New age fantasies are penetrating the entire western meditative world. I am sick of it. It leads people totally astray. Anyone who works seriously with inner sensing, inner light, or subtle bodily regulation will eventually encounter the same problem: as soon as experience becomes subtle, people start to inflate it with stories. Lights turn into visions, sensations into symbols, regulation into destiny. What begins as phenomenology drifts into fantasy. At the end everyone is missing the point.

Classical Chinese inner alchemy took a very different path. We can call it phenomenological. It is pure.

Despite its reputation in popular culture, Chinese inner alchemy (Neidan) is not a system of imagination, symbolism, or metaphysical storytelling. On the contrary, it is one of the most austere and anti-fantastical contemplative traditions ever developed.

That is precisely why it aligns so well with the Yoga of the Inner Body and the Yoga of the Inner Light we developed in our website and youtube channel!

Experience before explanation: stay with our own experiences!

In classical Neidan texts, inner light is described, but it is never glorified. Light appears when the mind becomes quiet and attention settles inward. It is treated as a by-product of regulation, not as a goal, message, or revelation. Or as an indicator.

Descriptions are sparse and functional. Light is mentioned in the same way warmth, fullness, or stability are mentioned. No mythology is built around it. No identity is derived from it. If light appears, it appears. If it fades, practice continues. It is not linked to chakra’s etc.

This is a crucial difference from New Age approaches, where inner experiences are immediately interpreted, validated, and amplified into personal narratives.

Chinese inner alchemy consistently warns against this tendency. Inner phenomena are not signs of spiritual status. They are signals of changing internal conditions. Just watch. Be a watcher. And be surpriseed what the light can tell you!

The body arising in our field of consciousness, not being a symbol or metaphor

In Neidan, the body is not treated as a symbolic map. It is treated as a functional field of sensation and regulation. The body is placed in oun field of consciousness, breath is allowed to settle, and the system which arises is observed without interference.

This resonates directly with your Yoga of the Inner Body. The emphasis is not on doing techniques correctly, but on allowing the body to reorganise itself in our field of consciousness, including its sometimes sudden movements, only when awareness ‘inhabits it fully’.

When regulation occurs, changes may arise:
– spontaneous adjustments
– subtle movements
– warmth or vibration
– a sense of fullness or coherence

None of these are framed as mystical events. They are treated as natural consequences of non-interference.

New Age systems, by contrast, often turn these same phenomena into symbolic milestones, energy awakenings, or karmic events. Chinese inner alchemy does the opposite: it actively strips experience of narrative excess.

Shunyam Adhibhu