GOPI KRISHNA THE LAST INTERVIEW by Tom Zatar Kay

A Conversation about Higher Consciousness and the Evolution of the Human Brain

NEW GOPI KRISHNA FIRST TIME ON INTERNET

In the Fall of 1978, Pandit Gopi Krishna traveled from Kashmir, India to the United States and stayed at the Stamford, Connecticut home of Gene Kieffer, President of the Kundalini Research Foundation. Visitors traveled from all over the country to meet with the Pandit during his three trips to the United States between 1978 and 1983.

What follows is a transcription of a 1978 audio recording made by one visitor by the name of Tom Kay. The recording was set aside and discovered thirty-five years later.

The Pandit’s message is as urgent now as it was then, for science to confirm that the human brain is hardwired for Superconsciousness and thereby avert the overhanging threat of nuclear war resulting from over-reliance on materialistic ways of life. It is the Divine Plan for humankind, according to Gopi Krishna, that science is approaching the realm of religion, as the key moral principles of the world’s great spiritual teachings will be verified by science to be the evolutionary laws governing humanity’s rise to Superconsciousness.

During the question and answer session, an assistant helps clarify and relay questions from the room to the Pandit. Margaret Kobelt, a long-time supporter of the Pandit who accompanied him on his world travels, is present for this conversation and is heard at times helping the assistant to clarify and relay the questions.

Transcribed in 2013 by Karen Jones, ardent supporter of the Pandit’s mission since 1978.

The Pandit is already speaking as the recording begins.

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Gopi Krishna:

What is man here for? That will then explain what diet he should eat. If we do not know what for he is here, what is the purpose of this life, how can we decide our past judgment on his food or actions or sleep or waking? First we should know, if he’s an animal, then the question is different. If he’s an angel, then the question is different. If he, as an animal, is now proceeding towards an angelic condition, then the question is different. So before discussing superfluities, it is best first to discuss the fundamentals.

I will explain this. We take to meditation, why? I would like to know an answer to this question. You see, there is so much thirst for meditation all over India, Europe, America; thousands, hundreds of thousands of people like to meditate. Why? This will solve, also answer, your question. They are all interrelated. Why do we want to meditate? Why do we want to practice Yoga or Zen or any other metaphysical discipline? I would like to have an answer to that. (sounds of laughter in the room)

I do not take any disciples. I do not preach any philosophy. I do not preach any sect, because I believe that the human race has reached a state of progress where it should know what is the purpose of its being and where it stands. Every one of us has a childhood, then adolescence, then adulthood, then prime, and then age and last of all, death. But are we convinced that the soul is immortal, that there is a God? That we have to do something to make our other life in the other world easier for us? Are we convinced about these things? If we are not convinced, then the first thing is to analyze where we stand. Our basic approach to the problems of life should be to analyze our own position.

In India there are said to be two basic things which are necessary for every man and woman to understand oneself, to be aware of oneself.  One is vivek, the other is viraja. Vivek means to know your duties as a human being, to know yourself, to know what we are here for, to distinguish between what is false and what is true. That is known as vivek. And viraja means if you are convinced by analysis that a human being is not an animal but something more – that eating, dressing, sleeping, drinking is not the only reason for his life, he has some other goal to reach – then comes the second step of viraja, to be not too much drowned in this world.

We are compounds of two things, the flesh and ourselves, the knower and our body. All our life we try to satisfy our physical needs, to care for our body and our flesh, but the other partner of our life, of our mind, often remains neglected. That is why I asked this question, what is the purpose of meditation? What is the purpose of Yoga? There are many people who are recommending different types of meditation, different types of Yoga. This has been the practice in India for the last thousands of years. They have disciples, they have people who follow them.

But the first question that has to be asked of a teacher, what is the benefit of this meditation? There can be one benefit, it can give you a peace of mind.  Another benefit can be, it can give you some efficiency. But that is just like other things, temporal things which perish. Yoga is in actual fact meant to make us immortal, and this is the aim of all religions: to lead us to the Kingdom of God, to make him immortal. And we can become immortal in this life, to this I can attest solemnly before God.

It is a matter of great sorrow for me that Yoga has not been understood in the West, and the versions that are being given are often not correct. Yoga is a compound word derived from the root yuj. Yuj means to join, to combine. It means to combine all your energies to gain union with the Divine Intelligence which works behind the Universe. That is the real meaning of the term Yoga. And in India, Yoga has been used from Vedic times to demonstrate the truth of religion.

In other countries of the world there is a creed, a religion. We have here Christianity, in the Near East we have Islam, in India, China and Japan we have Buddhism. There are certain articles of faith in each religion and you have to believe them. You have to believe that the soul is immortal, that there is a God. No proof is given. Yoga is meant to give proof to the principles, to the fundamental concepts of religion.

In the usual course you have to accept the faith secondhand, from the founder or from the church, from the priests, from the Popes. But actually, unless everyone experiences the truth of religion, one cannot be convinced a hundred percent. So Yoga is meant to bring conviction about the truths of religion to everyone. This is the primary aim of Yoga.         

Unfortunately, the 20^th century and even the 19^th have been almost barren of spiritual geniuses. There have been a few, very few, but on the whole it has been barren. The materialistic tendencies of the world, the division of humankind into believers and non-believers, the nuclear bombs, the explosive state of humankind, are all due to this fact – that during the last two centuries, there has been a dearth of spiritual geniuses on the Earth.

Yoga or spiritual science is not so cheap and so easy as it is being given out in modern times. It is the basic food which our soul needs. Unless there is a target to human life, unless we have an ideal before us, there will be the same confusion as we are seeing in these days.  The human mind needs an anchor to keep it firm. Otherwise the storms of passion and desire, they sweep it away, and all the life it is struggling to find its bearing without success.

That is the purpose of Yoga, to give direction to life, to put the target before you. And that target is provided by some of the greatest human beings born on Earth, by human beings like Buddha, by Christ, by Mohammed, by Shankaracharya, by Socrates.  If we had two of them, like Guru Nanak recently in the 15 and 16^th centuries, if we had two or three of them, the world would not have such a condition.

In spite of all the wealth, all the inventions of science, all the abundance and all the facilities and amenities which were never in the past, the human mind is restless, because there is a subconscious urge in us to know ourselves. And there is no answer either in science or in philosophy that would satisfy our mind. It can only be satisfied when we know ourselves, when the reality becomes known.

I would discuss this point in another way. All our five senses show us the material world. Formerly we had no knowledge of electromagnetic waves or electric currents or electronic waves. Our eyes could not see them, our ears could not hear them. But now by certain instruments we are able to detect that around us there is a tremendous world of activity going on. There are waves and currents which can send our message from America to Japan in a few moments, which can circulate the Earth in a few moments. We know now there are energies and forces which we never could see.

And let me tell you that side by side with these forces and energies, which we have only now begun to see, there is everywhere, both in us and out of us, an energy which we call mind. This mind is not the product of your body. It is not the product of your brain. This energy is using your mind and body in the same way as the waves from a television station use a television apparatus. There are differences, which will take a long time to explain, but for an analogy this is sufficient.

We are not the body, we are not the brain. This stupendous energy creates out of earth the flower and the body and the lion and the tiger and the elephant and everything else. This is a fundamental concept known and verified in India at least fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. It is an energy. What science is not able to see or to acknowledge is this energy, which has been known as prana. It was known to Egyptians. It was known in the Middle East.  It is known to alchemists and occultists in Europe, but it is not known to science. Science has no instruments to detect it.

Now I will give you an example. I see all of you sitting before me.  Each one of you is a universe. Each one of you has a world of his own. Each one of you sees all the tents assembled here. Each one of you hears my voice and knows that I am speaking, sees me, I see you.  Now what is this thing which sees and is aware in us?  Can we see it, can we hear it, can I see this Atman, this mind, this consciousness in you? No instrument of science can detect it.  We only know it by inference. We know this man is alive and his mind is working, and when that man falls dead we know the mind is nowhere there and the man is dead. But are we able to know this animating principle? No scientist has been able to, it has never been isolated, it can never be isolated.

This energy, this consciousness, this awareness and this mind which makes us alive, which hears, thinks, talks, is a universe in itself. These thoughts, these dreams, all this imagination, it is not just nothing.  It is an energy, and an immortal eternal energy. It is the Illuminated, the Mystics, the Awakened, the Yogis who come in contact with this energy.  I hope you follow me.  It is the energy that is in you.  It is eternal. You see [inaudible].  I see Life everywhere here in this room, around me.  It is Intelligence. 

Only, an eye has to be opened, another eye has to be opened, which in India has been called the Third Eye. There has to be a change in the brain, for which Yoga is practiced.  That is known as the Eye of Shiva, the Third Eye, and it is said to be centered here, between the eyebrows, because that has a very physiological background. Because the two nerves which create the change in the brain enter the brain at this point, one coming from the right going to the left side, and that coming from the left side going to the right side. This is a long subject of the physiology of Yoga which we will not discuss at this time. But suffice it to say that humankind is but the product of an energy which is spread throughout the Universe, but which you cannot see by any means except through the opening of another sense in your brain.

You must have heard of clairvoyance. You must have heard of mediums. You must have heard of telepathy. All of them, by some awakening in the brain, by some change in the brain, come in contact with this energy. They are able to read your thoughts, they sit in front of you and then they can read your thoughts. They can read the thoughts of others at a distance, they can look into the past, they can look into other worlds, other places. For instance, they are sitting here and what they call as clairvoyance or astral projection, they are able to tell you that this thing is happening. Sometimes they are wrong, but sometimes they are right. How can it be possible unless there is a communicating energy? That energy is prana.

So the aim of Yoga is to open this channel of perception. To lift the veil from the eyes, as is said in the religious scriptures. To open the doors of perception and to lead to the inner kingdom which Christ has called the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is simple, only it is not explained. There is an energy, what we call life energy, pervading the whole Universe, pervading everywhere, even in atoms, this room, in the sea, in the forest, everywhere, which is the cause of life. This energy, science has not been able to detect or to determine so far. We are now suggesting experiments on how this can be done, and already some groups have been formed to investigate.

It is this energy which Yoga is designed to know. Therefore, in every book on Yoga you will find from the very beginning, descriptions and directions about prana. Prana is life energy. It is known by different names all over the Earth. This prana, or life energy, is in you, acting as you. In me, it is acting as myself. Our physiological frame, our flesh, our blood and our body determine our behavior and our personality. But all are one. All Life is one. The Universe is Life. It is for this reason that I asked the question about meditation. 

       The real aim of meditation, of Yoga, of spiritual disciplines, or of religion, is to open the supersensory channel in the brain. All of us know that according to modern scientists, we use only a fraction of the brain. Some place the limit at six or seven percent, and some at ten percent. Ninety percent of our brain remains inactive. And modern science also has not yet much knowledge about the brain. It is only now that they’ve started to discover what was known from ancient times, that there are two lobes. One of the lobes deals with aesthetics, feeling, the other deals with reason, language and the like. These are now things coming to light but much is not known about the brain.

There is a region in the brain which Yoga rouses to activity, and this region is known as Brahmarendra to the Indian adepts. When the Brahmarendra is opened, then for the first time the prana, the World of Life, is opened to our view. The moment the World of Life is open you are no more the same person. Then the treasures of the earth seem to be insignificant. Then you know what you are. Then alone you are totally rid from the fear of death. It is not that you now believe that you will not die, not at all. You see yourself as eternal and immortal. This is the aim of Yoga.

It is this knowledge that I am trying to bring to humankind, supported by experiments done in laboratories, and this is the only answer to the problems of our day. This is the only science that can unify humankind, that can bring unity between all the religions, and that can mitigate the terror and horror of our time – this science alone. It has to show to us that we are not animals, that we have a potentiality in us to become a god.

