Higher Consciousness And Kundalini

This is a complicated issue, both the consciousness and the kundalini parts, separate and indivisible.

Pyramid of Consciousness

Just thinking about it got my head spinning, which led to more questions than answers:

• If there's such a state as higher consciousness, does lower consciousness also exist?
• How do higher and lower consciousness relate to each other?
• Is consciousness — higher or lower and all states in-between — relative or absolute?
• Are the various levels of consciousness definable by various manifestations?
• Is Enlightenment the highest state of  consciousness?
• Is Enlightenment an absolute state or is it relative?
• Relative to what?
• How does kundalini affect consciousness?
• What if both relative consciousness and absolute consciousness exist?

So I started a list (don't we in the West always resort to a list?) of what attributes and qualities might constitute higher consciousness.

Manifestations Of Higher Consciousness
1) talents/powers/gifts

sudden acquisition of:

• language
• musical ability
• art/photography abilities
• writing ability
• math ability
• healing ability (oneself or others)
• prescience
• clairvoyance

2) realizations

• oneness
• no death
• a purposeful life
• all violence is self-hate
• part of an energy continuum
• there is a pre-conception design for the body
• renunciation of material objects

3) sensitivities, aversions to

• diet – meat, etc.
• alcohol, cigarettes
• drugs
• electro-magnetic energy
• noise
• harsh sunlight
• prescription medicines

4) states and conditions

• visions
• out of body experiences
• revelations (as opposed to realizations: more micro than macro, for example, the imminent death of a friend)
• invisibility, astral travel

It's a long laundry list of superhuman attributes and abilities. Whether one individual can manifest all of them, I don't know, but I would imagine it's more like a smorgasbord, not one YOU choose from, but one that confers the requisite assortment on you, according to your personality, character, karma, and level of attainment.

So if higher consciousness annointees manifest an assortment of the above, you can imagine the opposite end of the spectrum and the types of attributes the members of the lower consciousness group manifest. I won't elaborate; news blogs and journals are full of examples of the lowest common denominator behavior some human beings are capable of.

Can a person be more or less enlightened or is there nothing in between the state of complete enlightenment and the state of being completely unenlightened, i.e., an individual that spiritual teachers describe as being under the control of dualistic mind/emotion paradigm?

According to Osho, enlightenment does exist, but because of the variance among individuals, people not only come at it from different starting points, they also exhibit different states of attainment, a statement that gives credence to the notion that higher consciousness is relative, not absolute.

I see it as a process. Whether the result is full or partial enlightenment — because we inhabit bodies — there is always work to do. And that's why it is not a battle between information on consciousness and consciousness itself. Labels don’t matter; polemics don’t matter. What matters is how you manage the process on a daily basis.

I can see my process in my mind’s eye. When I look back at my life, a stranger stares back at me. This is not uncommon. In this work, life isn’t a straight line progression; it’s a series of leaps and plateaux. Whether you’re a reformed prisoner or a spiritual seeker, you probably identify with having experienced the unbearable feeling of being lost, followed by wondering if change was possible. That’s the first step. Seeing the person you once were in the rearview mirror and wondering how you were ever that way, I not only look back at one instance of my Being, but at several, shaking my head in wonderment at the various ‘me’s — even some that appeared after kundalini rising. At first, I thought I had achieved something. Like the priest who graduates from the seminary, I was unable to resist the propaganda my ego fed me about being spiritually fast-tracked.

Whether or not I am any nearer to enlightenment now than I was forty years ago, I do not know. Before I activated kundalini, I was a tangle of lost perspectives and jumbled thinking. And yet, back then, even as a preteen, I knew an ultimate being existed in me and that I could self-actualize. My childish consciousness envisaged such a transformation.

As a child, I felt capable of doing things without my knowing I was doing them…as an instrument of consciousness. Sadly, as I grew older, I put these notions or insights away and, for a while, I followed the conditioning of my social surroundings. Later, after much discomfort and failure, I came back to my early insights and thus enabled kundalini. It allowed me to step outside the mind and emotional patterns that had so long controlled me. I felt very close to the insights I’d had as a child. I began to see that even under the influence and control of the ego, I’d had moments of clairvoyance all along, spurred on, I suppose, by what Gopi Krishna called the evolutionary impulse. And I was able to learn from a series of life lessons.

