Force, Fire and Pain

Some dark woods somwhere to set the mood n’ stuff - 2025

There exists an ancient path, older than most known religions, whispered through generations not by priests or prophets in pristine white robes, but by wanderers in grey, by hermits with unblinking eyes, and by ascetics who sat motionless for days with the sun overhead blistering their very skin. They spoke little. They belonged to no church or temple. They rejected society, fled the bitter sweet call of comfort, and lived at the edges of the known world, often quite literally in places linked with death - Cemeteries, cremation grounds, caves and forests.  

Their aim was not spiritual salvation. No, these people sought transformation.

They weren’t waiting to die to find divinity. They wanted to ignite it in the flesh. They longed to forge Salvation upon their bodies though fire and pain. They were willing to bring death to them.

This tradition wasn’t passed through books, but through initiation, ordeal, and direct communication. It was never mainstream. It was too dangerous, too fringe, too unfiltered for gentle public hands. And those who entered it knew the cost. Their bodies became crucibles. Their minds, no mans land. Their very breath was a tool—not of relaxation, but of awakening something ancient and terrifyingly powerful within them.

What follows here is no myth. It is only truth.

It is documented—obscure, yes, but preserved by lineage, by old scrolls, and by those who lived long enough to pass it to those they deemed worthy.

First, the practitioner had to prepare the body.

But this wasn’t the gentle “detox” you find in today’s blog posts and Instagram stories. This was the violent emptying of every impurity in the system. They swallowed long strips of cloth to scour the stomach (vastra dhauti), poured salted water through one nostril and out the other (neti), and practiced bowel cleansing that required a river and a stick. Vomiting, vomiting again, more vomiting, until the stomach is void and the spasms stop. Clean empty. Until breath could move through the spine like wind passes though the hollow of an old tree. (1)

Why?

Because the body was not just a body. It was a sacred meat machine, one clogged with karma, distraction, sin and decay. Only once purged of filth could it bear what was coming next.

Once emptied, the body was reprogrammed.

These practitioners manipulated breath and energy through techniques that would make most modern people faint, throw up, or seek therapy. One involved holding the breath until the world flickered black—not once, but again and again, until the nervous system stopped panicking and started opening. Forcing the body to succumb to liberation. Force. To Force. Forcefully. These words are important here (2).

They applied bandhas—internal locks—by clenching the root of the spine, sucking the belly up beneath the ribs, and pressing the chin to the chest, forcing the body’s vital energy (prāṇa) to stop leaking outward and instead build pressure like steam in a sealed chamber.

Then came mudrās, psychic seals. Some were symbolic. Others were physically extreme. One required the practitioner to stand on their head and force their heels to press the perinum. Another demanded intense contraction of sexual energy without release, reabsorbing that force upward rather than spilling it outward.

This wasn’t “yoga for stress relief.” 

This was internal alchemy.

All of this effort was aimed at one thing: the awakening of a dornmant power said to lie coiled at the base of the spine.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

They called it the Serpent Power - kundalinī. Coiled like a snake, three and a half times, asleep in the root chakra. Every technique was designed to heat, pressure, and coax this force awake (Echo: Force. To Force. Forcefully) - and then drive it upward, through the central axis of the body), burning through blockages, destroying the ego, and revealing the soul’s true form.

The process wasn’t gentle. There was no symphony of angelic voices when it happened. Some reported intense shaking, visions, even loosing grip on relaity. Not everyone made it through intact, or even alive. But those who did described states of consciousness beyond form, beyond duality, beyond language itself. It reads like drugs and trips, it reads like gods and awakening.

They became, in their words, “liberated while living.” “जीवन्मुक्त” Free from death (3). Free from illusion.

Some adepts were said to halt the aging process. Others developed abilities that modern science would call impossible: warming the body in freezing mountains, slowing the heartbeat to one per minute, surviving for days without food or water, or entering a state of suspended animation that mimicked death itself.

They did not seek these powers. They were side-effects of awakening. These were byproducts of the coiled serpent.

The goal was not siddhis (ancient Indian superpowers), but transframation of the very substance of being. They called it the vajra deha- the diamond body. A state where the body becomes so purified, so aligned with the eternal, it no longer ages, no longer dies. A body forged in fire. Tempered by pain and suffering, obliterated and empty.

This system was never designed for mass adoption. It required solitude, total discipline, and a willingness to face the darkness inside with open eyes. It was a warrior's path, but turned inward. This is not something we should or could work towards in a civilised modern world, not without ending up in a padded cell.

Over time, as empires rose and fell, as religions created rules, hierarchies and sought mass control, this ancient art of force was pushed underground. Misunderstood. Feared. Sometimes banned. At other times, ridiculed.

What remained were fragments. A pose here. A breath there. Tamed and polished for polite society.

The time and society took this system, stripped it of its fire, and it became something tame, something domesticated. Like a tabby cat as compared to a lion.

Something that used to be about forcing liberation, forcing peace, forcing the ego down, and the spiritual gaze upward became poetry. It became about the sun and moon, light and dark, about duality and inner peace found through relaxation. Notions much easier to swallow than a 4-finger-wide 12-finger span of cloth. 

And Its Name?

You know this system. You’ve heard its name.

You’ve probably seen it printed on studio signs, in soft fonts, next to lotus flowers and soy candles and herbal tea.

It’s called Hatha Yoga.