In Tibet and India alone, more than 160,000 documented accounts exist of individuals who, following years of spiritual discipline, reportedly transform their physical body into a form of pure light or energy.
To attain a "Rainbow Body," a person must liberate their body into light by cultivating only loving thoughts, among other practices. It is believed that, on average, an advanced Buddhist monk reaches this enlightened state every five years. The process is described as extraordinarily potent, with some monks allegedly able to imprint their hand or foot onto a wall weeks before the transformation. According to reports, the body takes roughly seven days to shrink, dissolve into light, and transcend.
In Sufism—also known as Taṣawwuf, often defined as Islamic mysticism, the inward dimension of Islam, or the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam—this state is called "the most sacred body" and "the supra celestial body."
Taoist traditions refer to it as "the diamond body," and those who have achieved it are named "the immortals" and "the cloud walkers."
Yogic schools and Tantric teachings label it "the divine body," while in Kriya yoga it is termed "the body of bliss."
In Vedanta, it is called "the superconductive body," and the ancient Egyptians referred to it as "the luminous body or being" (akh) or the karast.
In the Mithraic liturgy, it was dubbed "the perfect body." The Hermetic Corpus describes it as "the immortal body," while alchemical tradition, as recorded in the Emerald Tablet, calls it "the golden body."
However, this remarkable phenomenon is not limited to ancient times. Recent testimonies exist of Tibetan monks who attained this state after profound purification processes.
For example, ordained Catholic priest Francis Tiso documented the case of Khenpo Achö, a Gelugpa monk from Kham, Tibet, who died in 1998 and reportedly transformed his body into light.
In 2002, Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast proposed a scientific investigation with the Institute of Noetic Sciences to study the Body of Light or Rainbow Body, stating: "If we can establish as an anthropological fact that what is described in the resurrection of Jesus has not only happened to others but is happening today, it would put our view of human potential in a completely different light."
Steindl-Rast subsequently contacted Father Francis Tiso, known for his frequent travels to Tibet, and asked him to investigate this phenomenon.
Father Tiso reported witnessing a rainbow over Khenpo Achö’s house a few days before his death in September 1998, and that numerous rainbows appeared afterward.
Khenpo Achö’s body began changing immediately after his last breath. His skin turned shiny white, and his appearance altered. He was wrapped in a yellow robe, as worn by all Gelug monks. Over the following days, his body shrank. After seven days, no body remained.
The event was thoroughly documented by local press, which provided detailed accounts, and "The Rainbow Body" was featured in the Institute of Noetic Sciences Review 59 (March–May 2002).
Additionally, the rainbow body of Khenpo Achö was referenced by Matthew T. Kapstein in The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Tulku Pema Rigtsal, a Nepalese monk, described Achö’s transformation as follows:
"Recently, on August 29, 1998, at Dome Khamngak in Azi Rong in Tibet, Khenpo Achö, eighty years of age, attained physical dissolution. One day at noon, lying in bed, without having suffered any recent illness, while in the posture of a sleeping lion and reciting the six-syllable mantra, he attained Buddha in the primordial basic matrix of alpha-purity, his heart of clear light reality perfected beyond the intellect. As his body dissolved into light, his wrinkles vanishing, he seemed like an eight-year-old child with a beautiful complexion. After a week had passed, when people came to know of his death, they performed his death puja secretly in order to deceive the authorities, and at that time, rainbows appeared inside and outside, and a pleasant aroma pervaded the place. His body gradually diminished in size, and at the end, he attained Buddha; not even his nails and hair were left behind. It was just like a bird flying from a rock— people nearby have no idea where it might have gone."
Buddhist master H.E. Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche writes of his teacher’s passing into a body of light:
". . . my precious teacher Dzogchen Lama Karma Rinpoche passed away on the 11th of November, 2013. Yesterday I received extraordinary news from my Dharma friends in the holy Dzogchen area of Tibet that the sacred body of my kind teacher Lama Karma has obviously and dramatically shrunk in size. Lama Karma’s body was about 175cm (approx. 5’9”) tall, but two weeks after he passed away, his seated body has now shrunk to about 20cm (approx. 8”), which means his body, including his skeleton, shrank nearly 80%. According to Dzogchen tantra, this kind of miraculous display shows he has attained the Small Rainbow Body, which is a sign that he has attained the supreme accomplishment of Buddha in this very life. Please deeply rejoice in his devoted practice and realization of Dzogchen. In doing so, you accumulate immeasurable merit. If his body continues to shrink and totally disappears, then this miracle will be categorized as Light Body or Atomless Body. I will describe these various miraculous results of Dzogchen practice later in this message."
