Beyond the Godman: The Freedom of Consciousness to Find Its Own Path

I have always been slightly wary of powerful godmen wielding enormous clout over their followers. Instead of inculcating in me a feeling of reverence and faith, they have often given me a certain feeling of intimidation.

This is something vague and difficult to explain, but I sometimes feel something negatively powerful in their persona—something that seems capable of forcing the path of my destiny according to their own idea of life.

I know there are psychic powers. There are almost miraculous and magical intuitive powers that can result from certain tantric practices, meditation techniques, and different yantras, mantras and tantras used for acquiring different types of capabilities.

To me, there is a science behind all this. There is absolutely nothing miraculous in this play of cosmic energy. The potential is already there. There is an inherent quality behind all the traits that get manifested in this interplay of life as we witness it on Earth.

Everything is pre-existing.

If you start observing the smallest microorganisms, insects, birds and animals—some of which have hardly any brain in comparison with us—you find that, on their own little platform of life and living, they are still guided by an extraordinary precision.

From this, I make out that there is an inherent wisdom and knowledge in each and every bit of energy that is going around, and what gets manifested through us is just a portion of it.

So when powerful godmen, tantrics or yogis acquire extraordinary capabilities that attract large numbers of people, institutions begin to build up around them and they gather many followers.

I think it is the result of some kind of realignment of their nervous system and their entire brain. Something offbeat opens up within them, giving them additional capabilities of cognition and perception, extraordinary speaking powers and even the so-called siddhis through which things appear to get manifested at the level of energy itself, without the person physically appearing to do anything.

They seem to acquire the capability to reach towards the roots behind phenomena, actions, words and emotions—to what I perceive as the deeper energetic or quantum field—and from there they can direct things according to their intentions, goals, determination or the way they look at things.

It is something powerful. Accepted. No problem with that.

And naturally, people are awestruck by such capabilities.

A normal householder may efficiently manage his family and control the little system around him. That is his capability.

On a broader platform, a politician or social reformer may manage things and impose his influence upon a larger group of people, ranging from a village to the national level.

There are different domains of life.

Some devote their energies to politics, some to art, some to science, some to business. Depending upon their capabilities and focused attention, they build up an area of influence on the basis of what they are capable of doing.

Similarly, godmen have a different type of capability through which they exercise influence. Their pursuit is different from the ordinary pursuits of common people. They talk of kindness. They talk of love. They talk of peace and harmony.

And just because this appears so different to us—to we people caught up in the struggle for survival, with all its challenges and the consequent emotions of anger, hatred, jealousy and so on—we naturally feel drawn towards them. We respect them. We become disciples and followers.

There is no problem with that either.

At least such an institution appears to be talking about peace and harmony in chaotic and disorderly times.

But I think we should not commit the mistake of taking the godman's version of reality as the ultimate and superiormost perspective available to human beings.

It is another perspective of looking at life—a perspective involving acceptance, faith and hope.

But that does not necessarily make it the ultimate.

We should not take that perspective as the final yardstick and then judge every other human pursuit as inferior.

No.

It is not about inferiority or superiority.

It is about something being different.

It is a dynamic interplay of different characteristics available in Mother Nature, manifesting themselves through different traits. This particular manifestation may represent something that does not come naturally to many of us. It may teach us not to remain so self-centred.

As far as that is concerned, I welcome this perspective.

But I do not take it to be the ultimate point of human achievement, in comparison with which all other perspectives, opinions, goals, aims and ambitions must stand on a lower footing.

No.

Everything is important in its own way.

These are distinct categories, distinct ways through which the same energy is trying to manifest and expand.

When Spiritual Power Becomes Authority

My basic problem with powerful tantrics, godmen and people who build up an enormous cloud of influence around themselves on the basis of their psychic powers is that they sometimes appear to me—and this is entirely my personal opinion—to be tampering with many destinies on the basis of what they themselves perceive to be the ultimate reality.

But in the cosmos, I do not think there is such a simple thing as one ultimate reality available to an individual.

Reality appears infinitely layered to me.

Their perspective is one particular perspective. It may appear beneficial, and it may actually be beneficial for common humanity in many ways.

But nothing can be entirely without its pros and cons.

Powerful tantrics and yogis possessing psychic powers, just like powerful people in other domains of life, can be very categorical and point-blank in their approach. They can develop a rigid, unswerving attitude towards the way things should be managed within the institutions they run.

I have closely observed some institutions built around people believed to possess powerful psychic capabilities acquired through yantra sadhana, tantra sadhana or mantra sadhana.

Such people often carry very strong personalities.

They can also carry a very rigid attitude towards what they deem to be good for the common masses.

I have not always found them adaptable to differing views.

I have seen them becoming angry when counterarguments are put before them. In their own characteristic ways, they can be very dismissive of perspectives that differ from theirs.

They become enormously powerful central forces within the institutions they run.

Of course, the thousands or even millions of followers who gather around them may appear like a family to them. Their institutions may include charitable hospitals, colleges, environmental projects and numerous other activities. It can look like one enormous household.

But somewhere I do not see a fundamental qualitative difference between this and the ordinary householder, at least as far as maintaining a grip upon one's institution or family is concerned.

A common householder is extremely particular, focused and attentive—even self-centred at times—about nurturing the interests of his family.

Similarly, powerful yogis and godmen may display essentially the same attitude towards their much larger spiritual families.

The difference may therefore sometimes be quantitative rather than qualitative.

They are managing a much bigger family.

They may be managing thousands or even millions of people.

