The success of the Tantric tradition is based on an enormous discovery which radically shifted the practice of Yoga into a life-affirming practice. In pre-Tantric sources, liberation from the suffering of embodied existence could only be attained by yogins during the process of death – thought to be the only moment when the fully, liberating power of the AUM syllable, the sonic manifestation of the universal Self, can be discerned by yogins.