The Backward-Flowing Method: The Secret of Life and Death
JJ Semple
Published by Life Force Books at Smashwords
Copyright © 2008, JJ Semple
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Disclaimer: The information in this book is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Neither the author nor the publisher of this work will be held accountable for any use or misuse of the information contained in this book. The author, the publisher, and/or the distributors of this book are not responsible for any effects or consequences from the use of any suggestions, recommendations, or procedures described hereafter.
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The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.
~ Marcus Aurelius
To Gopi Krishna
The experiments, besides providing indisputable evidence for the existence of design in creation, would at the same time open to view a new and healthy direction designed by nature for the sublimation of human energy and the use of human resources, frittered away at present in frivolous pursuits, debasing amusements, and ignoble enterprises unsuited to the dignity of man. The knowledge of the safest methods for awakening Kundalini and their empirical application on themselves by the noblest men physically and mentally equipped for it, will yield for humanity a periodic golden crop of towering spiritual and mental prodigies who, and who alone, in the atomic age will be able to discharge in a proper manner, consistent with the safety and security of the race, the supreme offices of the ministers of God and the rulers of men.
~Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man – Gopi Krishna
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An ancient adept said: ‘Formerly, every school knew this jewel, only fools did not know it wholly.’ If we reflect on this we see that the ancients attained long life by the help of the seed energy present in their own bodies, and did not lengthen their years by swallowing this or that type of elixir. But the worldly people lost the roots and clung to the treetops.
~ The Secret of the Golden Flower – Lu Yen - Richard Wilhelm, Translator
The backward-flowing method refers to a meditation technique mentioned throughout The Secret of the Golden Flower, a compilation of 8th Century meditation practices. First translated from the original Chinese and published in England in 1931, the book has been an off-and-on best seller, a fact that, in and of itself, is largely puzzling.
True, the book is important to the meditation tradition. But why it’s remained so popular is curious, especially since its vaunted Secret Teachings, though implicitly advertised in the title, have never been adequately explained. Why do I say that the Secret Teachings have never been explained? I say this because the Secret Teachings in the Golden Flower—and there are many—are the actual Secrets of Life. That’s right—as in Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth type of secrets. Secrets of monumental consequence. I believe these Secret Teachings, like the clues in some tangled mystery, may have escaped the discerning eye by the very fact that they are hidden in plain sight. If they had been adequately explained, these secrets would be common knowledge, their techniques applied in every strip mall Yoga class across the country. But they’re not.
Perhaps part of the answer lies in the cold case aspect: the fact that after 1,200 years, tastes change. Nowadays, meditation partakes of the Spirituality Made Easy attitude, so prevalent in today’s New Age culture. Twelve hundred years ago, a novice had to trek off in search of a Master. He had to be accepted, frequently only after undergoing a series of harsh trials. Finally, he was put through a spiritual boot camp. Today, one has only to drive into a strip mall to be propositioned by an assortment of New Age dojos, ateliers, and Yoga studios. It’s a situation of supply and demand. Twelve hundred years ago, conditions were harsh; today, there’s an oversupply of shortcuts to Nirvana.
Nevertheless, despite the changing times, The Secret of the Golden Flower has become part of the spiritual canon. Having it on the bookshelf is like having a copy of the I Ching—an item to be appreciated for its reputation rather than its true worth.
One would hope the real reason the book has remained popular is because any book purporting to hold the Secret of Life is bound to generate interest. However, most readers hear about the book, take a crack at it, then give up. Consider the following discussion from an online chat room:
23rd October 2007, 12:52 PM #1
SGW: Regular
The Secret of the Golden Flower
Anyone read this?
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25th October 2007, 07:42 AM #2
TK: Super Moderator
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
Portions of it—it’s on my “to purchase/read” list, once I get a chance.
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29th October 2007, 10:28 AM #3
SGW: Regular
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
It is difficult to penetrate; I started back at the commentaries which was a lot of reading before you even get to the material.
For a small book, it’s a tough read.
__________________
7th November 2007, 07:54 AM #4
TR: Junior Member
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
So, what is the SECRET?
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7th November 2007, 10:49 AM #5
TK: Super Moderator
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
Quote: It is difficult to penetrate; I started back at the commentaries which was a lot of reading before you even get to the material.
For a small book, it’s a tough read.
