Tummo a Tibetan Kagyu lineage practice could be applied in areas
with extreme cold climates, such as Russia, to prevent and treat
heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia and influenza if
developed, Rinad Minvaleyev, a physiologist, mathematician and the
team’s senior researcher, said.
“In fact, Tum-Mo is about the human being’s adaptation to low
temperatures where thermo-dynamic functioning of a human liver is
activated to further regulate the heating process,” said
Minvaleyev, referring to a mathematical formula he co-established
last year.
Irina Arkhipova, a yoga specialist, who was head of the mission and
architect of St. Petersburg’s Search for Lost Knowledge Program,
which holds annual mountaineering events aimed at promoting medical
science, said that although “there were considerable breakthroughs
in our mission, it would be immature to reveal the exact outcomes
with accuracy, pending the ongoing laboratory examinations.”
The team paid visits to Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in search of
Tum-Mo’s medical secrets, currently on the verge of being lost to
posterity because “the last lama who practiced Tum-Mo in that part
of the Himalayan Mountains died last year,” leaving scant oral
traces of the ancient tradition, Arkhipova said.
However, after visits to about 40 monasteries, monks showed
Arkhipova’s team a route across the Kully Gorge, reputed for its
unpredictably harsh weather, to the top of the Rotang ridge, one of
the rare spots where until recently Tum-Mo was practiced.
However the team did not reach the Rotang because of snow in the
middle of the Kully Gorge, blocking the way.
“We resorted to practicing yoga on the ice surfaces beneath the
waterfalls in the Rotang Valley, and everything was fantastic even
for those who were on such a mission for the first time,” she
said