You must have heard from Yogis or from people who are interested in Indian tradition, there is a term, SatChitAnanda, which is used to designate the condition of one in whom this channel has opened. Sat means reality, Chit means consciousness, Ananda means happiness – three things. This means that for the first time he is able to perceive the reality behind the Universe. This reality is not of the nature of matter, it is of the nature of Intelligence. He sees the whole Universe alive, one all-knowing, all-acting, all-powerful, all- seeing Intelligence, all over the Universe. This is the reason why God is said to be Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent. It is the men of vision who have said it, those who had this vision. It has been very rare, but it has been there.

       The reason why in religion, everywhere, God is said to be, in Islam, in Christianity, in Hinduism, God is said to be Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, is because this energy which you see, this energy of life, it is of this kind. It is of this nature, and man, who has the chance to reach this perception, is lofted, carried to another world of life where this world seems to be a dream. So this is the goal of human life. The goal of our life is not to build rockets to reach Mars or to raise skyscrapers 200 stories high. The Egyptians raised their pyramids 480 feet high.  They are there now, desolate.

        The aim of human life, for every person, is to know oneself. And this knowledge is so precious, so happiness-yielding, so wonderful, that no temptation of the earth, neither money nor kingship nor power nor property can compare with it. This is the aim of religion. This is the aim of Yoga. This is the real aim of meditation – to open the brain to the intelligent energy encompassing the Universe. Then alone one knows oneself.

Just as a man in a state of sleep has dreams and sometimes nightmares, horrible dreams, and then suddenly he wakes up and says, “Oh God, it was all a dream, I am happy.” This happens to many people. Terrible dreams, they occur during the night, a lion is coming or something else is happening and then the man suddenly awakes. Exactly with the success in Yoga, the man who gains this vision awakens from this world into another life. You then need not tell him he is immortal. He sees he is immortal. He sees he is above everything of the earth. That is the crowning experience of human life.

            Now, what life is to be led, what food is to be taken, what exercises are to be done, what beliefs are to be held, that is a separate matter. Nothing is to be given up. We have to have the same life we are leading, only – what every great spiritual luminary has said – in a moderate way. We have not to become totally lost and drowned in the world, because then no energy is left to reach the Heaven. Then we are with the earth, that is all. Moderation in life, and a truthful, compassionate heart – they are the two important virtues that can lead to Higher Consciousness, to the knowledge of this Power, to the knowledge of this Reality, of this Intelligence surrounding the Universe.

            It is people who have this possibility, they see the future, they become the prophets, what they say comes true. They see the past, they have other gifts. And the class below them you all know is the class of the genius. Every great intellectual and every great genius has openly said that what he was writing came from some other source. Musicians, like Mozart, Mozart has admitted, he has written it, that the whole composition came to him in one flash and then he put it down on paper. Similarly, great poets, they get contact with this source about which I am telling you. In them, the center is half open, not fully open. In the spiritual luminaries, the center is fully open. Then they see themselves, that they are one with creation, one with this Intelligence – eternal – and that this life that they see is like a dream.

            You can now gladly ask me any questions that you like. (pauses, as yet no one comes forward)

            My aim is to put this whole concept – I have no axes to grind, nothing, my desires are satisfied – but I would like to share this knowledge with everyone and therefore I am putting the whole thing without any unnecessary words which create confusion. It is simple, that there is an energy in addition to the energies known to science, which is intelligent energy and that our bodies are the products of that energy, what we call as life energy.

Science has also started to make now certain investigations about it, but still it is much behind. And we have possibilities in the brain to create a new channel of perception which can see this, feel this, sense this energy and become one with it. And that has been the aim of all religions, to draw attention of humankind, their followers, that there is a spiritual order, that there is a God, and that that Kingdom is in you and that with a righteous life you can reach that Kingdom, and also be one with that God.

            I have put it in a very clear language. Instead of going round and round, I have put it in a few words to give you an idea of what Yoga is meant to achieve. And now you can ask me questions as you like.

Question: Some of us do meditate on the chakras and think in terms of the kundalini. Have you any word of advice or encouragement, that we breathe in one chakra and out another, and what is fine, and the method of meditation? I’ve been doing it for a couple of years but no fireworks ever go off. Nothing really startling ever happens. Now this is good, I guess; after reading your book, I’m thankful for this.

Gopi Krishna: Now I will answer this question. Humanity has evolved and is still evolving. And in the matter of awakening of this power, one of the most important things to remember is that the heredity must be favorable. You see, talent goes by heredity, talent goes by genes. Genius goes by genes. This means that the mechanism which we call kundalini and which can bestow spiritual illumination also goes by genes, generally, though exercises, practices, done in a very perseverating way, can help.

But there is the question of heredity also. And in India, this is translated, interpreted, by karma. You will see the connection. In India they say, now your karma must be mature, which means your heredity must be right, you must have inherited something. And I will add another thing. This will be the most powerful factor in future, when this research is completed: for parents to live right lives, to give birth to right children. This would be the incentive.

Yes?

Question: When you say that living a righteous life is the most, you imply that that’s the most important practice to open this up, does that mean that one should not also do more formal practice, meditation, or whatever your other practice is?

Gopi Krishna: You see, the practices prescribed in the ancient books were meant for an agrarian society, in a society in which these tensions and pressures and haste and hurry and [inaudible] did not exist. Therefore, excessive practice while living this life is not indicated. It can go wrong. The whole system is involved in the awakening, the whole system, every nerve, every organ, because the brain has to be changed. You can’t effect changes in the brain in just a moment. So one has to be very careful how much practice one should do, what practice one should do and what kind of life one should have. Do you follow me?

You can understand, I will give you a simple analogy. In order to be a PhD, in science, or in medicine, you have to attend college, and school, for twenty years, to be there on time, to keep the notes, and to keep your health also good so that you are not ill. Then only after twenty years, you become a PhD. Imagine now, what effort, what care and what time it would take to reach a state where the whole normal perception is transcended, where a person is transformed into a new personality.

It is a very – the reason why in India such rigid disciplines have been enjoined and why repeatedly it is said that you have to abide by the directions of the guru, and that lives are needed to reach this perfection, is because of the great change that is involved, the change in the brain.

I lived by a miracle. I couldn’t have [inaudible]. Even now I live by a miracle. My life just hangs on a thread. But the thread is carrying on. (sounds of laughter in the room)

Question: Would you speak to us about the Mother?

Gopi Krishna: About the . . .?

Questioner: About the Mother, the form of the Mother.

Gopi Krishna: The ?

Assistant: The Mother Goddess.

Margaret Kobelt: The female of creation, the mother of creation.

Gopi Krishna: This energy, prana, is the Mother. You see, there are two principles in the human body, according to the ancient traditions. We will now see what the scientific experiments will reveal to us, because I would not take anything as accepted, except that which has come in my own experience.

Our consciousness is in the brain, this the Indian savants call Shiva, a spark of Shiva, a spark of Brahman. And then in addition, we have the life energy, which is also a part of it but it is in the form of energy, which brings us to birth, which maintains us, which supports us, and then which finally also destroys us at the end. This is known as Shakti. Do you follow me?

Now Shakti is the Mother, and Shiva is the Father, I mean, the Father of the Universe, though the two are one. Shiva in his Absolute Form is known as woman and man both: Ardhanarishvara – nari means woman – half woman and half man. That is, the Universal Principle, the Creator, has both sides, the female and the male. In China, they call them yin and yang.

Now, in our organism, in our body, it is polarized into consciousness pure and the energy which supports the body and that consciousness. This is known as Shiva and Shakti. When kundalini rises from the base of the spine, that means Shakti. The aim is to meet this Shiva, this flame of consciousness, and to expand it, to release it from the prison of the body. Do you follow me?

When the kundalini has arisen, and the two meet here, there is terrific happiness, bliss, that is known as Ananda. And at that point when the meeting occurs, the Third Eye opens, the soul is released from the bondage and perceives the world as itself, as Shiva. That is the goal of Yoga.

Yes?

Question: What is the relationship between prana and love?

Gopi Krishna:  Prana is the parent, the architect of all our emotions and intellect. Prana is the food, the fuel by which we think, by which we feel. There is nothing apart from prana. Love is not something distant from prana. It is prana that creates love, it is prana that creates hate, but to reach the highest state, hate is a deterrent, a blockage, and love is the means to reach that. Love is not something separate, a “new thing” in the universe. There are two realities, as I said. One is consciousness; the second is its power – Intelligence, and its power.

I will explain it in this way. With our intelligence, we have been able to transform the Earth. We have built airplanes, we have built rockets, we have built ships, we have built television, we are building now computers, wonderful computers, all by our intellect. This is one spark from the Divine Fire, one drop from the Ocean. Now, if this one drop from the Ocean has been able to create so much on Earth, imagine what the whole Ocean can do. The Ocean has created this Universe.

But this creation has been by this power, this energy, just as we have also power. We can move our eyes, we can move our legs, we can think, this is our power. We are not only intelligence, inactive intelligence, but we are active also. We have strength, power, we run, rush, go up and down, write – this is energy. Similarly, the Creator has energy. Of course, it is an Ocean of energy. That energy is known as Shakti. And that is known as prana. This Universe is the creation of this prana. Shiva is the Creator, but the energy that has created it is prana.

So prana is the source of all of our intelligence, emotions and feelings. Prana is love. Prana is intelligence. Prana is hate. Prana is everything. In fact, it is the building block of our personality. Do you follow me here? Love as an emotion, as a feeling of our heart, comes also from this eternal, universal prana. Only now we have to see what should more regulate our life – love or hate, or malice or charity or compassion – that is for us to see.

If the man’s evolution is to be towards a monster, then the dark traits will come first. If his evolution is to be towards an angel, then the beautiful traits will come first. It rests with him what to do. Some of the old civilizations, as for instance, Atlantis, might have chosen something malicious, something magical. The civilization was destroyed.

So prana is the architect of love and fate and everything. In that sense, love is prana and prana is love.

Yes, please?

Question: Do you see an evolution of man with increased sensitivity and ability to have contact with Shiva and greater utilization of it?

Assistant: ?

Questioner: Is there a possibility for man to have a greater sensitivity to Shiva in terms of contact with it and its greater use?

Assistant: When man evolves, will he have a greater use with Shiva?

Questioner: Will man become more sensitive to God the Father for the betterment of himself and the world?

Assistant: Can man be more sensitive to Shiva energy as he is evolving?

Gopi Krishna: Yes, in the natural course also. You see, humanity is evolving towards another species. All your science is not an end, it is a means to an end, and that is a new species on the Earth. That will not be someone foreign, it will be born out of us. And that species will slowly have this channel, this eye opened. Do you follow me here?

Now, man can never be the Creator of the Universe. That would be too egoistic. How can he be, there are four billion human beings on the Earth [at this time]. Do you think I should become Shiva and leave all of them there, to struggle? That is an egotistical conception. But, he can know, he can feel, he can sense, he can see that one Infinite Intelligence is the Source of All. And that he belongs to the same Intelligence.

It is a tremendous experience, you cannot even imagine it. Just to feel that you are one with the Eternal Light of the Universe, you are one with the Creator, is such a tremendous experience, that nothing of this earth can compare to it. When the urge comes to man to give up this body and to live there forever, that is Shiva, we call it in India, Shiva Consciousness – that is, consciousness of Oneness with the Absolute. Not that he becomes the Absolute, but one with it, a drop of an Ocean but tasting the whole Ocean.

Question: How does one learn to forget oneself?