Yes, like many neidan or “Inner Alchemy” texts it uses a complex system of poetic imagery sometimes called “correlative cosmology”; much of the language and concepts are also used in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Very difficult stuff for the uninitiated; personally, I have only a very rudimentary understanding of it, and I’ve never attempted to read the whole of the Flower.
TR, it’s an ancient Chinese manual on meditation, philosophy and self-cultivation, but it’s couched in highly metaphorical/allegorical language. To give you an example, here’s an online translation: T’ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih.
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16th November 2007, 11:11 AM #6
TR: Junior Member
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
Quote: Yes, like many neidan or “Inner Alchemy” texts it uses a complex system of poetic imagery sometimes called “correlative cosmology”; much of the language and concepts are also used in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Very difficult stuff for the uninitiated; personally, I have only a very rudimentary understanding of it, and I’ve never attempted to read the whole of the Flower.
Thanks, I’ll take a look.
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16th November 2007, 11:30 #7
TR: Junior Member
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
VERY interesting. So Tao is the air that separates into Yin and Yang (our two nostrils), creating these energies in our bodies. If we don’t waste our seed, then it is made into light that will change our sperm yellow, and produce the elixir of life, giving us longer lives. I just read it quickly, but is this accurate?
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16th November 2007, 02:12 PM #8
TR: Junior Member
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
I had a weird thought: What if our cardiovascular system is the bodhi tree, the upper part the trunk and limbs, and the lower part of our diaphragm and blood vessels are the roots. That would situate the Buddha in our upper solar plexus. Is this farfetched because I have heard that we should contemplate our navel? - Or is that for a different reason? I am a religious theorist.
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17th November 2007, 04:15 AM #9
TK: Super Moderator
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
Quote: VERY interesting. So Tao is the air that separates into Yin and Yang (our two nostrils), creating these energies in our bodies. If we don’t waste our seed, then it is made into light that will change our sperm yellow, and produce the elixir of life, giving us longer lives. I just read it quickly, but is this accurate?
Well, yes and no. Again, I am far from an expert on Chinese Alchemy, but there are at least some schools of thought that would regard this interpretation as overly crude and physical. Part of the problem is that there’s no direct translation for many of the words being used, and so terms like “elixir” (dan) or “breath” (qi or ch’i) often lose much of the meaning in translation.
To give an example, I believe the word being rendered as “sperm,” for instance, is jing, one of the “Three Treasures” (san bao) of Daoism.
Although associated with seminal fluid, the term is actually far more encompassing and not necessarily a physical “substance,” for instance it can also be equated with the psychological energy of eros or libido. Plus, more generally, it can refer to a state of bodily health or vitality. There’s also the notion that jing as health is closely associated with a self-repeating pattern or process—a beautiful description of jing that I’ve heard is:
“Circulating in steady patterns, in channels, wearing a groove in time.”
Furthermore, it is clear that jing is something inherited from one’s parents and ancestors. As such, some TCM practitioners actually associate jing with DNA instead of with sperm per se.
Thomas Cleary, probably one of the most popular translators of Daoist texts, renders jing as “essence,” which is succinct but really carries none of the connotations I’ve described above.
As you can see, it’s a devil of a term to translate. The other two treasures of Daoism, qi (which Clearly renders as “energy”) and shen , (which Clearly renders as “spirit”), are even harder to pin down. The traditional Daoist method of cultivation speaks of refining jing into qi, qi into shen, shen into emptiness (shu).
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17th November 2007, 04:31 AM #10
TK: Super Moderator
Re: The Secret of the Golden Flower
Quote: I had a weird thought: What if our cardiovascular system is the bodhi tree, the upper part the trunk and limbs, and the lower part of our diaphragm and blood vessels are the roots. That would situate the Buddha in our upper solar plexus. Is this farfetched because I have heard that we should contemplate our navel? - Or is that for a different reason? I am a religious theorist.
I’m not sure about Buddhism, but that’s not too far from certain notions in Daoism and Chinese Alchemy.
In Daoist thought, the human being is considered a microcosm of the cosmos—in particular, “earth” or “the land” is closely associated with the body (hence the Daodejing, which is primarily a political text, is also indirectly about how to “rule” one’s body as well as the state). In the context of Chinese alchemy, the body is envisioned like this:
That’s supposed to be a rough outline of a person sitting. Toward the bottom, you’ll notice the little “sun” with the four taijitu (or “yin-yang symbols”). This is the lower dan tian, a major focus point for internal cultivation and meditation. It’s supposed to correspond with the individual’s center of gravity, which is slightly below (and behind) the navel.
