Living with Kundalini: Gopi Krishna's Autobiography PDF

Sign up to receive weekly Tibetan Dharma teachings and special offers from Shambhala Publications. Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/edharmaquotes. Photo: Charles D. Robison LIVING WITH KUNDALINI The Autobiography of Gopi Krishna EDITED BY LESLIE SHEPA...

Sign up to receive weekly Tibetan Dharma teachings and special offers from Shambhala Publications. Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/edharmaquotes. Photo: Charles D. Robison LIVING WITH KUNDALINI The Autobiography of Gopi Krishna EDITED BY LESLIE SHEPARD SHAMBHALA Boulder 2017 Shambhala Publications, Inc. 4720 Walnut Street Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.shambhala.com © 1993 by The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gopi Krishna, 1903– Living with Kundalini: the autobiography of Gopi Krishna / edited by Leslie Shepard. p. cm.—(Shambhala dragon editions) eISBN 9780834824713 ISBN 9780877739470 1. Gopi, Krishna, 1903–. 2. Hindus—India— Biography. 3. Kuṇḍalinī. I. Shepard, Leslie. II. Title. BL1175.G62A3 1993 294.5′092—dc20 93-21829 [B] CIP Contents Editor’s Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction: The Awakening of Kundalini 1. Recollections of Childhood 2. Life in the Village of Gairoo 3. Memories of High School 4. Lessons Learned from My Father 5. Mother Arranges My Marriage 6. Fighting Against Corruption 7. Stumbling Blocks in the Path of Evolution 8. Living Through a Prolonged Nightmare 9. An Unearthly Radiance Filled My Head 10. Still No Sign of Miraculous Psychic Powers 11. Perennially Conscious of an Inner Luminosity 12. The Transformative Power of the Divine Energy 13. The Cause of All Genuine Spiritual Phenomena 14. Losing Hope, I Prepared for Death 15. Stretching Out Immeasurably in All Directions 16. A Triumph of Love 17. More and More, I Returned Towards Normal Living 18. The Marvelous Ingenuity of Nature 19. A Complete Metamorphosis in Consciousness 20. Creating a Mental Climate to Remove the Threat of War Epilogue Glossary Other Books by Gopi Krishna Index E-mail Sign-Up Editor’s Foreword THIS IS ONE of the most important books ever published. This may seem like a sweeping claim when one considers the vast riches of literature—the revealed scriptures of various religions, the plays of Shakespeare, or the works of great novelists and religious geniuses. After all, this is the story of the life and philosophy of a very ordinary man, a minor Indian civil servant from Kashmir who failed in his college examinations. Yet this very ordinary man stumbled on the greatest secret of life, the key to that infinite ocean of consciousness from which all great geniuses and mystics draw inspiration. Throughout history, this secret has been known under many different names—nirvana, samadhi, satori, the Muslim concept of hal, mystic union, spiritual marriage, cosmic consciousness, God-realization. It is one of the best-kept secrets, for the different paths to this supreme revelation have been obscured by the poetic metaphors and allegories of different faiths and philosophies, and many attempts to explain the ecstatic interpenetration of finite and infinite existence have failed, so that the experience itself has become legendary. Over centuries of material progress and scientific development, even the validity of the experience has been questioned or dismissed as a psychoneurotic phenomenon, half-believed in by the faiths of different religions whose very inception stemmed from the God-realization of inspired saints and sages. But that was all long ago and far away. So for thousands of years, millions upon millions of men and women have struggled through life, richer or poorer, in sickness or health, without access to this great secret. They have known the joys and sorrows of life and sexual union, the rearing of children, suffered good and bad fortune, only to find at the end of their lives that everything in the material world— fame, fortune, wealth, possessions, and relationships—are all ephemeral and pass away at death. Even the consolations of religions have often dwindled to well-meaning platitudes or mere ritual and dogma, unable to cross the gap between life and death. In modern times, under the banner of the New Age, there has been a new manifest hunger for something more meaningful in life than ambition, money, power or possessions. Hundreds of cults and revisionist religions have sprung up, claiming to offer transcendental meaning. Some, such as the Fundamentalist revivals in the Christian and Muslim worlds, have proved dangerous to world politics and peace, stirring up simplistic fanaticisms and racist empire building. Some of the New Age gurus have proven to be charlatans, enjoying the ego- satisfaction and adulation of thousands of devotees, misfit messiahs parroting the inspired teachings of the past but without any transcendental experience of their own. Other gurus have been dangerous messengers of death and destruction for their pathetically deluded followers, as with the cults of the Reverend Jim Jones, Charles Manson, or various neo-Satanist groups. Another tragic blind alley was the Psychedelic Revolution, which promised cosmic consciousness in a capsule, but seduced millions of men, women and children into becoming dropouts, manipulated by an international cartel of Mafia-style crime barons and their empire of pushers. Much of the New Age has been marked by trivial and banal novelties, with old and new gimmicks like astrology, tarot cards, the I Ching, crystals, and soothsayers, all enveloped in a stupefying heavy fog of incense and soporific music. But the New Age and its mass media gurus at least revived the ancient Indian concept of kundalini, a latent energy in the universe and in the human body, the dynamic behind sexual expression and also, through meditation, the way to higher consciousness, with side effects of psychic phenomena. Although most of the time, the gurus were simply rehashing ancient teachings of the past as their own, without personal experience, the concept of kundalini is a true one. Only if you want to know about it, it is useless to follow teachers without real experience, who are only concerned with building their own reputations and cults. You will need to listen to someone with total experience of kundalini in both its negative and positive aspects, who knows its place in the evolution of the human race. This teacher is Pandit Gopi Krishna. It is one of the ironies of fate that this supreme secret should have been revealed once more in modern times to an ordinary man, a gentle, modest individual without a cult, concerned only with sharing his transcendental knowledge with the rest of the world. He founded no movement, demanded no money, refused to become the center of adoring crowds, and merely lived humbly in relative poverty, writing his inspired books about Kundalini and its place in human evolution. The title “Pandit” is a traditional honorific bestowed on one who is recognized as an authority on a subject. Pandit Gopi Krishna is outstanding as an authority on Kundalini. There are few modern authorities on the subject who speak, as he does, from such detailed personal experience. The beauty of the present work is that it describes in detail the stages of the awakening of the awesome power of kundalini in one individual, the years of struggle to balance and harmonize this force, the psychic gifts which it brought, and the validation of the subject in ancient treatises from India, China and other countries, and the mystery traditions of both East and West. This autobiography opens with a prologue describing firsthand the incredible experience of the fabulous awakening of kundalini. The Pandit goes on to describe frankly the progress of this dynamic energy against the background of his daily life, the trials and agonies of taming the force, and harmonizing it, the paranormal side effects of prophecy and inspired verse, the obligation to live a socially productive life and share insights with the rest of humanity.  Much of this book is also a kind of protracted meditation on life and the problems of our time. Inevitably there is some repetition of thought or even occasional incoherence. His mind, or soul, if you will, swamped by the total experience of higher consciousness often struggles to express his insights through the limited apparatus of his own simple education and background. If some of his perceptions appear obvious or overstated, it is only because they are nonetheless too important to overlook. At a time when atom bombs and global pollution threaten the future of the human race and the planet itself, it is proper to be reminded of those basic evolutionary laws that have carried human beings from a primitive apelike existence to a hightech sophisticated modern society, and may yet, if properly observed, carry us to an unimaginable splendid future, where individual ambition is transformed into communal sharing, where knowledge becomes wisdom, and a more profound and transcendental happiness replaces sensory satiation. It has been an inspiring task for me to edit the Pandit’s writings into one autobiographical work. This book now contains all the basic material formerly published in the earlier work Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, in a setting of later autobiographical chapters written by the Pandit at different times of his busy life. Editing this material has involved a few deletions and some minor bridging phrases or sentences. Aside from routine editing of spelling and punctuation, the only other changes to the original material involve revision of hastily written passages and the use of outmoded terms like mankind, where human beings or humankind are now preferred usage. In my own work as editor of the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (3d ed., 2 vols., Detroit, 1991), I have studied the stories of hundreds of mystics, psychics and other remarkable individuals. I can honestly affirm that I consider Pandit Gopi Krishna one of the most important, since he belongs to the present time, and his experiences provide guidance for the human race as a whole. Moreover, I knew him personally and discussed with him many issues of meaning and purpose in life. He remained an honest, gentle, courteous, and modest man, anxious to avoid a cult following and desiring only to share his perceptions through his books. Above all, he pleaded constantly for scientific validation of the kundalini phenomenon, claiming a biological basis for the changes in perception as evidence of an evolutionary development in human beings. It is unfortunate that while parapsychologists have spent much time and money testing and researching relatively trivial claimed phenomena of psychic gifts, no one was sufficiently interested to conduct research on the Pandit. Although much has been written on kundalini and transpersonal consciousness by cult leaders and by self-appointed authorities—all, in my opinion, equally lacking decisive experience of the subject—the opportunity of investigating a living subject has now been missed with the passing of Pandit Gopi Krishna. Is this great secret to be lost to us again for more centuries? I think not. With books like the present one, as well as other important writings of the Pandit, we now know the way. He has charted in detail its disciplines, dangers, extraordinary physiology, and rewards in higher consciousness and ecstatically blissful experience. This book throws a flood of light on many enigmas of human existence, the true basis of great religions, and the possibilities of reconciliation between religion and science. All that is needed now is study and practice. Leslie Shepard Acknowledgments A GREAT DEAL OF SUSTAINED and complex hard work was necessary on the part of a group of friends of the late Pandit Gopi Krishna, in order to preserve and collate this autobiography. Special thanks are due to Michael Bradford, Margaret Kobelt, Philippe and Karen Minos, Dale and Paul Pond, Edie Siepi, and Janice St. Clair. INTRODUCTION The Awakening of Kundalini ONE MORNING DURING the Christmas of 1937 I sat cross-legged in a small room in a little house on the outskirts of the town of Jammu, the