Spiritual Awakening: The Result of an Innocent Heart, not a Clever Mind

Like a moth drawn irresistibly to the light, I have been drawn every other Sunday to the Satsangs which are given by the spiritual teacher Mooji and broadcast live over the Internet. An inexplicable fascination finds me sitting at my computer, connecting in. Satsang is the name given to discourses with a spiritual teacher which are meant to accelerate the process of spiritual awakening by burning everything that we are not. Satsang is a fire that burns away those elements in us that prevent us from emerging.

I have been listening to Mooji for a couple of years now and last year I traveled to London where he was giving these Satsangs because I wanted to ask him a question. Something drew me to him. I only intended to attend one hour of the two-hour Satsang, but even though I put my hand up every time he asked if anyone wanted to speak, he didn't pick me. Because I really wanted to ask my question I stayed for the next hour. Finally, when I had almost given up hope, he saw my hand up and beckoned for me to come and sit on the stool that was opposite him.

Mooji

The first thing he said to me was, "I've seen you; you have been trying for a while!" I was so focussed on what I wanted to ask it didn't register that he had seen me trying to be noticed. I find speaking in public challenging and this time was no exception. I bent down to take the mic that was on the ground and then not looking at him so that I could formulate my question clearly, I asked, "How do you share spiritual experiences when they are so subjective?" I asked some more about such experiences and when I finally looked up at him, I noticed that he was gazing at me intently.

He said, "First, discover if there is a YOU there to share."

I knew exactly what he meant He was talking about the difference between the you of the mind and the YOU of no-mind. Words that come from the mind are very different in their tone and impact than words coming from no-mind. Often words from the mind are bound in ego and motivated by a desire for results. Words from no-mind are motiveless, they come from the depths of nothingness.

Mooji also said to me, "Don't shy away from sharing, but don't be in too much of a hurry to share." He continued, "Sometimes the mind wants to share and sometimes the deeper power doesn't want to share and then a subtle choice must be made."

I have often thought back to these words, especially when I feel a strong urge to speak, to resist the pull to speak, while examining which part wants to speak and why. And as the times when I have kept silent while wanting to speak and share have increased, so has the degree of peace and contentment I feel with myself and life also increased. That peace has come from the heart and not the mind, which is why I believe that spiritual awakening is a result of an innocent heart, not a trained mind.

It is so easy to train the mind on the spiritual path. What I saw from watching the last Satsang is that the mind grasps something of the nature of spiritual awakening and plays with it in a different way. Except for one person, everyone who asked Mooji a question was aware that the mind and its thoughts was not who he/she really was and there was an urgency, and in some cases a desperate plea, for Mooji to take away their minds. This is nothing more than the mind becoming chameleon-like to avoid being exposed. The mind trying to become spiritually awakened is like a thief turning detective to catch itself — the thief. A game going nowhere.

The innocent heart produces the spontaneous, profound shift of consciousness that characterizes spiritual awakening. Drop the mind and come into the heart.

Jesus said, "Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." He meant "like little children" in the sense of innocence with a heart filled with wonder, not child in an immature way, but childlike as opposed to childish. Spiritual awakening is through the heart, not through the mind, no matter how clever the mind thinks it is.

Raw Foods and Kundalini

The Kundalini/Raw Foods connection is based on Prana, the natural Life Force substance we need to perfect our beings during our life on Earth. To live, we extract Prana from our environment. The Chinese word for Prana is Chi; the closest English equivalent for this substance is Life Force Energy. If we don't get enough Prana, our bodies begin to degenerate prematurely. Very simply, to reach our potential, our bodies need to ingest only the purest elements — pure food, pure water, pure air.

Diet, not pills, may still be the best bet for brain power

Prana exists in all living elements. Due to social conditioning, however, most people know very little about Prana, Chi, or Life Force Energy, and still less about how to extract it from the environment. Does Prana really exist, you may wonder? Perhaps, you aren't aware that people who were weighed just before dying actually lose about six ounces when weighed again the moment after they die. What accounts for this weight loss? Researchers believe it reflects the loss of our vital Life Force Energy, leaving the body at the instant of death.

Extracting Prana

And, as Einstein proved, Energy, whether it's derived from a light socket or a nuclear reactor, is Matter, and matter is measurable. Our "vibrational essence," our Prana is measurable. In effect, human beings are energy intensive mechanisms; we extract it, we store it, and we use it up. The object is not to squander it uselessly. So how do we extract Prana from our surroundings in its purest form?