Gopi Krishna: I have some difficulty understanding the American accent.

Assistant: How does one forget oneself?

Margaret Kobelt: How does one learn to forget oneself?

Gopi Krishna: What happens to us in sleep? Do we remember that we had gone to bed when we are dreaming?

Questioner: Sometimes. (laughing)

Gopi Krishna: Very rarely. (laughing) If you remembered, then it would not be a dream; you would then say “I am dreaming, there is nothing in it.” But we are not, we do not 

[Transcriber’s note: The recording skips a section here.]

 

Gopi Krishna: . . .from metals to vegetation, vegetation to worms, worms to animals, animals to then anthropoids, anthropoids then to man, and man to superman – it is a plan. It is a plan for the Earth, but we do not know what other worlds of life there are. There might be other worlds of life. Even in those planets which we think are lifeless, where the temperature is too hot, there might be forms of life which are invisible to us.

The world is a magic world of maya. It is not only our mind and matter. There are other beings, of which sometimes the sensitive people can see. Here on the Earth, in our land, there might be other creatures too, composed of a different type of matter which is imperceptible to us. But all the creations [inaudible] prana. This is the reason why the Indian savants have called it maya, illusion, the illusion power, the magic power which can create anything.

Now physicists also are coming to the same view, that there can be other planes of creation, other [inaudible] especially in these black holes. You might have read some of it. These black holes are now said to be apertures, channels to other universes, about which we can have no conception, with other time and space about which we know nothing. So science also is slowly coming to the realm of religion. It is the plan, it is His Will; we cannot question it. If we question it, we defeat ourselves.

Question: If we want to, can we hope to reach the state of enlightenment in this lifetime?

Gopi Krishna: In this life, here, in this life. And this fact is of – I have one word to say – is of tremendous importance for humankind at this moment. It is the only thing – the confirmation of this fact, that there is a supersensory area in the brain and that when this area opens, the World of Life can be observed by a person, and that man is not an animal but exists because of a Cosmic Intelligence that surrounds the Earth and the Universe – this is the most important knowledge at the present moment, as a counterblast to the nuclear missile.

There is no other weapon than this science, this knowledge, to spread this knowledge, to have it confirmed by science, to present it in a different way to show that humankind is destined for something, and that natural forces are watching her actions. That is the most important message we can give the world. Enlightenment is possible, we are trying to have an experiment of that kind, where we will give certain disciplines to at least a hundred people, after just preliminary observation, for years, to have this activity started and then observe. It is a desperate need of our day to show that man is a Divine being, that he has a goal in front, that he has not come just to waste his life on material things.

Question: Can this be done through meditation?

Gopi Krishna: Yes. Yoga, but in an intensive way, and that person has to live a certain life, that man or woman has to live a disciplined life and must have the means to live that life [inaudible]. These personal things one can ask me even afterwards. But I would not give generally any formula because no formula is possible. Every individual has to work his salvation by himself, and that means a lot. It cannot be like a drill. This has to be kept in the mind always by those.

When there is a material object, we can force it. For instance, we want to have some machinery installed here. We can do it in two days, three days, ten days or a year. Or we want to convert a place into a beautiful paradise; we can at once start to work and do it. But when we say we want to realize Shiva, or God, our will means nothing. The permission must come from within. It must come from within.

We can but try, the permission has to come from within. When we wish to meet the President of America, we have to ask so many people and to wait for such a time. You can imagine then what it means to meet the President of the Universe. (sounds of laughter in the room)

Assistant: Pandit, do you have time for one more question?

Gopi Krishna: Yes.

Question: How do you feel about spirituality here in the United States, and where is it going, in your opinion?

Gopi Krishna: Well, I think the conditions all over the world are almost the same. It is not that the United States [inaudible], but since the Americans are a sort of a new race, because they came to a continent with virgin soil, I feel there is greater possibility for a spiritual revival in the States than anywhere else, only if the right direction is taken.

Question: What are the chances?

Gopi Krishna: It depends on you! (sounds of laughter in the room) Every one of us. If we really, and this I am saying in all sincerity, if we really wish to serve God, to reach Illumination, then our first task would be to exercise our intellect: in which way can I serve the Lord best? For my own salvation or the salvation of the world? Of a suffering world. Of a threatened world. What would be the answer? What would be the right answer?

In the salvation of a threatened world. Therefore our primary duty ought to be to sacrifice our own comfort, even our own salvation, to the demand of the time, to wake up and help others to wake up. That is the [inaudible]. Therefore, it depends on you, as much as on anyone else, on every individual, I mean.

Yes?

Question: Sometimes, there’s an opening, a great love of God in myself and my fellow man, other times there’s dryness, and it varies. How do you overcome this resistence?

Assistant: Why is it sometimes we feel overwhelming love and other times not so much, and how to overcome this?

Gopi Krishna: How do talented people have productive moods and at other times sterile moods? We know of this fact. Because at the times when you feel an overwhelming desire or overwhelming love, the prana is pure. At other times when you feel a little bit [inaudible], the prana is [inaudible].

Question: I have experienced this energy, this divine energy as very small flashes, in a table, in a flower, not just in man. I would feel part of you and everyone. You say that only man can experience this but I feel the flower is in touch with that, and also the table. In an electron microscope, this is identical to this.

Assistant: Are you saying that you feel the same type of love back from the table and the flower, or you feel that towards it? Could you clarify that?

Questioner: That the energy is in everything, not just man opening to this divine energy.

Assistant: He feels that there is energy in everything in the Universe – wood, beautiful flowers, just everything.

Gopi Krishna: Yes, only it has different spectrums. In that matter, it has one spectrum, in a flower it has one spectrum, in humankind it has another. And even in humankind also, in different people, it has different spectrums. Do you follow me?

Questioner: Is it possible for us to know those different spectrums directly?

Gopi Krishna: Yes.

Question: I have asked this question consistently for many years and I’m still not sure exactly how to phrase it. It’s about the necessity for suffering, and it also deals with expansion. I’ve experienced some and what it was was a view of some interminable hell. I’ve been told that there’s only one energy. When I asked about a friend of mine who lost her entire family, I asked what is the purpose of such suffering? I was told she was like a heroic mountain climber who would see that there was an illusion of tragedy. But I still have never been satisfied with the notion of the necessity of suffering or the illusion of suffering. So I don’t even know how to ask it, but it is the Age of Kali Yuga. I just cannot see the necessity of suffering.

Assistant: What is the necessity of suffering to achieve higher consciousness?

Gopi Krishna: Suffering diminishes the ego. The greatest danger to spiritual illumination is the ego. Even in very pious people. Even sometimes in saints. The ego is there, “I”, and suffering humbles a person, chastens the person.

Questioner: Compassion humbles a person also?

Gopi Krishna: Yes. You see, that is correct but in extreme form, suffering can have the very reverse effect. It should be like a dose of medicine, not an overdose. Do you follow me?

Questioner: Yes, but then there is some room for miscarriage of justice in the universe, if there is such a thing as an overdose.

Assistant: There is such a thing as too much suffering. Is that fair, when a person suffers too much?

Gopi Krishna: You see, I will tell you what I mean. For instance, in India, you have poverty, terrible poverty, and millions – and that poverty and the suffering caused by that poverty does not even allow them to live a normal life. Where it is not possible to live a normal life, for all the years from the birth to death, the person becomes an animal.

Suffering, but not too much. Suffering is good. In fact, even self-imposed suffering is good, to deny yourself for some time. [inaudible] that brings down the ego. That is why the mystics and the saints in the past took to self-denial, self-abnegation, even sometimes self-mortification – it humbled them, it diminished the ego. But too much, when it is excessive, then it can have morbid effects, not healthy, but morbid effects.

Yes?

Questioner: When the saint mortifies his flesh, it’s volitional, it’s voluntary. The person in India you describe, is that also somehow voluntary?

Assistant: I can’t grasp what you’re saying.

Questioner: I’m saying there’s some inequity with the person in India suffering, that he’s being reduced to an animal state. Is he supposed to just continue to slide down that hole, is that also karma?

Assistant: How do you get out of over-suffering?

Gopi Krishna: You see, there can be many ways. One’s own efforts can succeed. There is not one formula. Friends can help. There can be a grace, a miracle. You can’t have one formula. It is better to be patient, to be receptive, to seek for help. That mind that acts in suffering also patiently, tolerantly, it is possible that in such a case, help may come from unexpected quarters, almost miraculously, and the suffering will then end.

Question: Can you suggest ways I might obtain permission from the Creator to be given enlightenment in this lifetime?

Assistant: How can one get permission from the Divine Intelligence for enlightenment in this lifetime?

Gopi Krishna: When one is eager for it, it means the permission has already been granted. (sounds of laughing and clapping in the room)

Assistant: Okay, we’ll finish up with this. Thank you very much.

Other voices: Thank you.

 

NEW Gopi Krishna - Exclusive Lecture

What is man here for? That will then explain what diet he should eat. If we do not know what for he is here. What is the purpose of this life? How can we decide our past judgment on his food or actions or his needs awaken. First we should know. If he’s an animal, then the question is different. If he’s and angle then the question is different. If he as an animal is now proceeding towards an angelic condition than the question is different. So before discussing super fluidity, it is best, first to discuss the fundamentals. I will explain this. We take to meditation, why - I would like to know, knowledge to this answer. You see, there is so much thirst for meditation all over India, Europe, America, thousands hundreds of thousands of people like to meditate why. This will solve also answer your question. They are interrelated why do we want to meditate Why do we want o practice Yoga or Zen or any other metaphysical discipline? I would like to have an answer to that. I do not take any disciples. I do not preach any philosophy. I do not preach any sect, because I believe that the human race has reached a state of progress, where it should know, what is the purpose of its being, and where it stands. Every one of us is a child, than adolescents than adult hood than prime and then age and last of all death. But are we convinced that the soul is immortal that there is a god. That we have to do something to make our other life in the other world easier for us. Our we convinced about these things? If we are not convinced, then the first thing is to analyze where we stand. Our basic approach to the problems of life should be to analyze our own position. In India there are said to be two basic things which are necessary for every man and woman to understand oneself to be aware of oneself. One is Vedic the other is Vedanta . Vedic means to know your duties as a human being, to know yourself, to know what we are here for. To distinguish between what is false and what is true. That is know as Vedic. And Vedanta means if you are convinced by analyst that a human being is not an animal but something more that eating dressing sleeping drinking is not the only reason for his life, he has some other goals to reach. Then comes the second step in Vedanga to be not too much drown in this word. We are compounds of two things the flesh and ourselves, the normal and our body, All our life we try to satisfy our physical needs. To care for our body and our flesh but the other partner of our life of our mind often remains neglected. That is why I ask this question what is the purpose of meditation? What is the purpose of yoga? There are many people who are recommending different types of meditation different types of yoga. This has been the practice in India for the last thousands of years. They have disciple. They have people who follow them. But the first question that has to be asked of a teacher. What is the benefit of this meditation? There can be one benefit it can give you peace of mind, another benefit it can be it give you some efficiency. But that is just like other things, temporal things in each parish, yoga is in actual fact meant to make man immortal and this is the aim of all religions. To lead man to the kingdom of god to make him immortal. And man can become immortal in this life to this I can attest solemnly before God. It is a matter of great sorry for me that yoga has not be understand in the west and the version that are being given are not often not correct. Yoga is a compound word derived from root yuj means, to join to combine, it means to combine all your energies to gain union with the divine intelligence which works behind the universe. That is the real meaning of the term yoga And in India yoga has been used from Vedic times to demand straight the truth of religion. In other countries of the world there is a creed a religion we have here Christianity in the near east we have Islam, in India China and Japan we have Buddhism. There are certain articles of faith in each religion and you have to believe them. You have to believe that the soul is immortal. That there is a God. No proof is given. Yoga is meant to give proof, to the principles to the fundamental concepts of religion. In the usual course you have to accept the faith second hand, From the founder or from the church from the priests from the Pope. But actually unless every one experiences the truth of religion It cannot be convinced and perfect. So yoga is meant to give conviction about the truths of religion about to everything this is the primary aim of yoga. Unfortunately the 20th century and even the 19th have been almost barren of spiritual geniuses’. There have been a few very few, but on the whole it has been barren. The materialist tendency of the world, the division of mankind, into believers and non believers. The nuclear bombs the explosive state of mankind are all do to this fact. That during the last two centuries. There has been a dearth of spiritual genius’s on the earth.

