The Biology of Kundalini

Activating Kundalini begins with biological transformation, using energy cultivation techniques to arouse the body’s hidden potential.

Since kundalini is a biological phenomenon, it needs to draw energy from a biological source in order to accomplish its purpose. That source happens to be sexual energy, the same energy source involved in procreation. How could it be otherwise? The energy used to create life is the same energy used in re-birth. What other source in the human body has the requisite supply of the necessary energy to accomplish a rebirth?
 

Nevertheless, each individual is configured differently which means outcomes do vary, not only on account of anatomical, genetic, and neurological differences, but also because the triggers responsible (meditation, tantra, shaktipat, drugs, etc.) for activating Kundalini vary greatly. Different triggers produce different effects. In fact, the rules that produce a variety of human shapes and sizes in the physical world also govern the multitude of metaphysical effects that kundalini produces.

It is an unpredictable physiological process. For that reason, you need to study the phenomenon before presuming it's appropriate for you at the present time. There’s also a commitment/dedication component. So, is it reasonable to dedicate your time and efforts to an unpredictable process that demands commitment?

Transformation is not a single event, but a stream of energy events, each one a challenge. So much goes into completing the process: inspiration, motivation, discovery, detective work, exercise, meditation — to say nothing of frustration, disappointment, and disinformation. Choosing a viable method is vital. The path is long, hard, and uncertain.

Up till now, there is no one method for shepherding a novice through the entire process that has a one-hundred-percent success rate. However, Golden Flower Meditation worked for me, resulting in a full-fledged, permanent kundalini awakening.

On the flowchart below you will notice two phases, what Ram Dass called the You do it! and It does you! phases. In the first phase, you do all the work. Whether consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or accidentally, you become inspired. Whatever! It’s up to you to find and manage the various elements. Motivation, detective work, decoding, practice are also up to you. It’s only during the last phase that things get really interesting, not that they’re uninteresting beforehand. But there definitely is a transition from the You do it! to It does You! phase.

To put the preceding flowchart in perspective, imagine a similar chart tracing the path of a typical American doctorate level education. The process is long — getting a PhD is a grueling process — but the information is readily available. Want to study chemistry? No problem. Ten thousand college catalogues at your disposal. Get good grades in high school, find a college that suits you and you’re on your way. On the other hand, informing yourself about secret teachings such as kundalini is not as easy. There is no approved curriculum, no regulating body, no accepted practices, no Secret Teachings for Dummies guidebooks. You’re on your own. All you have is your own inspired motivation, some hint that there is something out there — something for you. Beyond that you have no idea what’s in store for you. No idea that the overhaul you are pursuing is really a biological process. Golden Flower Meditation leads to a neuro-biological overhaul.

Through my practice of Golden Flower Meditation, I discovered the remarkable self-healing capabilities of the Kundalini~Life Force. My nervous system was stimulated such that the natural chemical substances of the body were recombined and used both to correct a deformity and also to induce a higher consciousness. After successfully activating the Life Force, this amazing energy source inventoried my entire body, immediately transmitting vital energy throughout the nervous system to the deformed parts of my body. What kinds of conditions are treatable? Any condition caused by damage to nerve endings or circuits.

How does GFM work? Correctly implemented, the active Kundalini triggers a process known as sexual sublimation that distills seminal fluid, or cervical fluid, in the case of a woman, and draws this distilled extract of sexual energy up the spine into the brain. This kicks off autonomic self-healing mechanisms that use the nervous system to revitalize neural related disorders. Normally, GFM has little effect on degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or stroke. However, by practicing GFM and eating more pure raw foods, the body is less likely to degenerate.

What if there were a mechanism in the body capable of revitalizing the brain and the nervous system, of counteracting the ill effects of neurological degeneration? That mechanism exists. It’s known as Kundalini Shakti  — the vital energy responsible for your incarnation. To avail yourself of it in later life for creative and for healing purposes, I practiced Golden Flower Meditation. It’s not the only method, but it is one I found to be permanent, voluntary, safe, repeatable.

At the moment, Kundalini Shakti is in hibernation, waiting for you to activate it. A popular explanation, really a misconception, says that if kundalini is not awakened, it is dormant, completely inactive. If that were true, we’d all be dead. Kundalini has a maintenance aspect, Prana Shakti, which is always functioning. It’s actively at work on you now, maintaining your autonomic functions. The life force has two aspects: Prana Shakti maintains your basic functions such as blood flow, digestion, and breathing; Kundalini Shakti fosters self-healing while opening you to higher consciousness.

