(In the beginning of the original book, upon which the Five Tibetans is based, The Ancient Secrets of the Fountain of Youth (originally written over seventy years ago, by Peter Kelder and also entitled The Eye of Revelation), we can read a series of testimonials where people report: more energy, increase in strength and endurance, gray hair turning back to its original color, vision improvement, arthritis relief, better memory, younger look, weight loss, and more extraordinary rejuvenation. People claim to “look ten years younger,” and to have “never felt better.”
The Five Tibetans: a Description
As described in the text, the Five Tibetans, also known as the Five Rites of Rejuvenation, were brought to the West early in this century, by a retired British army officer, who learned them in a Tibetan lamasery.
The Five Tibetans are a yogic system of highly energizing postures and exercises that originated in the Himalayas. Liberating and enhancing the innate energetic power of the human body and mind, these five exercises take a minimum of daily time and effort but offer remarkable results in the way of increased physical strength and suppleness as well as mental acuity. In addition, these exercises can be a vehicle for enlivening the senses and generating and harnessing energy for the purpose of self- transformation.
Regular practice of these postures relieves muscular tension and nervous stress, improves respiration and digestion, benefits the cardiovascular system, leads to deep relaxation and well-being, and tunes and energizes the chakras.
The Five Tibetans are explained within the context of traditional yoga, providing a foundation for understanding.
Black-and-white photographs and illustrations complement the text and clearly indicate the proper execution of each exercise.
The author, Chris Kilham, author ,
November 21, 1996
The Five Tibetans enhance the flow of kundalini, the primary enlivening force
of the body and mind. Kundalini is the direct link to the creative wellspring of
all existence, and is the force of enlightenment. Practice of The Five Tibetans
promotes health, and just plain makes you feel good. Having diligently worked
with The Five Tibetans daily for almost twenty years, I can say unequivocally
that they are a boon to humanity, and offer benefits far exceeding the time and
energy required to perform them. I encourage you to practice The Five Tibetans,
and I wish you great success and happiness. Bless you all.
About the Author
Christopher Kilham has more than twenty years experience with the practice
and teaching of yoga and is the author of several books, including The Bread
and Circus Whole Food Bible, Kava, Take Charge of Your Health and Inner Power,
In Search of New Age, and the audio Awakening Kundalini for Health Energy
and Consciousness.
As described, one afternoon, Peter Kedler was sitting in a park, reading his newspaper, and engaging conversation with an old man, a retired British Army officer, whom he calls Colonel Bradford, though he admits that it is not his real name. It seems that during his travels to India, some years ago, Colonel Bradford had heard the interesting stories of a group of lamas who had discovered the secret of eternal youth. The lamas lived in monasteries, where the secret had been kept due to their remote location. Colonel Bradford, who had, like many other men, grown old at the age of forty (and was not getting younger since), told Kedler that he intended to go to India and look for this monastery. He asked Kedler to come along, but Kedler refused, wondering shortly after if this was the right decision.
Many years later, Kedler received a letter from Colonel Bradford. The very exciting news were that not only had the Colonel found the fountain of youth, but that he was bringing it back to the USA, two months later. This was about four years after Kedler had last seen the Colonel. When he finally arrived, Kedler could not recognize him. His gray hair had mostly disappeared and he looked decades younger. The Colonel then went on to tell his story.
After many months of wanderings in northern India, the Colonel headed for Tibet. After a long and perilous expedition in the Himalayas, which followed a thorough investigation to find the location of the monastery, the Colonel finally arrived to the land of eternal youth. There, he found a group of lamas, composed of men and women, who didn’t seem to age the same way that Westerners do. They constantly kept their strength and vitality. The secrets to this “fountain of youth” was apparently a set of simple exercises that they performed everyday, along with a frugal existence away from the worries of the modern world. But the most important thing was their understanding of the “chakras”
The lamas explained to Colonel Bradford that the chakras, also called vortexes, are powerful energy centers, that govern the endocrine system of the body, which, in turn, regulates the process of aging. There are 7 vortexes or chakras, and anyone that has studied yoga is familiar with them. In a healthy person, the chakras are “spinning” at a normal speed, permitting the prana, or vital life energy, to flow through the body. What happens is that at some point, one or more of these chakras slows down, and then the flow of prana is inhibited, and that’s when aging starts. So the key to eternal, or at least greatly prolonged youth, is to keep the chakras spinning full spine, and one of the ways to do this is to practice the five Tibetans everyday.
He wrote: “The only
difference between youth and vigor, and old age and poor health is simply the
rate of speed at which the vortexes are spinning. Normalize the rate of speed,
and the old person becomes like new again.”
Putting the Rites into practice
The only thing required for them to
work is: (1) to practice them everyday, (2) to perform 21 repetitions for each
exercise. But before we get into the Rites themselves, there are a few things we
can discuss that will be of interest to you.
Colonel Bradford, who later went on to start the “Himalaya Club,” where he would teach the Rites to others, mainly dealt with old and sick people. Therefore, he recommended a certain progression when starting the five Tibetans.
However, t he colonel was dealing with fairly old and sick folks.
If you find the Rites difficult to perform at first, find a progression that works for you. The goal is to perform 21 repetitions for every Rite, and do the series once or twice a day. One thing that is important to remember is that the Rites work in conjunction with each other. So it is important to do all of them. Performing the five Rites with 21 repetitions each will take you from 10 to 20 minutes.
A good time to practice the Rites is in the morning, after of before taking a shower. You will find that practicing the five Tibetans, in the morning, will make you feel more energetic and fresh during the rest of the day. You will also experience greater mental alertness during your daily activities. It will leave you feel better for the rest of the day, and improve the quality of your sleep.
You will have better results if you practice the Rites slowly without rushing, and if you breath deeply in-between the Rites. It is also critically important to combine breathing with the movement, as I explain in the description of the exercises. There is no point in doing the Rites as fast as possible. However, if you don’t have much time, you could do fewer repetitions. Also, most people have found that doing more than 21 repetitions is not useful. 21 seems to be the magic number, when doing the Rites.
As Barbara Simonsohn suggests in her book (“Die Fünf Tibeter mit Kindern”), it is useful to practice the exercises at the same time everyday, for example in the morning, after a shower, before breakfast, or before the evening meal. This way we get used to the routine, and we implement a new rhythm in our lives. In is also better to practice the exercises on a empty stomach. We can also practice the Rites at the same place everyday, for example in the living room.
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