“Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and the moon as well as all the pilgrimage places… I have not entered another temple as blissful as my own body.”
– Saraha, 10th cent.
How can I enter the blissful temple of my own body? How can I fully experience my body as if it’s the entirety of the universe? Does such an achievement apply only to ancient yogis and not to us in modern life?
Ancient traditions suggest that awakening or enlightenment is found in the body and nowhere else. Over a thousand years ago in Tibet, the technology of the Subtle Body Training was developed by advanced yogis to awaken into the beauty and perfection of who they already had been.
It’s hard to even imagine that this awareness could become our experience especially when I consider my relationship to my own body in the midst of a stressful life. However, amazingly enough, I’ve found a set of yogic exercises that are an extension of these ancient techniques that are very beneficial and adapted to modern times and allow us to experience our own blissful temple. Undeniably, these exercises were designed to untie the knots in our energy system and open the energy channels of the body. These exercises engage our entire body from the physical to the most subtle and profound energy levels. In this way, I can enter into the blissful temple of my own body without undertaking a pilgrimage to the sacred places of the external world.