Yoga or spiritual science is not so cheap and so easy as it is being given out in modern times. It is the basic food which our soul needs, unless there is a target to human life unless we have an ideal before us there will be the same confusion as we are seeing in these days. The human mind needs an anchor to keep it firm. Otherwise the storms of passion and desire, they sweep it away. And all the life it is struggling to find its barring without success. That is the purpose of yoga to give direction to life. To put the target before you, and that target is provided by some of the greatest human beings born on earth. By human being like Buddha, by Christ, by Mohammed, by Shankachera, by Socrates. If we had two of them in the world, like Guru Nanak recently in the 14 or 15th century If we had two or three of them. The world would not have such a condition. In spite of all the wealth all the inventions of science all the addendums and all the facilities and amenities which were never in the past the human mind is restless., because there is a subconscious urge in man to know himself. And there is no answers either in science or in philosophy that would satisfy our mind. It can only be satisfied when we know ourselves when reality becomes known. I will discuss this point in another way. All our five senses show us the material world. Formally we had no knowledge of electromagnetic waves or electric currents or electronic waves our eyes could not see them our ears could not hear them but now by certain instruments we are able to detect that around us there is a tremendous world of activity going on. There are waves and currents which can send our message from America to Japan in a few moments which can circulate the earth in a few moments. We know now that there are energies and forces which we can never be seen and let me tell you that side by side with these forces and energies which we have now only begin to see there is everywhere both in us and out of us. An energy which we call mind. This mind is not the product of your body. It is not the product of your brain. This energy is using your mind and body in the same way as the waves from a television station uses a television sets. There are differences it will take a long time to explain but for an analogy this is sufficient. We are not the body we are not the brain. This stupendous energy creates out of earth the flower and the body and the lion and the tiger and the elephant and everything else. This fundamental energy concept known and verified in India at least 15 hundred years before the birth of Christ. It is an energy, but science is not able to see or to acknowledge Is this energy which has been know as prana. It was know to Egyptians It was know in the Middle East. It is known to alchemists and occultists in Europe but it is not known to science.

Science has no instruments to detect it. Now I will give you an example. I see all of you sitting before me. Each one of you is a universe. Each one of you has a world of his own. Each one of you sees all the senses of what’s there, Each one of you hears my voice and knows that I am speaking, sees me, I see you. Now what is this thing which sees and is aware. Can we see it n can we hear it can I see this atom this mind this consciousness in you. No instrument of science can detect. We only know it be inference. We know this man is alive and his mind is working and when that man falls dead we know that the mind is no where there and the man is dead . But are we able to know this animated principle no scientist has been able.

It has never been isolated it can never be isolated. This energy this consciousness, this awareness and this mind which makes us alive which hears thinks talks is a universe in its self. These thoughts these dreams, all this amalgamation it is not just nothing. It is an energy, an immortal eternal energy. It is the illuminated, the mystics, the awakened, the yogis who come in contact with this energy. I hope you follow me. It is the energy that is in you. It is eternal. You see it. I see light everywhere in this room around me. It is intelligent. Only an eye has to be open another eye has to be open which in India has been called the third eye. There has to be a change in the brain. For which yoga is practiced. That is known as the Eye of Shiva, the third eye, and it is said to be centered here, between the eyebrows.

Because that has a very physiological background, because the two nerves which create the change in the brain enter the brain at this point one coming from the right going to the left side and the other coming from the left side going to the right side. This is a long subject of the physiology of yoga which I will not discuses at this time. But suffice to say that man is but the product of an energy which is spread throughout the universe but which you can see my any means accept though the opening of another sense in your brain. You must have heard of clairvoyance. You must have heard of mediums. You must have heard of telepathy. All of them occur by some awakening in the brain, by some change in the brain come in contact with this energy. They are able to read your thoughts they sit in front of you and than they can read your thought s they can read the thoughts of others at a distance they can look into the past they can look into other words other places .

For instance they can be sitting here and with Clairvoyance or astral projection they are able to tell you that this thing is happening. Sometimes they are wrong but sometimes they are right. How can this be possible unless there is a communicating energy. that energy this energy is prana. So the aim of yoga is to open this channel of perception. To lift the vial from the eyes as is said in the religious scriptures. To open the doors of perception and to lead to the inner kingdom which Christ has called the kingdom of heaven. It is simple only it is not explained.

There is an energy what we call life energy pervading the whole universe pervading everywhere even in atoms , this room , on the sea, in the forest everywhere which is the course of life . This energy science has not been able to detect or determine so far. We are now suggesting experiments on how this can be done, and already some groups have been formed to investigate this energy. It is this energy which yoga is designed to know. Therefore, in every book on yoga you will find from the very beginning descriptions and directions about prana. Prana is life energy. It is known by different names all over the earth. This prana, or life energy, is in you, acting as you. In me, it is acting as myself. Our physiological frame, our flesh and blood and our body determine our behavior and our personality. But all are one. All life is one. The universe is life. It is for this reason that I ask the question about meditation.

The real aim of meditation, of yoga, of spiritual disciplines, or of religion, is to open the supersensory channel in the brain. All of us know that according to modern science we use only a fraction of the brain, and modern science has not yet much knowledge about the brain. It is only known that they are Public Art Fund: discovering that there are two lobes on one deals with ethics feeling the other deals with reason language These are all things coming to light but not much is know about the brain there are regions in the brain that yoga arouses to activity and this region is known as Brahmarendra to the Indian adepts. When the Brahmarendra is opened then for the first time prana, the world of life, is open to our soul. The moment the world is open you are no longer the same man then the treasures of the earth seem to be insignificant then you know what you are. Then alone you are totally rid from the fear of death. It is not that you now believe that I will not die. Not at all. You see yourself as eternal and immortal. This is the aim of yoga. It is this knowledge that I am trying to bring to mankind supported by experiments done in laboratory and this is the only answer to the problems of our day.

This is the only science that can unify humankind, that can bring unity between all the religions, and that can mitigate the terror and horror of our time. This science alone. It has to show to man, that he is not an animal. That he has a potentiality in him to become a god. You must of herd from yogis or from people who are interested in India traditions’ there is a term Satchitananda which is used to designate the condition of one. In whom this channel has opened. Sat means reality, Cit means consciousness, Ananda means happiness. Three things. This means that for the first time he is able to perceive the reality, the reality behind the universe. This reality is not of the nature of matter, it is of the nature of intelligence. He sees the whole universe alive, one all-knowing, all acting all powerful, all seeing intelligence, all over the universe. This is the reason why God is said to be omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. It is the men of vision who have said it. Those who had this vision. It has been very rare but it has been there.

The reason why in religion, everywhere, God is said to be, in Islam in Christianity, in Hinduism, God is said to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Because this energy which you see, this energy of life, it is of this kind. It is of this nature, and man who has the chance to reach this perception is vaulted, carried to another world of life where this world seems to be a dream so this is the goal of human life. The goal of his life is not to build rockers to reach the stars or to rise skyscrapers 200 stories high. The Egyptians raised their pyramids 400 feet high. They are there now, desolate.

The aim of human life for every man is to know himself, and this knowledge is so precious, so . . . happiness with meaning so wonderful that no temptation of the earth, neither money nor king ship nor power nor property can compare with it. This is the aim of religions this is the aim of yoga. This is the real aim of meditation to open the brain to the intelligent energy encompassing the whole universe Then alone one knows oneself just as a man in a state of sleep has dreams and some times nightmares, horrible dreams and then suddenly he wakes up and says of God it was all a dream I am happy. This happens to many people terrible dreams they occur during night a Lion is coming or something menacing is happening and then the man suddenly awakes. Exactly with the success in yoga the man who gains this vision awakens from this world into another life. You than need not tell him you are immortal he sees that he is immortal He sees he is about everything of the Earth. That is the crowing experience of human life.

CYBERGOD

PROPOSAL FOR A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
INTO THE BIOLOGICAL MECHANISM
BEHIND HUMAN EVOLUTION
RESEARCH OF GENIUS AND ENLIGHTENED PERSONS

In Order to Show The Way For Science to Verify The Phenomenon of Enlightenment
http://cybergod.com/

ON THE NATURE OF OUR MISSION.

“We are extremely frail human instruments of destiny. What we are giving out or what we are doing, however humble it my appear at this time, has a great historical significance. Our humble contribution and all we have done or plan to do will be considered by our progeny to have been the most important event of this century.

The high and might of our day—the presidents, the prime ministers, the ministers and other elite, as also the great academicians and scholars—with all that they have done, will pale into insignificance before the grandeur of this discovery.

How did it happen that we, a few humble individuals in a society of over 7 billion human beings, have been chosen for this colossal task, no one can explain. It will remain a profound mystery to show how Nature can act and show what instruments it can use to achieve her Purpose” – Gopi Krishna

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The Mystery Behind the Rise and Fall of Civilizations - by Gopi Krishna

In the year 1922-23 the Archaeological Survey of India made a
remarkable discovery. Close to the two rivers, Indus and Ravi, in the
Provinces of Sind and Punjab, it lighted upon the ruins of a prehistoric
civilization which changed the whole concept of Indian pre-history
current up to that time.


The prevalent idea had been that, when the invading hordes of
warlike Aryans poured into India from the north-west, they found only an
autochthonous population of dark-skinned, flat-nosed, primitive
barbarians, worshiping snakes and trees, whom they conquered and
enslaved or drove to the east and south. But the excavations, which still
continue, revealed a different picture altogether.


As generally happens, when a fresh discovery is made, the whole
massive volume of learned views, expressed by scholars on the issue, on
the basis of the relics available up to that time, became untenable and
obsolete, a mere dust-heap of many years of wasted thought. The fresh
evidence gathered bit by bit, confirmed by successive teams of
investigators, brought to light the startling fact that a vast empire,
covering more than twice the area of the old kingdom of Egypt, extending
to many parts of India, was the seat of a civilization which in some
respects excelled even the contemporaneous cultures of Sumer and Egypt,
the most advanced kingdoms of that day. For the vastness of the area over
which the dominion extended the only parallel, according to Pigott, is the
Roman Empire which flourished 2,000 years later. Describing the layout
of Mohenjo-Daro, one of the capital cities of the Indus Valley culture,
Majumdar writes:


"Even the extant ruins show remarkable skill in town planning. The
streets, varying in width from 9 to 34 feet, were regularly aligned,
sometimes running straight for half a mile. The principal streets were
duly oriented to the points of the compass and intersected at right angles,
dividing the city into square or rectangular blocks, each of which was
divided lengthwise and crosswise by a number of lanes. The buildings
never encroached on these streets and lanes, almost each of which had a
public well and lamppost at intervals.