winter capital of the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India. I was meditating with my face towards the window on the east through which the first gray streaks of the slowly brightening dawn fell into the room. Long practice had accustomed me to sit in the same posture for hours at a time without the least discomfort, and I sat breathing slowly and rhythmically, my attention drawn towards the crown of my head, contemplating an imaginary lotus in full bloom, radiating light. I sat steadily, unmoving and erect, my thoughts uninterruptedly centered on the shining lotus, intent on keeping my attention from wandering and bringing it back again and again whenever it moved in any other direction. The intensity of concentration interrupted my breathing; gradually it slowed down to such an extent that at times it was barely perceptible. My whole being was so engrossed in the contemplation of the lotus that for several minutes at a time I lost touch with my body and surroundings. During such intervals I used to feel as if I were poised in midair, without any feeling of a body around me. The only object of which I was aware was a lotus of brilliant color, emitting rays of light. This experience has happened to many people who practice meditation in any form regularly for a sufficient length of time, but what followed on that fateful morning in my case, changing the whole course of my life and outlook, has happened to few. During one such spell of intense concentration I suddenly felt a strange sensation below the base of the spine, at the place touching the seat, while I sat cross-legged on a folded blanket spread on the floor. The sensation was so extraordinary and so pleasing that my attention was forcibly drawn towards it. The moment my attention was thus unexpectedly withdrawn from the point on which it was focused, the sensation ceased. Thinking it to be a trick played by my imagination to relax the tension, I dismissed the matter from my mind and brought my attention back to the point from which it had wandered. Again I fixed it on the lotus, and as the image grew clear and distinct at the top of my head, again the sensation occurred. This time I tried to maintain the fixity of my attention and succeeded for a few seconds, but the sensation extending upwards grew so intense and was so extraordinary, as compared to anything I had experienced before, that in spite of myself my mind went towards it, and at that very moment it again disappeared. I was now convinced that something unusual had happened for which my daily practice of concentration was probably responsible. I had read glowing accounts, written by learned men, of great benefits resulting from concentration, and of the miraculous powers acquired by yogis through such exercises. My heart began to beat wildly, and I found it difficult to bring my attention to the required degree of fixity. After a while I grew composed and was soon as deep in meditation as before. When completely immersed I again experienced the sensation, but this time, instead of allowing my mind to leave the point where I had fixed it, I maintained a rigidity of attention throughout. The sensation again extended upwards, growing in intensity, and I felt myself wavering; but with a great effort I kept my attention centered round the lotus. Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord. Entirely unprepared for such a development, I was completely taken by surprise, but regaining self-control instantaneously, I remained sitting in the same posture, keeping my mind on the point of concentration. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder. I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider, surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness, without any outline, without any idea of a corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware of every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined in a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe. After some time, the duration of which I could not judge, the circle began to narrow down; I felt myself contracting, becoming smaller and smaller, until I again became dimly conscious of the outline of my body, then more clearly; and as I slipped back to my normal condition, I became suddenly aware of the noises in the street, felt again my arms and legs and head, and once more became my narrow self in touch with body and surroundings. When I opened my eyes and looked about, I felt a little dazed and bewildered, as if coming back from a strange land completely foreign to me. The sun had risen and was shining full on my face, warm and soothing. I tried to lift my hands, which always rested in my lap, one upon the other, during meditation. My arms felt limp and lifeless. With an effort I raised them up and stretched them to enable the blood to flow freely. Then I tried to free my legs from the posture in which I was sitting and to place them in a more comfortable position, but could not. They were heavy and stiff. With the help of my hands I freed them and stretched them out, then put my back against the wall, reclining in a position of ease and comfort. What had happened to me? Was I the victim of a hallucination? Or had I by some strange vagary of fate succeeded where millions of others had failed? Was there, after all, really some truth in the oft-repeated claim of the sages and ascetics of India, made for thousands of years and verified and repeated generation after generation, that it was possible to apprehend transcendental reality in this life if one followed certain rules of conduct and practiced meditation in a certain way? My thoughts were in a daze. I could hardly believe that I had experienced a vision of divinity. There had been an expansion of my own self, my own consciousness, and the transformation had been brought about by the vital current that had started from below the spine and found access to my brain through the backbone. I recalled that I had read long ago in books on yoga of a certain vital mechanism called kundalini, connected with the lower end of the spine, which becomes active by means of certain exercises, and when once roused carries the limited human consciousness to transcendental heights, endowing the individual with incredible psychic and mental powers. Had I been lucky enough to find the key to this wonderful mechanism, which was wrapped up in the legendary mist of ages, about which people talked and whispered without having once seen it in action in themselves or in others? I tried once again to repeat the experience, but was so weak and flabbergasted that I could not collect my thoughts sufficiently to induce a state of concentration. My mind was in a ferment. I looked at the sun. Could it be that in my condition of extreme concentration I had mistaken it for the effulgent halo that had surrounded me in the superconscious state? I closed my eyes again, allowing the rays of the sun to play upon my face. No, the glow that I could perceive across my closed eyelids was quite different. It was external and had not that splendor. The light I had experienced was internal, an integral part of enlarged consciousness, a part of my self. I stood up. My legs felt weak and tottered under me. It seemed as if my vitality had been drained out. My arms were no better. I massaged my thighs and legs gently, and, feeling a little better, slowly walked downstairs. Saying nothing to my wife, I took my meal in silence and left for work. My appetite was not as keen as usual, my mouth appeared dry, and I could not put my thoughts into my work in the office. I was in a state of exhaustion and lassitude, disinclined to talk. After a while, feeling suffocated and ill at ease, I left for a short walk in the street with the idea of finding diversion for my thoughts. My mind reverted again and again to the experience of the morning, trying to recreate in imagination the marvelous phenomenon I had witnessed, but without success. My body, especially the legs, still felt weak, and I could not walk for long. I took no interest in the people whom I met, and walked with a sense of detachment and indifference to my surroundings quite foreign to me. I returned to my desk sooner than I had intended and passed the remaining hours toying with my pen and papers, unable to compose my thoughts sufficiently to work. When I returned home in the afternoon I felt no better. I could not bring myself to sit down and read, my usual habit in the evening. I ate supper in silence, without appetite or relish, and retired to bed. Usually I was asleep within minutes of putting my head to the pillow, but this night I felt strangely restless and disturbed. I could not reconcile the exaltation of the morning with the depression that sat heavily on me while I tossed from side to side on the bed. I had an unaccountable feeling of fear and uncertainty. At last in the midst of misgivings I fell asleep. I slept fitfully, dreaming strange dreams, and woke up after short intervals in sharp contrast to my usual deep, uninterrupted sleep. After about 3:00 A.M. sleep refused to come. I sat up in bed for some time. Sleep had not refreshed me. I still felt fatigued and my thoughts lacked clarity. The usual time for my meditation was approaching. I decided to begin earlier so that I would not have the sun on my hands and face, and without disturbing my wife, went upstairs to my study. I spread the blanket, and sitting cross-legged as usual, began to meditate.  I could not concentrate with the same intensity as on the previous day, though I tried my best. My thoughts wandered, and instead of being in a state of happy expectancy I felt strangely nervous and uneasy. At last, after repeated efforts, I held my attention at the usual point for some time, waiting for results. Nothing happened and I began to feel doubts about the validity of my previous experience. I tried again, this time with better success. Pulling myself together, I steadied my wandering thoughts and, fixing my attention on the crown, tried to visualize a lotus in full bloom as was my custom. As soon as I arrived at the usual pitch of mental fixity, I again felt the current moving upward. I did not allow my attention to waver, and again with a rush and a roaring noise in my ears the stream of effulgent light entered my brain, filling me with power and vitality, and I felt myself expanding in all directions, spreading beyond the boundaries of flesh, entirely absorbed in the contemplation of a brilliant conscious glow, at one with it and yet not entirely merged in it. The condition lasted for a shorter duration than it had done the day before. The feeling of exaltation was not so strong. When I came back to normal, I felt my heart thumping wildly and there was a bitter taste in my mouth. It seemed as if a scorching blast of hot air had passed through my body. The feeling of exhaustion and weariness was more pronounced than it had been yesterday. I rested for some time to recover my strength and poise. It was still dark. I had now no doubts that the experience was real and that the sun had nothing to do with the internal luster that I saw. But, why did I feel uneasy and depressed? Instead of feeling exceedingly happy at my luck and blessing my stars, why had despondency overtaken me? I felt as if I were in imminent danger of something beyond my understanding and power, something intangible and mysterious, which I could neither grasp nor analyze. A heavy cloud of depression and gloom seemed to hang round me, rising from my own internal depths without relation to external circumstances. I did not feel I was the same man I had been but a few days before, and a condition of horror, on account of the inexplicable change, began to settle on me, from which, try as I might, I could not make myself free by any effort of my will. Little did I realize that from that day onwards I was never to be my old normal self again, that I had unwittingly and without preparation or even adequate knowledge of it roused to activity the most wonderful and stern power in man, that I had stepped unknowingly upon the key to the most guarded secret of the ancients, and that thenceforth for a long time I had to live suspended by a thread, swinging