But they can remain very adamant about how things should be arranged, how affairs should be managed, and how spiritual tools and techniques should be taught and transmitted.

After a period of time, many of the elements that we witness in other human enterprises can begin creeping into these institutions as well.

You see the same self-interest-driven urge to have more followers.

More influence.

More clout.

Political connections.

I have seen very powerful godmen speaking about divine love and about looking upon all humanity without differentiation, and yet I have also seen some of them eulogizing and singing praises of people belonging to a particular political party.

That gave rise to another reflection in me.

Perhaps it is extremely difficult to completely quit the so-called sins and weaknesses associated with human beings while retaining this human body on Earth.

After all, all of us are human beings.

Some simply have more capabilities.

At the root of it, I feel, a common human being is still functioning and operating.

They too can experience many of the tendencies with which ordinary householders struggle.

They can become angry.

They can experience jealousy.

They can have desires.

They can experience many of the things that arise in ordinary people through their daily exposure to circumstances.

The important difference, perhaps, is that they are less impulsive.

And credit for that may go to their meditation techniques and spiritual disciplines. They have developed the capacity to reflect before reacting.

Basically, it is about mastering the mind.

If an ordinary person has mastered his mind to ten percent, perhaps such a practitioner has carried that mastery much farther.

And obviously somebody who has mastered his mind and taken himself out of the loop of impulsive decisions and behaviour will have a more calculated, precise and almost surgically effective approach while dealing with people and situations, making decisions, handling projects and creating something new.

All in all, we can say that they can become highly effective.

And that effectiveness itself provides the platform from which disciples and followers begin looking up to them as carriers of divinity.

There is nothing wrong with that.

It is the result of their karma—the harvest of their karma.

They have been doing something extraordinarily demanding. They have performed practices requiring enormous investment of energy in all dimensions—mind, body and soul.

They have taken risks.

They may have exposed their bodies to many dangers during their sadhanas.

So whatever comes to them in the form of psychic powers, extrasensory perception or what are described as supernatural capabilities can, within this understanding, be seen as the result of what they have focused upon and what they have been doing throughout their lives.

Tantra and the World of Subtle Energies

There are many stories associated with tantra sadhanas—for example, yogis going into cremation grounds and performing their practices there.

Here I enter a metaphysical understanding of things.

I feel that there may be disembodied entities floating like bubbles of consciousness.

In the traditional elemental framework through which I understand this, such an entity may retain the subtler elements while lacking the complete five-element structure available to a living human body.

Suppose a human being meets a sudden, accidental, tragic and painful death without fulfilling what was meant to be accomplished as his or her prarabdha.

In my understanding, the unit of consciousness leaving such a body may retain a stronger post-death identity than in an ordinary natural death because so much that was meant to be accomplished during that lifetime remains unfulfilled.

I visualize these as floating bubbles carrying strong tendencies.

They may be roaming around almost as different currents exist in the atmosphere.

At most, I feel, they may influence tendencies already existing within us.

Suppose I have a propensity for anger.

If some disembodied entity carrying a similar tendency happens to pass through my energetic system, it might aggravate my primary tendency. I may suddenly become angrier than usual over something very small.

The same may apply to somebody whose dominant attribute is hatred, lust or ambition.

In this metaphysical model, these are strong bubbles of different characteristics looking for a home—trying to get plugged into an energetic system of a similar nature within a living human being possessing all five primary elements.

The disembodied entity is looking for a home, and the complete, living, breathing human body provides such a home.

This is also one way in which I personally try to understand traditional accounts of possession—people appearing to come under the influence of something strange and behaving in ways that would not normally be expected from them.

These are, of course, metaphysical matters operating beyond the plain physical framework through which we ordinarily examine life. I understand them as phenomena at the level of subtle energy.

Within this same understanding, through certain tantra sadhanas a tantric may strengthen his own system by connecting with such disembodied energies.

He provides them, as I visualize it, with a platform of relative stability where they feel somewhat welcomed and find a kind of restfulness.

In return, like obliged guests, they may provide certain capabilities that appear miraculous to ordinary people but, within that metaphysical framework, are simply additional intuitive or psychic faculties.

The tantric or godman may consequently become capable of channelizing many such energies towards shaping circumstances according to his or her intentions.

And that creates power.

The Subtle Nature of Spiritual Power

Such power can enable a person to establish institutions according to what he believes things should be, according to his understanding of what is good and bad.

It allows him to influence people.

People line up behind him.

Institutions get established.

Die-hard supporters emerge.

Some followers may become so intensely identified with the cause that they are prepared to kill or be killed for it.

And over a period of time, you can begin seeing within these institutions many of the same manifestations that appear in any other institution built around power and influence.

The important difference is that here the power is subtle.

In other domains of life, the assertion of power is more direct and straightforward. Therefore, it can more easily be judged, measured and analysed.

But in the spiritual domain there is often a presumption that this particular path and perspective on life is automatically sacrosanct, pure and honest.

So people may stop judging.

Even when authority or power is misused, followers may continue believing that whatever is happening must somehow be good for them—that it is driven by something beyond ordinary human self-interest.

And then a powerful godman may become influential enough to channel the destinies of millions according to his own version of truth.

Is There a Final Truth?

This is where my fundamental disagreement begins.

I do not believe there is one absolute truth that somebody can capture completely and then hand over to everybody else.

Such teachers may speak of the truth they have been seeking and teaching as though it were the final truth.

But I cannot accept that.

If the final truth were completely available to an individual, then what would infinity mean?

