Highest Yoga Tantra

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Highest Yoga Tantra or Anuttara Yoga Tantra is the highest of four or six levels (depending on school) of Buddhist tantra, characterized by the symbolic use of sexual and wrathful energy to effect transformation and attain enlightenment.

In the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, the tantras are classified into six levels: Kriya tantra, Charya tantra, Yoga tantra, Atiyoga tantra, Anuyoga tantra, and Mahayoga tantra, with the latter also known as Anuttarayoga tantra or Highest Yoga Tantra.

In the Gelug, Kagyu and Sakya schools associated with the second transmission of Buddhism to Tibet, the highest three levels of the Nyingma system are reflected by a single category, Highest Yoga Tantra. Thus the four level of tantras in the Gelug and other new schools are, in order of the level of acuity of their practitioners, Kriya tantra, Charya tantra, Yoga tantra and Anuttarayoga tantra or Highest Yoga Tantra.