between life on the one hand and death on the other, between sanity and insanity, between light and darkness, between heaven and earth. ONE Recollections of Childhood I WAS BORN IN 1903 in the small village of Gairoo, about twenty miles from Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. It was the parental home of my mother, and she went to stay there at the time of my birth to have the care and attention of her elder sister and brothers during her confinement. My father had constructed a small, two-storied hut of his own in their big compound. It was a humble structure, built of sun-dried bricks with a thatched roof and served as our residence for a long time: for the years of my childhood and afterwards at intervals, whenever, tired of the city, we returned for a breath of country air. My first faint recollections of childhood circle round a mediumsized house in a quiet sector of the city of Srinagar. I can still recall a scene in which I was held tight in the arms of my oldest maternal uncle, who comforted me with soft, endearing words after a fit of prolonged weeping caused by the anger of my mother for having stayed out too long playing with the children. As I was the only son she never dressed me in fine clothes, to guard against the evil eye, nor allowed me long out of her sight for fear of mishaps. Another indelible childhood memory is of a moonlit night with my mother and one of my maternal uncles, sleeping on an open-from-the-sides but roofed top of a small wooden cabin, used as a granary, a common structure in rural habitations in Kashmir. We had traveled all day on horseback on the way to the distant abode of a reputed hermit, but, failing to reach our destination at nightfall, had sought shelter in the house of a farmer, who accommodated us thus for the night. I cannot recall the appearance of the saint, except that his long, matted hair fell on his shoulders as he sat cross-legged against one of the walls of his small room directly facing the door. I remember him taking me in his lap and stroking my hair, which my mother had allowed to grow long in conformity with a solemn vow she had taken not to apply scissors or razor to it except at the time of the sacred thread ceremony.1 Years later, when I had grown intelligent enough to understand her, my mother revealed to me the purpose of her visit to the saint. She said that years before he had appeared to her in a dream at a most anxious time. She had passed the preceding day in an extremely perturbed frame of mind caused by my inability to swallow anything owing to a swollen and badly inflamed throat. In the dream, the holy personage, of whose miraculous deeds she had heard astounding accounts from innumerable eyewitnesses, opened my mouth gently with his hand and touched its interior down to the throat softly with his finger. Then, making a sign to her to feed me, he had vanished from sight. Awakening with a start, my mother pressed me close to her and to her immense relief felt me sucking and swallowing the milk without difficulty. Overjoyed at the sudden cure, which she attributed to the miraculous power of the saint, she then and there made a vow that she would go on a pilgrimage to his place of residence to thank him personally for the favor. Owing to household worries and other engagements she could not make the pilgrimage for some years and undertook it at a time when I was sufficiently grown up to retain a faint impression of the journey and the visit. The more surprising part of the story is that, as my mother affirmed afterwards repeatedly, the hermit, at the very moment of our approach after entering the room, casually inquired whether I had been able to suck and swallow my milk after his visit to her in the dream. Wonderstruck, my mother had fallen prostrate at his feet, humbly invoking his blessings upon me. I cannot vouch for the miraculous part of the episode. All I can say is that my mother was veracious and critically observant in other things. I have related the episode merely as a faintly remembered incident of early childhood. Since then I have come across innumerable accounts of similar and even more incredible feats, narrated by trustworthy, highly intelligent eyewitnesses; but on closer investigation the bulk of the material was found to be too weakly supported to stand the force of rigid scientific inquiry. For a long time I lent no credence to such stories, and I can emphatically assert even today that a real yogi in touch with the other world, capable of producing genuine physical phenomena at will, is one of the rarest beings on earth. Another remarkable event of my childhood at the age of eight, which I remember more vividly, occurred one day as I walked along a road in Srinagar in early spring on my way to the house of our religious preceptor. The sky was overcast and the road muddy, which made walking difficult. All at once, with the speed of lightning, a sudden question, never thought of before, shot across my mind. I stood stock-still in the middle of the road confronted within to the depths of my being with the insistent inquiry, “What am I?”, coupled with the pressing interrogation from every object without, “What does all this mean?” My whole being as well as the world around appeared to have assumed the aspect of an everlasting inquiry, an insistent, unanswerable interrogation, which struck me dumb and helpless, groping for a reply with all my strength until my head swam and the surrounding objects began to whirl and dance round me. I felt giddy and confused, hardly able to restrain myself from falling on the slimy road in a faint. Steadying myself, I proceeded on my way, my childish mind in a ferment over the incident of which, at that age, I could not in the least understand the significance. A few days later I had a remarkable dream in which I was given a glimpse of another existence, not as a child or as an adult but with a dream personality utterly unlike my usual one. I saw a heavenly spot, peopled by god-like, celestial beings, and myself bodiless, something quite different—diffused, ethereal— a stranger belonging to a different order and yet distinctly resembling and intimately close to me, my own self transfigured, in a gloriously bright and peaceful environment, the very opposite of the shabby, noisy surroundings in which I lived.  Because of its unique and extraordinarily vivid nature, the dream was so indelibly imprinted upon my memory that I can recall it distinctly even today. The recollection of the scene in later years was invariably accompanied by a feeling of wonder at, and a deep yearning for, the exotic, inexpressible happiness enjoyed for a brief interval. The dream was probably the answer to the overwhelming, unavoidable question that had arisen from my depths a few days before, the first irresistible call from the invisible other world which, as I came to know later, awaits our attention close at hand, always intimately near, yet, for those with their backs to it, farther away than the farthest star in the firmament. In the year 1914 we migrated to Lahore, the capital of Punjab. In the same year I completed my primary education and had to seek admission to a high school. My father was receiving his pension from the government treasury in that town and he was required to present himself in person to receive it. Since his retirement from service we had been living in Kashmir and the treasury wished to satisfy itself that the pensioner was still alive as he had not been seen in person for a long time. When this formality was complied with, my father, for reasons of his own, refused to return immediately. This compelled my mother to stay on there, too. From what my mother revealed to me about his active life in the service of the government, it was easy to see that my father was an extraordinary man, universally respected by all those who knew him. He was born in Amritsar, another important town of the Punjab, near Lahore. His ancestors were among the emigrants who fled from Kashmir to save themselves from the barbarous oppression which Kashmiri Hindus had to undergo for many centuries in their homeland. It was a terrible period. The atrocities committed on this historic community during this time rank among the most horrible in history. There was absolutely no protection for them from any outrage or indignity committed on them. Their houses could be plundered and their women outraged in broad daylight without let or hindrance. There was no court to hear their appeal and no police to heed the complaints. In order to escape this terrible persecution, legions abjured the faith their ancestors had followed for thousands of years and submitted to conversion. Hundreds of families, disguising themselves, fled in terror, traversing the narrow tortuous mountain routes for weeks until they could draw a breath of relief outside the boundaries of the fear-ridden valley which was now a torture chamber and a slaughterhouse for them. Gruesome tales of the barbarities committed by the rulers on this defenseless population are still current in Kashmir. The legend runs that only a small number of families of Kashmiri Hindus survived the massacre and all the present population of Kashmiri Pandits is descended from them. It was said that cartloads of sacred threads, which the Hindus wear, were collected and thrown into the Dal Lake from the decapitated bodies of the killed and tortured. Crowds of women committed suicide to escape the clutches of the ravishers. Women, it is said, carried lethal poisons in their pockets to be swallowed when no other way was left to save their honor. My ancestors were among the refugees who settled in the Punjab. Others penetrated to more distant parts of India. They came friendless and penniless into their new surroundings, but with patient application and toil which adversity teaches and with their own native talent, soon adapted themselves to the changed conditions in the new places which they made their homes. The result was that not a few of them rose to eminent positions in the occupations or professions which they chose to adopt. My father was born in 1855 and passed his childhood in Amritsar. He was an auditor in the service of the government when he came to Kashmir for the first time. There he joined the Public Works Department in Srinagar as an accountant, lent by the government of India to Kashmir. During that time the number of those with some knowledge of English and possessing administrative capabilities was very limited. Those who had the qualifications could easily obtain lucrative employment in the various departments of administration. The first two marriages of my father proved unhappy. His first wife died soon after marriage and the second was mentally disoriented. The third was my mother. Born in 1877, she was sixteen years of age at the time of marriage in 1893 and my father was thirty-eight. The marriage proved very happy. In the whole course of my life I have seen few women as loyal and as devoted to their husbands as my mother remained to the end. My father was brought up in a sophisticated, urban atmosphere and my mother in the simple, homely surroundings of a rustic village with a medieval mental climate and outlook. Every morning, when grown up, she went with other girls of the village to the nearby pasture, at the foot of the neighboring mountain to collect firewood and cow dung for the family. This daily hike of several miles, in the early hours of the morning, with a load on her head on her return journey, imparted to her body a symmetry of proportion, strength of muscle and ease of movement which lent an imposing form to her figure and continued to be a part of her personality to the last day of her life. Born in a village, of a family of hardworking and God-fearing peasants, fate had destined her as a partner to a man considerably senior to her in age, hailing from Amritsar, at that time no less than six days journey by rail and cart from the place of her birth. The insecurity and lawlessness in the country had forced one of my forefathers to bid adieu to his cool native soil and to seek his fortune in the torrid plains of distant Punjab. There, changed in dress and speaking a different tongue, my grandfather and