"The city had an elaborate drainage system which opened into great
culverts emptying into the river. The dwelling houses varied in size from
a palatial building to one with two small rooms, showing the quarters of
the rich and poor . . . most of the houses had a well, a bathroom and a
good system of covered drainage connected with that of the street . . .
2
some of the houses had an upper story with vertical drain pipes indicating
additional bathrooms"1


The most striking features of the city of Mohenjo-Daro are its wellplanned,
broad streets and the elaborate, intricately ramified system of
sanitation of almost modern character. The domestic and civic
architecture, it is held, was much more highly developed than that of
either Egypt or Mesopotamia of the same period.


"The high quality of sanitary arrangements at Mohenjo-Daro could
well be envied in many parts of the world today," says Sir Mortimer
Wheeler. "They reflect decent standards of living, coupled with an
obviously zealous municipal supervision . . . The doorway leads into an
entrance room with a tiny porter's lodge, through this lies the courtyard
with the household rooms opening off it . . . along the main streets the
private wells are supplemented by public wells accessible from the streets
and lanes and here and there are small sentry-boxes for the civic
watchmen. Construction is normally of baked bricks in 'English bond.'
"The vast size of the capital city is comparable to that of Imperial
Rome. There is a huge citadel, a large public bath measuring 180 by 180
feet, a big granary originally 159 by 75 feet, a commodious pillared hall
80 by 80 feet which probably served as an assembly room, and other huge
structures. There are rows upon rows of shops and places resembling
public restaurants, with scales and exact measures of weight."19
This description of a distant archaeological find might seem to be
irrelevant to our theme but it has a tremendous bearing on what I am
trying to expound. Many years ago Gerald Heard drew attention to some
unique features of the Indus Valley culture and with almost prophetic
insight expressed the view that it may help to reveal the secret of strifefree,
peaceful co-existence to the modern world.3


"When I read the book I was thrilled at the idea that nearly 5,000
years ago a vanished people had learnt the art of town planning and lived
in well-constructed metropolises almost like our own. I did not even
dream then that it was in my fate to make certain disclosures about a
mighty secret, buried under the ruins of this great civilization of the past,
to lay the foundation of a new science and to open another area of
investigation for the lovers of knowledge.


"The standard of living of the ancient denizens of the Indus Valley,
judged from the indications available, appears to have been fairly high
comparable to that of our own day.


"'Specimens of wheat and barley found in the ruins prove that they
were not of the wild species and were regularly cultivated,'" says
Majumdar. "Rice was probably also grown. In addition to these the
general diet consisted of other fruits, vegetables, milk, fish and flesh of
various animals, including beef, mutton, pork and poultry . . . both men
3
and women used various ornaments made of gold, silver, copper and other
well-known metals, shell . . . lapis lazuli, turquoise, amethyst etc. . . .
materials for toilet and cases for holding them, some of which are made of
ivory and metal, prove that the ladies at Mohenjo-Daro were not probably
far behind their sisters of the present day in the culture of beauty and
knew the use of collyrium, face-paint and other cosmetics.


"Round metal rods for applying cosmetics, lipsticks, bronze oval
mirrors, ivory combs of different shapes, some of which probably
decorated the hair, and even small dressing tables have come to light at
Mohenjo-Daro and other sites. Furniture and utensils of various kinds and
designs indicate a high degree of civilization with centuries of
development behind it. Special mention may be made of pottery candlesticks
indicating the use of candles, pottery toys for children, including
whistles, rattles and clay models of men, women, herds and animals,
including those with movable limbs or made to climb up and down by
means of a movable cord. Special interest is attached to the toy clay-carts,
as they are the earliest specimens of wheeled vehicles so far known.
Marbles, balls and dice were the favorite games, and among other
pastimes may be mentioned hunting, bull-fighting, trapping of birds and
fishing."18


These details have been given to show that the standard of life of these
ancient dwellers of the Indus Valley was almost as high as that of the most
advanced countries of recent times, before the discovery of steam and
electricity. Experts differ in their opinion about the period of time of the
Indus Valley civilization. But according to the general view it lasted from
about 2,700 to 1,700 B.C. There are not very marked differences between
the earliest and the latest layers at Mohenjo-Daro.


This fact presupposes a previous history of the culture about which
almost nothing can be positively asserted at present. It is obvious,
however, that for nearly a thousand years, before their abrupt end, the
dwellers of Mohenjo-Daro and other cities had maintained an
uninterrupted cultural urban life with a fair degree of abundance and
prosperity. The representation of a ship on a seal indicates maritime
activity, and there is evidence to show that people of the Indus Valley
carried on trade not only with other parts of India but also with Sumer and
other centers of culture, including probably Egypt also.


The figure of a deity with a hooded cobra over his head corresponds to
a similar figure of a man with the head of a serpent over his head found in
Egypt. The latest limit of entry of the Aryans into India is placed at about
1,500 years B.C. The earliest limit remains undetermined. It is held that
the word dasyus in the Rig Veda, used to denominate the aboriginal
populations, whose habitations and forts the victorious Aryans overran
and destroyed, refers to the dwellers of the Indus Valley.


There are, however, some scholars who hold, on the basis of the
skeletal remains, that Indo-Aryans formed a part of the populations of
4
Mohenjo-Daro and other places. One of the main arguments against this
supposition was the absence of horses among the animals domesticated by
or known to the Indus Valley dwellers. But recent excavation in another
part of the country has disproved this assumption. Along with other
unmistakable evidence of the Indus Valley culture at the site, the skeletal
remains of horses have been found: a clear proof that the animal was
known and domesticated.


The most important find from the point of view of our subject is a
finely engraved seal bearing the figure of a three-faced God in a
meditative posture, seated on a throne with legs crossed in the fashion of a
yogi. He sits with penis erectus surrounded by a tiger, buffalo and
rhinoceros, with a deerskin under the seat.


It is obvious that the representation is of a deity corresponding to
Shiva who is also called Trimukha (three faced), Pashupati (Lord of
animals) and Mahayogis (the great Yogi). This symbolism is
corroborated by the representations on some other seals and also by a
large number of cylindrical stone emblems which clearly represent the
phallus. There are clay and stone representations of the female generative
organs too and also a figure of the Mother Goddess.


The seals are hundreds in number, some of which are considered to be
virtual artistic pieces of the engraver's art. They bear a pictographic script
which, in spite of great efforts, has not been deciphered yet. As many as
270 different characters of the script have been traced so far. Some
scholars even think that the Brahmi script, in which the Vedas were first
recorded, was preceded by an alphabet derived from the Indus Valley
pictographic characters.


The decipherment of the script, when it becomes possible, is likely to
throw a flood of light on many things that are obscure at present. The fact
that, in addition to the seals, the pictographs have also been found on
pieces of pottery makes it clear that there was a fair degree of literacy
among the people. The emblems of the phallus and the yoni and the
figure of God Shiva in the yogic position, as also another of a yogi in a
meditative pose, make it plain beyond the least shadow of doubt that a
system of Yoga, akin to that embodied in the Tantras and books on Hatha-
Yoga, was known and practiced in the Indus Valley about 3000 B.C.
What is of particular interest in the figure of God Shiva, engraved on
the seal, is the particular position in which the phallus has been depicted.
In many iconographic stone or other images of Shiva in India the phallus
is shown prominently in a state of tumescence as in the case of the Indus
Valley representation. This is a highly significant symbol on which no
light has been thrown so far by any scholar, past or present. From a
common point of view an erect phallus is the last thing that one would
expect of Divinity.
5


For those who believe in a formless deity the worship of a stone or
other idol or image is bad enough, but, when to this is added the symptom
of undisguised erotic excitement in that image, the position becomes
intolerable in the extreme. It is inconceivable for those brought up in the
tradition of other faiths that the God of any community of worshipers
should exhibit himself as a rank voluptuary. But it is in this very aspect of
God Shiva that the mystery of higher consciousness lies concealed.
The reproductive and the evolutionary mechanism in the human body
are so closely inter-related as to be almost identical. The same life-energy
produced by the nerves is at the base of erotic excitement at one end and
of passion for the Divine at the other. The same intensely pleasing
sensation which provides a powerful incentive for the reproductive act
also supplies a strong inducement for the evolutionary effort of man. In
the latter case, the rapture is even more enhanced and magnified.
Why nature should resort to this apparently ironic device of
combining the two functions, which we mistakenly believe to be
antithetic, is not hard to understand. The process of evolution of the race
is vitally dependent on reproduction. We owe our existence to the
accident of birth consequent on the conjugation of the lingam and yoni in
the reproductive act. The accident of birth is also responsible for our
striving for and the attainment of God-Consciousness as also for the
continuance of the process of evolution from generation to generation.
Reproduction is, therefore, the primary factor not only in individual
self-awareness but also in the evolution of the whole race. The male and
female principles in every human organism have to combine ultimately to
give rise to the soul-captivating rapture that forms a perennial feature of
Divine Consciousness. The lingam-yoni symbol thus forms a most
effective device for conveying the momentous significance of the creative
act. Both as the procreator of his offspring and the emancipated product
of Kundalini, man is divine. That is why sanctity is attached to marriage
in all the current major faiths of mankind.


This is also the reason why the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt
often hold the symbol of the ankh and the divinities in India the lotus in
their hands, both emblematic of the divine nature of the creative act. The
Egyptian symbol of the ankh itself resembles a half-opened lotus in which
the long stem represents the stalk, the opened petals the arms of the cross
and the ring or the loop-like handle the unopened part, symbolizing the
lingam welded to the yoni as is the case with the images in India.
Still entirely in the dark about the double meaning of the symbol, the
present-day scholars only treat it as an emblem of creativity or the sexual
act, a sign of the union which results in the birth of man, or of the fertility
of earth. The common iconographic representation found in temples all
over India of the lingam and yoni joined together, the latter forming the
base and surrounding it, apparently lends support to this idea. But this is a
complete error to which scholars have fallen prey during recent times.
6


The reason for this error lies in the misconception that this symbolism
represents a stage in the evolution of the religious concepts of primitive
man. This attitude, in turn, is primarily based on a lurking egoistic sense
of superiority over the populations of the past. It is complacently believed
that the ancient religious writings, customs, beliefs, idols and rituals from
prehistoric epochs to medieval times are either the remnants of a primitive
culture or the later outgrowth of shamanistic practices.


The life stories of Christ and Krishna are traced to primitive myths
woven round the worship of the Sun-God, or the expression of a sense of
awe, wonder, and unintelligibility at the phenomena of nature, at the
marvel of earth's productivity, and the creative act of man.
How wrong this belief has been in respect of the sex symbols used
from prehistoric times prior even to vanished cultures of the past will be
apparent when the significance of the lingam-yoni symbolism is properly
understood. It may appear paradoxical but there is no denying the fact
that the knowledge of the hidden truths of religion was never at such a low
ebb among the elite of the past as it is now among the learned of our day.
As our study will progressively show, the religious myths and
symbols of past civilizations, which continue to dominate the main faiths
of our time, are the scattered relics of a highly developed prehistoric
culture swallowed, in all probability, by a mighty cataclysm of earth
without leaving any visible trace before the beginning of the Egyptian or
Sumerian kingdoms.


The scattered threads of these myths and symbols must have been
carried here and there by the fugitive survivors, who somehow escaped
the destruction, or were out on business or travel beyond the area
devastated by the upheaval. We shall discuss this point in more detail at
other places. It is enough to state here that the prevalence of symbols in
Egypt, the Indus Valley and other ancient centers bespeaks an elaborate
knowledge of Kundalini from the very beginning.


This could only be possible if we postulate a still anterior place of
origin for the cult where it had already developed to a high degree which
it never attained in any subsequent period to this day. The symbol of the
lingam and yoni interlinked is a representation of the final stage of arousal
of the Serpent Power. The intricacies of the system and the varied mode
of the awakening constitute a vast area of study and experiment extending
to ages.