The lower dan tian is associated with jing, by the way, and the two others—located near the heart and the pituitary gland (or “third eye”) respectively—are associated with qi and shen.
Unless I’m mistaken, this roughly corresponds with the Yogic idea of the chakras, although I believe in the various schools of Yoga there are more chakras marked than there are dan tians in the Daoist tradition.
If the book’s Secret Teachings are authentic, why have the book’s many devotees been unable to explain these secrets? Why have the books written about the symbolic language and hidden meaning in The Secret of the Golden Flower not revealed the how-to functioning of the backward-flowing method?
It’s not that the book’s many readers missed something or that investigators didn’t do their job; rather, it’s that those readers and investigators didn’t understand what the job entailed, didn’t know what they should be looking for. Why do I say they didn’t know what they were looking for?
These Secret Teachings cannot be unlocked by research. What do I mean by research? By research, I mean the modern scholastic techniques of translating and interpreting Chinese characters, of equating the Chinese symbols with notions of Western psychology and other disciplines, of cross-referencing symbols and meanings, of labeling and dating, of writing an interpretive analysis, of locating and reviewing secondary or tertiary sources. It cannot be made manifest by any doctorate level Ph.D approach to understanding. Don’t believe me? Google the book on Amazon. Both the Cleary and the Wilhelm versions. Take a look at the comments. Reread the above chat room transcript. The writers are hung up on cross-cultural semantics and epistemology. No big deal; many have fallen into the same trap—even the hallowed Wilhelm/Baynes translation dances around the true meaning of the backward-flowing method. Read Richard Wilhelm’s A Discussion of the Text in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower. Although he mentions the backward-flowing method, at no time does he present a step-by-step description of how the backward-flowing method actually works. He seems content on explaining how he came up with the term backward-flowing from the German term rücklaüfig.
Outside of the T’ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih text itself, there is no commentary on, much less a how-to explanation of, the actual backward-flowing method process. In fact, at one point Carl Jung warns westerners, “In total misapprehension of all that I say in my commentary, such readers tried to imitate the ‘method’ described in the Chinese text.” But what is the method? That’s never explicitly dealt with, although the Wilhelm/Baynes translation does a better job of presenting the method in an instructional form than its Cleary counterpart.
Why shouldn’t a novice, or an adept for that matter, attempt to follow the method in the book, if indeed, it is a method? What’s wrong with doing just that? Especially if we substitute the more appropriate word practice for Jung’s ill-chosen figure of speech imitate. How do you imitate a method? You either do it or you don’t. In fact, the only way of deciphering the secrets in the Golden Flower is by practicing the techniques in the book. Perhaps Jung was afraid that the reader might develop some sort of schizophrenic brainlock. Maybe the whole thing is a sinister ritual for turning practitioners into werewolves.
The only way to find out is to do it. And that’s what I did. Perhaps I didn’t realize the inherent dangers of attempting meditation without a guide. Perhaps it was sheer stubbornness. Nevertheless, the only way to find out was to do, especially since, as it turned out, I had to find a means of correcting a physical deformity. I was desperate, and desperation drives people to find solutions—one way or another.
“Things must be taken simply, not philosophically. Certainly, if we begin to think philosophically that there is no such thing as freedom [Life Force] then there is nothing left but to die.” ~The Fourth Way –P.D. Ouspensky
I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that most readers, who have picked up The Secret of the Golden Flower, whether they’ve read it entirely or only in part, have not practiced the method. No wonder, then, that no adequate step-by-step explanation of the backward-flowing method exists. As a consequence, The Secret of the Golden Flower has been regarded as a treatise on comparative literature or a trophy item for late night party talk.
In the end, deciphering The Secret of the Golden Flower is not so much a question of what do the symbols mean, as how does the book’s intrinsic method work, for knowledge of the backward-flowing method comes only through empirical practice. In fact, there’s no point in even discussing the meaning of the book’s symbolic language. Suppose, for a moment, you actually knew the true meaning of every sentence and symbol. Besides a license for esoteric name dropping, what would this knowledge give you? Nothing. Nada. The method, as presented in the book, would still be difficult to follow because there is no sequential arrangement of the important techniques. You would still have to work your way through the method without any formal guidelines. And that’s the point of this book: to fashion a clearly defined, unambiguous method where before there was none. That’s what this book is: a handbook for those interested in the practice and the teaching of Golden Flower Meditation.
