The Sixth Yoga of Naropa: The Yoga of Consciousness Transference (Phowa)

The phowa practice and visualizations can actually result in anatomical changes. The practice is performed daily, using visualization and breathing techniques until success is signaled by lymph or blood oozing from the fontanel point in the head where a baby’s soft spot has closed. When the tiny hole spontaneously opens in the skull, a straw is inserted to prove that the process has been completed successfully.

The belief is that after the process is successfully completed, the practitioner can automatically leave the body through the head at the time of death and attain rebirth in a higher dimension, which is described as a Buddhist utopia. The other benefit of the practice is that at any time the adept can choose to die by practicing the visualization, although suicide by this method is discouraged.

Story of the Rainbow Body

In 1998 a strange story emerged from a village in the remote Kham region of eastern Tibet. It is said that a rainbow appeared one day above the cabin of Khenpo A- Chos, a devout lama who had continued to practice and teach Buddhism despite the severe restrictions of the Chinese government. He was in his eighties, but not sick. Nevertheless, he lay down on his bed, began reciting the Tibetan mantra "Om mani padme hum," and died.

Shortly after the nuns, monks and others who studied with him began the Tibetan Buddhist prayers that accompany death they noticed that Khenpo A-Chos' skin began to turn soft and pinkish. His students hurried to another lama to ask about this, and he told them to cover the body and continue their prayers. They placed a thin yellow monk's cloak over him and as the days passed, they saw his body was shrinking. By the end of the week, the students reported, nothing remained—just a few hairs left on the pillow. Khenpo A-Chos had apparently become what is known in Tibetan Buddhism as a Rainbow Body.

The story spread through Buddhist circles, making its way to the United States, where Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, heard it. He realized that the miraculous event had implications for Christianity: "If we can establish as an anthropological fact that what is described in the resurrection of Jesus had not only happened to others but is happening today," he said, "it would put our view of human potential in a completely different light."

Brother David enlisted the aid of Father Francis Tiso, an associate director of the secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington D.C., who also has a doctorate in Buddhist studies. Father Tiso journeyed to Kham with a translator and recorded the testimony of several people who had witnessed the events.

The lama who had been consulted by the students, Lama A-Chos (no relation), told him that achieving the rainbow body "is a matter of inner realization. It's not a philosophical idea. It's not a metaphor." He also showed Father Tiso photographs of himself, indicating what looked like light radiating from his body. Jane Bosveld, Discover Magazine, June 07.

Tiso interviewed Lama Norta, a nephew of Khenpo A-Chos, Lama Sonam Gyantso, a young disciple, and Lama A-Chos.

They described the following: A few days before Khenpo A-Chos died, a rainbow appeared directly above his hut. After he died, there were dozens of rainbows in the sky. Khenpo A-Chos died lying on his right side. He wasn’t sick; there appeared to be nothing wrong with him, and he was reciting the mantra Om mani padme hum over and over. According to the eyewitnesses, after his breath stopped his flesh became kind of pinkish. One person said it turned brilliant white. All said it started to shine.

Lama A-Chos suggested wrapping his friend’s body in a yellow robe, the type all Gelug monks wear. As the days passed, they maintained they could see, through the robe, that his bones and his body were shrinking. They also heard beautiful, mysterious music coming from the sky, and they smelled perfume.

After seven days, they removed the yellow cloth, and no body remained. Lama Norta and a few other individuals claimed that after his death Khenpo A-Chos appeared to them in visions and dreams.

Shrinkage of the body occurred with another guru, Lama Thubten. His miniature-sized frame is now kept in a monastery in Manali, India. Tiso has ascertained that incidents of bodies shrinking or disappearing shortly after death were documented centuries ago, such as in the classic story of Milarepa, a Buddhist saint from Tibet who lived in the 11th century.

What is the Kundalini?

In the writings of the Indian expert on kundalini, Gopi Krishna, we find the following: Heaven has planted in the human body a powerful reservoir of psychic energy that, when roused to activity, can lead to transcendental states of consciousness, genius, and supernormal psychic gifts.

Though millions of ordinary people may know about the breakthroughs in astronomy, medicine, chemistry, and other branches of science, hardly anybody is familiar with a far more important development: the almost unbelievable potential lying dormant in their own brain. It is this power center in the human body that the sages in India knew as Kundalini and that adepts in other parts of the world called by names as varied as the “sun behind the sun” and the “philosopher’s stone.”
-Gopi Krishna, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man

What is this kundalini that we are talking about here? To understand kundalini we must understand the term prana, which means something quite close to the Chinese chi. Prana is life energy and, like chi, can be linked to the breath. Also, like chi, it is the original energy that gives life to and supports all of our physical, mental and even emotionalactivities. As an old saying goes, “Where there is breath, there is life.” We can go without food or even water (as in some yogic practices in India as well as in China) for days, weeks, or even months at a time but we cannot go for more than a few minutes without breathing.

Many yogic practices are about strengthening or purifying the prana or life force. The specific aspect of the life force that is called kundalini is said to reside deep in the first chakra of the body, lying coiled there like a snake. The image of a snake rising through the spinal core is used to describe the awakening of the kundalini energy. This energy called the kundalini is the juncture where the body meets the other elements of consciousness. Activation of the kundalini spreads this primal energy up along channels called nadis, through the knots of the chakras. Or course to do this one needs proper coaching. Although occasionally pain is described, usually the sensations of heat, pleasure, and even ecstasy are reported.

Sexual Yoga

The use of sexual energy for spiritual attainment, sometimes called dual cultivation, has been practiced for health and spiritual cultivation in both the West and East for centuries. In the West it was sometimes called sex magic and was used in both religious and magical pursuits. The fundamental concept of dual cultivation and sex magic is that sexual energy is an extremely powerful force; when we harness this potent energy we can use it for attaining transcendent states.

In some schools it was the orgasmic release that was thought to confer power upon the celebrants; an example of this is in the union of the High Priestess and the High Priestas they celebrate the Great Rite of Wicca in European pagan schools. In other schools it was thought that retention of the orgasm freed up great areas of creative and spiritual energy. It was believed that in the transmutation of the orgasm one could be lifted into greater heights of energetic and spiritual attainment.

In India the study of sexual yoga covered a wide range of practices. One can travel to the great temple of Konorak to see these holy buildings absolutely covered with hundreds of intertwined figures having sex in every sort of posture possible. Rather than viewing this as pornographic the Indians see it as the god and goddess at play.

The image of yab-yum is a common symbol found in India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet. This image is that of a male deity in sexual union with his female consort, usually sitting in his lap and facing him. The male figure usually represents the quality of compassion and the female figure that of insight. This is actually a representation of an inner union, one that takes place within the body and psyche of the tantric practitioner. It often represents the mystical union of wisdom and compassion. Yab-yum can also be connected to the tantric practice of Karmamudra. This practice involves having a physical partner as well as the practice of tummo or inner heat.

Dual cultivation was taken very seriously in some tantric Buddhist circles. In Tibet one sees many tankas (religious paintings) of various divinities, male and female, in conjoined bliss. There are, of course, many layers of meaning in these images.

Tibetan ritual chanting practice also uses two objects. The dorje, called the Diamond Thunderbolt Scepter, is the male and represents compassion. The bell is the female and represents wisdom. Manipulated together during ritual, these two objects dance together in a cosmic dance of male and female, compassion and wisdom. In some schools of Buddhist practice, trying to reach enlightenment without tantric union is likened to using water to churn butter.