Raw Foods contain Prana. So eating Raw Foods is a great way to obtain substantial quantities of it. Why Raw Foods? Raw Foods contain living enzymes and are highly alkaline in content and nature. If, like many in modern life, you can't be 100% raw, you can still consume a mostly alkaline diet. Why doctors don't test for pH levels at the same time the nurse takes your temperature and blood pressure is beyond me? It's the easiest way of determining chemical imbalance, and maintaining overall health. Acid foods lead to a stressful lifestyle; alkaline foods are full of Pranic energy that fight stress.

People Lining up in front of Paula Deen's Savannah, GA Restaurant

Even more Prana exists in pure air. The problem is we lack the correct breathing techniques for extracting it. Diaphragmatic Deep Breathing (DDB) — and its key technique, the backward-flowing method — is an acknowledged alchemical process for distilling Prana from the air we breathe. Unfortunately, information about the backward-flowing method is harder to get than information about Raw Foods. Not only has there been an information blackout, the whole idea of meditation is counter-intuitive. "Sit quietly in a room, contemplating my navel? Fat chance! Especially when all my buddies are at the gym building up their Abs. I don’t care how much it costs; I need to get into the gym!" Sorry, that’s not the way health, or longevity, works.

Kundalini Meditation (GFM) is the most powerful exercise on the planet and the backward-flowing method is its most powerful technique. The goal of the backward-flowing method is the permanent activation of the Kundalini~Life Force. The basis of GFM is the backward-flowing method. Taoists refer to this process as the microcosmic orbit. The guiding intention of these techniques is action through non-action, or less is more. This is also counter-intuitive, that an action based on stillness and deep breathing could actually be more powerful than the strenuous efforts undertaken in the noisy, energy-depleting atmosphere of your local gym.

But even the most powerful mechanisms are vulnerable from within. Yes, you can be well on your way to activating Kundalini, and yet, for lack of proper diet, fall short. Why? Quite simply, you may be slowly poisoning yourself with the wrong foods. It happened to me. Even after I'd activated my Kundalini, I began to have trouble with digestion as I grew older. I wondered why? Why was I constipated? Why did I need supplements and colonics? One day I heard about Raw Foods and instinctively knew it was the answer. Even when I can't eat 100% raw, I'm always alkaline-conscious, making sure I keep a high alkaline pH. When I started eating Raw Foods, it kicked my Kundalini into high gear. I felt light on my feet once again. Raw Foods and Kundalini — perfect partners for distilling Prana!

If you do nothing else, keep tabs on how you use your energy. As The Secret of the Golden Flower reminds us:

"An ancient adept said: ‘Formerly, every school knew this jewel, only fools did not know it wholly.’ If we reflect on this, we see that the ancients attained long life by the help of the seed energy present in their own bodies, and did not lengthen their years by swallowing this or that type of elixir. But the worldly people lost the roots and clung to the treetops."

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.

Kundalini and Occult Powers

I am often asked about Kundalini and occult powers. It's an issue that fits well with western conditioning — the idea that there must be some reward at the end of the rainbow, the notion that one who has fought the good fight deserves an exceptional reward. Post proelium praemium.*

Because it stimulates intensive neuroplastic activity, Kundalini can change the being either permanently or temporarily, depending on the type of awakening. It may awaken certain talents or stimulate creativity; it usually does. It may also bestow certain powers, such as clairvoyance or metanormal cognition. However, to go into it thinking in terms of occult powers, hoping for some reward is self-deception. It's not just counter-productive in a religious sense; it's psychological and social self-deception, too. Don't let Bruce Almighty fantasies distract you.

You don' need no stinkin' occult powers. What comes to you comes out of the being you already are. You can't make yourself more than you are; all you can do is refine what you already are. And that, in and of itself, is a lot. So just because you have a big ego, don't count on Kundalini to improve your standing or your self-image. In fact, it will probably put your whole being in perspective for you — perhaps for the very first time.

If you've been thinking in these terms, read the following:
Sri Ramakrishna on Occult Powers  (Sunday, September 21, 1884)

"Radha had attained mahabhava. There was no desire behind the ecstatic love of the gopis. A true lover does not seek anything from God. He prays only for pure love. He doesn't want any powers or miracles.

"It is very troublesome to possess occult powers. Nangta taught me this by a story. A man who had acquired occult powers was sitting on the seashore when a storm arose. It caused him great discomfort; so he said, 'Let the storm stop.' His words could not remain unfulfilled. At that moment a ship was going full sail before the wind. When the storm ceased abruptly the ship capsized and sank. The passengers perished and the sin of causing their death fell to the man. And because of that sin he lost his occult powers and went to hell.

"Once upon a time a sadhu acquired great occult powers. He was vain about them. But he was a good man and had some austerities to his credit. One day the Lord, disguised as a holy man, came to him and said, 'Revered sir, I have heard that you have great occult powers.' The sadhu received the Lord cordially and offered him a seat. Just then an elephant passed by. The Lord, in the disguise of the holy man, said to the sadhu, 'Revered sir, can you kill this elephant if you like?'