The very manner of the awakening and its effect on the brain can be
so radically different in various individuals that there may appear not the
slightest sign of resemblance between them nor the least likelihood of
linking each to the same source. In some cases the arousal is so gradual,
unattended by any special symptoms in the mind-body complex that the
initiate practicing the discipline remains unaware of the changes wrought.
His awareness of the transformation begins only from the time when
7


unusual phenomena of consciousness, as for instance, phosphorescence,
peculiar sounds in the ears, visionary experiences or extrasensory
perception become a feature of his inner being.


This state is described in the Svetasvatara Upanishad (2-11) in these
words: "Fog, smoke, sun, fire, wind, fire-flies, lightning, a crystal or
moon-these are the preliminary appearances which produce the
manifestation of Brahma in Yoga."4 But taken alone these symptoms do
not necessarily imply success in the undertaking. They can also be
products of delusion.


In order to be genuine, they must be attended by other symptoms and
signs, as for instance, an innate urge for truth and purity, a greater
measure of love and benevolence, a diminished degree of ego and pride or
the appearance of other noble virtues which are a necessary adjunct to
spiritual development. This is made clear in the same Upanishad at
another place (3, 13-14):


"Lightness, healthiness, steadiness, clearness of countenance and
pleasantness of voice, sweetness of odor and scanty excretions-these, they
say, are the first stage in the progress of Yoga. Even as a mirror stained
by dust shines brilliantly when it has been cleansed, so the embodied one,
on seeing the nature of the soul (Atman) becomes unitary, his end
attained, from sorrow free."


This type of awakening effects the cleansing of the human mind and
body by slow degrees, provided due attention is paid to food, behavior,
and the mode of life. The initiate gradually develops a contemplative bent
of mind, often absorbed in one's own being, and a saintly bearing. This
change might be attended by psychic gifts with sweetness and charm of
personality.


The object of the transformative processes is to create a new inner
man or woman in tune with the infinite world of life. The inner sounds,
flashes of light, astral voyages, and visions are merely the preliminary
indications of a new area of highly extended awareness. But many
practitioners of Yoga and other disciplines, carried away by these initial
symptoms, fall prey to seduction and miss the lofty goal. Lured away, as
if by a will-of-the-wisp, by these transient appearances they never glimpse
the golden haloed Purusha, nor experience with ineffable bliss the living
Sun of consciousness within.


But there can also be a more powerful and sudden arousal of the
Serpent Power leading to an explosion in consciousness. In such a case a
sudden metamorphosis of personality may occur in weeks or months
which in the former case would have taken years to accomplish. In either
case, however, the human level of consciousness may not be completely
transcended. The subject may remain hovering on the fringe with
occasional flashes of transcendental vision in a state of entrancement or
sudden sporadic glimpses of it during wakefulness. In rare cases they
8 may attain the perennial state of super-consciousness, living constantly in
an effulgent world of infinite being and bliss both in the waking state and
dream. In order to achieve this sublime end, the sustained activity of a
powerful current of the Kundalini force is necessary for varying periods
which may extend to years.


In such cases the nervous system and the brain are completely
refashioned at the basic levels still beyond the probe of science. The
spectrum of prana (bioplasma) is radically altered to apprehend other
planes of creation and to open a new transcendent world to the inner
vision of the individual. The accomplished product is now a specimen of
the man to come.


The range of manifestations of an active Kundalini can be as vast and
varied as the range of intellect from a half-wit at one end to a genius at the
other. Similarly an awakened Kundalini can manifest itself from mere
flashes of sudden insight, rudiments of extrasensory perception,
premonitory dreams, dim thresholds of clairvoyance, at one end to a
perennial contact with Cosmic Consciousness at the other.


This enormously extended range of manifestations is further enlarged
and complicated by obsessive, delusive and aberrant mental conditions
which, not unoften, attend the operations of Kundalini because of the
incompatible ways of life followed by the mass of mankind due to
ignorance about the mighty mechanism.


It is not possible to convey a comprehensive picture of the change
involved in the ascent from the human to transhuman state of
consciousness. In the perennial sahaja state, the observing principle in the
awakened individual wears a never-fading effulgent halo of silvery lustre
tinged with gold, a marvelous raiment of light in which the physical body
appears like a flimsy shadow, linking the ever-free, unutterable glory to
the solid earth. Both in their external observation and inner being the
individual is changed.


The senses and the intellect continue to function with precision as they
did before, but, in its relation to the observer, the world they present now
wears a different aspect altogether. The seer and the seen now appear to
be the two different facets of one underlying Reality. The indescribable
rapture of this ineffable experience is beyond anything encountered by
normal consciousness. For this state of Grace a certain mature condition
of the cerebrospinal system is absolutely necessary. What this maturity
denotes in terms of our knowledge of human neurophysiology only
extensive research can determine.


Suffice it to say that a certain constitution of the mind and body has
been an invariable feature of all the great mystics and illumined sages of
the past. A peculiar condition of the brain and body is also a marked
feature of the men and women of genius as also of all genuine mediums
and sensitives. There is no doubt that human ingenuity will one day
9 discover how this physiological specialty in the systems of such
individuals can be determined and measured. Till that time we have to
content ourselves with the incontrovertible evidence provided by the
subjective experience of the illuminated and the creations of geniuses,
both of them born with an extraordinary physical endowment which has
so far defied the skill of the empiricist to locate.


It is obvious that the change from a normal to a supernormal state of
consciousness, to be genuine, must involve a genetic change in the whole
system. This change must even extend to the reproductive seed. The
genital secretions of an illuminated individual must reflect the
metamorphosis that has occurred. This fact is mentioned to present an
idea of the colossal nature of the change involved in the attainment of a
trans-human state of consciousness.


When a workable method to mark the difference in the two kinds of
organisms is devised, the cases of genuine transformation can be detected
as easily as the detection of the different blood groups can be done at
present. It is easy to imagine that in order to carry out such a drastic
change, to the very grass-roots of the human body, the force capable of it
must be of tremendous potency.


It must be able to shake the system to its very foundations in order to
reconstitute the microscopic bricks of which it is composed. It must have
the capacity to renew the basic structure of the cell and the protoplasm
and rebuild the system at the base to generate a new kind of bioelectricity
and install a new pattern of consciousness


A distant analogy of the immense proportions of this change is
provided by the difference in an ordinary propeller-driven plane and a
supersonic jet. A tremendous increase in the propelling force is needed to
cross the sonic barrier in the case of an aircraft. In the same way a
tremendous thrust from the Kundalini force, working ceaselessly, is
needed to cross the barrier of normal perception to reach the transcendent
planes. It is unfortunate that this obvious position is not correctly
understood by the erudite of our time.


It is because of the tremendous drain caused on the system, by the
withdrawal of the higher grade fuel from the body to feed the brain in
mystical ecstasy, that the condition is so often attended by catalepsy and
entrancement. The lingam-yoni symbol has been used in India from the
remote past to designate this extremely powerful activity which leads to
the emergence of Shiva-consciousness.


The symbol denotes the reversed action of the cerebrospinal system,
utilizing every spare ounce of this energy, normally used for amatory
purposes, for the remodeling of the body and the brain under high
pressure in which all the organs of the body become inextricably involved.
10


A highly extended state of consciousness, with heightened perception,
permeated with an extreme form of rapture cannot be possible without a
greatly enhanced consumption of psychic energy. Even for the more
mundane transport experienced in amorous play a price has to be paid in
the form of the energy expended.


This is the common experience of both men and women, for the
excitement of the climax is often followed by languor with a pressing
desire for rest and repose. This sense of lassitude and desire for repose is
more pronounced in an intellectual than in the rustic as both the pleasure
and expenditure of energy is greater in the former than in the latter.
The erect organ of generation denotes the ceaseless activity occurring
in the genitals to produce the potent reproductive substances in a highly
enhanced measure to renovate the brain and the nervous system. In the
earlier stages with the ceaseless erotic sensations caused in the kanda (the
pubic region), by the flow of these substances through the nerves, the
male organ experiences powerful involuntary erections time after time,
often the common experience of initiates who succeed in arousing
Kundalini.


It is for this reason that God Shiva is said to be urdhava-retas (with
upward flow of reproductive energy) and urdhava-linga (with phallus
erectus). The symbol of conjoined lingam and yoni is emblematic of what
occurs in sahasrara, the highest center in the brain.


With the flow of the nectar, distilled by the nerves from all parts of the
body into this center, the area of rapture is transferred from the genitals to
the cerebrum. It is a stupendous experience beyond anything conceivable
by a normal individual. Space does not permit a detailed description of
this most extraordinary experience here. This will be done in another
volume of this series.


The constant reference in the Tantras and Hatha-Yoga manuals to the
union of Shiva and Shakti refers to this breathtaking experience. As
already explained, it is this state of super-earthly rapture which is sought
to be portrayed in the Rasa-lila episode of Krishna and the gopis. The
emblem of conjoined lingam and yoni has another symbolic significance.
An awakened Kundalini in men and women both denotes a signal change
in marital relationship also.


The husband and the wife or the lover and the beloved, in a state of
union, undergo on the earthly sphere what is transpiring in the
consciousness of either of them in the transcendent plane. Instead of
flowing downward and outward, with the effect of the amorous dalliance,
the energy streams inward and upward, raising the consciousness in wider
and wider spirals to transcendent heights.


It is not now two human beings in a state of erotic union, but Shiva
and Shakti rolled into one, afloat with unutterable bliss in the ethereal
11 regions of everlasting being, without any thought of their intertwined
bodies or the earth.


There is nothing to be scared of at the so-called erotic element in
mystical ecstasy. Often, because of ignorance about the actual genesis of
mystical experience, writers on mysticism try to explain it away in diverse
ways. For instance, Dean Inge writes:


"But the tendency of Catholic mysticism has been to make the
individual soul the bride of Christ and to treat the Song of Solomon as
symbolic of spiritual nuptials between him and the individual
contemplative . . . Erotic mysticism is no part of Platonism. That
'sensuous love of the unseen, (as Pater calls it), which the Platonist often
seems to aim at, has more of admiration and less of tenderness than the
emotion which we have now to consider.


"The notion of a spiritual marriage between Gcd and the Soul seems
to have come from the Greek Mysteries, through the Alexandrian Jews
and Gnostics . . . and among the Jews of the first century there existed a
system of Mysteries probably copied from Eleusis. They had their greater
and their lesser mysteries and we hear that among their secret doctrines
was marriage with God. . . but curiously enough, it is Tertullian who first
argues that the body as well as the soul is the bride of Christ. If the soul is
the bride, he says, the flesh is the dowry. Origen, however, began the
mischief in his homilies and commentary on the Song of Solomon."4


The futile effort made to gloss over what is a common recurrent
feature of mystical experience is obvious from those lines:
"Bernard's Homilies on the Song of Solomon gave a great impetus to
this mode of symbolism, but even he says that the church and not the
individual is the bride of Christ. There is no doubt that the enforced
celibacy and virginity of the monks and nuns led them, consciously or
unconsciously, to transfer to the human person of Christ (and, to a much
slighter extent, to the virgin Mary) a measure of those feelings which
could find no vent in their external lives . . . The Sufis or Mohammedan
mystics use erotic language very freely, and appear, like true Asiatics, to
have attempted to give a sacramental or symbolic character to the
indulgence of their passions . . . The employment of erotic imagery to
express the individual relation between Christ and the Soul is always
dangerous, but this objection does not apply to the statement that the
church is the bride of Christ." In conclusion Dean Inge adds:
"This use of the Sacrament of marriage (as a symbol of the mystical
union between Christ and the Church), which alone has the sanction of the
New Testaments is one which, we hope, the Church will always treasure.
The more personal relation also exists and the fervent devotion which it
elicits must not be condemned though we are forced to remember that in
our mysteriously constituted minds the highest and lowest emotions lie
very near together, and that those who have chosen a life of detachment
12 from earthly ties must be especially on their guard against the occasional
revenges which the lower nature, when thwarted, is always plotting
against the higher."


