With the Buddhistic doctrine the Yoga was connected from

the beginning, because it was the way by which The Buddha,

the founder of Buddhism, had found Deliverance

Prof. Erich Frauwallner

Religion of the Heart

Throughout Saint Guru Chod's more than forty-year teaching career, he initiated thousands in the Timeless Yoga. He furthermore imbued his precious teaching with a cogent appraisal of the ancient Buddha-Dharma, the religious culture in which he was born. For the Guru was by no means a divisive rebel. Moreover, it is very much incumbent on any individual who has managed that leap beyond the quagmire of nescience to stand as a glowing illustration of the fact that the whole of humankind belongs to one great religion, the religion of the heart.

"In actual fact," the Master explained, "

a yogi, or yoginī, is just one type of religious ascetic who is searching for an end to suffering. Speaking metaphorically, the goal of all religions is to reach the summit of a glorious mountain. Yoga is just one path among many. Though yoga is not a religion in-itself, it has always been adopted, adapted, and applied by all religions.[1]

Broadly speaking, the Vedic term yoga pertains to any form of asceticism or meditative technique, including prayer[2]. Though methods and philosophies differ greatly, the various paths approach the same goal. To embrace all religions is to fully comprehend that you are not alone in your need to surmount human suffering, such nostalgia being, in effect, universal.

Enter the Rishi

In Yoga, one of Saint Guru Chod's three published books in Thai, he explains why people generally – and Thais especially – hold many vague and incorrect ideas about yoga. He makes it clear why people in Thailand think that a yogi is the same as a hermit. This is because in the Thai language a hermit is called a ruesi, (Khmer, rosei) from Sanskrit rishī, that is, "a forest dwelling visionary." Writes the Guru,

Due to customary Thai folklore, people commonly picture yogis as bearded, unkempt and unclean ascetics, living naked and alone in the forest depths while subsisting on gathered herbs and vegetables. Through piercing concentration and arcane sorcery, they imagine that yogis can lie on beds of nails, be buried alive and withstand extreme temperatures while standing on their heads. They believe that yogis can perform marvellous feats, such as flying about on magic carpets, or creating goddesses out of thin air and making them their spiritual consorts!

But don't be misled," the Master warns,

A practitioner of yoga is by no means required to retire from the secular world, sever all relations with human society and dwell in the seclusion of a comfortless cave. He can go on leading a fully active mundane existence, and when he walks down the road he can be quite sure that nobody would take a second look at him, or find in him anything peculiar.

In particular regard to the rishi, however, it is worthy of note that in the oldest surviving Buddhist texts, it is the Buddha himself who is referred to as the "rishī," though in its Pāli form īsi[3].

Maharishi Buddhadasa

While undergoing training at Wat Suan Mokh, the famous forest hermitage of Maharishi Buddhadasa Bhikkhu,[4] the present writer was exceptionally honoured to have gained private meetings with the age stricken patriarch of modern Isthmian (Southern Thai) Buddhism. Our talks ranged widely but consistently centred on the topics of Buddhism, Vedanta and Yoga. Tan Achan Buddhadasa told me plainly, "It is proper for monks to practice yoga; but in private."

One cool morning as I sat on the pebbles among the rich foliage and towering trees, the venerable sir confided in me, saying, "Anyone that understands the essence of his own religion understands the essence of all religions."

The Maharishi's progressive view greatly moved me. Later back in Bangkok, I related this to Guru Chod. He paused in deference and lowered his tone. He said, "Of course there should only be one world religion. I know that and you know that. But be careful. If you go around trying to tell others of that, you're liable to get shot."

The Royal Eight-Fold Path of Yoga

Throughout Saint Guru Chod's long and illustrious career, he stove to reveal the great similarities between the two remotely ancient systems of Buddhism and Yoga. In fact, both saints Guru Chod and Buddhadasa Bhikkhu openly spoke and wrote on what they intimately knew as Raja-yoga. Raja-yoga represents the oldest known school of Classical Indian Yoga. It dates back more than two thousand years. In the Sanskrit language, raja means, "king." This Kingly Yoga was first given shape by the time-honoured Indian sage Maharishi Patañjali in his classic treatise Yoga Sūtras (Yoga Aphorisms). It is also known as ashtānga-yoga. In Sanskrit, ashta means "eight," anga means "part." This is why Patañjali's raja-yoga is also referred to as The Royal Eight-Fold Path of Yoga.