The sadhu said, 'Yes, it is possible.' So saying, he took a pinch of dust, muttered some mantras over it, and threw it at the elephant. The beast struggled awhile in pain and then dropped dead. The Lord said: 'What power you have! You have killed the elephant!' The sadhu laughed. Again the Lord spoke: 'Now can you revive the elephant?' 'That too is possible', replied the sadhu. He threw another pinch of charmed dust at the beast. The elephant writhed about a little and came back to life.

Then the Lord said: 'Wonderful is your power. But may I ask you one thing? You have killed the elephant and you have revived it. But what has that done for you? Do you feel uplifted by it? Has it enabled you to realize God?' Saying this the Lord vanished. "Subtle are the ways of dharma. One cannot realize God if one has even the least trace of desire. A thread cannot pass through the eye of a needle if it has the smallest fibre sticking out.

"Krishna said to Arjuna, 'Friend, if you want to realize Me, you will not succeed if you have even one of the eight occult powers.' This is the truth. Occult power is sure to beget pride, and pride makes one forget God. An egotistic person cannot realize God. Do you know what egotism is like? It is like a high mound, where rain-water cannot collect: the water runs off. Water collects in low land. There seeds sprout and grow into trees. Then the trees bear fruit. "Therefore I say, 'Never think that you alone have true understanding and that others are fools.' One must love all. No one is a stranger. It is Hari alone who dwells in all beings. Nothing exists without Him.""

I'm not saying that Kundalini could never bestow such amazing metanormal powers on an individual. After a massive neuroplastic reengineering of the brain, anything is possible. All I ask those who ask me about occult powers is: "Suppose you acquire such powers, how do you visualize your life with such powers? In what way do they change the way you live, the way you treat others and the way you think about yourself?"

* 'After the battle, the reward.'

Integral Yoga – Every Moment is Prayer

The word Yoga simply means union. The moment of oneness with the absolute. In common parlance currently in vogue, the term has come to represent physical practices, asanas or poses and nothing more. The poses assumed by Yogis to gain control of the body are simply one small aspect of the vast number of spiritual practices called Yoga. The poses are from the branch of Yoga called Hatha Yoga.

Throughout history, humanity has experienced leaps in consciousness through revelation. Whether it is the prophet Moses, Jesus, Buddha or the founders of various other religions, awakening of the kundalini and subsequent ascension of the individual to a state of illumination is accompanied by revelations that then gather a following, become part of religious practices.

Depending on the era of birth, the geography of the individual, his level of education and creative abilities, there are wide variations in the resulting revelations. They all point to the same reality but they are all expressed differently. As mentioned in my previous post, these methods are ours to use as we see fit and the path taken towards self-realization which works for one most likely will not work the same way for anyone else. This needs to be understood before accepting a rigid set of techniques and before proselytizing others.

Tied at Mooring – Tranquil Summer Days

A better approach is to figure out what path best allows you to find inner peace and drop the external mask, the persona that obscures your inner reality for the sake of fitting in with the outside world. Sri Aurobindo, the Indian mystic and Ken Wilber, the modern day mystic whose ideas are the inspiration for the ''Matrix" movies are two proponents of an integral yoga. A collection of practices that address every aspect of the human state and approach the quest for self-realization as an incessant stream to be lived each moment rather than a set of rituals performed at a certain hour.

Classical yoga divides spiritual practices into four kinds of yoga. This classification is exhaustive. Nearly all practices and states of being, and methods of worship fall into one of the four categories, regardless of the religion of the practitioner.

The four paths of Yoga: There are four traditional schools of Yoga, and these are: Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Raja Yoga. While a Yogi or Yogini may focus exclusively on one of these approaches to Yoga, that is quite uncommon. For the vast majority of Yoga practitioners, a blending of the four traditional types of Yoga is most appropriate. One follows his or her own predisposition in balancing these different forms of Yoga:

Jnana Yoga: Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge, wisdom, introspection and contemplation. It involves deep exploration of the nature of our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities.

Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion, emotion, love, compassion, and service to God and others. All actions are done in the context of remembering the Divine.

Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga is the path of action, service to others, mindfulness, and remembering the levels of our being while fulfilling our actions or karma in the world.

Raja Yoga: Raja Yoga is a comprehensive method that emphasizes meditation, while encompassing the whole of Yoga. It directly deals with the encountering and transcending thoughts of the mind.

The most common is the path of devotion, known as bhakti yoga. Praying twice a day, attending mass on Sunday, reciting the Lord's Prayer are all forms of bhakti yoga. This path, of faith, of absolute surrender to the divine is the most common form of worship. This may suffice for the average individual that worships out of a sense of social obligation, but not for the seeker on the path. Praying or meditating for an hour still leaves about 15 waking hours in the day that are not devoted to the quest. It is not just impractical to meditate or pray for hours on end while ignoring worldly duties, it is also unnecessary.