The lameness of the arguments adduced is obvious. The statement
that Church is the bride of Christ would be ridiculous in the extreme were
it to refer to the organization or the holy edifices alone and not to the
hearts of men and women who constitute them.


The dilemma obviously facing Dean Inge arises from the generally
prevalent notion that the erotic impulse is something alien to God and
divine consciousness. That it is a profane desire and act incompatible
with the divine nature of the quest for self-transcendence and the vision of
God. But if we calmly reflect on the point for a moment, we cannot but
arrive at the conclusion that the creative urge and the creative act are the
springhead of existence and hence the most important and holiest
functions, enjoined by God, for the propagation as also for the
ennoblement of the race.


When this is admitted the erotic aspect of mystical experience
assumes a different proportion altogether. The exquisite sensation
peculiar to the orgasm, normally experienced only in the play of love, is
not confined to the amorous sport alone. The same transporting sensation
is caused when the nerve secretions which feed the reproductive apparatus
flow towards the brain from any part of the body. Therefore the thrill of
the sexual climax and the rapture experienced in mystical ecstasy are
almost identical.


When we refer to erotic sensations we always associate them with the
experience of love. The fact that mystics of all nations and epochs often
expressed themselves in an erotic strain or used sensuous imagery in their
expressions or declared themselves to be the Brides or Lovers of a Divine
Being or the Deity does not at all mean that the experience that fell to
their share had any element of carnality in it.


They only tried to portray a certain aspect of the experience which, in
the normal course, can be encountered nowhere except in the province of
physical love. But if it is demonstrated that this rapturous sensation is
peculiar to the whole cerebrospinal system and can be caused by the
impact of certain neuronic substances, both in the reproductive region or
the brain, the subject assumes a different aspect altogether.


The aesthetic emotion evoked by a soul-captivating piece of music
can influence and direct the flow of thought both towards an object of
carnal desire or sublime adoration. The same dulcet strains of melody
may draw one to the contemplation of his beloved, with all the intensity of
feeling, and another to God or to a divine order of being beyond the pale
of earth. In the same way the transporting sensations which we associate
with the play of love can ravish the mind on the consummation of the
sexual act or by absorption in the transcendent image of God.
13


It is obvious that the rapture of the orgasm in order to be experienced
must depend on the capacity of consciousness to create it from a particular
type of stimulation affecting the nerves. In actual fact, the rapture is but a
faint reflection of the incomparable bliss inherent in consciousness itself.
It becomes more and more evident as we ascend the scale step by step
towards the final state of beatitude which is the hallmark of a genuine
contact with universal consciousness. This is what the term sat-chitananda,
coined by the Indian masters to designate this state, is aimed to
convey.


We now come to the crux of our discussion. The detailed mention of
the high degree of civilization reached by the dwellers of the Indus Valley
has been made with a purpose. Their obvious knowledge of the
mechanism of Kundalini, as clearly indicated in the iconographic
representations, provides irrefutable testimony to the fact that
transcendent experience in a few individuals, at least, must have been a
prevalent feature of the time. If it were not so, the imagery of the phallus
erectus would never have occurred to them.


The basic factor necessary for a spontaneous awakening of the
Serpent Power is a certain mature condition of the cerebrospinal system,
as already indicated. The point that now arises is how can this maturity
come about? The process of awakening is too complex and depends to
such an extent on the congenital disposition of the body that it would be
too much to suppose that the arousals occurred solely through certain
disciplines or shamanistic practices undertaken by them.


No amount of pressure exercised in any manner can force the upward
flow of the reproductive energy unless the nerves are already in a state of
preparedness. This fact is clearly recognized by all authorities on Yoga in
India. Even hammer-blows cannot rouse the Serpent Power unless the
time for it has arrived, says one authority. In fact, some books on Yoga
prescribe different periods of time for success in the discipline of Yoga for
students of different grades of intellect. "Contemplation on (the space
between) the eyebrows, in my view, leads to the attainment of the unmani
avastha in a short time," says Hatha-Yoga Pradipika (4,80). "Even for
people of modest intellect, this is a suitable means for attaining the state of
Raja-Yoga: the state of absorption arising from nada (the inner sound)
gives immediate experience."


From the words "even for people of modest intellect," it is obvious
that the author considers success in Yoga to be more difficult for seekers
with lesser mental acumen. This is an issue of great importance and will
be discussed more fully elsewhere. In fact, this is the idea underlying the
division of labor in Plato's Republic. It also formed the basis of the caste
system in India which later degenerated into hereditary usurpation of the
functions, initially meant to be distributed according to merit.


With the knowledge of agriculture and a settled urban way of life a
new phase started in the life of primitive man. Before this his dependence
14 on game and the wild products of the forest consumed all his time to
maintain himself. It is obvious that the dwellers in the Indus Valley,
Egypt, Sumer, and other advanced sites, by the process of urbanization
and the division of labor, had achieved a way of life which provided them
with ample leisure and time for reflecting on the problem of existence
almost in the same way as we do today.


In fact, the upper and priestly classes, considering the more relaxed
temper of the period, had probably a greater measure of free time than we
have. Since a secure, unhurried, leisured way of life is an indispensable
condition for the seasoning of the cerebrospinal system, this seasoning, it
is clear, could be achieved even without the amazing products of modern
technology. On the other hand, the more simple and healthy natural
environment that nourished the urban settlements of the past was, all
things considered, perhaps more favorable to the working of the inner
process than the hectic and polluted milieu created by technology today.
With such a background an uninterrupted civilized life, enduring for
hundreds, even thousands of years, as in the case of India and Egypt,
could not but provide successive crops of individuals, however limited in
number, in whom Kundalini was spontaneously awake from birth in the
same way as has generally been the case with the born mystics and saints
of medieval and recent times.


Since interest in the supernatural has always been a property of the
human mind, the extraordinary exhibitions, peculiar ways of life and the
experiences of these gifted individuals must have created a sensation
every time that they appeared on the scene. The various systems of
religious disciplines, magical practices and the complex of yogic exercises
must have originated from them, in dim antiquity, preserved by their
followers and carried forward by oral tradition through epochal spans of
time.


This is the reason why we find the roots of magic, religious discipline
and Yogic practices stretching backward to periods even anterior to every
known civilization of the past. Another fresh archaeological discovery
might bring to light a still more ancient culture, prior even to that of Egypt
or Sumer, extending the area of our enquiry backward by many thousands
of years.


The degree of knowledge of the mechanism of Kundalini, displayed
by an ancient culture, can help to determine, almost as accurately as
carbon dating, whether the knowledge gained during the span of its life
could be indigenous, acquired during the course of its own civilized
existence or was borrowed from some other source anterior to it.
This fact will be firmly established in the course of the investigation I
am proposing. The maturing of the nervous system and the brain is a
biological process, depending on a host of psychic and material factors.
Like all other activities of the flesh this process, too, follows the cyclic
15 order of time subject to vicissitudes caused by the mode of life and
behavior of an individual or a group.


As an instance, to illustrate what I mean, it is enough to point to the
present sudden eruption of strong desire, especially among the youth, both
in America and Europe, to achieve self-awareness at any cost, even by
resorting to drugs. The psychosomatic factor at the base of this sudden
upsurge is a certain degree of maturity of the cerebrospinal system in a
large section of the society.


The rush for yogis, adepts and masters has resulted from the fact that
the indigenous systems of religion and the occult do not provide the
appropriate food to satisfy the resistless urge. That is the reason why
efforts are made by thousands to gather the required knowledge from
other countries and sources, in this case from Yoga, Tantras, Sufism,
Tibetan systems, or Zen, where it has already attained to a greater degree
of advancement.


This "borrowing" of available information about the vital mechanism
from other sources has always occurred throughout the past. Only fifty
years ago the young adults and adolescents of these countries had quite a
different attitude towards their own ancestral faith and the society as a
whole. What has happened in this short interval to bring about a
wholesale change in the mental outlook of many of them?


Plato in the Timaeus recounts a legendary tale narrated by an old
Egyptian priest to Solon, an Athenian, relating to the existence of a highly
civilized nation in Athens a thousand years before the cultural awakening
of Egypt itself. This cultural awakening, according to the priest, had
occurred 8,000 years before.


"Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our
histories," said the priest to Solon, "But one of them exceeds all the rest in
greatness and valor. For these histories tell of a mighty power which,
unprovoked, made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia,
and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the
Atlantic ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable, and there was
an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called 'The
Pillars of Hercules.'"


Plato then proceeds to give a description of the island, known as
Atlantis, which is said to have been larger than Libya and Asia put
together. On this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful
empire which had rule over other islands and some parts of continents.
"This vast power gathered into one," added the priest, "endeavored to
subdue at a blow our country and yours . . . and then, Solon, your country
shone forth in the excellence of her virtue and strength among all
mankind. She defeated and triumphed over the invaders and preserved
from slavery those who were not yet subjugated . . . But afterwards there
16 occurred violent earthquakes and floods and, in a single day and night of
misfortune, all your war-like men in a body sank into the earth and the
island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea."
We are not concerned with the truth or otherwise of this story or about
the actual existence of Atlantis. Our purpose is to show that there were
legendary tales of civilizations even prior to that of Egypt current in the
time of Plato. He must have come across them in Egypt where, it is said,
he was for a number of years.


Recent archaeological finds in Kenya and other places in Africa tend
to extend the span of mankind's existence to more than double what was
previously assigned to it. Similarly another yet unsuspected discovery
might extend this span of civilized existence further backwards by many
thousand years.


There is every probability that the cult of Kundalini initially
developed in a vanished culture of which no record is available at this
time. Whatever the case might be, I wish to make it clear that the average
individual of our day stands no greater chance of a successful awakening
of Kundalini than did the elite of the Egyptian or the Indus Valley
empires. The world of science has yet no awareness of the fact that a
veritable mine of wonders, a real Aladdin's Lamp, exists as a mighty
potential in the human body, awaiting discovery and application for
establishing a heaven on earth.


The extremely narrow and misleading views expressed by some
exponents of this cult and even eminent scholars of our time shall be
discussed elsewhere. Here it is sufficient to say that the general
impression prevailing in the minds of the laity and even of scholars is that
Kundalini is some sort of a nerve energy, bioelectricity or astral force
which can be used at will to open the door leading to the occult realms of
nature. They seldom show an awareness of the fact that prana-Shakti is
the controlling Intelligence behind the universe and Kundalini is the
mechanism of its operation in the human frame for the evolution of mind.
The mechanism is operative both in the individual and the race, and is
always represented in the individual and racial consciousness. This is
enough to indicate the colossal magnitude and importance of the
knowledge about Kundalini. There is nothing in the organic structure of
man so intricate and so fraught with momentous consequences as the
Serpent Power. Empires rose and fell, attained to glorious proportions,
shrank to insignificance or vanished altogether by the favorable or adverse
operation of this mighty force.


