seem to be gods only in the consciousness of the main mass of common believers. For the initiated ones they are merely the expression of certain forces, of the energy of the Universe. The visualization practice helps one to control these forces and in this sense man can become a "god".

The Buddhist "gods" act as visible manifestations of the doctrine without being gods in the usual sense of the word. They personify certain kinds of energies, wisdom, methods of the attainment of enlightenment. They are "patrons" and "protectors" for individual adepts and for whole schools in the sense that they preserve their reason from the effects of the empiric world, helping to keep it in the state of inner balance and absolute clarity of the consciousness. And for those not initiated yidams are shocking images which make them think over their real meaning.