Tantras ("Looms" or "Weavings") refers to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Although Buddhist and Hindu Tantra have many similarities from the outside, they do have some clear distinctions.^{[citation needed]} The rest of this article deals with Hindu Tantra. Buddhist Tantra is described in the article on Vajrayana.

The word Tantra is made up by the joining (sandhi in Sanskrit) of two Sanskrit words tanoti (expansion) & trayati (liberation) which means liberation of energy and expansion of consciousness from its gross form.^{[citation needed]} It is a method to expand the mind & liberate the dormant potential energy, and its principles form the basis of all YOGIC practices. Hence, the Hindu Tantra scriptures refer to techniques for achieving a result.

The Hindu Tantras total ninety-two scriptures, where sixty four are purely Abheda (literally "without differentiation", or monistic), known as the Bhairava Tantras or Kashmir Śaivite Tantras, eighteen are Bhedābheda (literally "with differentiation and without differentiation" or monistic cum dualistic), known as the Rudra Tantras), and ten are completely Bheda (literally "differentiated" or dualistic), known as the Śiva Tantras. The latter two (Rudra Tantras and Śiva Tantras) are used by the Śaiva Siddhāntins, and thus are sometimes referred to as Shaiva Siddhanta Tantras, or Śaiva Siddhānta Āgamas.

Swami Vivekananda (pronounced: IPA: [ʂāmiː biːbeːkānoːnɗoː]  listen (help·info)) (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendra Nath Datta (IPA: [nôreːnd̪roː naːt̪ʰ d̪ôttoː] was the chief disciple of the 19th century saint Ramakrishna and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He is considered a key figure in the introduction of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world, mainly in America and Europe and is also credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the end of the 19th century CE. Vivekananda is considered to be a major force in the revival of Hinduism in modern India. He is perhaps best known for his inspiring speech which began: "Sisters and Brothers of America," through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.

Swami Vivekananda was born in an aristocratic Bengali Kayastha family of Calcutta on 12 January 1863. Vivekananda's parents influenced his thinking—his father by his rationality and his mother by her religious temperament. From his childhood, he showed an inclination towards spirituality and God realisation. His guru, Ramakrishna, taught him Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism); that all religions are true and that service to man was the most effective worship of God. After the Mahasamadhi of his guru, Vivekananda became a wandering monk, touring the Indian subcontinent and acquiring first-hand knowledge of conditions in India. He later travelled to Chicago and represented India as a delegate in the 1893 Parliament of World Religions. He conducted hundreds of public and private lectures and classes, disseminating Vedanta and Yoga in America, England and Europe. He also established the Vedanta societies in America and England.

Michael McClure (born October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas) is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums. He soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and is immortalized as "Pat McLear" in Kerouac's Big Sur.

McClure's first book of poetry, Passage, was published in 1956 by small press publisher Jonathan Williams. His poetry is heavily infused with an awareness of nature, especially in the animal consciousness that often lies dormant in mankind. Not only an awareness of nature, but the poems are organized in an organic fashion, continuing with his appreciation of nature's purity. Stan Brakhage, friend of McClure, stated in Chicago Review that:

"McClure always, and more and more as he grows older, gives his reader access to the verbal impulses of his whole body's thought (as distinct from simply and only brain-think, as it is with most who write). He invents a form for the cellular messages of his, a form which will feel as if it were organic on the page; and he sticks with it across his life..."

James Christian is a Connecticut-based musician and songwriter who is perhaps best known for being the frontman of the band House of Lords.