The Rising and the Falling

We need to remember the underlying goal of all this effort. The final stage, commonly called enlightenment, is beyond understanding. One can't aim for it and set course like a ship sails to a port. However, we know that the way to this destination goes through a constant process of awakening the true self and staying awake. Constant mindful awareness to each action, constantly breaking thought patterns that take us away from the here and now. By becoming aware of the mental agitation, by becoming cognizant of the constant unrest within us, we learn to witness it. To separate, for the first time ever, the mental apparatus that thinks, from the true self that is the witness. It is not I that does the thinking. I witness the mind as it creates the thoughts. Each time I step back and witness the mental machinery, it is also a process of detaching oneself from that mental chatter.

Essentially, it is a process of removing conditioned responses and ingrained patterns that have long kept us enslaved. For the first time, we taste true freedom. A freedom from the human robot bound by those repetitive patterns and conditioned responses. A freedom to be spontaneous and "in the moment," seeing, for the first time, the world as it is, without the baggage of preconceived ideas, labels and notions of how the world should be. 

Integral Yoga understands the need to incorporate the different forms of yoga and devote each waking hour to the contemplation, service and realization of oneness with the absolute. Expressed differently, to know that one is a creation of that almighty intelligence, and can never be separate from it, one needs to provide methods that constantly awaken the consciousness from the slumber induced by our mundane "reality."

Motor Highway Fest

A kundalini awakening is simply an automated mechanism that takes over the psyche and goes about cleansing the soul of past conditionings and shows the individual how to proceed on the journey of realizing one's true self and union with the absolute. Some aspects of this process, such as revelation, are governed by the energy and require no assitance from the individual. Others require the ego to co-operate and surrender itself to the greater work being performed, knowing it will be completely dissolved at the end of the process. 

Knowing this, the various forms of yoga and techniques associated with them can be seen as methods of helping the individual see beyond the ego, to align the ego with the path of spiritual progress until it realizes its role as an interface with the outside world and not as the true self. At their most basic, methods of worship inculcate positive patterns into the psyche. A lifetime spent reciting a mantra and activating a state of surrender to the divine molds the brain, creating neuronal pathways that eventually allow the self to see itself clearly.

The best way to remove an ingrained pattern that leads us towards robotic behavior and prolongs the state of ignorance is to replace it with one that causes an upward spiral towards freedom. A pattern of repetitive behavior that eventually removes all patterns and conditioning. This is the true purpose of any method of worship. If a chosen method does not serve that purpose, it should be replaced by another, more effective one or augmented with other methods that achieve this goal.

It may seem like a contradiction in terms to advocate the use of ritual, repetition and conditioning if our final goal is to remove all such shackles, but it is not. It depends on the patterns we choose, how we practice, and why we practice a ritual.

It is important to have control over who programs your mind and what it is being programmed with. If I am doing it myself, aware of the effect of that course of action, I have a better chance of reaching my true self. If I allow friends, social groups, or worse, television commercials and the approval-disapproval control mechanism, high-school popularity contest that is the Facebook "Like" button, I remain stuck in the realm of ego, bound by the senses and the ego's craving for comfort and its tendency to create a false reality favoring a selective image of itself.

In future posts, I intend to write in detail about each path and how almost every action or thought can be a method towards the realization of the absolute.

Self-Remembering and Kundalini

Over the past forty years, I've witnessed the varying effects of Kundalini awakenings on many subjects, including myself. Each experience is unique — from the way Kundalini is triggered to the way the individual lives with it. Usually, the most stable experiences are those triggered by meditation. The ones caused by random events or stimuli are often temporary, and sometimes unstable, in that they come and go, often resulting in uncontrollable emotional shifts, especially at the beginning. However temporary or unstable, all experiences pose challenges to their subjects because of the variety of psychological, spiritual, and emotional states and conditions their subjects find themselves in as a result of a Kundalini awakening.

Train to Transcendence – Rails in the Sky


 
I receive many inquiries from people who think that, once awakened, Kundalini will solve all their problems. This is as unrealistic as it is untrue. Kundalini, in and of itself, changes the being, but does not necessarily hold forth the prospect of a better design for living. Neither as concerns the purpose of life or the ways and means of living it to the fullest.

First of all, what does living life to the fullest mean? Is it a winning formula for material comfort? A means to spiritual transcendence? A life of contemplation and retreat? Is it a catch phrase for feelings of entitlement, that because the subject has activated Kundalini, he or she is suddenly exempt from the stress and strain of everyday existence?

