The Fifth Yoga of Naropa: Yoga of Death

The bardo is the after-death state. The idea of bardo yoga is that success in this yoga permits the practitioner to determine their after-death destiny, including the option of being reborn in a particular environment in a human form. Tibetan yoga emphasizes practices that allow the practitioner to prepare himself for the often-terrifying experiences of death. It is believed that if the yogi misses his opportunity for union with the clear light because of fear, he will then experience a nightmare, which will project him into an uncontrolled, possibly negative rebirth unless he can successfully navigate the apparitions, realizing that they are merely mental projections.

The goal of all non-theistic meditation traditions is for the individual to consciously dissolve the indestructible or immortal drop into emptiness, which is also the Spiritual Embryo of Chinese medicine or being returned to the void. The Six Yogas of Naropa represent a number of techniques that can be used to achieve the integration of the three bodies consciously during the death experience. As the physical body drops away, there is a gap of perception, which if consciously observed, results in the union of the sambhogakaya and dharmakaya bodies. One of the major reasons for the practice of dream yoga is that the state of awareness of lucid dreaming, in which the consciousness realizes it is dreaming while dreaming, is considered an important prerequisite for an individual to consciously observe the process of dying without fear and distorted perception.

Half of the Six Yogas are for practitioners who are living, while the other half are for practitioners during the process of death. As the Dalai Lama says, Tibetans believe that at the time of death the only thing one has to rely on is the depth of one’s meditation and spiritual practice.