Dear Presenter,

You're warmly invited to share your wisdom at our third annual summit, Tantra for Turbulent Times, which will be held virtually July 25–27, 2026.

Something is missing from the current spiritual landscape — and most serious practitioners feel it even if they can't name it. Classical Tantra, with its sister sciences of Ayurveda, Jyotisha, and Yoga Nidra, represents one of the most complete and sophisticated maps of the nature of reality ever revealed. And yet it has almost no public gathering place.

Tantra for Turbulent Times is the only summit dedicated exclusively to the classical Tantric tradition and its revival — not neo-tantra, not modern adaptations, but the living lineages themselves. Through the Tantric Arts Collective, we're working to change that. And this is the gathering where it happens.

For the past two years, the Tantric Arts Collective has convened an annual gathering of the foremost teachers of classical Tantra — drawing more than 3,700 practitioners from around the world, representing some of the most serious and committed students of non-dual and contemplative traditions. Past presenters have included Kavitha Chinnaiyan, Lama Glen Mullin, Judith Blackstone, Chandra Easton, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, Ben Williams, Christopher Tompkins, Laura Plumb, and many more.

This year, we're bringing the full weight of classical Tantra and its sister sciences to bear on this moment we're living through. 

We’re also making space for the devotional and aesthetic dimensions of the tradition — including music, mantra, sacred sound, classical Indian dance, yantra, deity imagery, and the arts. These offerings help reconnect us with the beauty, devotion, and sacredness that sustain us in turbulent times.

The premise of this summit is that classical Tantra and its sister sciences aren't relics of another era. They're precisely the teachings that this moment in time is asking for. The tantric view of reality, the practices that cultivate unshakeable knowledge of one's true nature, the maps of karma and cosmic timing — these are living transmissions. This summit exists to bring them forward.  

The Audience You'll Be Speaking To:

The attendees will be serious spiritual practitioners (Kashmir Saivism, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Śākta Tantra, post-traditional nondual background) who are smart, capable, often leaders in some capacity, and who are watching what's happening in the world right now and asking: "How do I show up in these turbulent times?"

They have a practice. They're committed. AND they're looking at the upheaval, the revelations, the intensity of this moment and wondering: "What does my practice have to do with THIS?"

They're feeling unsure how to meet the craziness of our times- they don't want to bypass, but they also don’t want to participate in the divisiveness.

They might sense their current spiritual framework doesn't quite address what's happening now—or they're simply curious about what Tantra and its sister sciences offer for navigating turbulent times.

And importantly, they feel that their practice—which used to feel meaningful—now feels somewhat irrelevant to the scale of what's happening in the world.

This year's summit will have three tracks.

1. Teaching Track

Teaching sessions from 60–75 minutes.

This track is for scholars and teachers rooted in classical Tantra, Ayurveda, Jyotiṣa, Yoga Nidra, or other closely related sister sciences who want to offer a fuller teaching, reflection, dialogue, or transmission that helps attendees understand how Tantra and/or its sister sciences speak to these times of uncertainty, upheaval, and divisiveness.

We welcome teachings rooted in classical Tantra, including Trika, Kaula, Śākta, and Śaiva traditions, as well as closely related sister sciences such as Ayurveda, Jyotiṣa, and Yoga Nidra.

Rather than asking you to teach from a rigid prompt, we invite you to choose an angle that  reflects your work while speaking into the summit’s broader inquiry:

How can Tantra and its sister sciences help us meet these times with steadiness, clarity, courage, and deeper spiritual discernment?

Possible Teaching Angles Include:

• The tantric view of reality — what non-dual Tantra actually says about the nature of existence, and why that view is stabilizing rather than destabilizing when the world feels like it's falling apart
• Lineage, transmission, and the teacher-student relationship — what can get lost when practice becomes entirely self-directed or digital, and what classical structures offer that modern spirituality often can’t replicate
• The shadow side of modern spiritual access — how the ability to sample from every tradition can leave practitioners without depth, guidance, or real integration, and why commitment to a coherent path matters in times of crisis
• Karma and transformation — how the Tantric and Vedic sciences help us understand collective upheaval through the lens of karma, and what Tantra, Ayurveda, and Jyotiṣa offer for working with these patterns consciously
• How the sister sciences address these times — how Ayurveda and Jyotiṣa help us understand the spiritual and somatic disorientation of this moment, and how practices like Yoga Nidra can support steadiness, clarity, and integration
• Or your own teaching — something you feel called to offer that reflects your work and connects meaningfully with the larger summit theme.

