A Third Path towards Inner Awakening

1. Introduction: the three Gateways Within leading to the recognition of who you are

For centuries, the inner traditions of yoga have spoken of two subtle gateways into the depths of consciousness: the gateway of light and the gateway of sound.

• The Yoga of the Inner Light (Jyoti Yoga or phosphene-based meditation) directs attention toward the luminous phenomena seen with closed eyes, sparks, fields, mandalas, radiant space, until the practitioner realises the source of light as pure awareness itself.
• Nāda Yoga guides the mind into the realm of inner sound, the subtle hum, ringing, or tonal currents perceived inwardly, until sound and perceiver dissolve into a single field of listening awareness.

Yet, there is a third gateway, less codified but no less ancient: the gateway of pure bodily sensation. This is the Yoga of the Internal Body, in which the practitioner rests in awareness of the body’s subtle internal signals: vibrations, warmth, pulsations, and flows, not as objects to be manipulated, but as direct expressions of consciousness.

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2. Essence of the Practice

The Yoga of the Internal Body begins with a simple premise: the body is not merely an object in awareness, it rises a living field of sensation in our consciousness itself.

When attention turns inward and settles into the body’s felt space, the mind can encounter a richness equal to the inner visions of light or the inner melodies of sound. The sensations are not distractions; they are the texture of consciousness as it manifests in form.

Typical sensations include:

• Fine, tingling vibrations beneath the skin
• Waves of warmth or coolness
• Subtle pulsations or rhythmic currents
• Tingling in feet and hands, or feetsoles and handpalms
• Expansions and contractions without muscular movement
• A sense of the body as light, hollow, or spacious
• Sensations of mocing slowly of extremities nd many more of these phenomena

By resting in these sensations without naming or controlling them, the practitioner allows awareness to saturate the body. Over time, the distinction between “observer” and “observed body” begins to fade.

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3. Relationship to the Other Two Yogas

The Yoga of the Internal Body is not a replacement for the Yoga of Light or Nāda Yoga. Rather, it is their embodied complement.

• In Yoga of the Inner Light, the attention ascends toward the subtle visual field, often centred in the “inner sky” before the mind’s eye.
• In Nāda Yoga, the attention deepens into the subtle auditory field, allowing inner sound to lead consciousness inward.
• In Yoga of the Internal Body, the attention saturates the proprioceptive and interoceptive field, grounding consciousness in the living presence of the body.

Together, these three form a triad of inner perception: Light-Sound-Sensation (haptic and kinesioestatic)

Each is a different facet of the same jewel, each capable of revealing the same essential truth: that the perceiver and the perceived are one.

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4. Why This Yoga Matters Now

In modern times, many spiritual seekers struggle with overactive minds and disconnection from the body. Even seasoned meditators can become absorbed in mental imagery or abstract states without grounding in physical presence.

The Yoga of the Internal Body brings awareness home. By anchoring in sensation:

• It prevents meditation from drifting into mere daydreaming!
• It builds sensitivity to the subtle energy body.
• It reconnects the practitioner with the deep intelligence of the organism.

This yoga also serves as a bridge practice:

• For those who begin with body awareness, it can naturally lead to perceptions of light and sound.
• For those already working with light and sound, it offers a way to integrate those experiences into embodied life.

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5. How the Practice can Work

The method is simple, but subtle:

1. Establishing Stillness
Sit or lie with the spine aligned. Let the breath find its own natural rhythm. Feel the contact with the ground or seat.

2. Entering the Inner Space
Turn your attention inward, not toward thoughts, but toward the felt presence of the body from within. Imagine that you are inhabiting the space behind your skin.

3. Noticing Without Manipulation
Allow sensations to appear: perhaps tingling in the hands, warmth in the chest, a soft hum in the spine. Do not try to enhance them neither search for them. Receive them as they are.

4. Expanding the Field
Let awareness encompass the whole body at once, as if it were a single living space. Let the body arise in your awareness as your breath can rise in your awareness.

