“There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.” (1 Corinthians 15:40)
The aim of many different spiritual traditions is nothing less than immortality itself. The process of becoming immortal is described differently in different traditions, but it is perhaps best described as a process of alchemy — a process of purification and uniting opposites to create a totality, a wholeness. When this process is completed, the alchemist is granted what is known in alchemy as the Golden Body. In Christianity it is called the Resurrection Body, or Celestial Body. It is called the Rainbow Body in Tibetan Buddhism, the Diamond Body in Taoism, the Adamantine Body in Tantra, and the list goes on and on.
This immortal body could only be created by unifying the dualistic opposites in a “Holy Marriage.” Jesus described this unification process in the Gospel of Thomas.
“Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom. They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom]. (Gospel of Thomas, 22)
When all of the opposites of the human body have been united into one, and duality has been transcended, one shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In verse 28 of the Tao Te Ching, the process of uniting the opposites is described very similarly to the passage from the Gospel of Thomas.
Hold your male side with your female side
Hold your bright side with your dull side
Hold your high side with your low side
Then you will be able to hold the whole world
When the opposing forces unite within
there comes a power abundant in its giving
and unerring in its effect
Flowing through everything
It returns one to the First Breath
Guiding everything
It returns one to No Limits
Embracing everything
It returns one to the Uncarved Block
When the block is divided
it becomes something useful
and leaders can rule with just a few pieces
But the Sage holds the Block complete
Holding all things within himself
he preserves the Great Unity
which cannot be ruled or divided.
This Great Unity of the Tao Te Ching is the same as the as the Great Work of Alchemy. Carl Jung called this process, of making ourselves whole, integration.
“Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by integration of the contraries.”
Elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching, in verse 55, we find another striking similarity to the Gospel of Thomas, where Lao Tzu refers to an immortal as being like an infant who is “whole.”
"He who possesses Virtue in abundance is like a newly born infant.
Poisonous insects will not sting him;
Wild beasts will not seize him;
Birds of prey will not attack him.
His bones are soft, his muscles weak, but his grasp is strong.
He has not experienced the union of male and female, but is whole.”
The diagram above is representative of the creation of the Universe. In order for the alchemist to become immortal she has to reverse the flow of the creation of the universe, moving from dualistic division into wholeness, as described in the ancient Chinese classic The Secret of the Golden Flower:
“The work on the circulation of the Light depends entirely on the backward-flowing movement.”
One of the ways the Taoists described this process is in energetic terms. The body has a variety of different types of energy, or chi. The purpose of Chinese Yoga, or Qigong, is the manipulation of these subtle energies to attain vitality, longevity, and immortality. Below you’ll find an instructional video of arguably the most powerful style of Qigong: Primordial Qigong. The aim of Primordial Qigong is to return the subtle energies of yin and yang to their primordial state of Wholeness, the state that existed before the creation of the Universe.
This video is great, but I think it’s best to mute the audio and play your own music.