In part five of this series of articles, we’ve taken a closer look at the laboratory-made Philosopher’s Stone and its ingredients. In what was a global premiere, I have discussed openly that radio-nuclides and mercury form the basis of this concoction, thus showing that laboratory alchemy aims at transforming some of the most dangerous toxins we know of into the fabled end-product of this art, with all its remarkable properties. The last article produced the widest spectrum of human reaction so far: Fellow alchemists were angry at me for revealing the secret that has never been published before. Friends feared for my safety. Two readers suspected I had walked off the deep end – university-chemists-turned-alchemists making artificial gold by the hundreds of pounds in Seattle, this must be pure, unadulterated nonsense, they pronounced. And yet, it all happened.
Today, we are looking at the inner secrets of how Tantrics attain immortality. We will take a look at one Chinese Master who can set things on fire or stop bullets with his own energy projection, and we will learn about the various Eastern and Western techniques of inner alchemy that have been applied for centuries to attain enlightenment, spiritual powers and conversation with the Gods.
But before we go into details, let me ask this: Why do you think it is impossible for some to believe that alchemists turn lead into gold, even though there is plenty of evidence to support the claim? (If you dig deeply enough and know where to dig). Can you believe that a yogi is actually levitating when you see him do so? Or do you have to doubt your perception and call it a fraud? Can you accept that Taoist-trained healers can heal from afar by projecting chi, while certain martial artists could kill from afar by performing a similar type of projection?
If you think about it, it is the sum of our perceptional filters that determine what we are ready to consider as real, and thus what eventually creates and keeps re-creating our reality. The good news is: once we are aware of these cultural imprints, we can discard these filters, change how we perceive life and allow a new, expanded reality to become ours for the taking. Alchemy is first about un-learning.
There is plenty of material on tantra available today, from Cosmo-style articles about better sex through tantra to some comments about the dangers of it. Apparently, this ancient technique from India that utilizes non-physical energies flowing through the human body, with an emphasis on awakening, kindling, amplifying and eventually directing raw sexual energy towards attaining enlightenment, provokes a wide range of reactions and evokes an even wider range of fantasies. The sincere practitioners of tantra will soon disenchant the casual seeker by making it known that tantra is a discipline, requiring tremendous self-discipline! Think about it: you’re sitting with your lover in sexual embrace, in a position called yab yum, and you are not supposed to do what rabbits do.
Instead you must gently, lovingly and yet in a very focused manner direct the heat of passion upwards and into the area of the third eye. This is achieved by performing the cobra breath, a combination technique of breathing, visualization and the moving of energy with pure intent.1
This does not sound like the better sex article in the popular magazine, does it? Yet the reward of this kind of stellar discipline is the potential of attaining union with the universe - which may sound like a very abstract and distant concept. But for those who have experienced this altered state, it does stand for an experience miles beyond ordinary sex!
Eventually, tantric practitioners who keep up their practice can go through further levels of initiation and may arrive at being able to move their own focal point of being-ness, their true self, at will up and down the central channel of non-physical energy along the spine of their bodies. The goal of the fourth level initiation into the cobra breath is to enable the practitioner to attain immortality at the moment of death.
Let us pause here and review this concept again: Immortality through death. I told you alchemy is about un-learning! The tantric masters have found out the following: when ordinary, uninitiated people die, they usually leave their energy bodies through one of the first three seals or chakras that we have discussed before. These chakras, however, are also corresponding to certain levels of consciousness in the astral realm, and it is through this mechanism that people find themselves after the death of their physical body in certain circumstances that they may not necessarily like - but that are the exact mirror of their consciousness at the point of death. They have been FedEx’d, as it were, to the appropriate "frequency destination."
The Western explorer of out-of-body phenomena, Robert Monroe, has mapped these levels of the astral world and has written about them extensively in Journeys Out of the Body, Far Journeys, and Ultimate Journey which are available at bookstores.
The tantric cure for the after-life blues is to simply avoid it entirely by leaving the body at the moment of death through the crown chakra, and thus leaving the various levels of the astral plane and the wheel of reincarnation behind. What awaits on the other side is another reality of non-linear time. Immortality is achieved, not by gaining something, but by actually re-gaining a state of being in timelessness that all of us were probably experiencing before we volunteered to jump off the cliff and engage this reality of linear time, reincarnation and burgers and fries.
page 2
