The Awakening of Kundalini

The Awakening of Kundalini

by

Gopi Krishna

Published by:

The Institute for Consciousness Research

and

The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd.

Smashwords Edition

The Awakening of Kundalini

Copyright © 1975 Gopi Krishna

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First published in 1975 by:

E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, USA

Reprinted in 1976 by:

D. B. Taraporevala & Sons, Bombay, India

Reprinted 1989 & 1991 by:

F.I.N.D. Research Trust, Canada   and

The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd., U.S.A.

Published by:

The Institute for Consciousness Research

165 Valley Crescent,

RR #4, Markdale  ON,

Canada   N0C 1H0

The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd.

86 Wallacks Drive

Stamford  CT

06902   U.S.A.

International Standards Book Number: 978-0-9938316-2-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-28323

Table of Contents

Introduction

1.  What Everyone Should Know About Higher Consciousness

2.  The Ancient Concept of Kundalini

3.  Is Meditation Always Beneficial?

4.  The Goal of Meditation

5.  The True Aim of Yoga

6.  The Dangers of Partial Awareness: Comments on Alan Watts' Autobiography

7. An Interview with Gopi Krishna: On Mystical Experience, Drugs, and the Evolutionary Process

References

About the Author

Other Books by Gopi Krishna

Introduction

When The Awakening of Kundalini was first published in 1975, the concept of Kundalini, even the word itself, was foreign to Western society. Since then, it has become more familiar if not more fully understood.

During the last three decades Yoga and meditation have gained popularity as people are beginning to express a sincere desire for self-knowledge and an understanding of higher states of consciousness. Unfortunately, many have embarked on their search without knowing the true aim of Yoga and without an understanding of the mechanism responsible for higher states of consciousness—Kundalini. That is why this book is of such great value. In addition to explaining the ancient concept of Kundalini, Gopi Krishna addresses and settles the issue of two extremely important questions: What is the true aim of Yoga and what is the real goal of meditation?

Explaining it at great length, Gopi Krishna points out that meditation is not always beneficial. He describes the difference between passive meditation where thoughts are allowed to drift and active meditation where an alert focused state of mind is required for the proper results: . . . alpha and theta states are the very antithesis of the attentive states of mind essential for the evolution of the brain. They have their own value for rest, release, and relaxation but there can be no greater blunder than to pass them off as illuminative or creative states . . .

In India, it is a well-known fact that meditation and other Yogic disciplines can lead to insanity but this dangerous aspect seems to have been ignored by 20th century spiritual teachers and their students. If anyone knew about the possible negative impact of meditation, it was Gopi Krishna. His experience was first-hand. After faithfully meditating for some seventeen years, Gopi Krishna underwent a spontaneous awakening of Kundalini at the age of 34. His description of that December morning in 1937 is vivid:  I suddenly felt a strange sensation below the base of the spine, at the place touching the seat. The sensation was so extraordinary and so pleasing that my attention was forcibly drawn towards it . . . Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord . . . I was no longer myself . . . 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. [1]

Once this initial experience subsided, Gopi Krishna wondered what had happened to him. Was he hallucinating?  Had he experienced the transcendental?  He recalled from his reading the mention of a vital mechanism called Kundalini which when aroused transforms normal human consciousness to transcendental states. Had he been lucky enough to succeed where millions of earnest seekers had failed?  Thus began his lifelong study of the Kundalini experience, Yoga and higher states of consciousness.

Gopi Krishna spent the first year after his sudden awakening trying to survive and to understand what was taking place within his interior. During this time he suffered greatly both physically and mentally, as the energy was initially aroused in its morbid form. At times he wavered between life and death bearing witness to his own accelerated evolutionary transformation. During this critical period he had no learned scholars or teachers to guide him. He survived through the love and support of his family and in his own words by divine dispensation. A new and stable phase in his expanded consciousness was marked by the appearance of inspired writing around 1950. The transformation of his body and brain to allow a perception of the cosmic consciousness continued until his death in 1984.

Observing Kundalini transforming his own system, Gopi Krishna realized the importance of this experience for all humanity. He believed that Kundalini is the evolutionary energy in man responsible for mystical experience, genius and psychic abilities and certain types of mental illness. Yet he realized that the phenomenon would not be taken seriously nor correctly understood without a proper scientific investigation.

Gopi Krishna's view of research into Kundalini encompassed three avenues of investigation and was based on the hypothesis that Kundalini is the psychophysiological mechanism responsible for human evolution and higher states of consciousness. These avenues of investigation are:

1)  Literary Research

2)  Interviews and Case Studies

3)  Kundalini Experimental Project

The first phase—Literary Research—consists of a study of the ancient, esoteric oral and written traditions and the investigation of the lives and writings of at least 25 great mystics and geniuses. The objective of this phase is to correlate the psychological and physiological factors responsible for the experiences of the mystic/genius.