Buddha as a Yogi

The great similarities between Buddhism and Yoga have led many scholars to accept their common pre-historical source. We know for a certainty that as a fledgling ascetic, Gautama thoroughly steeped himself in the pre-classic Indian philosophy of his revered teacher Arāda Kālāma "living midst the forests and cave rich hills of the Vindhya Mountains" near Vaishālī. It was his second guru, the "Thera" Udraka Rāmaputra, who taught the Bodhisattva the principles of yoga.

As early as the year 1900, the esteemed French savant Emile Senart arrived to a singularly momentous conclusion,

It was on the terrain of Yoga that the Buddha arose; whatever innovations he was able to introduce into it, the mould of Yoga was that in which his thought was formed[5].

Other writers have expressed the same idea. "How could Buddha, possessor of an intelligence without peer, spend six years of his life fruitlessly?" Japanese writer Kanjitsu Iijima rhetorically asks; and goes on to plead, "It is an undeniable historical fact that Yoga played a part in the origin of Buddhism"[6]. Sri Lankan professor Ananda Guruge concurs: "Though the self-mortification implied in [early Indian asceticism] was not approved by the Buddha, the yogic element...formed a basic feature in the course of training by the Buddha[7]. Now, Austrian Professor Erich Frauwallner is by far the most incisive in declaring Yoga's role in the formation of early Buddhism. In his two-volume History of Indian Philosophy, Frauwallner writes,

With the Buddhistic doctrine the Yoga was connected from the beginning, because it was the way by which The Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, had found Deliverance.[8]

The Buddha spent six years undergoing yogic training. But after he reached the highest plane, he still felt the urge to go beyond. Conventionally, yogis have approached the goal of emancipation by two principal paths. One is the path of metaphysical knowledge; the other is the path of ascetic practice. The first of these approaches is often called viveka, or "the razor's edge path of sage discrimination." The second approach is usually distinguished by its penchant for exploring the myriad states of human consciousness through yogic practices. Now, as for yoga and the majority of the Buddhist schools, greater underscoring is normally given to the ascetic path of yoga practice.

Gautama's path very similar to this. But 'during his period of yoga training he experienced such powerful feelings of happiness and joy that he began to regard them as dangerous and something to be avoided. Then he overcame this fear and began to strengthen his weakened body – to prepare the ground for his re-discovered remedy which was joy (ānanda). He had previously believed that the heightened agony of self-mortification was the only valid means to liberation. Yet now in contrast, he understood that the peaceful joy of a concentrated mind was the finer path for him to follow' (Lama Anāgārika Govinda)[9].

It cannot be over-stressed that in the Buddha's own quest he achieved his renowned illumination while actually practicing yoga; that is, while seated in padma-āsana, otherwise known as the "lotus pose." When this pose is performed, it gives the appearance of a lotus flower. In the Sanskrit language, padma means, "lotus." Yogis regard it as the king of yoga āsanas and the most suitable posture for practicing the higher forms of yoga, that is, concentration, absorption and serene composure (unification).

In a nutshell,

The Buddha...desired to keep his yoga-mārga [lit. yoga-path] free from anything...fanciful, severe or unnecessary to the concentration of the mind...The Buddhist path of meditation is thus a simplified process in which the elements of the yoga exist sometimes with slight modifications but which [is always] kept clear of what [is] looked upon as unnecessary, extraneous or dangerous. It is suited to whoever joins the monastic order, provided by sīla, he had succeeded in developing frames of body and mind in which he could launch himself on an attempt at concentration of mind leading to the ultimate wisdom[10].

Buddha As Hindu[11]

Siddhartha Gautama, later called the Buddha, was born to a family leading pastoral lives in the then richly forested Himalayan foothills near the present-day Indian-Nepalese frontier. His father was a local chieftain named Suddhodana. But we need to bear in mind that from his birth until his death, the Buddha was a kshatriya or warrior-caste Hindu. In fulfilment of his duties as an Indian youth, he studied under various brāhman gurus and learned the basics of Indian knowledge; or as much, that is, as may have been divulged to a child of non-brāhman birth.

Honouring his commitment to the chaste student life (brahmācharya-āsrama)[12], Gautama then entered the second of the four obligatory stages (āshrama) for a male caste-Indian[13]. This is the grihastha-āshrama or householder-stage when a young man agrees to accept a wife and assume the duties as the head of a household. For the sake of posterity, he was to father a son. Now the third life-stage, known as vanaprastha-āshrama (lit. "forest-dweller stage"), is reserved for the time when the hairs on a man's head begin to turn grey, and when his eldest son is himself well established with a wife and son of his own.