great-grandfather lived and prospered like other exiles of their kind, altered in all save their religious rites and customs and the unmistakable physiognomy of Kashmiri Brahmins. My father, with a deep mystical vein in him, returned to the land of his ancestors when almost past his prime, to marry and settle there. Even during the most active period of his worldly life he was always on the lookout for yogis and ascetics reputed to possess occult powers, and never tired of serving them and sitting in their company to learn the secret of their marvelous gifts. He was a firm believer in the traditional schools of religious discipline and yoga extant in India from the earliest times, which among all the numerous factors contributing to success allot the place of honor to renunciation, to the voluntary relinquishment of all worldly pursuits and possessions, to enable the mind, released from the heavy chains binding it to the earth, to plumb its own ethereal depths undisturbed by desire and passion. The authority for such conduct emanates from the Vedas, nay, from the examples themselves set by the inspired authors of the Vedic hymns and the celebrated seers of the Upanishads, who, conforming to an established practice prevailing in the ancient society of Indo-Aryans, retired from the busy life of householders at the ripe age of fifty and above, sometimes accompanied by their consorts, to spend the rest of their lives in forest hermitages in uninterrupted meditation and preaching, the prelude to a grand and peaceful exit. This unusual mode of passing the eve of life has exercised a deep fascination over countless spiritually inclined men and women in India and even now hundreds of accomplished and, from the worldly point of view, happily circumstanced family men of advanced age, bidding farewell to their otherwise comfortable homes and dutiful progeny, betake themselves to distant retreats to pass their remaining days peacefully in spiritual pursuits, away from the fret and fever of the world. My father, an ardent admirer of this ancient ideal, which provides for many a refreshing contrast to the “dead-to-heaven and wed-to-earth” old age of today, chose for himself a recluse’s life about twelve years after marriage, his gradually formed decision hastened by the tragic death of his firstborn son at the age of five. Retiring voluntarily from a lucrative government post before he was even fifty, he gave up all the pleasures and cares of life to shut himself in seclusion with his books, leaving the entire responsibility of managing the household on the inexperienced shoulders of his young wife.  She had suffered terribly. My father renounced the world when she was in her twenty-eighth year, the mother of three children, two daughters and a son. How she brought us up, with what devotion she attended to the simple needs of our austere father, who cut himself off completely from the world, never even exchanging a word with any of us, and by what ceaseless labor and colossal self-sacrifice she managed to maintain the good name and honor of the family would make fit themes for a great story of matchless heroism, unflinching regard to duty, chastity, and supreme self-abnegation. I am convinced that it was this conjugation of a highly intelligent father with exceptional, noble traits of character, and a strong, able-bodied mother, with a deep religious bent, endowed with all the virtues of a simple unpretentious character, that helped me to brave, without succumbing, the psychic storm released in my body on the arousal of kundalini, the Serpent Fire. I honestly believe that the grace I have won I owe more to the mental and physical attributes that I inherited from my parents than to the efforts made by me. The law of karma does not work only in shaping one’s own destiny but also in ordering the life of our progeny. The seeds of our actions live deep in the subliminal depths of our children and press their imprint on their thought and act. The riddle of Life will prove to be the greatest mystery of creation. It may not be fathomed even in hundreds of thousands of years. The agnostical intellects of recent times only contrived to dig burrows of thought to shut themselves in, walling off their approach to Light. Whenever we speak of life it is wise to bear in mind that we are talking of a stupendous Intelligence, pervading every nook and corner of the universe, which at every moment of our lives reads our thoughts and knows precisely all about our actions even before we have formulated or performed them. We are merely the tiny droplets of an ocean which every moment supplies and controls the whole thinking of humankind. My mother had never held a book in her hands nor could she read or write a word. Yet from what I can recall of her practical knowledge of life and the way in which she handled unexpected situations, I can say with confidence that perhaps even now with all my experience, I could not have handled things better than she did. There is a natural fount of wisdom in all of us which, alas, oversophistication, faulty education, crazy ideas imbibed from books and foolish indoctrination depletes or destroys. Some of the most enlightened spiritual teachers, some of the most successful and popular kings or rulers in history, were semiliterate or entirely unread. Why? We are still ill-skilled to handle the evolving human mind. Integrity of character was perhaps the most prominent trait of my father. He was known not only in government circles but even in public for his high sense of honesty. In the Public Works Department of Kashmir, with the responsible post which he held, he had almost unlimited possibilities to make a fortune. My mother used to narrate many incidents when rich contractors came to the house, in the absence of my father, to press bags full of coins or costly presents on her. But my father already had her promise that she would never yield to a temptation of this kind. His honesty became almost proverbial. At the same time he was very humane, generous, and kind. If he ever sent an attendant or subordinate in the office on a private errand of his own, during or after office hours, he invariably paid him from his pocket for the work done. He was also extremely kind to the domestic servants. This is clear from an incident narrated to me. One day while cooking the meal, a servant felt the temptation to roast and eat a few pieces of meat he was about to prepare on the fire. The smell of the burning flesh was at once detected by my father sitting in his room in another floor of the building. He pointed this out to my mother and asked her to go down and investigate. She obeyed and came back with the admission of what had been done. The servant was called and in a momentary fit of anger my father, after pointing out his fault, gave him a slap on the face. The servant, conscious of his guilt, frightened and humiliated, went back to the kitchen. After only a few minutes the mood of my father changed. He sat brooding over the incident for some time without speaking a word. My mother looked at him in silence, wondering what he was turning over in his mind. Suddenly he raised up his eyes to look at her and she found tears trembling on the lids. “I have committed a sin,” he said. “I must be as dear to him as his mother and he must have felt the same humiliation as I would have felt if treated in the same way. It is possible he might have been hungry and was tempted. I should have been more gentle with him.” With these words tears began to stream down his cheeks. Wiping his eyes, he called the servant and made him sit beside him. Then, putting his hand into his pocket, he brought out a handful of coins and pressed them into the servant’s hand saying he was sorry that he had been so harsh with him. The servant, with folded hands, admitted his fault, saying that he had really done wrong and was sorry for it. He went down smiling to his work in the kitchen, having received a reward more than his wages for a month, as a gesture of atonement from my father. I heard from my mother many stories of his generosity and compassion for the poor. What he received as his salary every month was a considerable sum, compared to the standard of prices during those days. But my mother never had the happiness of receiving the whole amount for the expenses of the family. My father’s reputation for charity encouraged the poor and the needy who came to know of it to beseech his help. During the first days of the month when his pay was disbursed to him, they stood waiting on the road he took from his office to his residence. They related sorrowful tales of their misery to excite his pity. One had a grown-up daughter to marry and not a penny to defray the expenses, another had an illness or an incurable patient in the family with no money to pay for the treatment, the third was disabled without any resources to meet the cost of the food, and so on. My father would listen in silence and then put a handful of coins into the hands of the supplicant. This happened at many places and by the time he arrived home a good part of his salary had vanished. The remainder went to my mother to meet the expenses of the household. She said to me that she almost always received only about one quarter of the amount which he drew as his pay. With even this depleted sum they could maintain a servant for the family and pay the charges for the boat that took him to the office. Even horse carriages were rare in Kashmir in those days. He never cared to purchase property or even a residential house in Srinagar. Estates offered to him at throwaway prices were refused. He lived in a spirit of detachment, resigned to whatever he came across, kind and affectionate to everyone. By a strange vagrancy of fate this noble man was not allowed to experience a safe and blissful awakening of the Serpent Power. Ominous signs were evident from the very start in his passion for the uncanny and bizarre and his preference for eccentric and disoriented God-men and saints in whom also the power had gone astray. Like attracts like in human association. The first symptom of a malfunctioning kundalini, even when slightly active, is an irrational and vagrant tendency of the mind towards the occult and the divine. All the monstrosities and horrors associated with religion are an outcome of this misdirection of thought. A skeptical mind which looks with suspicion at what is not demonstrable to reason is far more healthy than a credulous mind which accepts and acts on every supernatural story it encounters. Ascription of lawlessness to creation is the first sign of incipient chaos in the thoughts of an individual. Every day some loaves of bread, a bottle of wine and a prescribed measure of roasted meat went from our house to a sadhu (Hindu holy man) known as Kakaji. My mother was asked to see to it that the offering was made every day. She obeyed without asking what good purpose it served to feed a person who, apparently, was of no use to the world and indulged his fancies without profit to anybody. But she never dared to express her feelings to her husband. Her sound intuition helped her to see clearly into the absurdity which, for my father, had the position of a religious duty which it was obligatory for him to fulfill. The painful death of his son put an end to his association with sadhus and saints. The stark reality of the sudden blow made him realize he had been building his hopes on a base of shifting sand. He issued strict instructions that henceforth no sadhu should be allowed to enter the house. The tribute sent every day was discontinued and the deeds of charity brought to an end. There was also a lack of financial means, as he no longer attended the office. He became taciturn with friends and relatives and finally shut himself in his room, allowing no one to see him on any pretext whatsoever. The crisis brought about by his isolation and rejection of vitally needed articles of diet, including milk, at last culminated in certain symptoms of abnormality which my mother had never noticed before. He would wake her up in the dead of night in a state of intense alarm, shouting that the house was shaking with an earthquake, and then rush down the stairs without waiting