Lesson One: In the hospital at age 21, I had an out-of-body experience. This confirmed that I was more than my physical body.

I can see it in my mind’s eye at any moment: a superior being, physically, mentally, and psychically capable of full consciousness. And when I see this being, I am enveloped in a mindfulness that puts everything into the simplest nonverbal terms. I vibrate at a higher frequency, sure in the realization that this state is attainable by me and by anyone else.

So how do you become enlightened? By putting your life on hold and going after it, sampling one method or following one guru after another? Or by letting it come to you? Does thinking about enlightenment in an intuitive dream state mean it exists?

I wasn’t trying to raise kundalini; in fact, I had never even heard of it. I was only trying to improve my breathing to help me play a wind instrument. Kundalini found me. And once it found me, it started to act on me, first physically, then in other ways, completely overhauling my Being. Kundalini changed my metabolism, my anatomy, my soma, my psyche, my morphology, my emotional states, and my psychic condition. And as time went on, I realized it had a evolutionary purpose: It was trying to perfect me.

Lesson Two: Kundalini has taught me is that humans are perfectable. We can be transformed; we can perfect ourselves. Nevertheless, I see this perfectability as a process and therefore it is relative, not absolute. If it was absolute, it wouldn’t be a process; it would happen all at once. And maybe it does for some, but that is a different story.

Lesson Three: Having activated kundalini, I see reincarnation as an actuality. If that's true, there must exist, subsequent to this present mortality, a kind of firefly of essence that carries the accumulated energy of previous lifetimes to the next incarnation — a spark of consciousness that's never extinguished.

My colleague, Corinne Lebrun, uses a wonderful analogy to compare the attributes of average human consciousness to a piano with three octaves. Once kundalini is awakened, the deficient piano becomes an instrument of eight octaves. It's not possible for the initiate to avail himself of all eight octaves immediately, but at least — unlike in his previous limited state — he now knows those extra octaves exist. Over time, he learns to incorporate the now greater range of his instrument into the symphony of his life. Yes, life is like a symphony:

• 1st movement: Allegro
• 2nd movement: Slow
• 3rd movement: Minuet
• 4th movement: Allegro

It ends up as it starts out, unless those additional octaves are awakened.

Hopefully, some manifestations of higher consciousness fall into his lap, like when a pianist creates an improvisation never before attempted; some demand further practice.

And he ends up with a potpourri of talents, powers, gifts, realizations, sensitivities, conditions heretofore unimaginable, allowing him to attain his predestined level on the pyramid of consciousness.

Holistic Kundalini

 What is Holistic Kundalini? Is it a better way of activating Kundalini? Hardly. There are many ways of activating Kundalini, some better than others — "better," in this instance, defined as tailored to your specific, holistic needs, a method that suits you as opposed to the ones that don't. That's right, not all methods work for all people. Moreover, some people, no matter how much they want it or how hard they try, will never be able to activate Kundalini by any method. That's the Karmic reality.

“One thing has to be remembered about meditation; it is a long journey and there is no shortcut. Anyone who says there is a shortcut is befooling you. It is a long journey because the change is very deep and is achieved after many lives — many lives of routine habits, thinking, desiring. And the mind structure; that you have to drop through meditation. In fact, it is almost impossible — but it happens. A man becoming a meditator is a great responsibility in this world. It is not easy. It cannot be instant. So from the beginning never start expecting too much and then you will never be frustrated. You will always be happy because things will grow very slowly.

"Meditation is not a seasonal flower which within six weeks is there. It is a very, very big tree. It needs time to spread its roots.”
~ OSHO

Stepping Off the Curb in Life

Holistic Kundalini. What is it? It's a term I apply to the all around Kundalini life experience: Seeking a method, Practicing the method, Activating Kundalini, Undergoing the awakening experience, Living with Kundalini, and finally Helping others to understand Kundalini. This may seem pretty mundane. "Oh, I know all about that; I've read about it," some initiates tell me. Yes, I've heard it all: Individuals who have not yet even begun a well-founded practice telling me what it is like after reading about it in books. I don't tell them I've lived with Kundalini for over forty years. What's the use? These novices purporting to be experts already know  more than I do. I'm not being facetious: early on in my practice, I realized I knew nothing.

All the myriad of separate, yet overlapping slices of information available to today's seeker form a gigantic pie. That's the blessing of the New Age. But this overabundance is also its curse. Which slice is for me? Some of this information is good and some of it isn't. I'm not competent to judge the content, only wonder if it's had any vetting or peer review?