It is not the point of this present work to attempt a scholarly analysis of The Secret of the Golden Flower; rather, this book is meant to clarify how the backward-flowing method and the Golden Flower’s other techniques actually work, how they fit into the overall meditation model, what they will do for the individual who succeeds in mastering them, and how the backward-flowing method is really the crux of the Secret Teachings—the Secret of Life. In short, the only interpreting this book attempts is an explanation of the backward-flowing method drawn from a personal empirical application.
Cruising Ahead
If you can’t hold back and must skip ahead to the Secret Teachings to learn about the backward-flowing method, go to Chapter 4 – Hydraulics & Pneumatics. When you’re finished, I implore you to come back to this point in the text, for these teachings have little value unless placed in the overall Golden Flower context, so their relevance to the cosmology of life can be understood. Moreover, you will need this contextual understanding in order to appreciate how the techniques of the Secret Teachings go way beyond the realm of mere living, for practiced over a lifetime, these techniques ultimately develop a heightened sense of self-awareness, the very discipline needed to navigate through the afterlife state referred to in The Tibetan Book of the Dead as the Between.
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I am also an empiricist. To understand what is happening, you have to work as a synoptic empiricist, and you must have the experience. You must pray, or meditate, and when you have these experiences, it is overwhelmingly apparent. There is no doubt these domains exist.
~ The Future of the Body — Michael Murphy, Esalen Institute
Do the Secret Teachings really exist? Is there a Secret to Life? Some sort of trick, magic spell, or elixir, a technique capable of triggering rejuvenation and extraordinary powers?
If it exists, is it freely available to anyone? Or only a select few? Is it hidden in plain sight, or concealed behind riddles and enigmas? Or like the Freemasons, does it require admission and initiation into some secret group?
Could it be something we eat? Something we do? Something someone gives us, teaches us, or shows us how to use? Something we have to accomplish, like a quest? Perhaps, it’s a substance, the magic H2O sought by Ponce de Leon from the Fountain of Youth? Perhaps it entails manipulation of elements à la medieval alchemy?
What makes it tick? How do we apply it? What capabilities would it have to bestow on us in order to qualify as the one and only true Secret of Life? Is it an operation to be performed? A magic spell? A trick? The result of an interplanetary visitation or transmission?
Perhaps it’s based on love or faith, or some other abstraction. Perhaps it’s simply prayer.
What is it? Where do we find it? How do we know when we’ve found it? What will it do for us? Will it work the same way for each individual?
Throughout history, the subject has been raised many times, taken on many forms, had many advocates, been the object of many claims. This or that tonic, such and such magic charm, the true faith, eternal life; transforming lead into gold, the Word becoming Flesh.
We’ve heard the claims and listened to the legends. Yet, after all that has been said and done, we remain, at best, doubtful, more likely indifferent or confused.
We ask: Does it really exist? Is there really a Secret to Life?
And rightfully so. Its essence has infused our culture. Yet, there is no one, all-encompassing truth, only a yearning for something more powerful, more liberating. For instance, since the 1940s, Hollywood has featured movies in which people:
Come back from the dead to instruct the living (Ghost, Heaven Can Wait);
Have guardian angels (It’s a Wonderful Life, Topper, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, The Bishop’s Wife);
Learn to use secret powers (Star Wars, Superman, The Matrix).
If they do it in the movies, if it’s seeped into our consciousness to such an extent, surely there must be something to it. Doesn’t fiction usually foretell reality? Is not actuality rooted in dreams? If there’s nothing to it, then why has so much time and money been spent stimulating our imagination?
So, why do we spend so much time on stories and fables about the acquisition of extraordinary faculties? Quite simply, because there’s a large body of experience in fact and fiction built up around the acquisition of such faculties.
We shouldn’t be indignant with Hollywood. The purveyors of dreams—pop culture trendsetters and advertising wags, writers and storytellers—are merely channeling the phenomenon of unconscious or collective yearning. What is unconscious yearning?