to see if she followed. Without stopping to reason, my mother, carrying some articles of bedding in her arms, would follow him to the graveyard adjacent to the house and sit by his side while he lay down breathing fast with the signs of fear still on his face. He was clearly passing through the upward and downward phases of a now active kundalini sending streams of impure prana (vital energy) into the brain. It was the impact of the stream that caused the hallucination of the earthquake and the symptoms of fear. It has to be understood that the awakening of kundalini does not mean merely the activation of a force which has been lying dormant at the base of the spine. It means much more than that. The bioenergy which runs the extremely complex mechanism of the human body and provides the fuel for thought is not split up into compartments or currents acting independently of each other. It is one homogeneous whole, performing all the functions of the body from the movement of a muscle to the highest flight of thought. It is a medium entirely beyond our conception, working in a hundred ways, with varied speeds, varied spectrums and varied material to perform the almost limitless functions of the body. But the energy is basically one, capable of assuming any pattern or any speed to suit every situation. This means, in other words, that prana assumes one form for digestive activity, another for the circulation of the blood, yet another for the movement of the muscles and so on. It is an incredible stuff which can manipulate atoms and molecules in any conceivable way, compound any organic substance and use every possible expedient, under certain laws, to activate the bodily machine from birth to death. To illustrate my meaning it is necessary to cite one or two examples. It is a well-known fact that when for reasons of safety, a diseased kidney is extirpated, the other kidney grows larger in size until it is able to perform the functions of both. The loss of eyesight is somehow compensated by increased sensitivity of the ears or skin, in some cases almost to an extent which appears incredible. Likewise it has been noticed that in some cases of damage to a certain part of the brain, say by a tumor or accident, its function is taken over by other parts. We see the working of this mysterious force very plainly in the desperate situations caused by serious accidents. The fracture of the skull or damage to any other vital organ is immediately followed by certain reactions and readjustment of the bodily rhythms and functions, imperative for safety and survival. We never know what marvelous intelligence takes the decisions in such sudden contingencies with lightning speed to determine what course it should adopt to repair the damage caused. All the extremely complex reactions that follow a serious infection or a serious accident emanate from this mysterious intelligence present in every cell and fiber of the human frame. This is the marvel of prana-shakti, the divine instrument of life. Strictly speaking, the awakening of kundalini signifies a sudden or gradual change in the whole function of the brain. This involves the activation of a normally dormant area to add another channel of perception to the already existing senses with which our brain maintains contact with the outer world. The opening of this new supersensory channel, in turn, involves a transformation in the activity of the whole cerebrospinal system, culminating in a change in the very pattern of consciousness. The existing evolutionary process working in the brain is aimed to arouse the dormant area to activity and to create conditions of the body and the vital organs conformable to it. In other words, the body and the organs performing the functions of digestion, blood circulation, oxidation, elimination, etc., have to be adjusted to maintain a tempo concordant with the demands of the new activity in the brain. The sudden forced arousal to activity of this hitherto inactive center creates a condition analogous to that created by a serious accident. In fact, some of the practices of hatha yoga, as for instance kechari mudra, are virtually deliberate attempts to create a serious situation in the metabolic activity of the system. In this practice, the tongue is rolled back into the air passage to stop the flow of air into the lungs, creating a condition of diminished oxygen, threatening life. The same condition supervenes when, with prolonged stoppage of breath in pranayama, the supply of oxygen to the blood is seriously impeded. This desperate situation forces the body to drastic responses in order to save one’s life. The methods of hatha yoga are designed to force these extreme measures, one of which can be the arousal of the Serpent Power, to avert disaster to the brain. But such drastic responses can prove highly dangerous or abortive and instead of leading to beatitude and cosmic consciousness, bring calamities in their wake. This is the main reason why drastic forms of hatha yoga have never been viewed with favor by the illuminati of India. It is a grave error to suppose that the arousal of kundalini can be achieved with impunity by anyone who applies himself to the discipline. The popular idea that the practices result simply in the activation of a new force in the body is fallacious. Those who believe that the arousal and mastery of the force can be achieved by one’s willful effort alone live in a paradise of fools. Properly speaking, the position has to be viewed the other way round. It is actually the pressure exerted by the slowly opening supersensory channel in the brain on one’s mind which acts as the root of the religious impulse, driving one to seek expedients to satisfy the longing. All those who experience spiritual hunger in some form would be wiser if they ascribe it to this impulse coming from their subliminal depths, based on a certain transitional condition of the brain, rather than to their own wish or desire. Speaking more precisely, the impulse for God-realization or the urge to gain occult powers, in its psychosomatic origin, is parallel to the growing erotic impulse and its satisfaction in the mind of the adolescent. It is not a motivation subservient to our will, to be channeled as we choose, but a deep-rooted impulse coming up from the unfathomable depths of the psyche in which the brain, too, plays a vital part. The thrust of kundalini actually comes from the depths of consciousness and its instrument of expression, namely the brain. There is nothing more important in our search for spiritual knowledge than the recognition of the fact that religious thirst is the outcome of a certain organic urge and that in order to relieve this thirst it is very necessary to know where this natural impulse is designed to lead. Without this knowledge we would be at a loss in assessing the correctness of our own desire and in determining the path we must follow to satisfy it. It is evident that there is a close connection between the evolving center in the brain and the so-called abode of kundalini, meticulously described in the ancient texts. Analyzed in the context of present knowledge, the proximity of kundalini to the reproductive organs signifies its command over a source of surplus energy available to meet the demands of the system when the silent chamber in the brain begins to operate. A settled way of life enabled human beings to obtain nourishment much more easily and in greater abundance than the nomadic forbears of the past. It provided them with a richer and more balanced diet in greater measure and with more regularity than they could procure before. Civilized individuals often eat much more than needed, causing obesity and other ill effects of surfeit. This full satisfaction of hunger leads to the storage of much more energy in the reproductive system than is needed for propagation alone. It is this surplus store of sex energy which one often wantonly dissipates for pleasure under the mistaken belief that this waste does not recoil on the system in any adverse way. Since there is little awareness, even among the learned, of the evolutionary transformation of the brain and its demands on the body, this senseless expenditure of the precious energy causes ravages in the system of which the whole extent is impossible to gauge at the present level of our knowledge of the whole evolutionary mechanism involved in this sinful waste. Immoderation in erotic pleasure is a sin against Nature that can have far-reaching consequences. It is a colossal blunder to yield unrestrainedly to the demands of sexual desire. The cost paid for the momentary thrill of the erotic sensation, when it exceeds a healthy limit, is so high that generations can suffer for the unbridled lust of one libidinous ancestor. A depleted store of reproductive energy in an individual can prove seriously detrimental when kundalini is suddenly aroused. In fact, one of the reasons why a spontaneous activation of the Serpent Power often ends in mental disorder is the fact that, in addition to a faulty genetic heritage or unhealthy organic structure of the body, the excess expenditure of the reproductive essences can cause ravages in the system which make adaptation to the new activity of the brain impossible. Among the millions of lunatics on the earth, whether in mental homes or at large, we see the unhappy result of our lack of knowledge of the evolutionary mechanism and lack of understanding about the twofold activity of the reproductive system. Much of our current knowledge of psychology is based on assumptions dangerous for the sanity and survival of the race. The main reason why mental and nervous disorders have shown an alarming increase in the industrial and advanced countries in the West rests on the fact that with all-round improvement in the standard of living, the tempo of evolution shows a corresponding increase, calling for appropriate changes in the environment and the way of life of the evolving multitudes. 1. The upanayana, or investiture, with the sacred thread, is a Hindu religious ritual performed for a Brahmin youth in his eighth year. A loop of three strands of thread is placed over his head, supported on the left shoulder and hanging to the right hip, to the accompaniment of ritual prayers. TWO Life in the Village of Gairoo AFTER I HAD READ up to the third primary class in the village school we moved to Srinagar. I was just a village urchin, fond of outdoor play and sport in the company of other children. I went barefoot, walked and squatted on bare earth without any regard to my body or my clothes. I still bear the marks of injuries caused to my feet, one by a chilblain while walking barefoot in snow and frost and another by the abrasion caused by a pointed stone splinter on which I stepped while running on the road. My school life continued both in the village and the city. My mother always engaged a tutor for me during the early years. In the village her brother had performed this duty, but I was never steady or laborious in any studies and liked more to play than to read. It was only at examination time that I devoted some attention to my books to pass with credit and to keep my teachers pleased with me. On return from Lahore, I joined the seventh class in a high school. I was never jealous of students who excelled in the examinations and almost always ascribed my own inability to achieve distinctions to my own neglect. I came poorly dressed to the school. There were well-dressed students from rich families in the class. But, as far as I remember, I never envied their rich clothes nor their wealth. Whenever we went to visit a rich relative, living in affluence in Srinagar or Lahore, I never made any effort to compare our condition with theirs or to sigh at our penury. In fact, from an early age I evinced a disregard for riches or position which helped me to maintain my self- respect and integrity in later years. My father’s indifference towards wealth and status was somehow imprinted on my nature from the beginning. Had I been in the least covetous or even moderately ambitious, my life would have been very different and I might not have been able to write these pages. There are certain basic characteristics which should be either