5. Dissolving Boundaries
Notice moments when the sense of a solid body gives way to a more fluid, spacious, or luminous presence. Rest there without effort.

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6. The Inner Body as a Gateway to the Infinite

Just as inner light leads to the formless radiance of pure consciousness, and inner sound leads to the silent source of all vibration, the inner body leads to the ground from which all sensations arise. When awareness and sensation are no longer separate, the practitioner rests in an embodied non-duality: there is only being.

From here, the three yogas /Light, Sound, Body/ converge. Light may spontaneously appear within the inner body. Sound may seem to resonate through it. All three reveal themselves as expressions of the same awareness, the same boundless presence.

Based on our experience we created a new body of Sutra’s guiding the seeker to the path within.

The Yoga of the Internal Body: the 24 Sutras for Inner Awareness

1. Within the outline of the body there is another body, unseen by the eyes yet known by direct touch of awareness.

2. This inner body is the field where consciousness expresses itself as warmth, vibration, and flow.

3. To rest in this field without distraction is the essence of the Yoga of the Internal Body.

4. As light is the gateway of the seer, and sound the gateway of the hearer, sensation is the gateway of the one who feels.

5. All three gates lead to the same boundless space and the recognition of the essence of the watcher.

6. Withdraw from outer form and turn inward; let the currents of the inner body reveal themselves.

7. Neither chase sensation nor flee from it; in the witnessing the master resides.

8. Sensations arise like clouds, changing without end; awareness is the clear sky that holds them.

9. Tingling in the hands, warmth in the heart, subtle pulses in the spine, shivers, goosebumps and awe, these are the rivers of prāṇa moving within.

10. Attend to them without naming; in namelessness they deepen, just be in the watching.

11. When awareness fills the entire body at once, the sense of “I” as a separate observer begins to fade.

12. The body then becomes luminous from within, and the light is felt as well as seen.

13. In the same body-space, inner sound may resound; thus the three yogas join.

14. Light, sound, and sensation are the three faces manifesting the same truth.

15. When sensation is pure and unbroken, it becomes a mirror for the infinite.

16. The gross body is a shell; the subtle body is the fragrance; pure awareness is the seed.

17. The yogin of the inner body cultivates stillness until the breath becomes subtle and almost ceases.

18. In that stillness, the eternal breath is felt, neither inhaled nor exhaled.

19. This breath is the life of all beings; to feel it is to know unity.

20. As rivers flow to the ocean, so do all sensations dissolve into the unmoving witness.

21. When sensation and awareness are one, the body is no longer “mine” but the world’s.

22. In this union, the yogin walks as the living body of the earth.

23. Even amidst action, the inner body remains undisturbed; this is mastery.

24. Knowing the inner body is knowing the Self; beyond this, there is nothing more to seek.

The Yoga of the Internal Body: The Complete 24 Sutras with Commentary

1. Within the outline of the body there is another body, unseen by the eyes yet known by direct touch of awareness.
This is the subtle felt body, known in different traditions as prāṇamaya kośa, chi body, or neigong field, accessed not through imagination but by turning attention to the continuous stream of inner sensations, the outer body is the vessel, the inner body is the current of life.

2. This inner body is the field where consciousness expresses itself as warmth, vibration, and flow.
Sensations in the inner body are not merely physiological, they are consciousness in motion, warmth is life force, vibration is the subtle movement of prāṇa, and flow is the intelligence of the body’s inner rivers.

3. To rest in this field without distraction is the essence of the Yoga of the Internal Body.
Practice means staying with inner sensation without drifting into thought or external focus, this resting is alive, not passive, an alert dwelling within.

4. As light is the gateway of the seer, and sound the gateway of the hearer, sensation is the gateway of the one who feels.
Just as the Yoga of the Inner Light turns to phosphenes and the Yoga of Nāda to inner sounds, this yoga turns to the sense of inner touch, completing the triad of human perception, seeing, hearing, feeling.