The Thing That Really Triggers Kundalini

If there’s ever to be a scientific study of Kundalini, so that Kundalini awakenings can become widespread and verifiable, then the single thing that triggers Kundalini needs to be isolated. Kundalini awakens in a multitude of situations, with a plethora of apparent triggers: drugs, meditation, emotional catastrophe, shaktipat, even the bizarre practice of erotic asphyxiation, but these are merely circumstances, that surround the moment of awakening, they are not the trigger itself. We must look deeper to find the first cause. I think an indication of what the trigger is can be found in two small statuettes, both bronzes, from the Kashmiri and Tibetan traditions. These bronze statues combine two figures, but were made for individual meditation. One is the Tibetan yab-yum image of Vajrasattva, the Diamond Thunderbolt Sceptre seated in upright sexual congress with Vajradhatvisvari, the Diamond Thunderbolt Wisdom. The other is the image of a rampant Kali, again in the upright position, straddling the erect penis of the dead Shiva.

Vajrasattva has huge eyes. They stare out across Vajradhatvisvari’s shoulder on the brink of terror. He’s staring into the void, one foot lifted in a stamping movement as her body climbs his in a zigzag motion like a bolt of lightning. In the other statue, Shiva’s eyes are closed, while Kali’s eyes stare straight ahead into the same terrifying ecstasy. This is the moment when the physical eyes see the complete reality of space/time, of which our visual world forms only a small part.
 

Kali’s Eyes Stare Straight Ahead

Relativity and quantum mechanics both teach that space/time is static. This reality need not be confined to mathematical formulae, or remain a mere scientific concept. It can be experienced bodily, as the statuettes show. If all of time and space is present here and now, it follows logically, and in the most down-to-earth way, that the moment of my death is present here and now. I can look at it, experience it. This is what Vajrasattva and Kali are staring into — the fact of ending. This is what the corpse Shiva has already achieved. So what, then, does his phallus indicate? Surely a dead body is an inert, flaccid thing. On the level of reality where this trigger of Kundalini is found, ending is an action. It’s frightening, but it is something that is done. Ending is not something that’s inflicted on me, even though my body might be in a state of prostrate inertia.

This is not sexual fantasy either. It’s the moment when experience accords most with reality. Our bodies, including our brains, are made up of subatomic particles. Quantum mechanics shows that subatomic particles are not "things," they’re "events." My body is an "event" moving through days and nights that are a matrix of "events." Kali riding Shiva is an "event." Vajradhatvisvari climbing the Thunderbolt Sceptre’s body is an "event." And, as Feynman showed in his space/time maps, every subatomic event is marked by the annihilation of the initial particles and the creation of new ones. Vajrasattva’s eyes and Kali’s eyes are wide and stare-y, on the brink of terror, because consciousness can go down to this depth. The inner eyes can keep open even at this moment of becoming void. This is do-able. It’s more than a verbal concept. Consciousness, at the most fundamental level, is a quantum process. It’s been shown experimentally that the human eye, when it becomes adapted to the dark, can detect a single photon, with its zero mass, and its status as both wave and particle.

A quantum process of consciousness triggers Kundalini, but the question remains, why, then, does Kundalini have such a radical effect on the external, physical body and on the human brain? If the trigger is so subtle, how can what it triggers — Kundalini — be so outwardly powerful?

The universe is held together by four forces: the strong force, the electromagnetic force, the weak force and the gravitational force. The strong force binds atomic nuclei together. The electromagnetic force is the force that holds in balance the process of attraction and repulsion between charged particles, and allows particles to form new combinations. The weak and gravitational forces work on more long-range interactions. Kundalini is experienced as power because Kundalini begins as a flash, a "lightning flash," of the strong force (Vajra also means "Diamond Thunderbolt") at the nucleus of the atom, and then works outwards, or rises, through the more material manifestations of the electromagnetic and weak forces (the body in space and time). This is why the circumstances that surround a Kundalini awakening can seem so confusingly varied. The sexual symbolism of the statues is appropriate, because this lightning flash that triggers Kundalini, is very similar to what can happen at the moment of orgasm, if consciousness strips itself down to nothing, so that orgasm is suspended and something else comes into being.

