Pillars of Kayakalpa
The search for immortality is present in nearly every culture. When we are children and teenagers we feel a sense of invulnerability, but this wanes considerably as the first aches and pains begin to sneak up on us in our twenties and thirties. Maybe a tooth needs replacing, perhaps you spot your first white hair, and years of good and bad emotions may have left their marks as permanent lines on your face. Modern humanity is less prepared for death than it has ever been, and the internet has responded to this by pumping out seemingly endless "fountains of youth" for whoever is willing to pay the ticket. Many oriental teachers have capitalized on this financial opportunity by dramatically or even dangerously simplifying traditional teachings on health, longevity, and full-body rejuvenation("kayakalp"). My hope in this article is to paint a clearer picture of the actual scope of such an endeavor, so that hopeful aspirants might find their feet planted more squarely on firm ground.
“One whose body is afflicted by disease, aging, and discomfort can not even utter the word Dehasiddhi”
— Mahasiddha Nagarjuna
Rejuvenation as a Holistic Process
The first and most prominent misunderstanding on this issue is that the body is a single unit, isolated from all other components of our existence, which can both regenerate or decompose entirely on its own. Advances in neuroscience and hormonal chemistry have already disproven this notion by showing that what we consider to be the material body is entirely interwoven with our mental and emotional reality. When you are sad, your entire body is sad. When you are happy, you entire body is happy. If even a materially-inclined body of science agrees on this point, then how much more so should the mystic? The ancients understood that human beings are a layered and interwoven creature; not the simple impassible dualism of Descartes, but the innervated and inundated reality of Jacob Boehme. Spirit, Mind, Energy, Feeling, and Body; all of it is right here.
Seeing this, we should immediately understand the path to rejuvenation to be total rather than partial. Rejuvenation should and must happen on a mental, emotional, and energetic level either in tandem with or prior to a physical endeavor. This is evident logic, not just arcane metaphysics. If a person is sad, depressed, and suffering from chronic lethargy, the problem exists on multiple levels. Such an individual will be unlikely to comply with an herbal routine, and in many instances unwilling to engage in rudimentary physical practices. In this condition it is impossible to even imagine compliance and absolute dedication to a regimen as strict as those attributed to total rejuvenation and transformation of the body. This person doesn't need an alchemically-powered superbody! If you asked him or her, they would probably be perfectly happy to begin with having the energy necessary to see a single project through to completion, or to finish a conversation without feeling exhausted. The great Mahasiddha Nagarjuna says "One whose body is afflicted by disease, aging, and discomfort can not even utter the word Dehasiddhi (total rejuvenation)." Anyone who imagines a special tincture, an apple-smelling elixir, or an ancient Chinese secret, can return them to their youth without any further effort has bought a lie, and probably an expensive one. Before rejuvenation we must accomplish health, and after health we must accomplish radiant and lasting health. Then, with longevity secure, we can envision other scenarios.
The Three Preliminary Kalpas
So what exactly is Kayakalpa? Many amateur researchers have at least heard the term, maybe even studied it, but not everyone reading this will have encountered the term before. In the alchemical literature of the Siddhas there is a process called Kayakalpa. This term is made of two words in Sanskrit: "Kaya" and "Kalpa." The word "Kaya" means a body or a form, and though it can imply the physical form it is also applied to the subtle bodies of energy and mind. The word "Kalpa" means to measure or order, and can mean an era or aeon of time, a ritual process, or the creating/forging of a substance. In the term Kayakalpa, the word Kalpa can probably be seen as implying all three. As a unit of time, it refers to the natural lifespan of a human being, which a "Kayakalpa process ("Samskara") is meant to help us achieve or go beyond the limit of. As a ritual it can refer to the forty-day process often associated with total rejuvenation, and all the important details and operations which fill that span. As the forging of a material, it can imply the recreation of the body into a newer, younger condition. Taken in its entirety then, the word Kayakalpa comes to mean a ritualistic process which allows us to reach or break through the lifespan of a healthy human being by recreating the body in a new, healthy form.
In contemporary media and business, "Kayakalpa" usually only implies a healing of the physical body for the sake of slowing the aging process and ridding the body of age-related afflictions. The western audience has only caught brief glances of the term in its native environment, usually in the biographies of famously long-lived yogis. What usually doesn't make it across the linguistic divide is that this amazing process is the last in a series of "kalpanas" or re-orderings of the subtle bodies. In order for the Kayakalpa process to have its full intended effect, one must have first achieved the Samadhikalpa, Jnanakalpa, and Pranakalpa.