inborn or must be cultivated to meet the demands of inner transformation brought about by kundalini. There are two incidents of those days which I still remember. One was an abortive attempt on my part at smoking a cigarette. One day, while walking with two of my class fellows in a narrow, lonely street, one of them offered me a cigarette he had lit for himself. I took a deep puff, filling my lungs with smoke as I saw him and others doing. Instantly I found myself reeling with giddiness and a sick condition of the stomach. I could stand only with difficulty and, what was worse, my head began to ache terribly. The pain lasted for several hours. From that day onward I never tried the experiment again. I also recall that in the village my hobby was to climb trees, even huge walnut trees, with an agility that made the villagers wonder. There was a peach tree close to our building in Gairoo. The building was three stories high, covered by a thatched roof. The slant of the roof was fairly steep and it needed great care and skill to walk over it from one side to the other. A tall walnut tree flanked the other side of the building. In the walnut season it was my practice to climb the peach tree, which was comparatively easy to scale. From it I stepped onto the roof and, walking across, plucked walnuts from the branches of the tree hanging over the roof on that side. My sister, fond of green walnuts, waited below in the compound collecting the fruit that I threw down for the family. But all through the operation the onlookers displayed marked signs of agitation and fear at the risk that I was taking. It was comical for me to see them waiting keenly for the walnuts and at the same time wringing their hands while their eyes expressed signs of acute alarm and fear. After the shock caused by the death of my elder brother, my father became more and more inaccessible and unresponsive. With this change in habits, his appetite became irregular and his tastes erratic. Special vegetarian dishes had to be prepared to tempt him to eat. He became extremely austere in his dress and preferred to walk barefoot or, at times, when pressed to do so, with a pair of flimsy grass sandals on his feet. He took long walks every day and never hesitated to go out in even the coldest and most inclement weather. But, in spite of his irregular and scanty intake of food or unbalanced food combinations, he became wiry and vigorous, able to withstand hunger and fatigue or the rigor of climate to a remarkable degree. But his behavior became more and more eccentric and unpredictable. He became increasingly prone to visionary experiences and confined his study to a few ancient volumes, including The Laws of Manu,1 which he read over and over again. The way in which my mother attended to his needs and served him during this phase of his life is beyond description. His premature self-enforced retirement from service brought only a meager pension of about fifty rupees on which the family had to live. Even this became possible after many months due to the hard efforts of his maternal uncle who lived in Lahore. The cost of commodities and the standard of living were lower in the days when my father bid adieu to his service, and the family could make ends meet within the amount of the pension. But there were other heavy expenses to be met. How my mother managed to marry my two sisters, to help her needy brothers and to educate me with this meager income is a story of heroic battle against adversity. My mother arranged the marriage of my two older sisters at the same time that I was made to wear the sacred thread. This function is attended by certain rituals lasting for two or three days. I was about seven years of age at the time, the younger of my two sisters was about eleven and the odler about fifteen years old. My mother had chosen the matches after a keen search and investigation. The would-be husbands belonged to respectable middle-class families with the promise of a bright future before them. The husband of the younger sister was about twelve and that of the older twenty-five years old. The latter had lately entered service in the Forest Department of the state. The marriages and the sacred thread ceremony took place at Gairoo, where we dwelt in those days. The whole village was agog with excitement and every grownup villager came to help at the function out of love and respect for my mother. The marriage of a daughter amongst families in our society is a heavy responsibility. Not only the parents but all their kith and kin draw a deep sigh of relief when it is over and the bride leaves with the bridegroom for her new home. It is almost always a taxing and nerve-racking task. There are so many purchases to be made, so many arrangements to be completed and so many problems to be solved that for poor parents who lack resources or friends it becomes a nightmare for the entire time of the function. Several months before the day of marriage, my mother went to Srinagar to arrange the preparation of gold ornaments and to make other purchases. It was a distance of about twenty miles from our village to the city. The journey was usually done on foot and sometimes on horseback. We stayed in the house of a relative and my mother worked hard every day to complete the purchases as speedily as possible. When the ornaments were ready, we had to return to the village with them. We left the city in the afternoon on horseback, accompanied by one of her cousins, a good-natured young man who followed us later to Lahore. I sat on the horse in front of my mother and her cousin walked along, matching his pace with that of the horse. The sun began to set when we had traveled less than half the distance from the city. It was dusk when we came to a part of the highway notorious for the bands of thieves who made their haunts in the surrounding villages some distance from the road. The road at this place passed over a broad plateau about five miles long with a deep depression in the middle. There is no habitation close to the road in all this stretch. The soil of the plateau is rich for the cultivation of saffron and is used for this purpose even to this day. The small square saffron beds, with the tiny flowers peeping out, look very beautiful during the day and enchanting in the moonlit night. During the saffron season they fill the whole area with their fragrance.  We had just entered this lonely, low-lying lap of our journey when the thickening shadows of the evening made my mother pause for awhile to say to her cousin that it had been a mistake to leave the city so late and that the only alternatives now were either to turn back and pass the night in the small town of Pampur, about three miles away, or to proceed trusting in the mercy of heaven to keep us safe. The way back was also not free of danger, so it was decided to move on to Latipura at the end of the plateau. Mother stopped the horse for a moment and, unwrapping the scarf from around her head, rewound it in the shape of a turban to present the semblance of a man in the dim light, when seen from a distance. All the gold ornaments, a fortune in those days, were tied round her waist, under the loose dress which she wore. Urging her cousin to quicken his pace, she spurred the horse to a faster speed. It was pitch dark when we reached Latipura on the descent from the plateau. The young cousin ran as fast as the horse the whole distance in order to cover the dangerous stretch in the shortest possible time. At Latipura we sought the hospitality of a Moslem cowherd whose house stood on the road. They welcomed us with warmth and served us with fresh milk for our evening repast. We slept on a bed of dry grass in one of their rooms, covered with their homespun blankets. They all came to see us off in the early hours of the morning. I remember their warm hospitality and kindness to this day. The inner wealth of the spirit is not determined by affluence, climate, creed, or class. It is a gift from heaven and we have to know much more about the spirit before we can determine how the gift can be won. The marriage ceremony was performed with becoming pomp and show. It was customary in those days for the bridegroom’s party to arrive with a band playing at the head of the procession. Sometimes dancing girls attended the party and were munificently paid for the performance. In the evenings there was often a fireworks display to celebrate the occasion. Fireworks and the orchestra attend the function even today.  In our community, marriage is not a simple social or religious function but an occasion for merrymaking and festivity, often entirely beyond the means of the parties. The lavish displays and feasts in many cases leave the families impoverished and in debt for a long time to come. Most often, the victim of this outrageous thirst for false show of wealth and status is the family of the bride. The marriage party of the elder bridegroom had brought with it a huge store of fireworks which they let off in the evening, entertaining the large crowd of villagers who came to witness the novel show. Among other things, there were a few hot air balloons that were sent up after kindling a flame in each of them. Carried by the wind, the lighted balloons traveled far, floating over distant villages that had never seen an object of this kind before. In a few days, the rumor went round that at least two of the villages had made religious offerings for having been preserved from this visitation from the other world. Nowadays, mammoth airplanes cause no surprise. The party of the other bridegroom had brought two dancing girls to entertain the guests. A large crowd gathered when, dressed in gaudy attire, they gave a performance in the morning in the large compound decorated for the purpose. I remember many details of the wedding and the ceremony, in which I had to participate, as vividly as if they had come to pass yesterday. Between the younger of my two sisters and her husband there was a difference of about one year only. It was a child marriage of the sort current in those days. The bridegroom, only about twelve years of age, tried to look serious as the couple participated in the ceremony held to make them man and wife. They had to sit before a small ceremonial fire while the priests chanted mantras and poured clarified butter and other offerings into it. The most beautiful part of this ceremony is witnessed when both the bride and the bridegroom are made to sit under an improvised canopy made of a large length of rich cloth which covers both of them. All the members of the family stand up to form a circle round the couple, still sitting in front of the sacred fire, and shower flowers on them to the chant of the priests until a heap forms on the small canopy covering their heads. At that time they are no longer a man and a woman but incarnations of Divinity, uniting themselves into a solemn relationship to propagate the race. We often forget the fact that every conjugal union, leading to procreation, signifies a stage on the path of evolution that is slowly tending towards the superman and -woman. Modern knowledge, still largely unaware of this law, has no knowledge of the mighty god-like race to come. There was a comic episode during the performance of the ceremony that drew peals of laughter from the guests assembled in the room. It is customary during the course of the ceremony for the bride and bridegroom, while they hold each other’s hand, to try their skill at a hidden game aimed at taking off the ring from the other’s finger without letting their hand out of one’s grasp. It is held that the one who succeeds in snatching away the ring of the other becomes the real master in the life led by the two. Both my brother-in-law and my sister prepared for this show of skill, no doubt instructed by their families about it. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law, to his dismay, found his ring slipping away from his finger, held by the more nimble fingers of my sister. Turning to his father, who was sitting close by for the ceremony, he cried, “Look father, she has taken away the ring from my finger. What am I to do now?” There was a loud outburst of laughter as his father turned to chide him for his weakness, bidding him to be silent and not make his incompetence known to the guests. On our return to Kashmir after the first trip to Lahore, I joined the high school in Srinagar to continue my studies. Both my sisters were married and lived in their husbands’ parental homes in different parts of Srinagar. They both loved me with all their heart, and this affection continued unaltered all my life. Their husbands, too, were extremely loving and kind to me. It was my elder brother-in-law who unwittingly alerted me to the possibility that kundalini could arise through either ida (the left-hand channel) or pingala (the right-hand channel) instead of the central channel, known as sushumna. When kundalini is aroused through pingala, he said, it could burn the body with the heat generated, causing irreparable damage or death. This he had learned from his own guru, a poor Kashmiri Brahmin, whose appearance showed nothing of the study he had made or the knowledge he had gained about kundalini. But as my later experience proved, the information he had given to my brother- in-law was based on oral tradition seldom mentioned in books. Through all his life, my elder brother-in-law treated me as his son and in every difficult situation came to consult me as a friend most close to him. He had a deep thirst for spiritual experience and, having learned that I was regularly meditating, often consulted me about his own methods and practices from time to time. His deep desire to assuage his spiritual thirst changed his whole life and mellowed his nature to such an extent that those who knew him for many years came to regard him as a saint. Though elder, he was very frank and outspoken with me and never hesitated to discuss even his most intimate problems. His utter faith and belief in the professions of the sadhus and holy men with whom he came in contact and his readiness to follow the methods prescribed by them sometimes cost him dearly. One sadhu, as he told me later, instructed him to gaze intently at a circle drawn on a wall for as long a period as he could without blinking his eyes. This practice is known as rikti by the hatha yogis. The successful practice of this method, the sadhu had said, would win for him all the psychic powers or siddhis, as they are called. The exercise was started, but, after only a few days, my brother-in-law found that his eyes were aching and tears began to flow if he kept them open any longer without blinking. He narrated his difficulty to the guru, seeking his advice on how to overcome it. “You should wear a folded cloth below your eyes,” the sadhu had said, “so that all the tears that flow are absorbed into it.” My brother-in-law scrupulously followed the direction for some days, but his condition grew worse. His eyes became red and swollen and the lids began to pain, making it impossible for him to continue the practice any longer. Fortunately this compelled him to give it up and to sever his connections with the teacher. On another occasion he was asked to make japa (recitation) of a mantra (sacred word) a hundred thousand times in forty days, sitting on the bank of a stream in a lonely spot where none could disturb him. Being a Forest Officer, it was not difficult for him to fulfill the conditions and to find a secluded place to practice the discipline. On the fortieth day, he was told, he would have the darshan (vision) of a supernatural being invoked by the mantra. When this happened, he could beg whatever boon he desired from the superearthly visitor. The only contingency against which he had to guard was not to show any sign of fear when the apparition appeared as that would be disastrous for the practice. My brother-in-law faithfully carried out the injunctions, going to the chosen spot exactly at midnight to do the japa. Everything went well for over a month. In his thought and action and in his food and drink, sleep and behavior, my brother-in-law meticulously observed all the directions given to prepare himself for the great event. After the thirty-fifth day, as he told me, signs of fear began to appear during the recitation, and he felt a pressure on his heart. This feeling grew in intensity and volume until, on the thirty-eighth day, he found himself shaking and trembling while beads of cold perspiration rolled down his body and face. In despair he gave up the discipline, preferring his sanity and peace of mind to the favors which a superearthly entity could bestow. The incident revealed to me at once that loss of sleep caused by the nightly peregrinations and several hours solitary stay on the bank of the stream in expectation of the nocturnal visitor had caused an abnormal mental condition of anxiety and fear which, to preserve his sanity, obliged him to give up the exercise at last.  This story of my brother-in-law confirms what I came to know or hear of from my friends in the years following my awakening. Another devout seeker, also a resident of Srinagar, was advised by his teacher to make the japa of a similar mantra to invoke Bajranga-Bali, the monkey general of the God Rama, to obtain from him fulfillment of whatever wish he had in mind. The same admonition was repeated. He should show no symptom of fear when the apparition was seen across the mountain on which the window of his room opened. The practice was to be started after midnight and continued until the rise of the sun. After a few weeks of the practice, the signs of fear began to appear, and the devotee felt his heart thumping under his ribs. He persisted in the practice to the fortieth day. Opening his eyes and looking at the mountain through the window in the light of the dawn, he saw an awful apparition spread across the whole area of the mountain visible to him. The shock was too much and with a cry of fear he fell down in a swoon. He never recovered the balance of his mind to the time of his death some years after. There is no limit to the concept of the intellect. We know that the human mind has no hope of knowing even as much about the universe as a moth has to know about the earth. All our knowledge gained during the past thousands of years does not comprise even a drop in the ocean that still lies beyond the human ken. It is amazing that knowing full well the complexity of the brain and the inconceivably profound nature of consciousness, even sensible people should lend credence to the stories circulated by teachers of the occult about the efficacy of their methods and practices to gain psychic powers or transcendence. The attainment of cosmic consciousness involves a total revolution in the microbiology of every cell, tissue and fiber of the organism. The arousal of kundalini, in its true sense, does not simply imply the activity of a hitherto sleeping force, but actually the start of a new activity in the whole system to adapt it to a new pattern of consciousness by changing the composition of the bioenergy or subtle life force permeating the whole body. Any human-made method to achieve concrete results must therefore cover the whole psychophysical frame of a human being. The position does not even end there. The discipline must be practiced generation after generation, or there must have occurred already a partial adjustment of the organs, the nervous system, and the brain to allow the practice undertaken to bear fruit. This is the reason why genuine mystical experience has been so rare. The rough and ready methods of professionals who make tall claims not only reveal the poverty of knowledge of those who prescribe them but also lack of wisdom on the part of those who practice them without a thorough and penetrating study of the subject. There are crowds of people, both in Eastern and Western countries who pay dearly for their ignorance and lack of foresight in various ways, especially in abnormal and difficult conditions of the mind. My mother never complained at the willful behavior of my father in driving the family from abundance to penury by his own stubborn behavior. I do not remember a single occasion when even under the pressure of the most grueling circumstances she ever upbraided him or held him responsible for her difficulties. She was always resigned to Divine will and, while attending to every detail of the household, kept her mind calm and her behavior unruffled. Even in the most trying circumstances she did this as naturally as if she had practiced for years and read a hundred books on the art of self-mastery. One single instance is enough to show with what fortitude, resignation and courage she faced the harsh exigencies of her life. We were still in Lahore in the old house in the area known as Ekki Darwasa. It was midsummer and the temperature ranged from 108 to 114 degrees Fahrenheit. Suddenly my father expressed a wish to pay a visit to his native town of Amritsar at a distance of about 30 miles from Lahore. His intention seemed to be to return in two or three days. My mother tried to dissuade him from this resolve on the plea that the heat was intolerable and it would be difficult to find a cool place to stay in Amritsar. We had a family of rich relatives there, but she knew that he would never agree to stay there with them. From her meager store of money, she gave my father enough to meet the railway fare and the cost of his meals for those few days. But my father prolonged his sojourn in Amritsar far beyond this period. Some days later, I received a hurriedly scrawled letter from him informing us that he was staying in a temple and had run completely short of money. The letter made my mother frantic with anxiety and, making her preparations in a few hours, she left for Amritsar on the same day. She went directly to the house of our relatives, who warmly welcomed her and did all in their power to make her stay comfortable. They drove her in their carriage to the temple to meet my father and to settle the time of departure for Lahore with him. She later told me that she saw him reduced in weight, looking pale and weak as for several days he had subsisted only on a few handfuls of parched grain and water drawn from the well. The next day in the forenoon they drove in the same carriage to the station on the way to Lahore. I did not attend the college that day and remained at home in expectation of their arrival. At about two o’clock in the afternoon I heard the front door open and soon the sound of steps mounting the staircase. I ran to the door and saw my father as he stepped into the open space in front of our kitchen. He was perspiring profusely and looked exhausted. Touching my shoulder with his hand, he went straight to his room without uttering a word. Soon after, I saw my mother stagger inside with the large bundle of clothes and bedding of my father on her head. She was reeling and her face was crimson. I had never seen her in such a condition. Sweat poured like rain from every pore of her skin and she looked so exhausted, weak, and faint that I was shocked and could only gaze stunned and bewildered at her face. I could find no explanation for her condition. Taking the bundle from her head and putting my arm around her, I carried her gently to the inner room, where she collapsed on the floor gasping for breath and trembling in every limb. I fanned her gently for a while until the sweating ceased and then rushed into the kitchen to prepare a glass of sherbet for her, which I soon held to her lips. She took a few sips and then, burying her face in her hands, burst into tears. I continued to fan, stroking her arm gently with my hand without saying a word until the fits subsided and she was calm again. Sensing my anxiety and perplexity about what had occurred, she said in a low tone that at the Amritsar railway station she had handed all the money she carried to my father to buy two tickets to Lahore and with the balance to pay the cab from the Lahore railway station to our house. He went to the booking office and returned soon after with two tickets in his hand. Without telling her anything he conducted her to a lady’s compartment and seating her there, entered a male compartment nearby. The train moved and in due time arrived in Mian Mir, the station next to Lahore on the way to it from Amritsar. As soon as the train stopped there my father, stepping