It is I Who AM the ALL

"It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." ~ Jesus Christ 

"We are all different expressions of one reality, different songs of one singer, different dances of one dancer, different paintings — but the painter is one." ~ Osho

"We live in succession, in division, in parts and particles. Meantime, within man, is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts." ~ The Bhagavad Gita

One of the things I have not been able to convey adequately in my posts so far is the sheer bliss one feels on a daily basis as a result of a kundalini awakening. As I read through my posts I realized that I have made a mention of the agony and pain of the cleansing way too many times without making a mention of what one receives as a result of going through the agony.

As your blockages are removed, you reveal more and more of your true self and your true self is happier, calmer, more at ease being yourself. You grow more and more blissful. This bliss is not a contrived happiness, it is your original state. The misery was contrived and created by the mind. 

The Lone Explorer is Not Alone

A common after effect of the first LSD experiments conducted by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert was that the test subject would become "God intoxicated," completely transformed into a spiritual seeker. Not necessarily someone that wanted to repeat the LSD experience, but someone that longed for the divine experience gained through the use of acid and wanted to get back to THAT. Many of these people later became meditators and Yogis. Alpert himself became the mystic Ram Dass.

Something very similar happened to me as a result of my kundalini experience. During the initial experience and for a year afterwards, I was in divine ecstasy. Literally in heaven. Heaven is the state of absolute union with no ego constraints on the conscious mind, no control mechanisms intruding between the soul and its communion with the higher self. From the day I had my first experience, I became obsessed with spirituality. This experience is so amazingly beautiful that one naturally wants to spend his entire time in this state.

Web of Life

Once experienced, there is no going back to just being your old self again. Two things have happened. You have been introduced to a different reality and know it exists. It's yours for the taking, complete with instruction manuals left behind by others who have been there. We call them holy books.

Prior to my awakening experience, the methods in those books, "do not covet" "do not steal" "do no harm to others" "let go of anger" seemed like formulas for a goody-two-shoes, meek individual. More like a social control mechanism using God as a bogeyman to scare you straight.

After my experience, I saw the books for what they were: codes of conduct the individual could use to focus on the task of attaining THAT and removing the temptations that keep you in the illusory state of everyday existence. It was simple; the awakened ones had provided you with the tools for removing the blindfold.

I just read the wonderful post The Broken Rosary by our newest contributor, Metaphysical MD. I was blown away. A touching and beautiful story and so relevant to the post I was about to write. This is exactly what Bhakti Yoga is all about. To have a longing for the divine and give your heart and soul to the quest. Instead of writing about Bhakti Yoga in a theoritical and clinical way, she has expressed the beauty of surrender and being enveloped by His grace when the boundaries fall apart and the seeker becomes one with THAT. I cannot hope to add anything better to the subject. So I decided to write a totally different post. 

Intersecting Ripples: the Vibrations We Give Off

In his previous post, JJ made a case for separating the experience of kundalini from the experience of the divine and to be objective and scientific about it. While I agree that one needs to be objective and not get carried away by each and every sensation and experience, I also realize that each experience is different. Kundalini experiences come in many flavors but connection to the divine and removal of a blindfold to show you the true nature of existence — as an emanation of that Higher Mind — is definitely one of them. At least in my case, I echoed the same sentiment as Ramakrishna's response when asked, "Have you seen God?" He said to the questioner, the person who later became Vivekananda, "I see him right now, as I see you, only clearer."

One does not "see" God. One realizes that there is nothing but God. He is not a person who looks like Santa Claus with a long flowing white beard. He is not a big shining light. ALL of creation is an emanation of the divine. It is this realization — as clear as day — with no possibility of doubt that is validated by ancient texts, both eastern and western. After that, regardless of whether I am in the state of samadhi or not, I always have an intellectual understanding that everything IS God.

Osho likens it to a fish that has never been out of water and is looking for this mystery substance called water. Until someday he is pulled out by a fisherman, the fish never knew he was swimming in water all along. Now that he is out of it, he realizes he was always in water. It's an analogy that can be applied to the human being that is in a quest for God except that in case of the human being, there is no possibility of being "pulled out of water." You cannot be pulled out of God, because everything that exists is a manifestation of that supreme universal Mind. 