In the aftermath of a Kundalini awakening, everything seems to converge at once. People are known to become extremely sensitive to sensory overloads: loud noises, bright colors, unpleasant smells, which, in turn, trigger emotional distress — anger, fear, and rage.

Yet, although you must come to terms with Kundalini in your own way, most likely, at the beginning, you will not know what to expect, you will not understand the challenges or the various effects of Kundalini. Your first challenge is to become an observer of this newly activated energy in your being, an occupation that takes time and concentration. Your mind will attempt to structure and classify, to understand what's going on, how to benefit from it, and how to control it. First of all, over time you will understand it as well as benefit from it, but you must learn to be an astute observer. Second, you can't control it, so don't try. Accept it.

As you observe the effects of Kundalini on your being, you will spend a lot of time coping with the physical and emotional changes you observe. Meanwhile, life outside your being goes on. At first you may not realize your perspective on material life is changing, that the way you've seen things up to the moment of your Kundalini awakening — your work, your relationships, your feelings, your world view, your priorities, your cosmology — has changed. What used to be important may be less so, and things you never thought about are suddenly foremost in your mind. There is a psychic and emotional restructuring as the Kundalini prepares you for the future, including modifying your DNA. You are likely to experience a number of new impulses, unruly emotions (fear, anger, even rage), notions that you could be doing more, that you should be doing more. Feelings of panic, feelings of being overcome, feelings of being possessed, feelings of being misunderstood or abandoned, feelings of isolation.

Frequently, subjects become lost in trying to elaborate some great cosmological design of existence. That's all well and good.

Meanwhile, life goes on. You realize that not all impulses are meaningful, that no matter how lofty these sentiments may be or how upsetting your emotional highs and lows, you aren't obliged to follow up on them. For reasons of character or personality, it simply may not be possible. In spite of Kundalini, you are who you are.

Master Lü-Tsu said, 'When there is a gradual success in producing the circulation of the light, a man must not give up his ordinary occupation in doing so. The ancients said, When occupations come to us, we must accept them; when things come to us, we must understand them from the ground up.'"
~ The Secret of the Golden Flower — Lu Yen - Richard Wilhelm, Translator

So if you find yourself wanting to heal the sick or run for Congress on an anti-nuclear platform, in spite of the fact that you've never done anything like this before, chalk it up to the over-stimulation Kundalini induces. Take your time; don't act impulsively. I'm not saying that if you have a real proclivity or talent for something new that you shouldn't pursue it, you should.

Don't try to do everything at once. It takes time to come to terms with a Kundalini condition; it takes time to learn to live with Kundalini. So take the time; don't get impatient. One of the secrets of life in the material world is self-control. Because of the on-rushing, all-at-once convergence of new energies, random impulses, and changing perspectives, you may actually become impatient and prone to lose control. Yes, in spite of the tremendous energy flow into your life, you may become impatient with the world and its imperfections.

That's part of living with Kundalini, and at the same time, inhabiting a body. If we didn't inhabit bodies, there would be no need for material attachments, negative emotions, war, greed, pride, fear, pain, etc. However, we live in our bodies with this newly awakened Kundalini energy and the world outside may overwhelm us with its pettiness, its selfishness, its foolishness. SO, how do we manage the situation? How do we cohabit with Kundalini?

That's where self-remembering comes in. Once you learn to practice it, it works alongside the Kundalini not only to temper your frustrations with the world, but also to control yourself in moments of stress and perceived provocation.

There are moments when you become aware not only of what you are doing but also of yourself doing it. You see both ‘I’ and the ‘here’ of ‘I am here’- both the anger and the ‘I’ that is angry. Call this self-remembering if you like."
~ Views From the Real World — G. I. Gurdjieff

How does self-remembering work? In moments of stress or negative emotion, you need to become the silent observer, both an actor in the play of life and an observer who watches how the actor behaves. Gurdjieff called this quality self-remembering; it has since been renamed mindfulness.

Self-remembering brings you back to yourself. What do I mean by "back to yourself?" You've probably heard idiomatic folk sayings like "He was beside himself" or "She was out of her mind." There are many sayings like this that denote an altered state of consciousness, a state in which the subject is so totally caught up in negative emotion, over-excitement, or stress that he/she loses control.

Next time you feel caught up, try this simple technique. Tell yourself: "I am here now. I am [Bill Jones]. I'm standing here in a line at the bank. There's an argument at the counter. I am here in my body. I do not react to what's happening around me; I simply observe. My name is [Bill]. I am observing myself standing here. As I stand here watching myself, I am in my body."

Immediately, you will feel a warming sensation, just by repeating the words: I am here now. I promise you will feel something akin to refocusing a telescope or a camera lens, as you focus from wide to narrow, then from narrow to wide. As you come back to yourself, your focus is both narrow and wide at the same time.

