I was initiated into the Hindu Nityananda tradition as a lineage teacher in 2009. This tradition is entirely founded on the knowledge of kundalini and the subtle body, and its path to soul-liberation is fulfilled by receiving energy transmission from one’s master (shaktipat). Nevertheless, I kept wondering for years whether people could achieve similar results by directly activating the intelligence of their subtle bodies. After a decade of looking for the “holy grail” of the world of meditation, I finally came across the tantric Buddhist Inner Fire (Tummo, in Tibetan).
What struck me was the system’s exceptional insight into the hidden mechanisms of the subtle body. In just one practice, one could gather all the different ingredients of the subtle body—the nadis (nerve-like tubes), chakras, pranas, and fluid-like kundalini energy—and consciously harness them for the sake of explosive realization of bliss and transcendence. The quick and undeniable outcome convinced me that this is the way in which people could awaken their Buddha consciousness by themselves.
A certain anecdote from the early days of the dissemination of Inner Fire in Tibet makes this point clear. The renowned Milarepa, one of the earliest lineage holders of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, burst into laughter when he heard someone named Gampopa describe to him how he could remain in a meditative state of samadhi for many days without distraction. Unimpressed, Milarepa told Gampopa that his Inner Fire meditation superseded even the most indestructible samadhi meditation. Compared to Inner Fire, he concluded, Gampopa’s samadhi is like trying to get olive oil by squeezing sand. Later, Gampopa would become Milarepa’s famed student.
It is unclear when the Inner Fire method came into being. We know that when the great Buddhist yogi Tilopa (988–1069) transmitted it to his principal student Naropa (1016–1100), this was already after Tilopa himself had been initiated into this practice, and that the system had been classified as the “great highest yoga” tantra. Naropa integrated Inner Fire meditation, or the Yoga of Inner Heat, together with other techniques he received from his master, into what is famously known as the Six Yogas of Naropa. Inner Fire remained the heart of Naropa’s system, even after it was carried over into Tibet by Naropa’s chief student, Marpa. However, since this was an oral tradition of enlightenment, there was no written account of the Six Yogas. Only many generations later, the Tibetan Tsongkhapa the Great (1357–1419)—who was the forefather of the largest school of tantric Buddhism and also the guru of the First Dalai Lama—benefited us by determining to write what would later become the standard guide to the Naropa tradition.
Tsongkhapa’s elaborate descriptions of the path of Naropa’s Yogas is actually so vivid that much of what I know about the practice derives from his books. Relying on his writings and many modern books written by great lamas and researchers on the subject, and also drawing on my direct experience of kundalini and the subtle body, I have developed a modern and non-traditional form of Inner Fire.
You may rightly wonder whether it is wise to practice such a potent meditation, which was wisely kept a secret among Buddhist practitioners for hundreds of years, by yourself at home, based on just written guidelines. The answer is yes and no. My understanding is that one can be introduced to the world of Inner Fire even without specific Buddhist initiations. It is, however, crucial to approach the practice with the utmost reverence, acknowledging its profound mystical purpose, and maintaining pure intentions. Nowadays, Inner Fire has been popularized in New Age culture as a bliss-enhancing breathing technique and as a siddhi-evoking (special power) method for increasing body temperature. This kind of degeneration has also happened to many other sacred teachings and meditations as soon as they have been brought to the West. The best way to study Inner Fire in a non-traditional context would be to learn and practice it directly with an established kundalini expert who knows all the potential pitfalls along the way. On the basis of such learning, one may then continue at home alone.
The experience of the inner fire itself certainly has nothing to do with Buddhism. It is also not a beautiful metaphor or visualization. The fire that we tap into actually exists inside the navel chakra, which is an inexhaustible source of inner heat. In the Inner Fire tradition, the navel chakra is often identified as residing deep inside the body, four fingers’ width below the navel. The idea is to intensify this inner heat through prana (subtle air), visualization, and other methods to such a degree that it rises as a powerful flame throughout the main nerve-like channel of the subtle body. This flame wraps around the chakras, melting the kundalini essences that are stored in the chakras and burning up egoic desires and fears along the way.
The great Lama Yeshe, who was one of the primary proponents of Inner Fire in the West, described the mechanism of Inner Fire as “shooting a rocket along a completely straight path.” This metaphor captures the actual experience: employing four letters of the ancient Indic alphabet, each representing an aspect of kundalini, we are able to tame this explosive inner heat and concentrate it deep within the navel chakra, so that when it is finally released, it is shot directly upwards and through a completely safe and immensely liberating path. The greater the flame, the more kundalini awakens, and with it, indescribable bliss.
As soon as this mighty flame reaches the top of the head, it begins to melt the precious Kundalini energy there, just as snow on a mountaintop is melted by sunlight. This causes the Kundalini energy to quickly descend along the chakras until it encounters once again the cauldron of the navel chakra. Experienced practitioners are able to finally guide all these transformed and refined forces back to the crown chakra. If you are able to travel that far, this final stage of Inner Fire can lead you to a silent illumination, a dissolution of the ego into the pure light of being beyond life and death, which tantric Buddhists call the clear light. This is where your supreme samadhi begins.
What perhaps touches me the most about Inner Fire is that, being a tantric system, it is based on the conviction that we must dare and utilize “low” and gross energies, such as desire and anger, as our raw materials for enlightenment. Instead of bypassing the sexual drives and other passions of our lower chakras, we can redirect these very forces toward the highest realization. Inner Fire shows us how to fearlessly and skillfully ride this wild tiger.