ABSTRACT
This chapter falls into three parts. The first part, called Chikhai Bardo, describes psychic happenings at moment of death. The second part, or Chonyid Bardo, deals with the dream state which supervenes immediately after death, and with what are called ‘karmic illusions’. The third part, or Sidpa Bardo, concerns the onset of the birth instinct and of prenatal events. Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and are therefore psychological. The Chonyid state is one of karmic illusion – that is to say, illusions which result from the psychic residua of previous existences. One often hears and reads about the dangers of yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed kundalini yoga. The transition from the Sidpa state to the Chonyid state is a dangerous reversal of the aims and intentions of the conscious mind. It is a sacrifice of ego's stability and a surrender to extreme uncertainty of what must seem like a chaotic riot of phantasmal forms.