But it seems the Bodhisattva, or Buddha-to-be, was to gloss the second and third stages over and scarcely discharge his caste obligation to the minimal extent of stealthily peeping through the door of the chamber where his wife lay recovering from their first born child. And there she slept, the enchanting Yashodhara, suckling her newborn son, Rāhula, the very night "that fetter" appeared[14]. This was also the night when out of paramount disgust for the decadent life he had hitherto led, the prince absconded from the prison of his palace and plunged headlong into the fourth and final stage – sannyāsa-āshrama – of a male caste-Hindu's life. Sannyāsa-āshrama marks the severing act of complete and total renunciation in the quest for self-realization.

Now some years later when the Fully Enlightened Buddha learned that his father had fallen gravely ill, he hastened to the town of his parental home and remained steadfast at his dying father's side. Later, in accordance with the Hindu custom, he conducted the rites of the funeral pyre.

The Forbidden Buddha

One cannot be blind to the obvious fact the Buddhist religion was born in India, that epochal land of world renunciation where philosophers, ascetics and a vast array of religious visionaries have long set their sights on a pristine spontaneity called nirvāna. Nor can one forget that in its primacy, the Buddha's Doctrine was not conceived as a new religion. What is widely regarded today as "Buddhism," should actually be viewed as the natural outgrowth of a great cenobitical heritage dating back roughly 3,000 years. It is also apparent that the Buddha himself foresaw and feared the eventual error of his yogic movement transforming itself into a full-blown religious cult. Attempting to forestall this inevitable distortion, Gautama strongly forbade his followers to fashion images of his human form. We know from history that for many generations following the Buddha's physical demise, a tremendous reverence was maintained among his devotees to observe this important prohibition.

Yet slowly and steadily as adherents grew, they began to commemorate him – not directly, but implicitly, first through memorial stupas, later by cut stone bas-reliefs of the figurative Bo tree. At Sañchi, for example, to handle the Buddha's ineffable being, carved expanses of sea and sky were suggested, around which adoring devotees were shown with their palms pressed together or prostrate. Sometime later at Bhārhut and Amarāvatī, as well as at Sañchi, a significant thematic advance was achieved, as the patrons of the arts dared to go a step further and begin to hint at the Buddha's presence through an empty chair or throne. Other typical representations were a lotus flower, a single pillar, or a juggernaut wheel (dharma-chakra). Now, the final stage of this circumscribing urge to worship the forbidden image of the Saviour expressed itself through his hallowed footprints as impressed upon a lotus-shaped pedestal.

*     *     *

In 326 BCE Alexander of Macedonia entered the region of Northwest Pakistan, known in those times as Gāndhāra. Gāndhāra's chief city, Taxila (also spelled Takshashila), was a wealthy, had already been a prosperous and well-governed cultural centre and an important meeting place of Indian and Mediterranean cultures from the 5th century BCE. Taxila (not far from present-day Islamabad) was also ancient India's most prestigious seat of learning and a place for rich families to send their children to be taught by famous teachers. The Greek philosopher Anaxarchus, together with his protégé Pyrrho of Elis, travelled to this region in the train of Alexander's overland invasion. There they mixed with the odd appearing gymnosophists, or "naked philosophers," plus a whole menagerie of other ascetics[15]. It is curious, however, that returning to Greece, they founded not a school of meditative mysticism, as one might readily expect, but the first Greek school of Scepticism[16].

From the time of this early Mediterranean influence, Indian monarchs and patrons of the arts acquired a passion for Greek sculptural genius. But it still took centuries before Buddha-statuary received large-scale commissions. It was here at Gāndhāra that the world's first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha appeared, strongly redolent of Apollo the Orator. This Gāndhāran school of Buddhist sculpture evolved its own artistic style by infusing the prevailing Indian Naturalism with the spirit of Greco-Roman Realism. Immediately following this Gāndhāran breakthrough, the older Mathurā school of Indian sculpture, whose centre was located on the banks of the Yamunā River at Mathurā, also succumbed to the irresistible urge to fashion the corporal form of Gautama as the embodiment of nirvāna[17].

Summing up, it is crucial to grasp the chronological fact that "the representation of the historical Buddha in human form first took place about the 2nd century of the Christian era" – that is, about six hundred years after Gautama's death[18]. It took six long centuries for the Buddhist faithful to finally transgress their founder's prohibition. Yet at long last the sentiment of bhakti prevailed as the Bauddha-bhaktas or "devotees of the Buddha" surrendered en mass to that huge pan-Indian religious urge to enshrine the mortal form of the immortal – the embodiment of enlightenment, the supreme personification of divinity (Sanskrit, purushottama).