Episodes of collective unconscious yearning usually precede periods of actualization, moments in history when the rubber meets the road—the times when fantastical ideas begin to bear fruit. For example, discoveries in the field of bacteriology by men like Ferdinand Cohn (1828–1898), Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), and Robert Koch (1843–1910) occurred about the same time in history and were preceded by social and technological changes that helped cultivate an awareness of the underlying issues. When the leading figures appeared on the scene, there preexisted a climate of acceptance. Not absolute acceptance, of course. No, innovators usually have to beat back skepticism. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine this particular breakthrough (micro-bacteriological discoveries) taking place at the time of, say, the Egyptian pharaohs.
All movements need fertile soil to grow in. And that soil is the collective unconscious yearning of a culture, a particular conjunction of circumstances and timing. This phenomenon is related to Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness, a condition cited in William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience:
In its more striking instances [Cosmic Consciousness] is not simply an extension or an expansion of the self-conscious mind with which we are all familiar, but the superaddition of a function as distinct from any possessed by the average man as self-consciousness is distinct from any function possessed by the higher animals.
Cosmic Consciousness specifies a qualitative leap in consciousness. In his 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick represents this leap by the sudden appearance of a monolith in the midst of primitive tribes people. One individual picks up a bone and suddenly realizes that it can be used as a weapon. The viewer understands that these primitives have become aware of self and other (self-consciousness) and will henceforth be able to create and use tools. Kubrick’s symbolization of the last great leap in consciousness didn’t include a backstory for the opposing tribe that gets slaughtered during the ensuing skirmish. We are left thinking that it will soon be over for them, that the tribe who has learned to use weapons will have a technological advantage for a long time.
But this doesn’t coincide very well with what we know about technology: Knowledge fans out horizontally at an alarming rate. People learn and adapt; they reverse engineer, find resourceful ways to level the playing field. Unconscious yearning represents the desire to make up for lost ground, to compete at a higher level. It’s more about the way ideas, tendencies, and faculties spread than about the ideas, tendencies, and faculties themselves.
Another example of unconscious yearning: the Enlightenment in France and England. Rousseau, Voltaire, and their precursors: Descartes, Bacon, and Hobbes; Locke, Hume, etc.; men who appeared at the exact moment their contributions would create maximum impact on the culture—a culture that was primed to receive it.
How does this theory apply to the Secret Teachings? Well, quite simply our present age is the culmination of unconscious yearning episodes focused on the Secret of Life and other so-called New Age issues. At first, the whole New Age thing might seem like escapism, but it’s not. Just because Hollywood has mastered special effects that defy gravity and has popularized The Force doesn’t mean movies featuring secret powers aren’t the result of unconscious yearning or the residue of lost teachings. It’s a movement whose time has come. Numinous though it may be, it has entered the here and now of our age.
Am I making a prediction? No, predictions are dangerous; they smack of fundamentalist claptrap (end times and rapture). I’m merely stating facts and drawing probable conclusions:
The Secret of Life has always existed in the form of a latent energy source [the Life Force] within each individual.
The Secret Teachings—the practical knowledge of the Kundalini meditation techniques for activating the Life Force—have been restricted to a limited few, who have usually insisted that God (or his inner circle) wanted it this way.
Periodic attempts have been made to vulgarize these secrets.
These attempts have failed, or the teachings were deemed subversive or heretical and were suppressed.
We now have instant access. Communications (Internet, worldwide press, and television) and transportation (air travel and superhighways). Instant access has rekindled interest in the Secret of Life. Ergo, it is reasonable to believe that the planetary buzz around the Secret of Life could eventually lead to a serious investigation.
Unlike the periods of unconscious yearning that led to the Enlightenment, the unconscious yearning that surrounds the Secret of Life stretches over many centuries. Yet, only recently has it culminated, because, until recently, the whole question of the Secret of Life has been subdivided and fragmented. It’s existed as an outcropping of religion and esotericism. It’s been the focus of pseudo-science, such as alchemy—part and parcel of myths such as Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth. It’s been opposed by organized religions that want to maintain their monopoly on God’s grace and salvation. It’s been beaten down by Cartesian philosophers, only to rise again under the banner of those seeking a connection between science and metaphysics: pragmatists like Michael Talbot popularizing the relation between space-time and cosmic consciousness, physicists like David Bohm writing on quantum theory and consciousness, empiricists like Gopi Krishna inviting the scientific vetting of the Kundalini awakening process. But think about how hard it is to complete the process. Think about the odds of doing so.