This technique controls impulsiveness. There’s a lot more to it.

If you’d like to try an exercise, there’s one on pg. 86 of The Backward-Flowing Method: The Secret of Life and Death. It consists of exerting control while dreaming — the point being that, if you can control your dreams, how much more control will you be able to exert while awake.

Spiritual Retreats are Like the Ocean...Dip a Toe or Dive Right In

I wasn't supposed to follow this path. I was brought up as a good Catholic girl. Mass every Sunday and regular reminders of how I would be punished by God if I didn't behave. However, in 1988 I discovered Buddhism and for the next nine years I studied the ideas and practices of Buddhism.
 

Brighton Dome, April 2013

In 1996, I decided that it was time to throw away the books and commit myself to some serious practice. India seemed like a good choice as it was where the Buddha became enlightened. Who knows? Some of its magic might rub off on me!

I signed up for a 10-day retreat, Vipassana, or insight meditation, a supervised silent meditation practice. I arrived at the Thai monastery and queued up to register with 200 others. I was curious about the kind of people doing the same thing as me and I noticed they all looked pretty "normal." I can remember seeing some people walking in the grounds looking down at the ground. Why are these people looking down when it is such a beautiful day? I wondered.

Conditions were primitive. Judging by the number of straw mats on the concrete floor, there would be nine of us sharing a dormitory.The  day began at 5:30 am with a mixture of silent sitting, standing and walking meditation. The day ended at 10.30 pm. There were two meals a day, with fruit to eat during the afternoon. The only times the silence was broken was for a one-hour dharma (teachings of the Buddha) talks and two small group sessions. For the first couple of days, the different people on retreat intrigued me. I found myself mentally selecting those I would talk to when the silence was broken and we were allowed to talk.

Many people find one form of meditation easier to do than another and I was no exception. For me, it was the walking meditation that I found easiest, partly because the grounds surrounding the monastery were beautiful, but also because I found the sitting meditations very difficult. On some sittings I thought that the bell to signify the end of the session would never ring. Each meditation session was 45 minutes long. On day six I became aware that I was getting extremely agitated. The silence was beginning to get to me. I tried to fight it, to no avail.

By day eight I really thought I would have a nervous breakdown if I continued. At the end of day eight, I resolved to give up the fight and leave. The moment I made that decision I experienced a deep calm and peace; the moment I stopped fighting with my mind I achieved inner serenity. Surprised and delighted, I decided to stay and finish the retreat. This was a valuable lesson in two ways. First, it taught me how strong the mind is. Second, it taught me that peace comes not by fighting but by surrendering. The strangest thing of all was that after spending so much time waiting for the silence to be broken so that I could speak to other participants that when the silence finally was broken, I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow the words wouldn't come out. I was speechless!

On the spiritual path there are always temptations and tests and mine came on the last day. It came in the form of the idea to continue and do another 10 days. My reasoning was that since I was in this lovely state of calm, another 10 days would be immensely powerful. But I had promised myself that I would do 10 days and I decided not to break it. I will never know what I might have accomplished by staying for another 10 days, but I felt I would have been staying out of a kind of spiritual greed so it was better to be incredibly grateful for what I had been given and move on.

Silence has a powerful spiritually transformational effect. In silence the mind has nowhere to go and it eventually gives up to reveal a hidden state of peace and calm. But it doesn't do this easily. For me, a silent retreat was essential in breaking the hold the mind has over consciousness. Before I did the intensive 10-day silent retreat, I had been on the occasional weekend meditation retreat and had meditated a little every day, but it was subjecting my mind to continual silence, to the point where I became so agitated and distressed, almost to the point of exhaustion, that I finally gave up, inducing a complete shift of consciousness.

Looking back at that retreat: what I went through was a street fight with myself (my mind) and this is what I believe it takes to become spiritually awakened, to get into a street fight with yourself. But who wants to do that?

It Started in Madrid

I had given Caesarian birth to my twin boys six months prior and after several operations I was not recovering. Extremely thin, skin and bones, and very weak, I couldn't get out of bed on my own. No one really knew what was wrong with me apart from exhaustion and anemia. I couldn't eat. Food made me sick. And I was so cold I had layers and layers of blankets over me even though it was over 100 degrees on a sweltering summer Madrid night.

Dream Horses

I knew somewhere inside of me I was probably dying, but I refused to go to the Spanish hospital, figuring I would probably not make it out of there alive. Strangely enough, I didn't care; I was so exhausted I just lay there waiting for something to happen. My husband at the time had been asked to translate from Hebrew to Spanish for a Kabbalist who had come from Israel. He was lecturing on the Kabalah for an international congress of shamans. This was the first event of its kind in Spain. My husband told the Kabbalist I was very sick and he wasn't sure I would make it. The Kabbalist told him, "I will do something for her."