Still, I can inform people on what to watch out for and how to set expectations. That's Holistic Kundalini — coming full circle, back to the beginning in order to help others understand the process and the stakes.

So I listen to the chatter of novices and move on. When I see them again years later, they're still turning in circles. Why? Simply and succinctly because they weren't grounded in the first place. They didn't have a goal, and you need one. They didn't have a plan, and you need one of those, too. Why? Because just as Osho says, when you expect too much, you're bound to fail. It's built-in into the process, like a sense of entitlement. I've never known it not to fail, never seen it succeed. Strut into this work with a sense of privilege and overarching confidence and you will end up turning in circles.

From the discussions I've had, most people don't have any idea what I mean when I tell them they need a goal and a plan. Yet, if they were building a house, they'd have one of each. Activating and living with Kundalini are similar undertakings. You must know what you're doing, as well as the why and how of it.

Let's think for a moment about setting goals. How should I approach it, you ask? In the first place the goal shouldn't be all about your ego, as if you were just going to the gym to add some more muscle to impress the opposite sex. You should have something you want to accomplish that can only be accomplished by a change of being, a change of consciousness. What might that be? Gopi Krishna defined that change as, "becoming conscious of consciousness." Think about it and you'll see most people aren't.

In my case, I was looking for a way to reverse the effects of a childhood accident. At the time I wasn't able to clearly formulate it, but it was on my mind, and it eventually came to the fore. All I needed then was a plan and that was delivered to me. It took me a while to recognize it, but I finally did. What plan? To decipher and practice the method of meditation in The Secret of the Golden Flower — Golden Flower Meditation. The book was given to me unexpectedly. After a year of puttering and experimenting, I realized I was supposed to do something with it.

To formulate a plan, you must think about your life. Take inventory. How old are you? Is it reasonable to undertake this work now? Who will support you? Can you work and do it? Why do you want to change your being, your consciousness? For selfish purposes? To heal yourself and others? To overcome addiction? You can't think of a goal, but you know you're supposed to do it?

Does a non-goal, or the absence of a goal, constitute a goal? It could; it's better than doing it to acquire occult powers or to make yourself more attractive. And what about a plan? Once you have a goal, it's easy to work out a plan. Just like building a house, once you know what you want to do, it's easy to work out the plan. You take stock of existing tools and techniques. You examine cost, scheduling, strengths and weaknesses, benefits and inconveniences. You make tests. One approach is going to stand out, appear more suited to your person than the others. It's the same with changing your consciousness. You won't succeed if you wake up one morning telling yourself you're going to raise Kundalini because you want to be Governor of Iowa. The two operate in different spheres. You need compatibility, goals and plans suited to your style of living and to YOU.

You also need to think about living with Kundalini. Let's say you're 20 years old, and you've caught the Kundalini bug, or some other Kundalini-related bug. Let's say you work out goals and plans. And you're successful. So at the age of 20, you're living with a permanently active Kundalini for the rest of your life. Are you prepared for this? What kind of person are you? Introvert? Extrovert? Secretive? Outgoing? Fun-loving? Although Kundalini starts to remake your being and change your consciousness, personality tendencies don't change overnight. In fact, you may take on new tendencies temporarily. Negative emotions, dietary changes, sexual dysfunction. Are you prepared to face these things? It took me a long time to learn to live with Kundalini, to understand what it was doing.

I knew I wanted to write about my experience, but at the beginning I couldn't. It took me thirty years before feeling I was ready. Yet, not one day in those thirty years went by without my thinking about and experiencing the effects of Kundalini. Perhaps, with a little pre-thought, a little discussion, you can do better.

Jnana Yoga – Dropping Illusions and Seeing the Real Self

In doing research for this post I chanced on a beautiful definition of Jnana Yoga on this site:

"Jnana yoga is the yoga of knowledge — not knowledge in the intellectual sense — but the knowledge of Brahman and Atman and the realization of their unity. Where the devotee of God (Bhakti Yogi) follows the promptings of the heart, the jnani uses the powers of the mind to discriminate between the real and the unreal, the permanent and the transitory."

