Preface

Long before White Cloud met Mantak Chia, he wandered the Himalayan Mountains looking for a sage to teach him the high-level practices. He nearly starved to death: there is no food at that altitude in the mountains, only cold air that is ideal for the steaming exercises in the Kan and Li practices.

One day, White Cloud stumbled into a cave where bacteria does not grow and saw a sage in a sitting meditation posture; he was not moving or visibly breathing. White Cloud could not believe his eyes: he prostrated himself, prayed, and showed praise continuously for weeks and months, but nothing happened. The sitting sage did not move. Then finally, the sage—who had been out of his body—opened his eyes. You will never guess what he did next: after seeing White Cloud he closed his eyes and left again.

White Cloud went crazy and prostrated himself, prayed, and showed praise continuously again. Weeks went by and White Cloud was beside himself with nowhere to go and no funds to get there. After another month or so, the meditative sage opened his eyes again. Seeing White Cloud still there, the sage pitied him and decided to teach him the Inner Alchemy system of practices.

Master Mantak Chia first learned of these advanced Inner Alchemy practices from White Cloud over fifty-five years ago while he was a student in Hong Kong, China. Mantak and his schoolboy friends enjoyed reading kung fu comic books, whose characters they idolized. (Master Chia still reads these comic books today.) Like many Chinese boys, Mantak and his friends wanted to be like their illustrated heroes—skilled and powerful.

One day, when the boys were talking about their comic books, they heard about a great Taoist sage who had come down from the Himalayan Mountains in northern China. This sage was forced down from the mountains because of the Cultural Revolution that was happening in China at that time. In an effort to eradicate the old religions, the Chinese army was bombing the areas where Buddhist monasteries and Taoist temples had been built into the mountains for training and higher-level practices. Several thousand monasteries were destroyed and untold numbers of Buddhist monks and Taoist sages were killed during this period.

The Taoist sage White Cloud had been living in one of those Himalayan caves for thirty-three years, but he could no longer maintain his advanced practices because of the bombing around him. He went south to Hong Kong—a British colony at the time—to resume his practices, and his story eventually reached the ears of the high school boys. Mantak and his friends agreed that they would all go across town on the following Tuesday to meet the Taoist sage and find out if he could teach them kung fu like in their comic books. Tuesday arrived, but the only one who showed up was little Mantak, who decided to knock on the door. When the sage appeared at the door, he looked at young Mantak and said, “I am going to teach you the Tao.”

During the next four years, for two to three days each week, the Taoist sage taught young Mantak all of the Internal Alchemy formulas that now comprise the Universal Healing Tao system, which Mantak Chia founded forty years later. Luckily for the Universal Healing Tao students, Master Chia was born in the year of the monkey and can copy anything (monkey see, monkey do). With his Chinese Christian background and Western anatomy training, he also has the ability to research and develop new techniques to perfect the formulas; no doubt the Taoist sage somehow knew that when he first saw him.

Finally, at the end of his senior year of high school and before going back to his home in Bangkok, Thailand, Master Chia said goodbye to his Taoist master. His master smiled and told Mantak that one day he would move to the United States and would start teaching the Tao and its Way. He made Mantak promise to teach the Tao first to the Chinese people in the U.S. for three years before he began to teach the Westerners. When Master Chia moved to New York City nearly twenty years later, in 1976, he fulfilled his promise and taught the Chinese in Chinatown for three years, before he began teaching the Westerners and forming the Universal Healing Tao system.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The first chapter of this book introduces some of the core concepts of the Tao of Immortality, including Kan and Li, the Original Spirit, coupling, and steaming. These notions have all been explored in fine detail in the Kan and Li series published by Destiny Books, and readers are encouraged to return to these books to refresh their understanding:

The Taoist Soul Body, by Mantak Chia (2006)

The Practice of Greater Kan and Li, by Mantak Chia and Andrew Jan (2012)

Greatest Kan and Li, by Mantak Chia and Andrew Jan (2014)

Chapter 1 also includes a breakdown of the UHT meditation practices that are important preludes to Kan and Li practice.

Chapters 2–4 summarize the first level of the Immortal Tao in the Universal Healing Tao system, providing a general introduction to the practices of the Lesser, Greater, and Greatest Kan and Li. Note that this volume presents the Kan and Li practices somewhat differently than the previously published Destiny Books series; think of them as variant methods of achieving the same goal. The variations reflect different approaches to the practices as well as the different perspectives of individual UHT senior instructors. It is beneficial for students to have these variant interpretations so they can find what works best for them.

The fifth chapter of this book is devoted to the Sealing of the Five Senses, which is the first practice of the second level of the Immortal Tao. The formulas reveal the process of conserving the energies normally used in the perception and interpretation of sensory stimuli and refocusing them on spiritual development. The second level of the Immortal Tao teachings concludes with two final practices: Congress of Heaven and Earth and the Reunion of Heaven and Man, which will be explored in future books.

The final chapter of this book defines a few of the practices that are vital for supporting your Inner Alchemy meditations: the power of darkness, the meaning of retreat, and some important dietary considerations.

It is now with pleasure and joy that Master Chia and I share these higher-level Inner Alchemy practices with you for the global transformation of human consciousness, giving us, the practitioners, our own self-realization in the Tao.

YOUR FRIEND IN THE TAO,
WILLIAM U. WEI,
WEI TZU—THE PROFESSOR—MASTER OF NOTHINGNESS
THE MYTH THAT TAKES THE MYSTERY OUT OF MYSTICISM

The Professor and Master Chia first met at Master Chia’s Beginners’ Healing Tao Workshop in Toronto, Canada, November 19, 1984.