Infinity, to me, means that whatever we think, perceive and talk about remains only a fraction of the ultimate truth.

It remains a perspective.

An opinion.

We are still searching for absolute truth, and I sometimes doubt whether we will ever possess it in its totality.

Yet a powerful spiritual authority may present his particular version of life as absolute truth and then drive millions of individual destinies along a path carved out according to that understanding.

To me, this somehow appears to negate one of the fundamental principles of creation itself.

The Right of Consciousness to Explore

Creation appears to me as this beautiful interplay of life and living in which every entity—bodied or disembodied, a blade of grass, an insect, an elephant, a whale or a human being—is participating in creation's exploration of itself through varied and perhaps infinite means and dimensions.

So when a powerful godman or tantric creates one concretely laid-out plan, I can sometimes see individual potential being cut down and levelled out.

People become followers.

They become holders of comparatively minor roles helping sustain the grip of the central authority over the system.

And to me, this represents a curtailment—a check upon the natural flow of somebody's consciousness.

It seems almost as though you are robbing somebody of his or her inherent right to explore destiny on his or her own terms.

A broad boundary has been created.

If you cross that boundary, you are viewed as somebody who has broken the rules.

That, to me, is the basic problem.

It can create a kind of stalemate, a stagnation for millions of individual destinies, forcing them to move according to one particular perspective and one particular version of truth.

But each destiny, each soul and each individual has an inherent right to go searching for his or her own destiny.

Let the individual face the pitfalls on the way.

Let the individual gather and imbibe all the experiences that are possible to a human being.

Because there is a tremendous richness that one gathers on the way.

The Long Detour and the Pathless Path

There is richness in the long detour.

There is richness in the soul path.

There is richness in the pathless path that one pursues on one's own.

It is redolent with treasure houses.

It is full of pain.

It is full of agony.

But it is full of ecstatic highs as well.

When somebody begins following a powerful tantric or godman, however, there can be an expectation of security:

I will receive a properly laid-out plan.

I will have security.

I will have safety.

I will have the convenience of not being exposed to all the hazards of the journey.

I will be safe.

But this very assurance of safety can itself become a big check dam—a boundary fixed around the individual, making him or her part of a closed system that no longer allows spontaneous interaction with the uncertainties of life.

And that may stop individual consciousness from fully blossoming.

It might have blossomed in so many different ways had it taken its own path.

That is why, to me, Mother Existence—this creation itself—is God, the Creator.

And whatever is here, from the smallest manifestation to the largest, seems to be pushing each and every iota and atom towards a different kind of blossoming.

Perhaps that freedom to blossom differently is itself one of the deepest beauties of creation.

When the Serpent Stirred: My Journey Through Kundalini, Consciousness and Grace

 

Hi everyone. I hope everything is fine with you, and I hope you are enjoying your life and are joyful in your pursuit. Almighty has been lenient enough to allow us to pursue our dreams and the activities that lie close to our passions.

Audio 1 on Kundalini

What I am going to share here is deeply personal. It is based on my own first-hand experience. I am not presenting a theory, nor am I trying to prove anything to anyone. I am simply narrating what happened to me, how I experienced it, and what I have come to understand from it over the years.

Audio 2 on Kundalini

I don't know how, but it is happening like this: I feel driven, even pushed, to talk about Kundalini, such a majestic and apparently mysterious force. Once you experience something of it, you just can't help talking about it. You feel compelled, pushed, driven, even honored to talk about it and share your experience.

Audio 3 on Kundalini

There may be people somewhere who need this information at this particular stage of their lives, and that is primarily the reason I am sharing it. Even if one person gets some help from it, I think the purpose is served.

Audio 4 on Kundalini

These are highly experiential things. Primarily, something happens to you. Later, when you read about it or listen to other people talking about similar experiences, you begin to correlate things. You fill in the gaps, and gradually you create some sort of theory around what happened to you.

But when it comes to expressing a phenomenon like this through words, words are always insufficient. Still, we have to use words and sentences. There is no other way.

Sometimes, if you don't have experiential knowledge of something, you may find it theoretical. But even theoretical knowledge can help a person later in life. Most of the time, things first come to us in theory. Later, if we are lucky, practical validation happens and the experiential dimension opens before us.

All of us are essentially spiritual beings, with lesser or greater amounts of worldly baggage tagged along on the journey. The worldly baggage is merely fuel for the journey. But there is always a temptation to take the fuel as the main thing, whereas in reality it is supposed to get burnt in the process of karmic dissipation, taking us gradually toward a higher dimension of perception.

Kundalini, as I have come to understand it, is an auxiliary dimension in our psychosomatic system. It is an extra dimension in the evolution of consciousness.

To lead a healthy, successful and joyful life, it is not essential to have an awakened Kundalini. There are so many people who have made a big mark on the stage of time without having anything whatsoever to do with Kundalini. Most of us are quite capable of wading through the challenges of life through ordinary sense perception.

So Kundalini is an extra dimension. This fact should first be accepted.

To me, Kundalini is something lying at the interface of our psychosomatic structure and the larger cosmic energy of which we are a part, just as a drop is a part of the sea.

It is a shortcut, a kind of gateway. You can even call it a portal—a speeding up of the evolutionary processes of consciousness.

And just like any other shortcut, it has its risks, dangers, possibilities, rewards, agonies, ecstasies—everything, in fact.

The fundamental law of the cosmos is pure potentiality, and Kundalini, to me, represents that potentiality, that unbounded field of possibility. It is a trigger point. It is a gateway. It is a portal to enter another domain.

