This small book is not a dry scholarly, academic treatment of the topic, but an easy to read exposition in understandable non-technical language of the actual practice of Sadhana, or the Tantric process of transformation. The text is taken from the transcripts of the author’s various seminars and retreats in different European countries presented over the past ten years, especially those connected with the practice of the Buddhist meditation deity Vajrakilaya (Dorje Phurpa) in the Nyingmapa Terma tradition of the New Treasures of Dudjom Rinpoche, and his predecessor in the previous century, Dudjom Lingpa. Dudjom Rinpoche was one of the greatest masters of Tantra and Dzogchen in the Nyingmapa tradition of Tibet in recent times.

In the practice of Sadhana according to the highest class of Tantras, known as Mahayoga in the Nyingmapa tradition, the Sadhaka, or yoga practitioner, transforms oneself in visualization and meditation into the Yidam, or meditation deity, an archetypal form perceived with pure vision, which represents a manifestation of enlightened awareness. By thus mystically identifying oneself with this deity during the course of the meditation practice session, one may thereby come to access within oneself the powers, capacities, and wisdoms associated with that particular form of Buddha enlightenement in manifestation. By transforming oneself into the Yidam and meditating in this state, the potentialities associated with the Yidam that are latent in one’s stream of consciousness may be awakened, whereas ordinarily they are dorment and latent. Awakening into the form of the Yidam, one discovers that the deity finds itself in the sacred symmetrical space of the Mandala, which, during the meditation session, represents a temporary virtual reality, or divine dimension, for the Yidam’s enlightened activities.