You can be fooled by the senses into believing that you live an individual existence, separate from the rest of the universe. A kundalini awakening, an LSD experience, a near-death experience or shaktipat all act like the fisherman pulling you out of water and give you a glimpse of things as they really are, that Atman and Brahman are the same, one connected continuum, never separated, that you were swimming in the divine ocean all along. Unlike the fish that now knows water because it is outside of it, you glimpse the higher reality because the imaginary boundaries of the mind have fallen away momentarily, showing you that you were never separated from THAT.

Eventually you settle back down into the limited feeling of individuality in the physical body, but now, with a memory of the ecstatic experience, and now you want more of it. This is how one becomes a mystic, a spiritual seeker on the path.

Jesus said "When there are three Gods, they are Gods. When they are two or one, I am with Him." You don't see God, you become One with Him. It is reality we now perceive. It is the separation that was a myth.

Casting Pearls Before Swine

For some reason I have not been able to read and forget the second paragraph of Neven Paar's last post, Spiritual Evolution. It’s hung around in my brain and while I did write a comment to his brilliant post, something more begs to be written. In the second paragraph of his post he writes: “Don't bother explaining yourself. You will be persecuted if you do. People are afraid of things they don't understand and base their judgments on their fears. Instead, don't speak about the light; BE the light. Become the source of light and lead the way. Others won't understand, but they will be intrigued, inspired. They will follow. Become special through your actions and others will be convinced. You can speak of riches all you want, but once you share them with others, only then will they believe you. Only then will they want to have the riches for themselves, too. This is your purpose. This is why you had an awakening. To open the eyes of others so that they too might see the light as you do. Only then will you be fulfilled. You will find the unity which you seek.”

I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the first three sentences because it is true that actions, not words lead the way. Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them.” He didn’t say by their words or what they share. People are afraid of things that they don’t understand and that fear takes many forms — dismissing, rationalizing, faulty logic, strategies the ego uses to prevent the individual who has awakened from recognizing the dream of who they thought they were. Just try saying to someone “You are not who you think you are” and, at least in my case, you will met with some very funny looks. The safest way to navigate through an awakening — until the awakening experience achieves critical mass — is to BE. Gandhi knew this, “BE the change you want to see in the world.” He didn’t say speak about, or share this change. He said BE THE CHANGE.

Where I find myself disagreeing with Neven’s post is in the following three or so sentences: "Become special through your actions and others will be convinced. You can speak of riches all you want but once you share them with others, only then will they believe you. Only then will they want to have the riches for themselves, too."

In my experience, sharing with others doesn’t mean others believed me. I am very careful to limit my sharing to what I have experienced, namely the rising of energy up through my spine on two occasions and the corresponding effects. I will write more about this later in the post.

But the final three sentences beginning, “This is your purpose…” stuck with me. There have been times in life when I have read something and it’s like the words screamed out at me from the page. Reading these last three sentences was like that. I read them and my soul cried YES. At some level I know this. At the same time my ego groaned inwardly as it sensed that, having given up on attempting to touch, move and inspire people with my experience concerning the transformative energy within all of us, I just might now try again. Reading these last three sentences hit at my very core and woke me up from a tranquilized complacency I have been in. A complacency rooted in resignation.

When I found Mahayana Buddhism in 1988, I had no idea that there was anything to be learned from it. I was disillusioned with the Catholic dogma I had been brought up with. It wasn't validated by my own experiences, so I began looking for something more authentic. I loved Buddhism for its own sake, not for anything I might "get" from it. When Buddha said it was possible to become awakened in one lifetime — while not understanding what he meant — I had a childlike faith in the ultimate truth of his words. I was also clear that I didn't want it for myself, but rather for others. This wasn't an an ego projection on my part, but a sincere wish to share so that everyone might be able to access to the riches within themselves.

Buddha

As I set off on my Buddhist spiritual journey, wanting only to share my discoveries with others, I found myself feeling not connected with these same others, in spite of my passionate desire to become involved. The meditation sessions were very difficult. I often felt like quitting, but something kept bringing me back. I was the most reluctant and resistant Buddhist imaginable. Yet I loved the Buddha passionately. I read all the sutras and complicated Abhidarma texts, but the meditation practice — when I was alone with myself — was torture most of the time.

My discomfort with fellow spiritual people stems from feeling uncomfortable with anything that smacks of specialness. Looking back now, I realize I sensed the presence of spiritual egotism without knowing its provenance. I sensed the veiled superiority that many on a spiritual path exude. I wanted to distance myself from it, yet I craved the teachings. It was the teachings and an overwhelming inner pull which kept me in the Buddhist environment for almost 10 years.