It can kick-start and unleash a sudden current of energy that may take consciousness to a level which, in the natural sequence of karmic resolution, might otherwise have taken several lifetimes of entanglement, pain, experience and learning.

There is a set of controllables and uncontrollables in one's life.

As far as I am concerned, I tried my level best to succeed in normal worldly terms, just like anyone around me. But somehow the uncontrollables, operating at a level of existence beyond my efforts, would repeatedly push me back to square one.

Again and again I would find myself standing almost exactly at the point from where I had started, despite the best of my efforts.

And, as you can imagine, that gives a person a lot of pain and suffering.

You begin questioning the basics that seem to operate the world around you, and before you even realize it, you have entered a spiritual dimension.

I think this is how it happens with many of us who take to this path.

I never had a guide in physical form on the spiritual path. Involuntarily, I began doing yogic practices on the basis of what I had read in books.

One particular practice almost hammered the very base—the Mooladhara—and I continued doing it for almost a decade. I would even say that in some way I felt forced to continue it.

Much later, I realized that perhaps what I had been doing amounted to provoking the snake in its hole—that is, Kundalini resting in its natural state.

They say Kundalini lies coiled at the base of the spine. These may sound like mythological images, but they carry a very substantial meaning.

Imagine that you are walking through a forest. Beside your path there is a hole, and inside that hole a large snake is quietly resting.

You are simply supposed to walk past.

But suppose you become obsessed with that hole. You pick up a stick and keep prodding inside it again and again, trying to bring that resting snake into activation.

What do you expect?

At some point the snake is going to move.

That is exactly how I now look at what happened in my case.

Energy, according to the laws of input and output, moved.

But my organic structure was not prepared for the sudden onslaught of energy.

And, as could be expected, it gave me many nightmares.

They manifested at every level—at the level of thoughts, emotions and body. It left me in what I can only call a dark night of the soul.

It was a karmic leap, a huge jump.

And being completely alone to fend for myself made it perhaps the toughest phase of my life.

There was tremendous agony, pain, fear, phobia and challenge at so many levels.

I was running everywhere, clutching at every possible straw of salvation.

I went on pilgrimages. I wandered in seclusion in forests. I visited ashrams. I fell at the feet of many holy men.

I was trying somehow to save myself from being sucked into that void of darkness and to find some meaning in life—to discover some purpose behind all the apparently meaningless chaos spinning around me.

And something very beautiful happened during that period.

Religious differences melted away.

I would enter a gurdwara, a masjid, a church, a temple or a Buddhist monastery with the same reverence and faith.

I was looking for anything that could save me from darkness.

I tried to become an unquestioning bhakt of different deities. I tried yoga, mantra sadhana, pranayama—whatever presented itself on the way.

The pressure of energy was making me dance to its tunes almost like a puppet. It required tremendous activity at many levels, and I was constantly looking for avenues through which this energy could be dissipated.

About six or seven years ago, I took to worshipping Lord Hanuman.

I began keeping a fast on Tuesdays and reading Hanuman Chalisa from a booklet because I simply could not recite it from memory.

Around that period, I was also visiting Osho's ashram at Murthal, where Sadguru Osho Shailendra, who happens to be Bhagwan Osho's real brother, gave mala diksha and held satsangs and sermons.

On one occasion, I was fortunate enough that he placed his blessing hand on my head.

Around the same broad period, I had also been to Dharamshala and was blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

That was a very fortunate phase of my life, and something seemed to intensify further in the energetic process.

I have no other explanation for it except that I took it as a possible case of Shaktipat.

Experiences began happening that would later shape the theoretical foundations of my understanding.

Shortly after this period of blessings, one Tuesday I was reading Hanuman Chalisa from the booklet while observing my fast.

Incense was burning. There was an oil lamp. Offerings were placed before the idol of Lord Hanuman in the small temple at home.

And then it happened.

An intense force gripped me very tightly.

I was in perfect awareness of everything that was happening, but my body was no longer under the control of my voluntary conscious mind.

It was happening to me, and I was watching it.

My body was twisted and turned into extremely difficult yogic postures which I cannot even imagine performing in my normal condition.

It felt as if a powerful hand was twisting me, turning me, gripping me tightly and forcing the body through the toughest postures.

I was helpless.

Yet these were not random or weird contortions.

There was symmetry.

There was precision.

A movement would complete a cycle.

The Hanuman idol was kept in a little stone temple with a sharp ledge.

During one of these postures, I was twisted into something like a lotus posture, and then my forehead began moving slowly toward the sharp stone edge.

The descent was extraordinarily precise.

My eyebrow began drawing a thin line along one side of that stone edge.

The pressure was very, very, very hard.

And the line of movement was extremely narrow.

Just a millimeter lower and it could have injured my eye because the force was so intense.

But it went with unbelievable precision.

The same thing later happened with the eyebrow on the other side.

There were many such moments during those approximately forty-five minutes.

When the force finally released the involuntary control of my body, my spine felt completely drawn and straight, almost as if it had been aligned according to some plan.

And then came what I consider one of the sweetest prasad of that entire divine exercise.

I began singing Hanuman Chalisa by myself.

Suddenly, I knew it.

Until then I had always needed the booklet. I had been chanting it for perhaps a year, but somehow now it was flowing freely from memory.

To me, it felt like prasad from the great Lord.

After that, for almost six months, involuntary mudras and bodily movements continued to happen.

