The Tree of Enlightenment

important Vajrayana teachings. He was a professor at Nalanda
University, where he taught philosophy all day and practiced
Vajrayana all night. He practiced for years and recited thousands
of mantras without success. Finally, he got fed up and threw his
rosary into a latrine. e next night, while Virupa was sleeping,
a vision of Nairatmya, a goddess of insubstantiality, appeared
before him and told him that he had been reciting the mantra of
the wrong deity. e next day Virupa retrieved his rosary from
the latrine and went back to the Vajrayana, reciting and practicing
the meditation on the Goddess Nairatmya. He achieved success
in his practice and left his professorial post, wandering as a
naked yogi throughout India.
ree important things are said of Virupa: he is said to have
stopped the flow of the Ganges River so that he might cross it;
to have drunk wine for three days nonstop in a wine shop; and
to have held the sun immobile in the sky all the while. What
do these feats mean? Stopping the flow of the Ganges means
stopping the river of the afflictions, breaking the cycle of birth
and death. Drinking wine for three days means enjoying the
supreme bliss of emancipation. Holding the sun immobile in
the sky means holding the light of the mind in the sky of omniscience.
In the biographies of Virupa, we have an indication of the
premium that the Vajrayana places on experiential or direct
knowledge. Virupa was a professor at Nalanda University, but
that was not enough. In addition to the knowledge he acquired
through study, he had to acquire direct, immediate knowledge
in order to realize the truth for himself.
e same theme is evident in the biography of Naropa, who
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