-The Samadhikalpa is the rectification of consciousness by which our soul embraces its inner divinity and becomes united to the deep wellsprings of energy which enter existence from the realms of pure spirit, beyond form and quality. Without it, the yogi will not have the grace, good fortune, and karmic support necessary to make the thousands of subtle factors involved in rejuvenation align precisely as needed for success. With the karmas of past lives still pulling him into death, breaking the kalpa or assigned term of a human life is impossible. This kalpa is achieved by Raja Yoga, meditation on our supreme nature.
-The Jnanakalpa or "Wisdom Reformation" is the perfect restraint and control of the mind. The psychological elements are in balance and the mind acts as a faithful servant to the will. Temperance has refined the elemental energies of the senses, ensuring that no distortions or perversions will interfere with the rejuvenation process. Additionally, only such a person has the willpower necessary to complete the difficult experiences of the Kayakalpa operation. This kalpa is achieved by meditation on the senses and virtues, by adherence to the essential principles of lifestyle ("Dinachara"), and by the guidance and education of the intellect through scriptural study.
-The Pranakalpa or "Energy Reformation" is achieved when the internal energy centers of the subtle body are cleared and energized, the psycho-sexual energy called the Kundalini flows in its proper channels, and the 72,000 energy channels which carry the energies of the special medicines through the body and into the tissues are open without obstruction. Without these openings the subtle components of the alchemical medicines will not circulate, and therefore their energies will not be available to the body for use in rejuvenation. Some ancient alchemists even propose that to administer the more powerful medicines prior to this condition can be dangerous. This kalpa is achieved by rigorous pranayama, abstention from foods and activities which pollute the subtle energies, and the activation of the inner ecstatic heat called the Kundalini.
With consciousness, mind, and energy all in line with one another, firmly under the control of the yogi, then Kayakalpa can be advanced towards. Even in modern day tests performed by respected medical institutes in India the best results of supposed Kayakalpa procedures always issue from yogis and ascetics, whereas only minor and often subjective results are achieved with the typical person. One will find in the vast majority of historical cases of total rejuvenation in western alchemical literature that the same themes appear as well: the one who finds success is most often of a saintly disposition, pious, living a pure and ascetic lifestyle, engaged wholly in a purifying and exalting Great Work. Young men driven by angst cast off these associations as puritanical, but the wise will see things only in the light of what is helpful and what is not. If the goal were easy to achieve then many would have reached it. Instead, let us not ignore the behaviors of the very few examples of accomplishment that have been passed down to our time.
The Kayakalpa Operation
It will be apparent to anyone who has read the literature or had the good fortune to sit and speak with the oriental alchemists from ancient traditions, that there is no single "true" Kayakalpa process. What one adept achieved by drinking a ruby elixir another reached by finding a mythical vine and subsisting entirely off its sap. Where one yogi consumed alchemically perfected mercury, a Taoist lived for centuries off a special copper powder. Then there are those said to have lived for two or three hundred years merely by an ascetic diet and special breathing exercises, or by suspending their bodies in a meditative hibernation. If such stories have even a twinkling of truth in them we can discern that there must be many paths up the mountain to a long and healthy life.
The method prevalent among the northern yogis, in the least, involves a nearly forty day retreat wherein the prospective yogi is tended to arduously by a learned Ayurvedic Physician ("vaidya"). The yogi remains absolutely still, only occasionally rolling side to side or sitting up as instructed to receive medicines and specially prepared soups. Eventually the yogi faints, and the physician attends to his unconscious body while the deepest levels of rejuvenation take place. Finally, the yogi awakens after a few more days, feeling strange sensations and visible changes, with replenished energy, a silent mind, and a younger looking and feeling body. The entire process requires considerable discipline, the ability to fast for days at a time, the power to enter a Samadhi or suspended meditative state, and it requires that the yogi have already reached a venerable old age. I am not sharing this to help anyone crack any sort of "kayakalpa code," but rather to paint at least a small picture of the discipline required and the difficulty endured. The experience described above, if carried out in its fully classical parameters, would drive most modern people insane.
When learning about Kayakalpa there are stories of those who lived for centuries or millennia, and more modernly accessible successes of visible rejuvenation in old age to live a full and healthy life. To a person afraid of death the fantastical stories of immortality can inspire the hope of evading it entirely. For the yogis who actually practice this science, their aim is merely to live a disease-free life into a ripe old age where they will pass away in meditative peace. The Taoists, pursuing a similar science, hope simply to live long enough to reach true enlightenment in its fullest forms. Tibetans, using a similar knowledge, aim to defeat the diseases that accompany old age so that an aging adept can continue in daily practice and live long enough to benefit more students. Why anyone seeks it is a part of their personal path and outlook, and perhaps there is no wrong or right reason. I hope this article has at least shined a small but meaningful light on this controversial and often misunderstood branch of ancient yogic medicine, and given you a clearer grasp of what it really is.