Jnana or Gyana means knowledge. Using the mental apparatus to reason through several levels of ignorance, to seek the true self during moments when the mind lapses into automated and false behavior. Knowing when the senses have allowed the false identity to stray away from a balanced state of self-awareness. It is very easy to get lost in the incessant chatter of thoughts that make you forget your reality and involve you in conversations with itself and in repetitive behavior. In fact, we all wander in this state until we make a focused attempt to reveal the inner self.


The first part of the approach is negative, the process of neti neti - not this, not that. Whatever is unreal — that is, impermanent, imperfect, subject to change — is rejected. The second part is positive: whatever is understood to be perfect, eternal, unchanging — is accepted as real in the highest sense. 

Remove false boundaries and witness the serenity within

Ramana Maharishi used the method of constantly asking himself "Who am I?". Taking a snapshot of the moment and using the question as a means of illuminating the real from the illusory. Nisargadatta Maharaj asserted "I AM," followed by questioning who it was within that said "I AM." Was it the body? No. When a bodypart hurts, I say, "My hand hurts." It is not the real me. The mind is a device that creates thoughts. am I the mind? No. There is an 'I' deeper within that can witness the mind. Not-this, not-that. Over time, one arrives at the true self.

J. Krishnamurti tells an anecdote of the time he was traveling in a car in rural India with a few people who had come to visit him. There was a heated discussion about the nature of awareness, the nature of reality, the conscious mind and perception. Suddenly, the car passed through a herd of goats and the car hit and killed a goat. The occupants of the car were so busy in their discussion about awareness that they were blissfully unaware of this event. The car moved ahead and the people in it kept talking about "being in the moment" and awareness.

This is ironic to the point of being comical, but representative of the vast majority of people. In attempting to understand something intellectually, we miss the chance to live it. If you'd rather spend time talking about awareness when you aren't even aware of the events happening around you, you've missed the point.

Rushing Through Life Unaware of Reality

We must take care not to allow a method to become routine. The important thing is to be able to work on that method with complete awareness. Most of the time, people choose a method and keep following it, assuming that it will work regardless of their level of attention. People recite the same prayers for years and it becomes part of their routine, losing the impact it had years ago when they first started performing the ritual. Most people are reluctant to change their techniques simply because they believe they have invested spiritual capital and it will yield results because of this perseverance. This is wrong on many levels. It lulls the practitioner into believing he is actually moving closer to spiritual progress while deepening his slumber with the mistaken belief that he is on the way to an awakening. Don't be married to the method, be invested in the outcome, the change brought about in your level of consciousness.

Osho called seriousness "a disease of the ego." His discourses contain vast wisdom, conveyed through wonderful jokes and anecdotes. He made spirituality fun and accessible. The path towards spirituality should make you feel like a burden has been lifted, like you are free. Not like you are bound by rigidity and forced to perform a ritual. Any discipline should come from within. As soon as it becomes a chore or is done without awareness, it is better to explore a new method than to continue on a path of drudgery.

The True Self Cannot be Fenced in

An amusing incident Osho recounts about two brothers who came to meet him at a train station, each brother desiring the mystic spend the night at his house and impart some wisdom to his circle of friends. A fight broke out and the stronger, older brother managed to get a hold of the master's luggage and proceeded to load it in his car. The sight of sibling rivalry for the sake of bragging rights at having a guru stay at their place speaks volumes about the decidedly un-spiritual and egotistic nature of the players involved and rivals in absurdity anything Beckett ever wrote. What makes the incident even more comic is that the older brother was in the habit of saying 'OM' before everything he did.

As he picked up the bags, he said OM. When he shoved his brother aside, he said OM. As he loaded the bags in his car he said OM. This was a habit he had inculcated over years. It is a technique used to create awareness of the here and now. Say OM or I AM before each action and you remember the self, the moment, and that every action has the divine within it. Practiced by the older brother, however, it was just a habit. Something so cut off from his actual behavior that it made him a laughingstock for the people watching this little feud.

This is the opposite of Jnana Yoga. This is plowing further into an ignorance that fools the practitioner, but no one else. To realize the contradiction between the actions performed after he said OM and the intent of saying the word — to get closer to the divine within — was the very purpose of saying it in the first place. As awareness increases, you drop stupid behavior. You stop being fooled by the senses. You stop craving, coveting, hankering, fighting for silly things. Each time you say OM, you wake up from the dream and the diversions created by the senses that always demand more and lead to irrational behavior. Constant inquiry into the real self is aided by saying OM or I AM. That is Jnana Yoga.