I didn't know anything about their discussion. I lay there shivering and dozing off intermittently. In the middle of the night I was awakened by an extraordinary wave of heat surging through me. I started peeling off the layers of woolen blankets. Feeling warm again, I felt a sense of consciousness that seemed to be coming from somewhere and when I looked in that direction, in my mind's eye I saw the most beautiful light beckoning to me. Shining gold and rainbow with a definite feeling of extraordinary benevolence and peace. I was so weak I was barely aware of the beauty of the light.

Rainy Dog

Yet, in that same instant I was reconciled with life in the complete knowledge that there was something else out there, something tremendously big. Prior to that experience, I was feeling extremely angry towards the Creator or whatever force there was out there as my life felt so difficult. I was struggling with great poverty, difficult conditions, two premature newborn babies. I didn't have the strength to take care of, yet I couldn't abandon them and with all this, my hopes to become a great flamenco dancer were shattered.

The sudden realization within my all cells that there was something incredibly big and powerful out there, so loving and peaceful, the knowledge that we are so much more than our ego persona and its desires was very impactful.

At the time I lived in the center of Madrid, barrio Puerto del Sol, calle Huertas. After that life changing experience, once I recovered a bit and was able to go outside again, the streets of Madrid seemed less dismal and glum, even the drug addicts in the park had their purpose. They were just people living out their lives. And the prostitutes at the corner of the street suddenly had their reason to be there. Even though I lived in the same outward physical reality, I now saw things in a completely different light. Everything had its meaning.

Even though my body was still very weak and it was hard to eat small amounts of food, my spirit was brimming with the incredible energy of trying out life and living it to its fullest. My life took another turn after that, but the knowledge that there was this Help stayed with me.

From that point on, I started recovering and my life and circumstances changed quickly, as if there was now a helping hand.

No 963

We received very generous help from a member of my then husband’s family. He supported us financially and invited us to come live in Los Angeles. He paid for our trip, and our house for a full year to get us started.

I was grateful to get out of Madrid, away from the poverty we were living in. I was glad for the chance at a new life, but the adaptation was difficult. I felt isolated because of the distances and I had a hard time understanding the way people thought.

I started teaching dancing, we were performing and giving concerts and we were able in better circumstances, away from poverty. I was still very fragile and my health was unstable. At the time I had a serious knee injury, so a few years after my arrival in California (CA), I was told by the foremost orthopedist and knee surgeon in CA that I would never dance again. Once again my whole life was shattered. At that time, dancing was my main purpose in life; I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Furthermore, my family depended on my teaching income and our performances.

I had tried many forms of healing modalities with no results. I was now teaching the steps sitting in a chair. I was wondering if I would I ever perform again and how I would make a living in the meantime. I was feeling very heavy, wondering why I had been taken out of one miserable situation only to be placed in another!

I remember staring out of the window one day and speaking to Creator and saying: "I give up. Lead me where you want. If you want me to dance, I will, if not, I won't. Give me something else to do."

Those words were real; I completely gave up at that point and put everything in the hands of Creator. Giving up dancing was the hardest thing for me to do; it was practically impossible to live without dancing. My life had no meaning.

But letting go that day somehow led me to Mexico and onto a new path. A few days later, a friend told me about the doctores. I received a “spiritual operation,” after which, my recovery was complete and I resumed my dance career, paving the way for me to dance on the best stages in the USA. I was dancing — satisfied with my career, the creativity, the music, the traveling and my to two wonderful boys. Yet something was missing...

A few special animals came into my life, and through them I discovered the gift of healing, an ability I probably had always wished for. It developed over years under the always kind and generous yet firm spiritual guidance of the "spirit doctors" with many tests and much questioning on my part, and sometimes miracles.

The miracles came bit-by-bit, but struggling with doubt was something I faced on a daily basis. I worked late into the night, doing long distance healings, at the same time continuing my dance career.

Working with animals became very important for me. The fact that a horse could walk again, gallop again, let alone escape euthanasia, mirrored my own recovery and my return to dancing. Animals getting better, eating again or feeling joy again, became my sole purpose.

Is Kundalini Intelligent?

How Intelligent is Kundalini? It’s smarter than I am. I used to think I was the smart one. That’s because I didn’t understand the concept of the Primal Spirit as a component part of human ontology, even after reading The Secret of the Golden Flower (SGF) that makes the distinction between it (the Primal Spirit) and its polar opposite (the Conscious Spirit). According to the SGF, the Primal Spirit is the formative energy responsible for our embodiment. When the Conscious Spirit activates at birth, it starts recording and processing the endless flow of information taken in by the senses. And from this information it constructs our ego.