5. All three gates lead to the same boundless space and the recognition of the essence of the watcher.
Though the entry points differ, the destination is one, the dissolution of the false self into the unbounded awareness that observes without separation.

6. Withdraw from outer form and turn inward, let the currents of the inner body reveal themselves.
The more attention is released from visual, auditory, and external bodily concerns, the clearer the inner sensations become, this withdrawal, pratyāhāra, is not escape but a return to the source.

7. Neither chase sensation nor flee from it, in the witnessing the master resides.
Sensation is neither an enemy nor a goal, the yogin neither clings to pleasurable tingling nor avoids discomfort, all is witnessed as passing weather in the vastness of awareness.

8. Sensations arise like clouds, changing without end, awareness is the clear sky that holds them.
Clouds take many shapes but never stain the sky, likewise sensations pass while awareness remains unchanged, stability is found not in the sensations but in the space that holds them.

9. Tingling in the hands, warmth in the heart, subtle pulses in the spine, shivers, goosebumps and awe, these are the rivers of prāṇa moving within.
This is the living map of the inner body, many traditions describe these signs, Taoists speak of the microcosmic orbit tingles, yogins of spanda, mystics of the sweet fire, these are natural, not to be forced.

10. Attend to them without naming, in namelessness they deepen, just be in the watching.
Naming pulls sensation into the mental realm, nameless awareness lets it reveal its subtler textures, this is the art of non-verbal presence.

11. When awareness fills the entire body at once, the sense of “I” as a separate observer begins to fade.
This whole-body awareness is sometimes called flooding presence, when the inner body is fully felt there is no longer a point from which you observe, only the field itself remains.

12. The body then becomes luminous from within, and the light is felt as well as seen.
In deep union, the inner light, phosphenes, may appear in the same space as inner sensation, and the body becomes radiant, light is no longer just visual, it has a texture, a temperature, a pulse.

13. In the same body-space, inner sound may resound, thus the three yogas join.
When sensation, light, and inner sound appear in the same field, the boundaries between them dissolve, this is the unification of the yogas of light, sound, and sensation.

14. Light, sound, and sensation are the three faces manifesting the same truth.
Though they are experienced through different faculties, they are all waves upon the same ocean of awareness.

15. When sensation is pure and unbroken, it becomes a mirror for the infinite.
In unbroken presence, sensation reflects not the body but the boundless space in which all arises.

16. The gross body is a shell, the subtle body is the fragrance, pure awareness is the seed.
Like a flower, the body has layers, the shell protects, the fragrance spreads, and the seed contains the essence.

17. The yogin of the inner body cultivates stillness until the breath becomes subtle and almost ceases.
In deep practice, physical breath slows and softens, giving way to the more refined current of the inner breath.

18. In that stillness, the eternal breath is felt, neither inhaled nor exhaled.
This is the life-breath, not dependent on lungs, felt as a subtle vibration or pulse throughout the body.

19. This breath is the life of all beings, to feel it is to know unity.
When this breath is recognized, it is the same in oneself and in all living beings, and unity is no longer a concept but a felt truth.

20. As rivers flow to the ocean, so do all sensations dissolve into the unmoving witness.
All currents of sensation, whether intense or subtle, eventually empty into the stillness that does not move.

21. When sensation and awareness are one, the body is no longer “mine” but the world’s.
The sense of ownership fades, and the body is experienced as a node in the vast body of existence.

22. In this union, the yogin walks as the living body of the earth.
Movement and stillness alike are expressions of the same awareness that pervades mountains, rivers, and sky.

23. Even amidst action, the inner body remains undisturbed, this is mastery.
The skill is not to withdraw from life but to maintain unshaken presence in the midst of activity.

24. Knowing the inner body is knowing the Self, beyond this, there is nothing more to seek.
The journey ends where it began, in the recognition that the inner body and pure awareness are not two.

Shunyam Adhibhu