out of his own compartment, came to my mother and asked her to come out, as he had bought tickets up to that station only, explaining that because of the rush at the sales window he had purchased inter-class tickets instead of third class and had to pay more for them. He asked for more money to purchase tickets from Mian Mir to Lahore on the next train, which would cost but a trifle. But she had not a single paisa in her pocket. Completely nonplused, she looked helplessly at the train as it moved out of the station, leaving the couple stranded there without the means to reach their destination. It was an impossible situation. My mother would have died rather than beg for help, which might have been forthcoming if they had asked for it. Placing the bundle on her head and holding it with one of her hands, she motioned to my father to follow her. Inquiring their way from the passersby, they took the highway linking Lahore with Amritsar. It was a wide asphalt road heated to an intolerable degree by the burning noonday sun, treeless and shadeless for long stretches, flanked by sand footpaths on either side in which the feet sank almost ankle deep. I had walked over this road for short distances more than once, but in winter when I was on a visit to my aunt who for some years dwelt in the area. At noon in midsummer, with a temperature well over no degrees Fahrenheit and a blistering sun overhead, it must have been hell to walk over this road for hours with sandals on their feet, sinking deep in the sand at every step. As usual during summer, men, women, and even children lay under the shade of trees or lazed in the shelter of their homes. They fanned themselves incessantly to keep cool. There were only a few other passersby who used the road only for short distances here and there. It was a terrible ordeal for my mother with the load on her head, hungry and without even water, to drag herself over this road for a distance of over five miles to reach her home during the hottest hours of the day. I shuddered when my mother finished her story. Born and bred in the cool climate of Kashmir, the exposure could have easily led to a fatal sunstroke. In all probability, the bundle of clothes on her head, intercepting the rays of the blazing sun, saved her life. I looked fondly at her face and, embracing her, shed tears of joy at finding her safe and sound in the house after the risk she had undergone. Even then she did not utter a single word of complaint against my father. As soon as she had recovered a little, she stood up at once, saying that she would not lie down like this any longer since my father had not tasted a cooked meal for several days and she must prepare one for him. She hurriedly went to the kitchen and within an hour my father had the simple meal he preferred, while she bustled around him to serve whatever he needed or wished for. I wonder to this day what had taught her this patience and this most angelic sense of duty. The answer to this riddle, I believe, lies in the power of the spirit. We do not know whether it is the body which helps the spirit to express itself or if it is the spirit which fashions the mortal frame to play a part in the colossal drama of life. Or whether both are linked together in an inexplicable way under cosmic laws which lie beyond the reach of intellect and which we have to fathom during our sojourn on earth. Royal palaces of kings and the luxurious mansions of the rich quite frequently rear the poorest specimens of humanity—a disgrace to the blood to which they belong—but for some unknown reason thatched roofs, mud huts, and wooden shacks housing poverty and destitution give rise to some of the noblest characters in the history of mankind. 1. Manava-Dharma-Skastra or Manu Smrti, an ancient code of life ascribed to a period circa fifth century B.C.E. THREE Memories of High School MY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE WAS fairly uneventful. This was, in a sense, remarkable as for me it was a transition from the primitive atmosphere of a simple village and later, of a poor city to that of one of the richest capitals in India. But somehow I was preserved from company that could have proved disastrous for me in later years. The love of home and parents served as my strongest defense against vagrancy and association with truants. I had few friends, both in the school and the college. The one or two I had were sober and studious, whose company was of help and not of harm to me. We lived poorly and in the later period I did not have the advantage of a private coach or guide. It was with great difficulty that my mother could find enough money to purchase even my essentially needed books and clothes. Denied the possibility of purchasing extra books, my study was confined to school classics, but when I was about twelve, at my aunt’s house I accidentally came upon a slightly abridged translation into Urdu of The Arabian Nights. This book for the first time created in me a burning thirst for fairy tales, stories of adventure and travel and other romantic literature which continued undiminished for several years. At the age of fourteen, starting with easy stories, I turned from Urdu to English, hungrily devouring every story book and romance that came into my hands. From novels and other light material I gradually passed on to popular elementary books on science and philosophy available in our small school library. I read avidly, my developing mind eager for satisfactory replies to the questions which cropped up as the result of my own survey of the narrow world in which I lived and the stray glimpses of the broader one of which I came to know more and more from the graphic accounts contained in the books. I was brought up in a strictly religious atmosphere by my mother, whose faith rested unshakably on each of the innumerable gods and goddesses in her crowded pantheon. She used to go to the temple long before the first faint glimmer of dawn streaked the horizon, returning at daybreak to attend to the needs of the household, in particular to keep our frugal morning meal ready for me. In early chidhood I followed implicitly the direction of her simple faith, sometimes to the extent of forgoing the sweet last hours of sleep towards dawn in order to go with her to the temple. With rapt attention I listened to the superhuman exploits of Krishna, which my maternal uncle read aloud every evening until almost midnight from his favorite translation of the Bhagavata Purana, a famous book of Hindu mythology, containing the story of the incarnations of the god Vishnu in human form. According to popular belief, Krishna imparted the lofty teachings of the Bhagavad Gita to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield before the commencement of action in a great war, as related in the Mahabharata. Wondering at the prodigious, supernatural feats of valor and strength recounted with a wealth of detail in the narrative, which carried my childish imagination into fantastic realms, I unquestioningly accepted as true every impossible and unbelievable incident with which the story abounds, filled with a desire to grow into a superman of identical powers myself. About a year after our first visit to Lahore we returned to Kashmir and had our residence in a hired house in Srinagar where I passed my seventh class examination in the high school. On our second visit I joined the Dayal Singh High School, Lahore, in the eighth class and continued to study there until graduation, after which I was admitted to the college1 of the same area. On the first occasion, the family of my granduncle permitted us the use of a large room with a wide veranda in front which proved sufficient for our modest needs. On the second visit they again offered the use of the same place but now one of my sisters had accompanied us and so we had to look around for a more roomy apartment for ourselves. It was then that we shifted to the place known as Ekki Darwasa near the outskirts of the city as mentioned in chapter 2. It was a three-storied building at the end of a narrow lane in which we occupied the uppermost floor under a flat roof. We had two medium-sized rooms, a kitchen open in front and an open space in front of the kitchen. This space I later transformed into a small flowerbed with dozens of flower pots which I watered and tended every day. There was no water tap in our house nor, in fact, in any other house standing on this lane. There was a narrow well just a few houses away from which all of our neighbors drew their water. Accustomed to the spring water of Kashmir, the slightly salty taste of the well water was not easily palatable to me or my mother although father, accustomed to it from his childhood, felt no difficulty in drinking it. He always procured his drinking water from the well although our supply came from a water tap at a distance of about two hundred yards from our house. It was in a large bathroom constructed with public donations in the name of a saint who had lived and died in that house. The bathroom, with a number of taps, was open to all who cared to use it, fulfilling a very great need of the locality, especially in the scorching heat of summer. My mother used to fetch one large pitcher of water in the early hours of the morning when the bathroom was almost empty. This sufficed for our drinking needs. Soon after, we engaged a man to supply us water for all purposes both from the well and the tap. There was no electricity at that time in this part of the town. In the beginning I read and did my home tasks in the faint, mellow light of a small earthenware oil lamp. Later on I supplanted it with a kerosene table lamp which gave out a much better light and could be depended on for a steady flame. I never had a table or a chair for my studies, either in this house or another to which we shifted later before our return to Kashmir. I always did my reading or exercises seated on the floor with the lamp standing on a small wooden support. Most of our time in Lahore was spent in this house. My father occupied the larger of two rooms which had windows on two sides and two doors on the third, one opening on to the kitchen and the second on to the open space with the flower pots. The houses on two sides of our building were only one story high, which allowed us an open view of fields on one side and a part of the city with the railway station on the other. A gentle breeze was always blowing through the two windows in summer which was a very welcome boon for me. It was hard to obtain the consent of my father to the use of a part of the room as my study. But on hot days I often sat close to one of the windows under an improvised tent made of fine cloth supported on a few sticks, to keep off the flies which swarmed all around. This device allowed me to read or to do my exercises in peace while the breeze blew through to keep me cool. At other times of the year I used to study in the other room in which my books and belongings were kept in a small cupboard set into one of the walls. We all slept in the room occupied by my father. The first and second floors of the house were also held by tenants. The occupants of the first floor kept a goat for milk. They used to bring it up to the roof where all the tenants slept in the summer. The one constant object of fear in the house was a snake that had a hole somewhere in the passage leading from our entrance door to the staircase. It had been seen several times by the tenants on the ground floor but it never came up the stairs to the second or third floor. At least on two occasions the tenants alleged that they had to jump on their beds as they saw the snake slithering from the passage into one of the rooms. Snakes in the hot plains of India can be very venomous. One of them in a house can be an endless source of terror for the inmates. But we carried on, trusting in the grace of God to keep us safe. Times without number I had to go down in the dark to open the door for a late caller or to cross the passage when coming late from my games in the college. On such occasions I was in a state of trepidation for the period I was in the passage but forgot it all afterwards, as soon as I had mounted the stairs. What power preserved and p