Naropa’s central teaching is expressed through what later came to be known as the Six Yogas of Naropa, a set of advanced tantric practices in the Vajrayana tradition. These yogas use body, energy, and mind directly as the path, aiming to transform ordinary consciousness into enlightened awareness. At their heart lies the recognition of the innate luminosity and emptiness of mind, and the possibility of realizing Buddhahood within this very life. Rather than avoiding difficult experiences, these teachings invite practitioners to transform all experiences—including sleep, dreams, death, desire, and strong emotions—into opportunities for realization.

The Six Yogas themselves articulate how this transformation unfolds in practice. Tummo, or inner heat, employs breath and visualization to generate psychic heat and bliss, purifying subtle energies. The illusory body practice cultivates recognition of the dreamlike nature of phenomena, loosening rigid attachment to self and world. Dream yoga extends awareness into the dream state, allowing subconscious patterns to be purified while the mind is less constrained by waking habits. Clear light practice reveals the luminous nature of mind, especially in subtle states such as deep sleep or the process of dying.

The final two yogas address the critical thresholds of death and rebirth. The bardo practice trains awareness in the intermediate state between death and rebirth, so that this liminal phase itself becomes a path rather than a source of confusion. Phowa, or consciousness transference, teaches the deliberate directing of consciousness at the moment of death toward a pure realm. Taken together, these six yogas present a coherent vision: every phase of experience—waking, dreaming, sleeping, dying, and the intervals between—can be harnessed as a direct means to realize the inseparable unity of emptiness and great bliss that is the mind’s true nature.