Buddha as Brahman

Nirvāna is the goal, indeed, the summum bonum of all ancient Indian spiritual systems. From the post-Vedic period to our present day, it is important to grasp that throughout this long three-thousand-year history, all sincere Indian seekers of the truth, whatever their sectarian persuasions may have been, pursued one thing and one thing alone: a consummate reality beyond human pain. What is more, they sought this by means of yoga. Ernest Wood, an Englishman who spent 38 years studying yoga in India, has explained that the Sanskrit term nirvāna is not at all confined to Buddhist scriptures or Buddhist philosophy. For it was plainly used in pre-Buddhist India and thereby plays a part in all Indian philosophy[19].

Gautama never denied the existence of an unconditioned reality or naked truth, the knowledge of which could usher the boon of emancipation to ignorant man. It was just that he showed extreme discretion by declining to openly speak on this in fear that discussion would only obstruct a person's passage to the goal itself. This is why the Buddha categorically denied the possibility of either discussing or experiencing Absolute Truth so long as man was not yet awakened.

Now, if we were allowed to unquestionably assume the veracity of the ancient Pāli scriptures and bar the possibility that the Buddha may have said things unrecorded therein, we could also infer that the Buddha denounced neither doctrines of ātman (self) nor brahman (ultimate reality). Rather, the Buddha only aimed to reproach such professors for their unrestrained loquacity as regards to themes that he felt ought rather be treated as ineffable. Maintaining that ātman "exists, is real and permanent," was for the Buddha a false assertion. Conversely, to assert that ātman "does not exist, is unreal and unlasting," was equally regarded as a false assertion. Yet trying to determine what Buddha did hold as the ultimate goal of the spiritual seeker, it could only be "freedom" in this very life. Such a man is known as a jīvan-mukta, a "liberated being" who in the scriptural words of the Buddha himself, "[is] even in this life cut off, nirvān-ized, aware of happiness within himself and living with his soul identified with brahman or godhead[20].

The Cosmic Axis

Buddhist India was a very different world a millennium after Gautama's death. A baroque revolution of vast dimension was in full cultural swing. Yogis preached a new alchemical philosophy that was based on the notion of a "cosmic body." Their philosophy also laid tremendous importance on the mystical implications of prāna as "life-force." This tantric philosophical advancement is seen to have exerted a profound influence on every aspect of Indian cultural life. The varied Buddhist schools were by no means aloof from this amazing pan-Indian revolution. In the esoteric text of Hevajra-Tantra, the Buddha, called Bhagavān, is made to extol the virtues of physical fitness. He says, "Without a perfectly healthy body, one cannot know bliss."

Furthermore, in the compelling symbolism of Buddhist Tantra, the body of the Buddha is identified with the cosmic universe. His spinal column, called the merudanda, is said to be a single bone that represents a reality beyond time and space, "a withdrawn, autonomous zone of nondifferential Void" called śūnya. This mystical backbone is further described as a secret cavern within Mount Kailas. Here esoteric truth is revealed to the yogin while absorbed in the unexcelled state of meditation. This also explains why, according to a legend, the Buddha was unable to turn his head, but had to turn the whole of his body because his spinal column was fixed motionless,  like the Cosmic Pillar[21].

The Cobra

As referred to elsewhere, the spinal cord plays a crucial role in the techniques of yoga. Tremendous emphasis is therefore placed on the 33 bones called vertebrae that make up the human spinal column[22]. In Guru Chod's Classical Thai Yoga-Tantra, as well, keen attention is placed on developing an elegant posture. Why?

At the bottom of the spine lies the triangular-shaped sacrum. Sacrum comes from the ancient Latin medical term Os sacrum (lit. "holy bone"). This shows that the ancients held special regard for the hand-size base of the vertebral column. Sacrum thus denotes a "sacred place" in the human corporal structure.

Actually, the present writer finds the human backbone a highly attractive structural design. If extracted from the skeleton and carefully examined, its slim configuration from the tip of the coccyx as it gently curves upward through the sacral, lumbar, dorsal and cervical vertebrae, shows amazing likeness to an up-raised cobra. But this is only if a person's posture is correct. If the posture is slouched, then it doesn't look so elegant. With posture well poised, the linear curve has a striking resemblance to a magnificent up-raised cobra.