2. Practice track 

Practice sessions may be 30–60 minutes.

This track is for teachers who want to guide attendees into a direct experience through meditation, mantra, Yoga Nidra, breath, somatic practice, ritual, visualization, contemplation, or another embodied/contemplative modality.

We welcome practices rooted in, or meaningfully informed by, classical Tantra, Yoga Nidra, Ayurveda, Jyotiṣa, Śākta sādhana, mantra, meditation, subtle body practice, ritual, somatic inquiry, or related modalities.

Rather than asking you to fit your practice into a narrow structure, we invite you to offer something that reflects the integrity of your own work while speaking to the summit’s broader inquiry:

How can Tantra and its sister sciences help us meet these times with steadiness, clarity, courage, and deeper spiritual discernment?

Possible Practice Angles Include:

1. Steadiness under pressure — a practice for cultivating inner stability and embodied presence when the external world feels destabilizing. 
2. Meeting the body’s response to collective stress— somatic or breath-based practices for working with the ways uncertainty, instability, and collective upheaval are experienced in the body
3. Rasa and aliveness — practices that restore a sense of beauty, pleasure, and vitality when the world feels deadening, disconnected, or devoid of meaning.
4. Reading your own karmic patterns — Ayurvedic or Jyotiṣa-informed practices for recognizing your habitual response to turbulence and working with it more consciously.
5. Holding paradox — practices for remaining steady in the midst of unresolved tension, without collapsing into reactivity, bypassing, or despair
6. Or your own practice offering — something you feel called to guide that reflects your work and connects meaningfully with the larger summit theme.

3. Voices from the Field

Voices from the Field conversations will be 15–20 minutes. 

This track is for teachers, facilitators, community leaders, artists, healers and therapists whose lived experience or applied perspective adds something meaningful to the summit conversation.

Each Voices from the Field segment will be a short, pre-recorded conversation with Lisa, designed to bring forward grounded reflections on how Tantra, contemplative practice, devotion, creativity, embodiment, or the sister sciences can be and applied in real life.

This track creates space for voices that add nuance, and relevance to the larger summit theme, especially from people whose perspective may not fit into a formal teaching, practice, or devotional offering.

Possible conversation themes include:

• Living Tantra — how Tantric practice, view, devotion, or ritual informs the way you meet uncertainty, responsibility, relationships, service, creativity, or community life.
• Community, healing, and repair — how Tantric principles such as recognition, devotion, embodiment, relational awareness, and sacred presence can support more conscious relationships, ethical spaces, and collective healing.
• Art and sacred expression — how creativity, ritual, devotion, or beauty can help us stay connected to meaning and purpose in turbulent times.
• Or your own lived reflection — something from your experience, work, or practice that connects meaningfully with the summit theme.

3. Musical / Devotional Offering

Musical offerings may be 20–45 minutes.

This track is for musicians, kīrtan artists, mantra practitioners, and devotional teachers who want to offer music, mantra/chanting as a direct way of helping attendees connect with devotion, beauty, and sacred presence.

We welcome offerings rooted in, or meaningfully connected to, Tantric and devotional traditions, including kīrtan, mantra, stotra, sacred sound, nāda yoga, and other forms of contemplative or devotional music.

Rather than asking you to fit your offering into a teaching or practice format, we invite you to share music, mantra, chanting, or devotional sound in a way that reflects the integrity of your own path and helps participants experience steadiness, beauty, devotion, and sacred presence directly.

Possible musical/devotional offerings include:

• Kīrtan or mantra chanting — an offering that helps participants connect with devotion, surrender, and sacred presence.
• Sacred sound and nāda yoga — a musical or contemplative exploration of sound as a pathway into awareness, steadiness, and subtle perception.
• Bhakti as a path through turbulent times — devotional music or chanting that helps participants meet uncertainty without closing the heart.
• Stotra or deity-centered practice — chanting, music, or recitation rooted in devotion to a particular deity, lineage, or sacred text.
• Or your own musical offering — music, mantra, chanting, or sacred sound that connects meaningfully with the larger summit theme.

If you feel called to participate in this summit, I would be honored to have you. Please respond directly to [email protected] or [email protected]