Sometimes the body would play with me as if I were a lifeless puppet.

And I think one of the lessons in such things is to make us realize that we are not exactly what we imagine ourselves to be.

Perhaps it is also a way of tracing and reducing the ego—the belief that we are in complete control of everything.

You begin realizing that there may be dimensions of existence beyond the narrow command of the conscious mind.

At the bodily level, perhaps such movements also remove psychic entanglements from our karmic structure.

I know that I have many karmic entanglements from the past to resolve, and perhaps that is why the rise of energy has posed so many challenges.

And the journey continues, my dear fellow travelers on the path.

As the brain and the whole system adjust to this new surge, I have also heard many different types of sounds over the years—the kinds of sounds people read about in descriptions of Kundalini awakening.

I can credibly say from my own experience that I have heard them.

I have heard sounds like buzzing bees, tinkling bells, a flute, a sharp chin-chin sound, rumbling clouds and many other varieties.

To me, this is the divine music of higher vibrational frequencies.

I don't see anything mythological, miraculous or superstitious about it.

It is simply that perception reaches a level where you begin sensing vibrational realities which were previously beyond your awareness.

They say that meditating on these sounds can take a seeker into still higher orbits.

But I am a common man.

I have my responsibilities.

I have my worldly duties to fulfill and karmic issues to resolve.

So I continue travelling on the path while balancing the needs of worldly life with the needs of my soul.

And I remain open to guidance from every corner.

Guidance has always arrived from different directions.

Sometimes through a book.

Sometimes through a satsang.

Sometimes through somebody speaking online.

Sometimes through television.

Sometimes through a YouTube channel.

Sometimes even through a thought that comes exactly when it is needed.

I see all of these as divine mediums through which fellow travelers can receive guidance.

Presently, I have a hunch that His Holiness Maha Avatar Babaji is guiding me on the path.

I feel privileged.

I feel blessed.

I don't know the truth.

But that is how it feels to me.

It is my truth, and I am happy with it.

There is another thing I have gradually understood.

Many people enter spirituality expecting supernatural powers. They think perhaps miracles will happen, that they will reach some level of godliness, that flowers will start showering from the sky.

It is nothing like that.

To me, spirituality is simply evolution in consciousness.

The traditional description of Kundalini rising through seven chakras from Mooladhara to Sahasrara is expressed through beautiful symbolic and mythological language. Such stories capture our attention and help communicate something which is otherwise difficult to explain.

But the process itself, as I experience it, is quite simple.

Scriptures speak of lust, greed, jealousy, anger, hate and other tendencies, sometimes calling them sins.

I don't like calling them sins.

These are simply the normal ways in which an ordinary human being is expected to live.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Nature does not condemn.

Nature is impartial.

These are simply different ways in which energy is being utilized.

Suppose you are deeply involved in material pursuits.

You are competing with somebody.

You are uncomfortable because somebody else has become materially richer.

You constantly compare your situation with theirs.

Or suppose you become deeply involved with a man or a woman.

That particular relationship can create an entire ecosystem around itself.

Thoughts, emotions, expectations, fears, fantasies, hopes—all of these begin consuming enormous amounts of energy.

Similarly, if you are trying constantly to raise yourself in the eyes of others, you evaluate your position according to what other people think about you.

Most of your energy goes there.

Again, nothing wrong with it.

These are your energies, and you have every right to spend them the way you wish.

But then very little surplus energy remains for anything beyond those pursuits.

This is where my pipe analogy comes in.

Imagine a pipe with seven outlet holes along its length.

Suppose you are pushing water or some fluid through this pipe.

If the lowermost opening is extremely broad and all the upper openings are blocked, where will most of the fluid go?

Naturally, through the lowest opening.

Let us imagine the spine as that pipe and the chakras as those openings.

The lowest outlet is Mooladhara.

If all the higher channels remain closed, most of the force of life finds expression through that lowest available outlet.

And on the basis of that energy, we create our life and our individual manifestation.

So we become busy with material cravings, sexual cravings, competition, anger, hate, jealousy, social position, fears, phobias and the countless things that enter our psychosomatic system from time to time.

Again, this is not about leading a virtuous or sinful life.

In pure pristine nature, such duality does not exist.

Those categories arise from our perspective.

Somebody who is uncomfortable with worldly life may judge these tendencies as sinful.

But nature itself does not judge.

It is simply energy being spent in one way rather than another.

The entire path of spirituality, according to my understanding, is about clearing those higher openings.

Suppose the second outlet, Swadhisthana, begins to open.

Now energy has another channel available.

Naturally, some part of the life-force can begin expressing through that higher opening.

And since every chakra has its own frequency, inclination and characteristics, the world we create through that energy also begins to change.

Our perspective changes.

Our behavior changes.

Our priorities change.

Then comes Manipura, which operates at a still higher vibrational frequency.

And so on.

I have another analogy for this.

Suppose you are living at the Mooladhara level.

It is like standing inside thick stone walls.

You cannot see beyond them.

Everything around you appears segregated, compartmentalized and separated.

Because you cannot see beyond the fence, the ego becomes very strong.

You naturally begin thinking, “It is only about me.”

And all your efforts at creating meaning revolve around that enclosed identity.

The mind even begins feeling secure inside those stone walls.

It says, “This is me. Everything outside is something else.”

But as spiritual work begins—as you meditate, practice sadhana, discipline the mind, tame impulsive behavior and move toward higher frequencies—you begin dismantling those walls.

At first, perhaps only a small opening appears.