If the senses manage to fool you into an illusory state of covetousness, a momentary lapse of reason, the OM is meant to bring you back from the precipice, to bring back stillness and balance. You observe the behavior and take a step back. If saying OM becomes just a force of habit, it serves no purpose other than to ridiculize you in front of onlookers.

One definition of Jnana Yoga is that you learn to see yourself from the point of view of the divine. The same reason orthodox Jews cover their head with a Yarmulke. It is meant to be a constant reminder that God is watching. The same purpose as saying OM before each action. A moment to moment awakening, a closer introspection of the self and a constant discovery of not-this, not-that. Bursting the bubble of illusion and bringing you back to the here and now.

Anything Said About the Tao is Not the Real Tao

I had to begin with that title. No other way. It has to be said that the words in this post are not the Tao. It is the slipperiest Teflon philosophy, that is, neither a philosophy, nor a theology. It is the reality underlying all existence. One becomes the Tao. One walks "The Pathless Path," as Osho put it. The path of contradictions and paradoxes.

I have a tattoo of the yin-yang symbol on my forearm. I have been asked by various people, a lot of my Hindu friends and members of my close family, why I chose that symbol. "Why not a nice OM or a Ganesha?" they asked. I explained patiently that this symbol does not belong to a particular philosophy but includes them all and covers the totality of deities, methods of worship and disparate traditions. The non-dual nature of existence is the crux of Hinduism. The practices collectively called Hindu-ism originate from the philosophy known as "Advait Vedanta." Literally, this translates to "Non-dual end of Vedas." The four Vedas are the original sacred texts. The end of the Vedas, or the culmination of the knowledge expressed in these texts is the one, indivisible, "not-two" reality. Dvait means dual. Advait means 'indivisible' or 'not-two'. Atman and Brahman, loosely translated as the soul and the outside universe, are a part of this totality that is one indivisible whole. The almighty absolute consciousness we call God, hides this reality from the localized point of consciousness we call our individual self. This is the veil of illusion called Maya. Once the veil is lifted, one is self-realized and finds that Atman and Brahman were one and the same now and forever. Like the Indian saint Kabir said on his deathbed, "Today the droplet has swallowed the ocean."

The Tao is not a Chinese philosophy that is only relevant to that culture. It is a universal truth of the nature of reality. The play of yin and yang which just happened to be discovered by the great sage Lao Tzu, just as Zen was discovered and codified into practices by Japanese monks and Yoga was discovered by Patanjali. The same interplay of indivisible opposite polarities is expressed as Shiva (yang) and Shakti (yin) in Kashmir Shaivism. The Tao cannot become a theology because theologies believe in addition. Creating vast tomes of knowledge that further occlude the truth and keep the seeker further away from THAT. The Tao is a process of elimination. When one sheds every extraneous layer — all that is not the true self — one arrives at pure, unvarnished truth. That state of being is the Tao. You blend with it, you surrender to it; you don't comprehend it intellectually. Rather you realize that you were always a part of it, never separated from it.

The concept of Dharma, as described in Hinduism, is often mistaken to mean your religion, i.e., the faith that you were born into or the faith you chose later on in life. The true meaning of the word Dharma is the essence of your being. The totality of the individual created by a combination of your genetic makeup and the formative factors that created you. An expression of the divine within that body, unique to that person, never to be repeated again. Swami Vivekananda once said that there are about 400 established faiths in this world, but I long for the day when there are as many faiths in the world as there are people in it. A mix and match of whatever suits your purposes — and some new faiths yet to be created. The methods are merely tools at our disposal, to be used to achieve self-realization as we please. They are not doctrines for creating rigid rules or means of self-flagellation at the altar of the ego.

Over time, however, religions have evolved into social practices. They have become more about mindless rituals, repeated blindly and guarded zealously by those that believe in rigid adherence to "how things are supposed to be." They are interested in making sure they impose "our dharma" on the individual seeking to find "my Dharma." The individuals or groups that are busy making sure no one strays from the "path" are to be avoided at all costs if one wishes to realize his own true essence and attain self-realization. Such imposition has nothing to do with spirituality. This is assimilation into the Borg, to borrow a concept from Saint Roddenberry of the Star Trek canon.

