Next-level yoga: the secrets of Tibetan yoga explained, from tantric sex to redirecting dreams
- Forget your downward facing dog, Ian Baker’s book goes deep – explaining how yoga can change the course of a dream, and transfer consciousness as you die
- Baker, who has studied yoga for decades, hasn’t written a how-to manual, but rather a rare explanation of the six processes of Tibetan yoga
Could you spend a month alone in a cave? That was the challenge put to Ian Baker.
The American first visited Nepal as a 19-year-old undergraduate in 1977, fascinated with the mountains, Buddhist art and meditation. After completing a masters in literature and anthropology at Oxford University, he moved to Nepal to work for the School for International Training in Kathmandu – and to learn about yogic practices outside monasteries.
“I went looking for a teacher. I wasn’t going to become a monk in this life, but I wanted to understand the essence of the practice. The teacher said, ‘Can you spend a month alone? Come back when you have a month free and spend it in a cave’,” says Baker.
He did just that. In his early 20s, he went deep into the Himalayas and spent a month alone. Happy with his commitment, the teacher, Chatral Sangye Dorje, took him on as a student.
“It was a very personal immersion, which led to experiences, which led to an academic interest. The non-monastic yogic tradition fascinated me – that done in caves and forests, often in solitary retreat or with a partner,” says Baker, whose latest book, Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices, was published in June.