The Tibetan Book of the Dead details the Tibetan Rebirth Process, which is a means by which we can evolve (or devolve) from lifetime to lifetime. The problem is that it is so darn slow. There is an entire lifetime between iterations. And, you only get one shot at it, at a time when you are probably a little freaked out about having just died and all, no warm up, no practice swings, you have to step right up to bat; it’s easy to choke. So, it’s not a very efficient means of evolution.
Meditation is, of course, a solution for this (it’s the solution for just about everything). If you are able to meditate perfectly, you can enter into a state of complete absorption in the dharmakaya, the Clear Light of Reality. This perfectly recreates the experience of the after-death/bardo state, and is known as samadhi. Each time a person enters into samadhi, and then returns, their ego dissolves and reforms and evolves. If one could do this every day, then in the course of a year, you would have evolved the equivalent of 365 lifetimes! Even if you can’t meditate perfectly, every meditation will evolve your consciousness to some degree, so that is why it is important for you to develop a daily practice.
People have found other ways to initiate the bardo experience, aside from meditation. In the 60′s Dr. Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and Ralph Metzner who were professors of psychology at Harvard University at the time, wrote a book called The Psychedelic Experience where they detailed their experiments with inducing the bardo experience through the use of LSD. It’s a fascinating book to read, after you’ve read the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Another way to induce the bardo experience is through Dream Yoga. There is a great book called Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light that details this form of yoga. Yogis seek to maintain their consciousness as they fall asleep, similar to lucid dreaming, however in lucid dreaming, you first lose consciousness as you enter dreaming, then you ‘wake up’ in the dream. Those who become adept at this may be able to maintain their consciousness as they pass from life into the after-death state, thereby eliminating some of the fear and confusion that typically occurs at the time of death.
Once the dream state has been attained, though fully conscious, the yogi focuses on the Clear Light, just as one would do through normal meditation. The mind is somewhat more flexible in the dream state, so it is easier to enter into a deeper meditation. The same bardo experience may be induced in this way. One big advantage of dream yoga is that it doesn’t take any extra time out of your day. You get to practice while you sleep!
To Whom I Wrote Before:
I got a chill when I saw these two latest posts because they took me back to the late 60s when I was a newly minted Second Lieutenant in the army trying to make his way in the US Army. The book that impressed me then, however, had nothing to do with the military. It had everything to do with life. Nearly 40 years later, I see that the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” called out to me, though I may not have known it then.
I had thirsted for more of an understanding of Life back then. I was not quite 21 years of age.
Eventually, I put the book and all of its teachings aside, and raised no major questions as I got married, went to Vietnam and studied at the university before becoming a newspaper journalist.
At age 30, however, divorce was pending and my life once again begged me to seek a spiritual path. I met a young woman who led me to a Guru, where I felt so comfortable visiting an ashram and listening to the talks in “Satsung” (how did I just remember that term? I haven’t thought of it for decades). I built a little “altar” with candles, incense and a picture of my guru, as I tried in vain to meditate, and on perhaps one occasion, I lost “my self,” and felt the most energized I have ever felt in my life.
But, life, my career and a second marriage led me away from that. I even dreamed of the Guru leaving our Earth in a hot air balloon, drifting up to space, where I truly believed that he was going to perish while touching the outer atmosphere.
I awoke in a cold sweat, looked outside my tiny Pottstown, PA, apartment, and saw that it had snowed for the earliest time in eastern Pennsylvania’s recorded history — Columbus Day, Oct. 12, 1980.
I grew a beard.
For the first time in my life.
I felt I had to rearrange something in my life, perhaps to ward me against some future threat, or prepare me for a new addition to my life style. Less than two months later, I met my future (and current wife. a so-called “Jesus freak”) and she later confined to me that what drew her to me physically was MY BEARD!
Now, I have entered a new phase, where the Tibetan Book of the Dead is appending and writing a new chapter to my life. I will be going to the Omega Institute for a retreat to contemplate Combat PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), to meditate, and to study in a Library named the “Ram Dass Library.”
Shades of Timothy Leary, acid trips on LSD, and a book another brilliant young professor championed, “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”
Am I coming full circle to something that started all those years ago and only now appears to come to a blossoming?
I would like to think so.
But why has it taken so long, and why did I have to squeeze through so many hoops, overcome so many obstacles, and avoid death and possible disgrace to finally get to “this” place?
i guess this is what one would call a rhetorical question?
Maybe. But I still want to know.
(note: Your posts inspired me to write the above, and I also published it in my blog, with attribution and a heartfelt thanks to you.)
Michael J
I don’t understand why anyone would want to reach final enlightenment. I like wanting, I like planetside living, I like the dramas and attachments of life. I like alcohol, I enjoy the company of other people, I love playing video games. And that dissolution and life itself can coexist! It happens every night whether we notice or not yet we can still go on living the next day.
I’d frankly rather be a deva, or even an upright asura. What kind of response is there to this?
Certainly dissolution and life coexist. There is a saying ‘Samsara is Nirvana’, meaning that duality is an illusion; all that exists is God or Nirvana or Eternity or whatever name you want to give it. The question of whether to seek final enlightenment, or even just to progress further towards enlightenment depends on how much pain you are in.
Many people get caught up in the dramas of life, the attachments, the jealousy, the loneliness, the anger and they feel intense pain and frustration, and they are trapped by this, with no recourse. The various yogas teach how to overcome the attachments, how to let go. Letting go doesn’t mean doing without, it means not holding on too tightly; that if you can’t play your video game today, it’s not going to ruin your day, you’ll just move along to something else.
The further towards enlightened understanding you progress, the more you see the perfection in all things, even in the pain and the suffering and the confusion and the general chaos of life, and so, you can experience those things but not be trapped by them; feel the pain, but also feel Eternity at the same time.
Certainly, you can enjoy this life, and all of its charms, or live the life of a celestial being for all of eternity if you choose. The cosmology supports that! But, it gets a little old after a few thousand or few hundred thousand incarnations. So, if for no other reason than curiosity, I’d like to reach final enlightenment one day!
>>Certainly, you can enjoy this life, and all of its charms, or live the life of a celestial being for all of eternity if you choose. The cosmology supports that!
It drives me to distraction, wondering about this. What do the celestials do all day? I’ve seen incredible bodies of work describing their existence, the world as multiverse, and things like that…
but it seems like none of the gurus gave us an idea of what their day-to-day life is like! Not once do we get, “The deva wakes up mid-morning, takes a look in the mirror and adjusts minor inharmonious vibrations that resulted from a bad dream, goes downstairs and greets members of their jati already awake…”
LOL
[...] position during sleep may have a profound effect on your sleep as well. In the book Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light they indicate that in order to enter into higher dimensional planes when sleeping, men should [...]