You get a glimpse outside.

And suddenly a doubt arises in your mind:

“Maybe it is not only about me.”

You see something beyond your enclosure.

Curiosity begins.

“There is something larger. There is another dimension.”

As the energy rises further through Manipura, Vishuddhi and Ajna, those stone walls begin melting away.

Eventually, instead of thick stone walls, imagine a wooden countryside fence around you—posts and wires surrounding a pasture.

The boundary is still there.

Your ego is still trying to maintain itself.

You still know where “I” apparently end and “the other” begins.

But now the fence is see-through.

That makes all the difference.

Earlier, you could see nothing beyond the stone wall.

Now you can see clearly through the fence.

Even if you have not completely broken the boundary and you still feel separate from the overall unity of existence, there is now a parallel realization:

“Yes, the fence is there, but I can see through it.”

As the journey continues, those boundaries begin receding toward the horizon.

Your field of identity becomes larger.

More and more things begin feeling connected with you.

You begin sensing that they are somehow part of you.

And ultimately, they say, even that fencing disappears into the horizon.

There is no boundary left.

You become one with everything.

By the time energy reaches Sahasrara, to use my pipe analogy again, most of the energy is flowing through the uppermost outlet.

The frequency becomes so refined that perception becomes holistic.

The fence around the little individual self has vanished.

And you feel:

“All this is me.”

This, to me, is what is meant by Aham Brahmasmi.

I know my pipe analogy may sound a bit funny, but it helps me understand the process.

I also look at it through the analogy of a bulb.

Suppose you have a 100-watt bulb in your room.

But along the transmission line, 90 percent of the energy is being dissipated because of resistance in the wire, and only ten watts reaches the bulb.

What happens?

The bulb glows very feebly.

The room remains largely dark.

You cannot see things clearly.

And because you cannot see clearly, you are forced into assumptions and presumptions.

You create unwarranted fears.

You imagine phantoms.

Something in one corner looks threatening because there isn't enough light for you to see what it really is.

This is what I mean by remaining in darkness.

The things themselves are exactly as they are.

But because there is insufficient light, our mind invents what it cannot see.

Now suppose the resistance decreases.

Twenty watts begins reaching the bulb.

There is more light.

You can see slightly more.

Your assessment of the room becomes more holistic than it was earlier.

Then thirty watts.

Then forty.

And suppose ultimately the bulb begins shining at its full hundred-watt potential.

Now the entire room becomes visible.

The darkness doesn't have to be fought.

You don't take a stick and beat darkness out of the room.

You simply bring in light.

And darkness disappears by itself.

Then you look around and say:

“Oh my God! Those fears, those assumptions, those phantoms—I created them myself because I could not see.”

As simple as that.

I create the same analogy between the bulb and the brain.

Earlier, only a small part of our potential was being illuminated because most of our energy was being spent through the lower chakras.

As more energy begins rising through the central channel, more and more of our inner potential begins to light up.

What was earlier dormant begins to activate.

New neural pathways become available.

New perspectives become possible.

You become creative.

You become loving.

You become compassionate.

You see things differently.

Call it enlightenment.

Call it Kundalini.

Call it evolution of the soul.

Words are just words.

They can never fully justify reality.

They are only symbolic representations of something which is ultimately beyond words.

This also explains another analogy which came to me from ordinary life.

Once I was standing in a crowded bazaar.

It was a very narrow street, almost claustrophobic.

People were pushing and jostling against one another.

There was a sort of collective stress in the air.

Standing there, you could not see beyond a particular corner of the street.

And when you cannot see what lies beyond the corner, the mind is free to invent anything.

Maybe my enemy's house is there.

Maybe there is a dead end.

Maybe there is danger.

Maybe there is no way out.

You simply don't know.

To me, surviving at the level of Mooladhara is something like standing in that narrow street.

You cannot see beyond the walls.

You cannot see around the corner.

Your mind can create all kinds of imaginative possibilities.

Now suppose you begin rising into the air.

Imagine that suddenly you are looking at the same bazaar from a hundred feet above, like a bird.

Nothing on the ground has changed.

The street is exactly the same.

The houses are exactly the same.

The corner is still there.

But your perspective has changed.

Now you can see the entire layout.

And you say:

“Oh my God! I was stuck there and thought there was no way out. But it was such a small setup. I only had to walk a few paces, and there was an opening leading into this beautiful garden just nearby.”

The garden had always been there.

The outlet had always been there.

Only from street level I couldn't see it.

This, to me, is what happens as consciousness evolves.

We begin seeing things in greater totality, greater comprehensiveness, in a more holistic way.

Nothing necessarily changes outside.

But our view changes.

And many things which earlier triggered impulsive reactions simply lose their meaning.

This is just like childhood.

Children fight over toys.

Why don't we fight over the same toys when we grow up?

Nobody has forcibly taken the attachment away.

We simply realize the futility of it.

The toy loses its meaning.

Similarly, as perspective expands, many things which once made us fume, fret, fight, hate, compete and suffer begin looking like toys.

They are still there.

But we are no longer compelled to fight over them.

Perhaps this is what liberation means.

So this is enlightenment, according to my understanding.

My opinion.

In my humble capacity, I can only say these are my personal experiences and conclusions.

Jaisi drishti, waisi srishti.

As the vision changes, the world changes.

Perspective changes your viewpoint, and your entire experienced surrounding changes accordingly.

The same idea also makes me look differently at what we call ego.

When we are trapped behind those thick stone walls of the lower perspective, tremendous energy is needed simply to maintain the prison.