There is incontrovertible evidence to show that, like the Indus Valley,
the cult of Kundalini was practiced in Egypt also. Some parts of the
Egyptian cult extended to periods before the commencement of the known
pre-history of the Nile civilization. The use of cryptic and symbolic
language to disguise the real facts of the mysterious science was in vogue
from the earliest times. There is no doubt that Isis was the iconographic
17 and mythical symbol for the Serpent Power. Under the New Empire Isis
became, beyond all doubt, the greatest Goddess in Egypt, and the
following titles illustrate the estimation in which she was held throughout
the lands.


"She is of the many names . . . Great One who is from the beginning .
. . The greatest of the Gods and the Goddesses, The Queen of all the Gods
. . . The best beloved of all the Gods . . . The prototype of all beings . . .
She is of the beams of gold . . . The golden One . . . The most brilliant
Goddess . . . Lady of the solid earth . . . She who vomiteth fire . . . The
Blazing Flame . . . The Mother of the God Horus, The mighty Bull . . .
The Cow Heru-Sekha, who bringeth forth all things . . . Bestowed of life .
. . Lady of life . . . Lady of abundance . . . Lady of joy and gladness . . .
Lady of love. . . Beloved in all lands . . . The Mighty One . . . Beautiful,
Majestic and Beneficent . . . The Mistress of Spells."5


A moment's reflection is enough to show that the Shakti of the
Tantras, soma of the Vedas and Isis of Egypt refer to one and the same
entity. The decipherment of the Indus Valley script may reveal yet
another name for this power. The terms like "The Cow that giveth all
things . . . Lady of abundance . . . Lady of Joy . . . Lady of Spells . . . Lady
of love," are almost identical with the epithets applied to Kundalini in the
Indian texts.


The secrets of the mysterious rites performed in initiation into the cult
of Isis and other secrets of the Mysteries are still obscure. But it is
obvious that the power was cultivated more for magical purposes and
attainment of psychic gifts than for illumination. This is also probably
true of the Indus Valley cult. The Kaula Tantric practices also have more
of the magical and the sensuous than of the transcendent and the Divine.
It is likely that there was some sort of hierarchical priestly oligarchy
in the Indus Valley or, like the Egyptian pharaohs, the heads of state were
invested with the insignia of divinity. It could also be that the cult of
Kundalini was practiced to hold the toiling populations in thrall with
weird exhibitions of magical power, healing gifts or psychic displays.
The Tantras are replete with rituals and practices of uncanny kinds,
designed to overawe and fascinate unsophisticated, suggestible and
superstitious minds.


The successive layers of the so-far excavated ruins show a static
uniformity. The Indus civilization, it is obvious, had attained a fairly high
degree of industrialization. The industry was well organized, but the
products manufactured for the use of the common classes were mostly
utilitarian and without real artistic value. After the first ascent to a certain
point in organizations and industry the population became stagnant,
repeating the same designs, the same style of architecture and the same
varieties of manufactured products over and over again. 18


The sudden disappearance of the Indus Valley dwellers is attributed to
the inrush of the hardy Aryan immigrants through the northwestern
passes. More tough and skilled in fighting, equipped with weapons made
of iron and making dexterous use of the horse in battle, they swept over
their habitations like a hurricane carrying all before them. Although they
must have fought bravely to save their lives and assets, the effete
populations, kept under thrall by superstition and magic, could prove no
match for the less civilized but better armed hosts which fell upon them.
These facts have been mentioned to show that mere knowledge of the
Kundalini force or of the methods to arouse it is no surety of an easy
golden harvest attainable by its use. If employed for dominance, temporal
power, licentiousness, magic or psychic gifts, it can lead to death and
degeneration as surely as it can raise to divine eminence and heights of
transcendence with reverent application and approach.


"Though a man be a knower of the Three Times-past, present and
future,"" says Shakti Sangama Tantra (part IV), "Though he be a
controller of the Three Worlds, even then he should not transgress the
rules of conduct for men in the world, were it only in his thought."
"Among the Egyptians of the Middle and New Empires," says Budge,
"Isis was regarded as a great magician and the papyri contain several
allusions to her magical powers. She knew how to weave spells and how
to fashion magical figures, and she possessed the knowledge of all the
secret or hidden names of all the Gods and of all the spirits . . . At her
bidding the powers of nature ceased or modified their operations and she
could make everything both animate and inanimate to perform her will."5
How like it is to the powers ascribed to Shakti in the eulogies
addressed to her. "Thou art lustre in the moon, radiance in the sun," says
Panchastavi (IV-20), "Intelligence in man, Force in the wind; Taste in
water, and Heat in fire, without Thee (O Goddess) the whole universe
would be devoid of its substance." That she controls all of nature, both
animate or inanimate, is expressed in these words (IV-21) "Those starry
hosts that roam the sky, this atmosphere which gives birth to water, this
Sheshanag (a mythical serpent) which supports the earth, the air which
moves and this fire which shines brightly, they all, O Mother, exist only
on Thy command."


Can there exist the least shadow of doubt if to these unmistakable
points of resemblance between Isis and Shakti is now added the further
fact that one of the most powerful amulets known to the Egyptians was
the object thet, which carried with it the influence of the blood, magical
powers, and word of power of the former.


According to Budge it is most probably a conventional representation
of the uterus with its ligatures, and the vagina. The all powerful symbol
of Osiris is said to be a portion of his backbone "Tet" or rather the OS
sacrum (sacrum of Osiris) set on a stand. This clearly corresponds to the
19 lingam-yoni symbol of the Tantras with this difference-that in place of the
lingam, symbolic use is made of a part of the backbone which plays a no
less important part in the culture of Kundalini. The usual ornament or
crown on the head of Isis consists of a pair of horns, between which is a
solar or lunar disc.


This also corresponds to the moon in the hair of Shakti. "Adorned
with the crescent of the Queen of Night (the moon) in the hair on Thy
head," says Panchastavi (III-23), "and like a stream of Nectar washing
away the suffering of worthy existence, I make obeisance to Thee, O
Bhawani (Mistress of Creation)." She has an uraeus (the serpent symbol)
over her forehead for the Egyptians never forget her divine origin. In the
New Empire women wore pendants made of porcelain or metal which
represent the Goddess, seated among lotus plants with her newly born
child Horus on her knees. The lotus is a symbol of Kundalini.


Isis is generally depicted on the monuments and papyri in the form of
a woman holding the ankh in one of her hands. As a symbol the ankh is
found everywhere on the Egyptian monuments. Gods and Goddesses hold
it in their hands, or present it to the nose of their favorites. It is used as an
ornamental device or auspicious symbol on furniture, jewelry and other
objects. The ankh was also used as an amulet for protection against evil
and magic or to bring good luck. In this way it is analogous to the cross,
the swastika and "Om."


Scholars are divided in their opinions about the symbolic
interpretation of the ankh. According to Battiscombe Gunn the symbol
depicts the strips or straps of a sandal. Nothing can be more absurd than
to suppose that Gods and Goddesses would carry the symbol of strips and
straps of a sandal as an emblem of their divinity and power in their hands
or present it to the nose of those they want to befriend.


The figure is of a cross with a handle, like a ring or loop, on the upper
end. According to Jablonski the symbol represents the phallus. Whatever
may be the material object portrayed by the handled cross, its abstract
sense is not doubtful. It is the symbol of life, of the vital germ, and for
this reason is called the key of life. In one of the representations, Anumit
is shown holding the handled cross to the nostrils of the king, Usertesen
III, to give him life, stability, and purity, like Ra (the sun-god) forever.

The ankh is also a symbol of regeneration, of new life for the dead,
and of immortality beyond the earth. These are the very offices which an
awakened Kundalini is meant to fulfill. It is, therefore, obvious that in its
esoteric significance ankh is the same as lotus or the lingam-yoni symbol
of Kundalini.

According to Budge there is plenty of evidence to show that the
Egyptians of the Middle and New Kingdoms did not know what many of
the sacred emblems or symbols represented, a fact which is clearly proven
by the way in which they drew them on papyri, or fashioned them in
20 various substances. This applies to all the three figures-the thet or the
buckle of Isis the tet or backbone of Osiris and the ankh. The cult of
Osiris and Isis had its beginnings in the mists of prehistory before the
accepted period of about 4,500 years assigned to the kingdoms of Egypt,
prior to the birth of Christ. The confusion about the real significance of
these symbols that prevailed in later times is not to be wondered at. The
riddles presented now, by some of the obscure passages in the Rig Veda
must be traced to the same cause.

The monuments and relics of Egypt, Mesopotamia or Crete appear
alien and foreign to us because they belong to a different culture, way of
life and thought. The remnants of ancient Rome and Greece seem more
familiar, indicating a greater affinity in thinking and the mode of life. It is
this exotic element that adds to the mystery of the pyramids.

Looking into the future the conclusion is irresistible that, maybe, even
after a few hundred years, our skyscrapers, high-speed vehicles, and other
fruits of modern technology might appear alien and strange to our distant
progeny taught by experience and the pressure of circumstances to adhere
to a more natural and simpler way of life. But the present-day intellect,
carried away by the novelty and glamor of modern life, believes it to be
the best possible way of existence that was ever achieved so far.
We can safely infer that the same attitude of mind must have.

characterized the thinking of the Egyptian intellectual also in his day. “In
the impressive portrait statue of Cheops' cousin, the Vizier Hemon (the
Devotee of Heliopolis),” says Aldred, “who was evidently responsible for
the building of the Great Pyramid, there is more than a hint of that divine
assurance and intellectual ruthlessness which these early engineers must
have possessed in such abundance to plan, organize and carry out such
mighty works.”6

The modern intellectual is no less over-confident of his own ability.
The fatal lacunae in his planning and thinking will come to light when the
crash occurs. In his own sphere of activity the leading politician, thinker,
scientist, teacher, writer, businessman, or priest believes in the soundness
and correctness of his own judgment and act.

The leading intellects in all the vanished civilizations believed and
acted on the same lines. We, who now sit in judgment on their merits and
flaws, will be judged in the same way by our progeny. But we seldom
grow aware of our own mistakes and faults, as the human intellect,
clouded by ego and pride, is prone to serious error and miscalculation,
even when adorned with all the learning available at the time. It is the
fallibility of intellect that has been responsible for every decline of
ascendant nations in history.

The present-day premier nations are heading for the same end and
exactly for the same reason. So long as the human mind functions as the
storm-center of passion, desire and lust there is no way to avoid this
21 distortion and disorientation of the intellect. It needs constant cleansing
and purification from within. All healthy religious disciplines are
designed to effect this purgation to illumine the intellect with the infallible
Light aglow in the soul of man.

This is the reason why Revelation was allotted such a high place of
honor all through the past. Like the velocity of light-the invariant of
Einstein-which is used as the standard of measurement for all other
motions and speeds in the universe, there is an invariant hidden deep in
the recesses of human consciousness.

It sometimes reveals itself to specially gifted men and women in
wakefulness, dream or the elevated state of mystical ecstasy. This has
been happening now for thousands of years in the past and will continue
to happen for thousands of years to come, till all the race is established in
this sublime dimension of consciousness. The mode of life and the social
orders of human beings need to be oriented again and again to harmonize
with this evolutionary transformation in their consciousness.

The crises occur when the intellect fails to adjust itself to the change,
resulting in upheavals to demolish and reform a disharmonious social
order. This is the situation we are facing today.

END
FOOTNOTES:

1. Ancient India, R. C. Majumdar, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1968.
2. Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond, Sir Mortimer Wheeler,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1966.
3. The Source of Civilization, Gerald Heard.
4. Thirteen Principal Upanishads, R. E. Hume, Oxford University Press,
London, 1921.
5. Osiris, E. A. W. Budge, The Medici Society Ltd., London, 1911.
6. Sex Symbolism in Religion, J. B. Hannay, The Religious Evolution
Research Society, London. 1922.