Perhaps this is why the symbol of the cobra has always played an important role in the ancient cultures of Egypt, India and other Asian lands. It is the naja of Egypt, the nāga of India. It is also known as kundalinī, a "the coiled little she-serpent" sleeping at the base of the spine. With its dilated neck taking the shape of a hood, the cobra has always been a royal emblem, feminine, majestic and deeply mysterious. The cobra is therefore an archetypal symbol for the transfigurative power of primordial nature.

Though generally unacknowledged in Buddhist traditions, this Universal symbolism nonetheless emerges in the well-known legend of the Mucalinda Buddha. We relate the episode as follows. In the sixth week after his Illumination, The Blessed One, the Buddha, dwelled in resplendent bliss beneath the Mucalinda Tree near Gaya as a violent storm broke out. So fully absorbed in meditation, he did not realize that the nearby waters of Lake Mucalinda were about to swallow him up. But the nāga of the lake, called also Mucalinda, coiled his giant body protectively around the Buddha and shielded him with his seven heads.

Now an esoteric reading of the ancient legend yields two interesting points. It first of all implies that the Buddha wasn't finished with his psychic metamorphosis six weeks after his Grand Illumination. It secondly shows that the rising serpent is unquestionably related to the yoga technique of arousing the cosmic energy called kundalinī. One is not alone in ones interpretation. The writer Wibke Lobo has also considered how

Given the great significance that yoga must have had for the initiates, it would be strange if the image of the erect serpent had not been brought into association with the awakening of cosmic energy. In this connection it would also be possible to recognize a system of mystical numbers in the seven heads and three coils [of the nāga], for they can be linked to the set of seven centres of energy (cakras) in the human body and to the three highest of these in the throat and head, where Enlightenment takes place[23].

Nowhere has the profundity of this esoteric yoga been more passionately expressed than through this stunning image the Buddha protected by the nāga. It may also be referred to as Kundalinī Buddha. The Khmer in particular have shown great passion in expressing the trance-like nature of this motif with extraordinary sculptural genius. Elegantly adorned with diadem, earrings and necklace, the Buddha sits splendidly with his hands folded calmly in his lap in the posture of dhyāna-yoga. Three thick coils of the nāga's body form the Buddha's throne while the serpent's dilated seven-headed hood rears up behind the Buddha's head in a protective, almost cocooning manner.

It is also worth noting that during his lifetime Gautama the Buddha was actually not known as "The Buddha" at all, but Shākyaputra Shrāmana. And while shākyaputra designates the Buddha's ethnic origins (lit. a "man of the Shākya clan"), shrāmana denotes his ascetic vocation, vis-à-vis a primitive pre-Aryan mode of ascetic. We furthermore suggests that the Buddha be regarded not only as history's seminal shaman[24] but as a highly developed Tantrik-yogin.

The Tantric Conception

In those days, however, the conception of "tantra" was certainly different than what it is today. In its very early usage a 'tantric practitioner' denoted a "weaver" with the strong connotations of making magic. Indeed, a basic facet of the tantric conception is that of the cosmos as a boundless fabric of magical filament. What is more, this magic may be spun within the human body, precisely through the mystical techniques of yoga[25]. The tantric conception is therefore based on an alchemical[26] understanding of the human corporal structure as a "continuum of energy." This energy or life-force is essentially pure as it issues from a metaphoric matrix-loom – a unified-field interwoven, as it were, with the backdrop of infinity. Phenomenologically, existence is perceived as the panoply of thing-events pervaded by a force-field of homogenic resonance.

Tantra means tapping this resonant source and entering the fabric of life altogether; and in this way, every bit of thread and scrap gets turned into a privileged moment[27] and inducement to contribute to this seamless continuity of being. Through giving, which is faith, one is ushered to the fringes where the antipodes eclipse in a paradox of inexplicable bliss.

Stretching the Lute Strings

As tantra evolved into a historical movement, it assumed the vast proportions of a baroque revolution and achieved far-reaching and sustained effects in the cultural fields of philosophy, science, literature and art. It was during the third-century advent of tantra that an explicitly sexual idiom emerged together with an openly erotic iconography. This highly provocative meta-sensual approach has continued to arouse public interest to our day. This is currently reflected in a market driven climate of tabloid spirituality that has managed to recast the basic conception into a celebrated New Age commodity fetish apparently intent on the comprehensive tantrification of the masses.

Actually tantra is very rich in meaning, but it can also be frustratingly vague and elusive, hence compelling. But truthfully, sex plays a very small role. It is just that everyone is so interested in sex! What is more, for some the mere mention of sex makes them blush because religion has taught them that sex is indecent and opposed to the spiritual life.