Then in 1998 I experienced the first rising of energy up my spine, in a non-Buddhist, non-spiritual setting. Being familiar with mindfulness through meditation, I connected fully to the energy and noticed that it didn't appear to move too far up my spine, but the effects of this experience in the weeks and months following were transformative — physically, mentally and emotionally.

There are so many theories flying around about this energy that it is easy to become lost. I hear so many accounts of energy — often referred to as Kundalini — rising up the spine. And with each account I find myself referring back to my own experience, as this is the only authentic evidence I have. I cannot rely on interpretations of the experience, only on the actual experience, the actual rising of the energy and its corresponding effects.

Because this experience was not accompanied by any great spiritual insights and because I had no idea of this energy existed, I didn't speak about it much. I didn't share with people because I didn't think that it meant anything.

So where is this post going? Back to Neven's words, "Only when you share them with others, will they then believe you." This has not been my experience. I began to speak and share. I was met with either blank looks or avoidance of eye contact. Rapid excuses to leave, to go or do something else. For about a year I shared openly in a blog which I wrote reverently about the physical, mental and spiritual changes I was undergoing using my body as a laboratory. I wrote and shared until eventually I began to be written and shared out. I believe that to have a spiritual awakening that is relatively smooth, it is imperative that there be a desire to share the fruits with others. It comes down to a question and an attitude. The question, "Why do I want this?" The attitude, "I don't want it just for me." These are critical because ultimately we are all one and so not wanting awakening/enlightenment for oneself alone validates the faith that we are all one.

After my second experience with this energy a year later in a spiritual setting when the energy went to my brain and descended to my heart, I experienced deep love and compassion for everything.. Now that my ego has been largely subdued (not totally because it never can be), the drive I had to share, speak to be seen as special has disappeared. In the early weeks and months of awakening, the wish to be recognized as special is there as the ego prepares to defend itself because it recognizes that the awakening experience poses a threat to its survival.

Before reading Neven's post I was the prisoner in Plato's cave allegory who escapes and realizes the unreality that his friends are living in and races back to share with them what he has realized and his friends kill him because they don't understand and don't want to be jolted out of their cozy complacency. The world we live in is much like that. Those of us who are awakened see the unreal world of the unawakened not as inferior, but as unnecessarily limiting. What I have seen thanks to Neven’s post is that I had sold out on what might be possible if I don’t hide out.

And yet just talking and sharing is not enough. The only thing that awakens is experience and until those of us who are awakened can provide this for others all we do is cast pearls before swine. I sometimes watch a YouTube satsang that Mooji gives. I marvel at the frustration of people in the video who sit at his feet. Intuitively they know he is living another reality, but they unable to access it for themselves. With a mixture of story, parable direct confrontation with the ego, Mooji tries very hard to transfer his vision, but without the ability to confer what is known in the East as Shaktipat — direct guru transmission of energy to enable the consciousness to awaken and shift from its identification with the body/mind — he seems unable to make much progress as the same people come to sit at his feet time and time again. This leaves me with the question: Is it worthwhile speaking or sharing when it isn't accompanied by the grace of awakening?

Do I Need a Teacher?

Two of the most common immediate after-effects of a Kundalini awakening — in the form of ideas that pop into your head — are:

• Intense feelings that "I" need to do something that improves the condition of all mankind,
• Overwhelming desire to meet someone in the form of a highly-evolved teacher that knows much more about Kundalini than "I" do.

Both of these usually lead nowhere and here's why: Gopi Krishna had these same feelings after his awakening in India in 1938. He searched the entire country without finding an authentic someone who truly knew more than, or even as much as, he did...and that in India, a country reputed to be at the vanguard of spiritual exploration.

Before the Storm

What he did discover is: it's up to the awakened one to fend for him/herself because he/she can do a much better job of managing the Kundalini energy, once they submit. It's a long haul. It took me about one hundred days to awaken Kundalini via GFM, a time period that pales beside the 50 years I've lived with it.




I made up my mind early on that I would give into the Kundalini energy and find a way to accommodate its every whim. Why? Very simple. I realized it had my best interests at heart. That it could do no wrong. It was out to help me forge an "I" out of the "me", at the same time it rectified certain physiological abnormalities.

