Popular culture often presents a predictable image of the Tantric practitioner: a hermit, a cave, strange rituals, and a life far removed from society.
Practitioners like this did exist. But Tantra was not a world inhabited only by ascetics.
You Did Not Necessarily Have to Leave the World
Indian religious culture included the important ideal of the grihastha — the householder: a person with a family, work, and responsibilities within society. Alongside householders were renouncers — wandering ascetics and hermits who had deliberately withdrawn from ordinary social life.
Tantric traditions could include both.
Some practitioners lived as ascetics, followed demanding disciplines, and sought unusual states of consciousness or spiritual liberation. Others remained part of ordinary society, underwent initiation, used mantras, and participated in rituals without abandoning their families or homes.
Tantra Could Even Exist Close to Political Power
More surprisingly, Tantric communities were not limited to the margins of society. Some were connected with major religious institutions and even royal courts.
This meant that one Tantric practitioner might live almost as a hermit, while another could be closely associated with a temple or the political elite.
That is why the question “Who practiced Tantra?” has no single answer.
Tantra could belong both to someone who renounced the world and to someone who continued to live fully within it.