And a prison remains a prison, regardless of the beauty of the facilities inside it.

You can decorate the prison.

You can make it luxurious.

You can provide beautiful surroundings.

But somewhere you still feel that something is missing.

Because confinement is confinement.

Much of our energy is spent maintaining that closely confined identity within the walls:

“This is me.”

“That is mine.”

“That is yours.”

“This person is against me.”

“I must prove myself.”

“I must become bigger than him.”

“I must protect my position.”

“I must satisfy this expectation.”

“I must be seen in this particular way.”

That itself is exhausting.

It is like being caught in a whirlpool.

You keep swimming.

You keep spending energy.

You are tremendously busy.

But after some time you suddenly realize:

“Oh my God! I am not proceeding anywhere. I am only moving in circles.”

That realization can itself become the beginning of spiritual life.

You begin feeling not at ease with the existing pattern.

Something in you starts looking beyond what has apparently imprisoned you.

You begin questioning the boundaries created by collective beliefs, customs, traditions, habits and inherited knowledge.

And that, to me, is spirituality.

It is coming out of the cage.

It is the natural tendency of consciousness, of the soul-force, to broaden its platform of operation.

It wants to experience a larger dimension.

It wants to create from a broader field.

And opening the higher chakras is one way of expressing that movement.

After Mooladhara comes Swadhisthana.

Earlier, suppose Swadhisthana was blocked.

Then through sadhana, yoga, jnana, voluntary effort, disciplined living, working with the mind, taming impulses and instinctive reactions, this second opening gradually becomes available.

Now the energy which previously had no option except to flow through Mooladhara finds another outlet.

And because Swadhisthana operates at a higher frequency, the life created through that frequency must naturally have a different quality.

Then comes Manipura.

Then Anahata.

Then Vishuddhi.

Then Ajna.

Then Sahasrara.

With each rise, perspective becomes broader.

I also believe that every authentic spiritual path is capable of helping us in this movement.

Bhakti yoga.

Karma yoga.

Jnana yoga.

Yoga sadhana.

Meditation.

Love.

Compassion.

Service.

Surrender.

Different paths may look entirely different on the surface, but they serve their own purposes.

I have used all three major paths—bhakti, karma and jnana—in different ways, and what I have realized is that they complement one another.

So we should not commit the folly of looking down upon another person's path.

Every one of us has an individual system.

What we are given, what appears before us, and what we encounter on the path of sadhana may have something to offer us.

If we remain receptive and open, there are always takeaways.

And I have increasingly come to believe that Mother Existence itself becomes the guru.

I never had one particular physical guru guiding me continuously.

But I have never felt that guidance was absent.

Whenever I have genuinely needed something, it has come.

Sometimes through a certain thought.

Sometimes through a book.

Sometimes through somebody's words.

Sometimes on television.

Sometimes through a YouTube channel.

Sometimes through an apparently accidental encounter.

At the end of it, I find myself saying:

“Yes, I received help.”

That is why I say my guru is entire life.

Mother Existence.

If you remain open to it, it will guide you according to your circumstances, your karma and where you presently stand.

It creates situations.

It creates circumstances.

And guidance arrives from here or there.

If you are lucky enough to have a genuine guru in physical form, you are fortunate.

Cherish that blessing.

Honor it.

Proceed on the path.

But if you don't have such a guru, don't think that existence has abandoned you.

Life itself can become a great guru if we are open enough to learn.

There is another dimension to all this which I see in terms of evolution.

Somebody may be completely occupied with material pursuits in this lifetime.

There is nothing wrong with that.

That may simply be the stage of his or her journey.

Perhaps that person has to fulfill certain prarabdha karmas at that level.

At the end of this life, while shedding the body, there may come a realization about the futility of certain attachments.

That realization itself may carry the Jivatma slightly higher in another lifetime.

Then further disillusionments may fall away.

Slowly, across lifetimes, consciousness continues evolving.

It may happen voluntarily or involuntarily.

Circumstances prod us.

Life pushes us.

Just as a tree grows according to sunlight, soil, water, wind and the larger ecosystem around it, the Jivatma also evolves in response to the push and pull of circumstances.

I call this circumstantial living.

Evolution is happening, but you are largely a product of circumstances.

Yet sooner or later, Mother Existence seems to want us to take a more conscious leap.

It wants us, metaphorically speaking, to launch ourselves like a satellite into a higher orbit.

That is where voluntary spiritual effort comes in.

This, to me, is the higher purpose of life.

Something that might naturally take many lifetimes can be consciously accelerated.

We voluntarily intervene.

We give ourselves to sadhana.

We give ourselves to awareness.

We give ourselves to love, discipline, compassion, service, meditation and understanding.

We take a leap.

Perhaps that is why Kundalini is such a shortcut.

But precisely because it is a shortcut, it should never become an obsession.

I would strongly say this to anyone interested in Kundalini:

Don't crazily try to awaken it.

Don't make it a destination.

Don't sit every day thinking, “I must awaken Kundalini. I must awaken Kundalini.”

Let it happen by its own choice.

Let it happen through the grace of the Guru.

Let it happen through long hours of meditation.

Let it happen through discipline.

Let it happen through love.

Let it happen through compassion.

Create the background.

Prepare the soil.

Don't be in a hurry.

There are many reasons why this resting snake may come into activation.

It may happen through very intense yogic sadhanas.

It may happen through the blessings of a Guru whose vibrational frequency is such that somehow the last blockage in your energy channel gets removed.