A close friend of mine, one who prides himself on his vast knowledge of all things spiritual, makes it a point to mention, in a dramatic fashion, that the actual Chinese pronunciation of the Tao is Dao, and therein lies the irony. Lao Tzu and other sages take great pains to emphasize that the word Tao (oops... Dao) or any other words that describe the Tao are but fingers pointing at the moon. To mistake the finger for the moon itself is to be caught in the superficial outward appearance of things and never fathom the deeper reality itself. To argue about the name given to something that cannot be captured in names is the worst kind of misunderstanding. It reminds me of the Magritte painting: "This is not a pipe." A picture of a pipe is not the real thing. It cannot be stuffed with tobacco and smoked.

In fact, a man of knowledge cannot grasp the Tao. It is when one drops all knowledge that knowing can occur. All knowledge is stagnant and miles away from the truth the minute it is calcified. Knowing is in the present moment. Awareness is in the now. Knowledge is a barrier in the perception of truth. As one drops knowledge or even the concept that one knows or is supposed to know, one grasps the essence of the Tao. By a process of elimination, one arrives at the truth. "Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality," as Bruce Lee said so eloquently.

So how did I put the Tao into practice? After my kundalini awakening, there were vast amounts of trauma churned up by the energy moving up and down my spine. Thoughts of resentment, shame, guilt, animosity, despair and every other kind of extreme emotion. I had to train the mind to see it all with an objective observer's calm. As a witness watching a river flow. However, this was not easy. Mindful awareness helped, but it was the "middle path" technique that really came to the rescue. With every extreme thought that was generated, it helped me to remind myself to "Accept the ALL."

Accepting the totality and knowing that every point of view is just one side of the coin with an equally valid opposite. Coming to the middle point between the two sides is a most useful practice. This helped me navigate some very stormy seas and allowed the energy to do its job safely. Simplifying all extreme thoughts to a simple duality and then adjusting my consciousness to accept both sides, moving in the direction where I would not have gone in the past helped the mind assimilate my new revelations, adjusting gently to my new reality. It became a habit that comes in handy to this very day, preventing me from being my old self and others from pushing my buttons to create polarized perspectives that they can exploit. Mindful awareness and detachment allow me to avoid all emotional extremes and stay centered in the middle path.

"Sat Chit Anand" the last stage before Samadhi, translates to "Truth Awareness Bliss." When the mind is emptied of all thoughts, concepts, words and labels, reality can be perceived. The original state of bliss achieved when the mind is still. This stillness can be achieved by centering oneself. Allowing things to happen, floating like a leaf on the river that is this being, allowing the droplet to swallow the ocean.

The Journey or the Destination 01

I am wrongly criticized for describing my book, Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time as being a comprehensive breakdown of secrets in The Secret of the Golden Flower (SGF). It is not. That book has now been published as The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Kundalini Meditation Method. The two books work together, covering both aspects of the kundalini process: theory and practice.

I could write a hundred books — to no avail if the reader is only trolling the issue. At some point, discussion is moot. Theory leads nowhere without practice. And that's the problem with the internet, a public forum where off-the-wall and cogent interpretation exist side-by-side, but practical accounts are rare. Nonsense meets sense...and it's up to the reader, should he or she be so inclined, to evaluate the various positions, separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time is a memoir of my journey to self-discovery, during which, after long periods of floundering, I had the good fortune to come across the SGF and its method of meditation and the good sense to practice the meditation, whereby I now understand that:

"Self-realization begins at birth; it is the journey as much as it is the destination."~Araminta Matthews

Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time examines many aspects of the journey and the destination. Should the journey be considered part of the experience — in this case a Kundalini awakening? Does the effort to attain something count in the end result? Should the means enjoy the same weight as the ends? Beyond the fact that the journey is usually a humanizing experience, there's the ultimate question of: What is the destination? Miracles, super powers, bragging rights? Gopi Krishna had this to say:

"A question was asked of Ramana Maharshi, 'Do you see spirits?' He said, 'Yes, in my dreams.' I would like to tell you something which is probably not known in the West, I mean especially to the younger generation. There is not a single mention of miracles in the Upanishads, which are the fountainhead of all metaphysical and spiritual thought in India. There is not a word in favor of miracles in the dialogues of Buddha; in fact he condemns them. Not a word about miracles in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna condemns those who practice meditation to harm others or gain some worldly object for themselves, or in other words miracles. Not a word about miracles in the sayings of Ramakrishna, Raman, Sri Aurobindo, nor Swami Sivananda." 