To put the following flowchart in perspective, imagine a similar chart tracing the path of a typical American doctorate level education. The process is long—getting a PhD is a grueling process—but the information is readily available. Want to study chemistry? No problem. Ten thousand college catalogues at your disposal. Get good grades in high school, find a college that suits you and you’re on your way. On the other hand, informing yourself about the Secret Teachings is not so easy. There is no approved curriculum, no regulating body, no accepted practices, no Secret Teachings for Dummies guidebooks. You’re on your own. All you have is your own inspired motivation, some hint that there may be something out there—something that fascinates you. But beyond that you have no idea what’s in store for you.
Figure 1: Flowchart of the Life Force activation process—from inspiration to completion.
The Secret of Life—from the initial search-for-truth stage to the final activation of the Life Force stage—should not be thought of as a single event, but a flow of events, each one with a slim likelihood of completion. So much goes into completing the process: inspiration, discovery, detective work, exercise, meditation—to say nothing of frustration, disappointment, and disinformation. The path is long, hard, and uncertain, because up till now, no one permanent, voluntary, safe, repeatable method existed for shepherding a novice through the entire process.
On the chart you will notice there are two phases, what Ram Dass called the You do it! and It does you! phases. In the first phase, you do all the work. You find the requisite inspiration, be it conscious or unconscious, deliberate or accidental. Whatever! It’s up to you to find it. The detective work, the decoding, the practice are also up to you. It’s only during the last phase that things get really interesting. Not that they’re uninteresting beforehand. But there definitely is a reward phase when It does You. Your job is to make your way through the obstacles to this phase.
Until recently, there has been no way to assemble and examine all sides of the Secret of Life issue, no way of defining its limits, its capabilities. No way of proving its existence. That time is here, but it hasn’t always been that way.
Consider the fact that in the 14th Century, Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib wrote of infectious diseases being caused by contagious entities that entered the human body. These ideas, about the contagious nature of diseases, remained unexplored in Europe and did not surface again until the Renaissance, when in 1676, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, using a microscope of his own design, prepared the way for Pasteur and his cohorts. Then, of course, it took many years for the discoveries of Pasteur to reach the rest of the world. Now, we have instant recognition, instant access. Compartmentalization of information is a thing of the past, or should be.
Kids in China play with plastic light sabers just like kids in America. But do they know what the point of the game is? Why, it’s The Force, of course—the Life Force—the Secret of Life. Hollywood wants to sell us tickets. The pharmaceutical industry wants us to believe we can squeeze it out of a tube. Agrobusiness tells us we can take off the pounds while adding years to our lives. Doctors, let’s not forget doctors, advertise sure-fire cures and interventions certain to make us feel good about ourselves.
Everyone wants it; it should be a bonanza. So, why is everyone feeling so lost?
Suicide rates are climbing, mental illness and depression are running rampant, diabetes has risen to epidemic proportions, drug abuse and alcoholism are heading through the roof, sexual addiction is pandemic. At the same time, cosmetic sales are up; organic foods have taken off; healthy lifestyles are gaining; Yoga is on the cover of Time.
The time is right; it is also rife. In the near future, people will demand more from meditation; they won’t settle for stress reduction and relaxation. This shouldn’t upset us; change is normal. Over time, every system adds features and sophistication. Meditation is no different. The backward-flowing method transforms the basic meditation of today into a second generation system for unlocking Kundalini in a safe, permanent fashion that produces a wealth of metanormal effects and, as a result, a palpable change in being. By identifying the true secrets of Life and Death and explaining how they work, this book opens up new horizons for pioneering Yoga and meditation teachers and students.
While alive, we tend to think of Life and Death as linked in a morally causative fashion: The good and bad deeds we do during our lifetimes influence our stature in the afterlife. Certainly, in the West, we do not imagine that by discovering a technique for self-improvement in one stage, we might carry it over and use it in the next stage—the stages being the endless cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth. But what if Life and Death are inextricably linked in exactly that way? What if certain techniques could be acquired in one stage and used in the next? In order to answer these questions, we must first learn the Secret of Life. However, before we do that, we must first explore the methodologies used to validate the Secret Teachings.
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