But even for Shaktipat to work, I think the seeker has to have reached a particular point of readiness.

The Guru perhaps only provides the final spark.

Imagine something that is completely dry and ready to burn.

You only need one spark.

The Guru gives that spark, and suddenly the entire thing lights up.

Near-death experiences may also trigger something.

There are so many accounts of people whose normal sense perception apparently stopped for a few moments, and consciousness tasted something entirely different.

They returned with glimpses of that experience, and their lives changed.

There can be many reasons why the resting snake comes to life.

But once it does, life changes.

You now feel a completely different type of nervous or pranic energy flowing through your system.

You can't simply ignore it.

You have to adjust to it.

It can be very strong.

The whole system may feel as if it is undergoing a refabrication.

That is the word I would use: refabrication.

A complete reshaping of the system.

The nervous system, the body, emotions, mind, conditioned knowledge, relationships, ideas of identity—everything can come under pressure.

You become almost like a workshop where, day and night, visible and invisible forces are working.

Old conditioning gets jolted.

Your understanding of yourself gets challenged.

The way you define life changes.

Your relationships may get tested.

Many people may leave.

But those who are genuinely meant to remain with you will remain.

So I would say, don't become too hard upon yourself when these things happen.

Once this treasure—or this burden, depending on the moment—of extra energy has been let loose into the system, one has to become receptive.

One has to bow down to its grace.

And one has to lead a disciplined life.

There is no other way.

You have to allow yourself to be reshaped into a new persona.

It may be challenging.

It may be testing.

It may at times feel unbearable.

But I gradually learned to believe that the process was not meaningless.

I began trusting that whatever was happening was somehow taking me toward another dimension of consciousness.

This does not mean that every moment was pleasant.

Far from it.

There were times when the body itself seemed to be fighting a battle to adjust to the new intensity.

At another level, there was a battle with the conditioned mind.

Old knowledge.

Old definitions.

Old emotional patterns.

Old fears.

Everything was being shaken.

It was almost like casting off an old skin.

A new version of yourself is trying to emerge.

And perhaps that is why Kundalini is so often described in powerful symbolic language.

Most of us have heard about the seven chakras—Mooladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddhi, Ajna and Sahasrara.

To me, these are junctions of energy in our system.

Just as electricity can flow through a wire even though you cannot see electricity itself, our apparent body is also a huge functioning machine of different energies moving around.

Once Kundalini becomes active, you can actually begin feeling energies moving and spinning around the system.

This is my personal experience.

Initially, it can leave you awe-struck.

You may even become scared if you have no theoretical understanding of what you are experiencing.

That is why I think some theoretical knowledge is helpful.

There have been people far, far more capable than me who have studied and experienced these domains deeply.

Pandit Gopi Krishna's books on Kundalini, for example, helped me greatly.

He describes various aspects of the process and the way an individual system can be reshaped.

For me, reading such material helped put words around things that had already begun happening experientially.

But again, books are not the experience.

Words are not reality.

They are maps.

Reality remains larger.

And all in all, I would say Kundalini is not about miracles.

It is not about becoming supernatural.

It is not about displaying powers.

It is not about the sky showering flowers on you.

It is about consciousness evolving.

It is about perspective expanding.

It is about slowly realizing more and more of one's potential.

The entire potential of cosmic intelligence, I feel, is present within every one of us.

Just as the essence of the entire sea is available in one drop of seawater, the essence of existence is present in each one of us.

That is our deity.

That is our hidden potential.

Aham Brahmasmi.

Infinity cannot be meaningful if it is somewhere else but unavailable here.

If the whole is infinite, that infinity must somehow be reflected in every fragment of the whole.

That is how I look at it.

And once we realize that we have to proceed on this path, we have to give our best to it.

Not forcefully.

Not obsessively.

Peacefully.

Read good books.

Listen to people who have experienced dimensions of life that resonate with you.

Meditate.

Live with discipline.

Love.

Serve.

Be compassionate.

Stay open.

And believe me, help keeps arriving when we need it.

I have seen this again and again in my own life.

Maybe somebody somewhere needs these words at this particular time.

Even if only one person reads till the end and feels, “Yes, somebody else has experienced something similar; I am not alone in trying to understand this journey,” then perhaps this narration has served its purpose.

Sometimes I feel this majestic force itself wants to come out, to get verbalized, to be conveyed.

Maybe somebody needs the information.

Maybe somebody needs a little reassurance.

Maybe somebody simply needs a direction.

As far as I am concerned, all I can offer is my personal experience.

Nothing more.

I am still a common man.

I still have responsibilities.

I still have worldly duties.

I still have karmic issues to resolve.

I am still travelling.

I am not claiming that I have reached anywhere.

I am simply sharing what has happened to me and what I have understood so far.

And the journey continues.

So, my dear fellow travelers on the path, move peacefully.

Don't be in a hurry.

Don't become obsessed with awakening anything.

Allow Mother Existence to work according to your circumstances and your karma.

Remain receptive.

If guidance comes through a guru, bow to that grace.

If it comes through a book, receive it.

If it comes through a stranger, receive it.

If it comes through a satsang, receive it.

If it comes through silence, receive it.

Life itself can become the guru.

And perhaps, when we become sufficiently open, we realize that guidance was always there.

We simply had to become capable of receiving it.

Happy be your journey on the path.

Stay blessed.

May Almighty guide you.

May you realize the potential that lies within you.

And may you travel your path with love, discipline, openness and grace.

Blessings.