For good measure here's the account (excerpted from Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time) of my attempt to gather information about my awakening from Swami Muktananda at the moment of his leaving Paris for the US. This is not an attempt to denigrate his ability to confer Shaktipat; I know many people who he performed it on. Rather it is a parable on finding someone to guide you through. Thankfully the lesson I learned was I would have to become my own best teacher.

I have ventured forth in my newly purchased Quatrelle to witness the departure of Swami Muktananda. I’m not keen on the shotgun approach to finding a teacher, especially a sensation like Muktananda, surrounded, as it were, by layers of handlers who seem little more than glorified bouncers. Anyway, someone told me about him. So I thought—what the hell.

To enter the ashram, I have to stand in line and be screened. Waiting to enter the big room, I overhear his acolytes buzzing about who is going to ride with him in the car to the airport. That is the spiritual concern of the day. More like backroom political maneuvering—jockeying for votes, bargaining for influence.

And the prize? Proximity to the guru during the final trip to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The winners get to ride; the losers get to follow in a motorcade. Dressed in robes of saffron, white and red, they huddle by the door whispering and cajoling, earnestly vying to move up the ladder of distinction.

Attended by still more acolytes who buzz around him, the guru is seated on a platform in the big room. I watch him while the bouncers quiz me. I picture Milarepa alone in his Himalayan cave. Somehow, the two don’t jibe.

I have a vague idea about the questions I want to ask, but when I’m finally admitted to the big room, I see it may be impossible. First, I am one of a large group of people seated on the floor. I may never be recognized to speak because of the on-going ritual. All this makes me impatient, for I am only interested in knowing if the illustrious guru has some answers to my specific condition. The ceremony, trappings and schmoozing make me uncomfortable. I’m sorry that I’ve driven through all that Parisian traffic. And now I have to sit through the chanting, which I guess would have its place if the context didn’t resemble a White House press conference with its hubbub of kibitzers and white noise.

If any present are on a spiritual mission, personal or otherwise, I can’t detect it. It seems more like the worship of a particular personality, whose followers take their status from proximity to the Master.

I am probably missing the true meaning of the chanting, but the shuffling, the ritual mutterings of Muktananda, only underline the general impatience, as if everyone in the room is waiting for the mad scramble to the cars.

I can’t remember if he asks for questions, I just remember my hand being in the air at a particular moment and his pointing at me. The noise level drops to zero as I stammer forth. Can’t remember my exact words, only a paraphrase: “I recently spent one year in isolation, meditating. During this time hidden channels in my body were awakened…and eventually energy streamed into a place…a location in my head…that I can only call the third eye. Now, it continues on its own without my intervention, and my head cracks while it does…”

The Guru interrupts me. His acolytes turn their faces expectantly, as if ready to savor his reaction. My fellow floor sitters turn to stare at me.

“It is not possible. The head does not crack. There are no muscles in the head…” replies Muktananda.

Giggles and titters, as if the crowd were saying, “You don’t know that, stupid? Everyone knows that!”

“Then something is cracking in every room I’ve occupied…”

“It wasn’t your head.”

“It must have been the radiators then,” says someone in the crowd.

More derisive laughter. I’m not so much annoyed by people laughing at me as by the complete refusal to accept the possibility of a head cracking. That’s what growth is all about, from infancy to maturity—the head changing imperceptibly over time.

“That is impossible; the skull cannot crack,” he continues.

“But can it change its shape?”

“That is another matter.”

He whispers to someone behind him in a light green robe. Everybody rises. Question time is over.

In his denial, is he saying that it didn’t happen to him so therefore it couldn’t happen…period? I don’t put any limits on the power inside me. Obviously, once maturity is reached, cracking might be difficult, but not impossible. Being him, I would have wanted to hear more. Being me, I believed he could look at me and see my inner workings, and therefore know I was telling the truth.

So, I am disappointed, but not much. It only reinforces what I’ve learned. I figure I need a few experiences like this to learn to ignore conventional wisdom. In the solitude of St. Jean, as a kind of empirical detective, I learned to keep my mouth shut, perhaps by virtue of having no one to talk to. And now, reintroduced into the world, I am flush with success, like I have accomplished something—even though, in my heart of hearts, I know I haven’t. The road is never ending—for as long as I have the strength to push my body out of bed. It’s the same for the ordinary person as it is for the enlightened.

Good for you, I say to myself while walking into the bistro across the street from the ashram. You got laughed at and you deserved it. Now wake up, continue on your way, and forget conventional wisdom—even from the mouths of the so-called enlightened.