Tantra sees it differently. Tantra views the action of the libido as the primal human urge. So, sex is the ground base; sex is step one. If you miss step one you miss it all. Where religion has wedged opposition and dichotomy, tantra seeks to cordalize polarities. Tantra is the place where two become one. This is succinctly espoused in the well-known linga-yoni motif signifying universal unity. More literal themes are, again, the Buddha protected by the Naga and the candidly erotic Maithuna icon where man and woman – yogin and yoginī – are depicted as conjoined in mystical-erotic embrace.

Now, it needs to be restated and boldly underscored that in the remotely pre-Tantric time of the Buddha, tantra held a very different set of meanings. In its earliest usage it is interesting to note that tantra signified the gentle pull and stretch of the tendons. A tendon is, of course, a sinewy cord that attaches a muscle to a bone. And while etymologically derived from the Latin teneo, tendon is also related to Sanskrit tantra. Poetically tantra means, "stretching the lute strings," the lyrical subtitle of the present work[28].

After years of experience I have come to the conclusion that it is best to support people through the physical body. Everything is stored there anyway. Sex only represents a small part of tantra, but it still plays and very important role. And presuming, if I may, you are all sexual beings, then sex is something that needs to be affirmed.

Since you can't avoid sex, why not use it valuably; why not use the force of sex as a force for meditation? First learn to harmonize the sexual energy with your broader, eyes-open meditation; for many it's the only way to enter inside. Throughout your day, and even during sex, you can think to yourselves, "...my body...my meditation..."

Sex is a cardinal aspect of yoga. Through yoga, sex becomes a current of higher understanding.

Angirasa – the proto-Tantric Buddha

Now for an even more compelling illustration of the tantrification of the Buddha sect, I turn to the earliest Buddhist scriptures that depict the Buddha as Angirasa, the Master of kundalinī[29].

Angirasa is a Sanskrit-Pāli epithet applied now and then to Gautama the Buddha. It debuts in a highly intriguing scene from the early passages of the Vinaya-Pitaka. The Buddha is wandering alone through the countryside shortly after his celebrated awakening. Without a place to sleep one night, he asks the head of an ashram for accommodation. The director agrees and gives him the key to the sauna, the only place available. There, says the scripture, Angirasa passes the night in the yoga of psychic heat "with brilliant flames streaming forth from his body"[30]. In fact, the Buddha generates so much heat that smoke starts spewing through the roof of the sauna. Then the resident hermits all rush out and remark to each other, "That shaman must have done himself in."

Not so.

"At the end of the night" the text declares, "when the flames of kundalinī were finally extinguished, the multicoloured flames of Him of psychic power remained ever radiant....Dark green, crimson, yellow, red and the colours of crystal all shone from Angirasa's body"[31].

Here we have proof that the yogic technique of producing psychic heat, or kundalinī tapas, is by no means a mere baroque innovation. I have studied the ancient Majjhima-nikāya with intent. Though expressing itself in an archaic and ill-defining idiom, it describes nonetheless the heat or tapas obtained through the practice prānāyāma. In this way, the Buddha is made to explain, "As two big men might grab hold a weaker one and hold him over a barbecue pit, when I finally stopped my kumbhaka practice a terrific heat arose in my body"[32].

In the scriptural Dhammapada, too, the Buddha is described as "burning".[33]

The Starting Point

As discussed in detail in Guru Chod's Anuloma Viloma Pranayama (1984)[34], the important starting point of this yoga of inner-transformation is prānāyāma. Prānāyāma has its foundations in the control of prāna. At the beginning stage one attempts to control the physical manifestations of this extraordinary life-force within ones body. At the more advanced stage, the practitioner attempts to gain control over all external nature.

Said the guru, "Let there be no vague idea as concerns the potential of the subject at hand. A person can acquire absolute control over the entirety of nature through the practice of yoga."

T. D. Harris, last revised 23 Apr 2007

Notes

[1] Promporn Pramualaratana, "Confronting Life's Problems Through Yoga," Bangkok Post, Sunday supplement (12 July 1987).

[2] In fact according to a Sanskrit dictionary, yoga has no less than seventeen subsidiary meanings. Theos Bernard in Heaven Lies Within Us (New York, 1940) lists the seventeen varied definitions of yoga as follows:

[34] "Anuloma Viloma Pranayama (Alternate Breathing)," http://www.sritantra.co.uk/fvt/4_avp.htm.