Bombarding the Senses

As babies we perceive the world around us and begin to formulate judgments and hypotheses about what we see, hear, and feel. This entity offering me her breast is warm and smells good and the milk it provides tastes good. Later on as we refine our ability to process information, we learn to abstract events and situations: this entity (which I now identify as my mother) loves me, or, heaven forbid, if the experience is unpleasant, if my mother doesn’t provide the comfort and protection I need, we attach negative labels: My mother doesn’t love me. My mother hates me. And the beat goes on, until we are fully conditioned by the world around us, and we have forgotten the energy that created us — the Primal Spirit. The ego wants it that way, wants us to suppress this knowledge, all part of a defense mechanism for survival in "so-called" real world.

At the age of 35, I raised Kundalini. Energy I didn’t know existed started flowing through a neural subsystem in my body. I could feel and observe it. Almost immediately, I realized that this subsystem was the Primal Spirit, the term I’d come across many times during my yearlong study of the SGF — without really understanding what it meant. To me it was devoid of any substantive meaning. But when it booted up inside me, not only did it energize my body, it healed and restored it. And I put two plus two together to make four, then five, then six, then infinity. Yes, the Primal Spirit deals in oneness and infinity.

Two are One in the Infinite

Not only did this energy subsystem heal me, it did so intelligently. Which made me realize it had access to DNA and other evolutionary information about my being.

Of course, the ego doesn’t like this. And given its exposure to years and years of conditioning, it wants you to believe that “smart” starts and ends with It. No other entity is as smart as It is.

After a few months of living with Kundalini, I realized the Primal Spirit knew more about my actual Being than my ego (the Conscious Spirit) ever would. It didn’t take conditioning into consideration; it went about its business with the same determination it used to create my body — fixing its broken parts, reengineering its subsystems. After all the Primal Spirit built my body. It is master contractor, all other systems are subservient. Now, finally recalled to duty after a 35-year dormant period, it picked up where it left off at birth. Back then, the ego didn’t exist. And now that it does, it is incapable of admitting that it is a product of acculturation, conditioning, approval and longing. The ego is a master of denial.

How do I know any of this to be true? Think back to that primordial time in the womb. What is the brain doing during gestation? Is the left brain functioning? Is the right brain intelligent? Does the word intelligence have any meaning during the time in the womb? I surmise that the situation is pretty much like Jill Bolte Taylor’s account of left-right brain interactivity during her stroke:

"On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a pounding pain behind my left eye. And it was the kind of pain, caustic pain, that you get when you bite into ice cream. And it just gripped me and then it released me. Then it just gripped me and then released me. And it was very unusual for me to experience any kind of pain, so I thought OK, I’ll just start my normal routine. So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio glider, which is a full-body exercise machine. And I’m jamming away on this thing, and I’m realizing that my hands looked like primitive claws grasping onto the bar. I thought “that’s very peculiar” and I looked down at my body and I thought, “whoa, I’m a weird-looking thing.” And it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I’m the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I’m witnessing myself having this experience.

"And it was all every peculiar and my headache was just getting worse, so I get off the machine, and I’m walking across my living room floor, and I realize that everything inside of my body has slowed way down. And every step is very rigid and very deliberate. There’s no fluidity to my pace, and there’s this constriction in my area of perceptions so I’m just focused on internal systems. And I’m standing in my bathroom getting ready to step into the shower and I could actually hear the dialog inside of my body. I heard a little voice saying, “OK, you muscles, you gotta contract, you muscles you relax.”

"And I lost my balance and I’m propped up against the wall. And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can’t define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I’m asking myself, “What is wrong with me, what is going on?” And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and — total silence.

"And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there."

The above extract, already cited in Margaret Dempsey’s The Master and his Emissary post, highlights the operational differences between right and left brain functioning, reveals what happens when the left brain (the Conscious Spirit) shuts down and the right Brain (the Primal Spirit) is left alone to cope. Trouble is with the left brain shutting down, there’s not much it can do except to stand ready to merge the individual spirit with the infinite. In the womb, it's different; the left brain is barely operative while the right brain uses the evolutionary energy to create a new being.

Parallel Lines Meet at Infinity

So how does Kundalini manifest intelligence? It doesn’t know addition, it doesn’t memorize phone numbers, or do crossword puzzles. It does, however, know the human body. It does know evolutionary energy. It does know DNA, which it "invented" without having to read a textbook. In fact, text books are only now scratching the surface of what the Primal Spirit "knows."

In my case, it sent out feelers to inventory my body; it received the results, analyzed and interpreted them, then sent back the requisite healing energy to repair the disorder. In my book, that’s intelligence.