So if it isn't miracles, we can surmise it isn't bragging rights. So what is it? What is the destination? Gopi Krishna knew what it was, and, thanks to my struggles, so do I. It's greater consciousness, better decisions, better health, longevity, better self-control, knowledge of life and death, a connection with the energy continuum. So does all this come with a Kundalini awakening, the moment it occurs?

No, it takes time. It did for me anyway. For Gopi Krishna, too — if you read his books. And guess what? Some of the fundamentals are acquired along the way, during the journey! Yes, they are. Through focus, through travail, through trial and error. Through getting knocked down and bouncing back up. Through becoming single-minded.

Birds and their Fanciers

So what if I failed to do a line-by-line interpretation of The Secret of the Golden Flower. Not to start with, that is. Why? Because there happens to be a lot of them out there already. From Carl Gustav Jung to Osho. I preferred dealing with the really important secrets in the context of how I discovered they were important and how I ultimately came to practice and master them. Namely, Diaphragmatic Deep Breathing and the Backward Flowing Method. Why take a narrative approach?

Because people identify with the struggle of the journey. If the struggle isn't real — doesn't lead the seeker through a series of dark night of the soul crises — can the process be authentic? Not if it isn't lived in its entirety. Not if it produces a cloying mess that obfuscates the vital elements of the struggle.

There was another reason I took this approach: I wanted to document the difficulties the westerner faces in even getting to the starting point of the self-actualization journey, especially in 1956 when I began my quest. I have Indian and Chinese friends who grew up with meditation and Yoga practices all around them. I never heard these words until I was in my twenties. Even when I did, there was very little information extant. As for Kundalini, I didn't hear the word until after I had activated it.

My journey took me from HS graduation to college to the USMC to college again to work to travel to work, 18 to 35, all before I'd found anything substantial, before I even had a clue that something like Kundalini meditation existed.

And that was just the materialistic aspect of my life; there were many other aspects: relationships, family, health, addictions, pursuits and dreams. Like everyone, I was juggling a whole medley of issues, but unlike most of my friends, not doing a very good job of it. I needed to document the choices I made in getting from a point far behind the starting line to where I ultimately ended up: a Kundalini practitioner and writer. Even today, I still look back and wonder how I got to where I am today. The least I could do was to retrace my steps so that other westerners, be they more or less apt or predisposed than I was, could nevertheless use my odyssey as a roadmap, sometimes for finding a way forward, other times for the choices to avoid.

Awakening Kundalini is akin to a crash landing on an unknown planet. There is no way to be fully prepared, no guidebook. The greatest preparation, in fact, is the ability to improvise.

Imagine crashing a plane in unfamiliar territory. Right away, you have to find food, shelter and repair your equipment with only a limited toolset and a manual written in an unknown language. A rush job with life and death stakes, that kind of desperate mission requires a task-oriented personality. Take stock and get on with it. And don’t neglect intuition; it may save your life.

Enough about theory, already. About idealizing the destination! It never works out like you think it will. There are years of coming to terms with an active Kundalini at work in your body, and you better learn the practical aspects of living with it and not yearn for ecstatic states of bliss.

Hopefully, as living empirical science proliferates in the future, raising Kundalini will become an everyday occurrence. Our race will make the next incremental leap in consciousness. But the method must be safe. Perhaps the spiritual pioneering by disparate groups and individuals currently underway will prepare the groundwork for safe, permanent awakenings. It’s possible to avoid the pitfalls, to mitigate their effects. That's why I concentrate on vital techniques, and why I update the method regularly — as new information comes in.

No, your journey won't be the same as mine. Nor will its outcome. But the more journeys that are documented, the more understanding brought to the endeavor. Especially when you realize that the end isn't only other-worldly, that it's not a question of magical powers. In acquiring the tools for the soul's long journey as it shape-shifts its way through the energy continuum, there's definitely work for more than one person.

Once again Gopi Krishna's farsighted assessment:

"A few more confessions such as Alan Watts’, and a probe directed to the avowals of thousands of human beings who have had the unmistakable experiences of the Kundalini force are perhaps necessary to put open-minded and enterprising men and women of science on the trail of what is the greatest mystery of creation still lying unsolved and even unattended before us."

It's not an either - or. The two go together: The Journey and the Destination: Part 02.