The second phase—Interviews and Case Studies—is to consist of interviews with medical professionals and social workers involved in the care and treatment of the mentally disturbed, first-hand case studies of the same, as well as widely publicized advertisements outlining the classical symptoms indicative of a Kundalini awakening. The objective of this phase is to acquire as much statistical data as possible from those persons experiencing the symptoms of a Kundalini awakening. The importance of this phase is discussed in this book in the chapter on The Dangers of Partial Awareness. Many people are undergoing spontaneous Kundalini experiences. Not knowing what is happening to them, they often are branded as ‘mad’ or permanently ruin their health by not adjusting their lifestyles in the proper way.

The third phase—Kundalini Experimental Project—is to consist in part of a Kundalini Clinic established to monitor and provide competent guidance to those people suffering the purgatorial symptoms of the Kundalini awakening.

It is this scientific study that appeals to many of us in the West. It was Gopi Krishna's interest in a scientific study that most appealed to me when I was first introduced to him in 1976. As a scientist I was struck by the man's sincerity and genuine willingness to abide by the findings of a scientific study. Gopi Krishna realized the strength of science in today's world and he also realized its importance. He understood that the public in general would not accept the Kundalini hypothesis without some kind of verification. This is indeed as it should be. It is left for those of us who are now interested in the subject to pursue this investigation so that future generations will benefit not only from self awareness but will be ripe for the greatest experience available to the human mind—mystical experience.

From his humble beginnings in the village of Gairoo in Kashmir in 1903, through his career as a clerk with the Indian government, Gopi Krishna experienced a transformation that changed his life forever.

From 1950 until his death, he wrote and lectured constantly trying to interest scholars and scientists in his investigation.

At the age of 80, he traveled to Canada and the United States despite failing health. In an exhausting round of lectures and private conversations, he emphasized the urgent need to proceed with Kundalini research.

Gopi Krishna died six months later and there is no doubt in the minds of those of us who attended these last meetings that he gave his life to promote the knowledge of Kundalini.

Paul Pond, Ph.D.

1

What Everyone Should Know

About Higher Consciousness

It is often hard to convince a person about the error in their own thinking. If it were easy, there wouldn't be so many different points of view, each convinced about its own authenticity, justified by argument. There wouldn't be so many different schools of philosophy, or such a variety of political ideologies.

It is common to see people defending their opinions and beliefs even when palpably absurd and untenable. But the mind exhibiting the untenable view is so possessed or warped that, try as we might, it is not possible to dislodge it from its stand. This is why we see such a vast diversity of opinions on the issue of higher consciousness in hundreds of books, each representing a different point of view.

From this it is easy to imagine the colossal nature of the task of anyone who sets out to prove that it is possible for an individual to exceed the limits of human consciousness.  For in this plane of reality, the observing mind and the objective world assume a different relationship; not as the subject and the object, but as the two aspects of one underlying reality.

There is an obvious difficulty in presenting an idea entirely new and beyond the comprehension of an ordinary mind. This concept is so far removed from our normal experience that it is extremely difficult for anyone to accept readily without falling prey to doubts and uncertainties.

It is because of this difficulty and behavior of the mind that one of the most persistent phenomena in history, resulting in cataclysmic changes in human thought, still remains a mystery. At best, it is a controversial issue among intellectual leaders, and its implications for the future of mankind have been completely obscured.

I refer to the appearance of great mystics, seers, and prophets, including Christ and Buddha, on the stage of history.

The upheavals they caused in the thoughts and lives of countless people—with their glimpses of a higher realm of creation, their own example, and their exhortations for a nobler life—are interwoven with the whole fabric of history.

Can we ascribe all of the ferment they caused, and the faith of millions they commanded for hundreds of years, merely to a chance occurrence or a delusion of the multitudes?  If not, have we ever come close to understanding the mystery lying behind their births and careers?  What force drew them to prodigious acts of renunciation and martyrdom?  What power spoke the inspired phrases that were to become household words and stir the hearts of people even today?  What magnetic power allowed them to gain such a hold on their disciples and followers, so that their names are still alive in the hearts of countless people?  Even from this great distance, these prophets dwarf eminent thinkers and intellectuals who rose after them.

The world has been so carried away by erroneous descriptions of higher consciousness presented in modern times, that it has completely shut out the fact that the most outstanding examples of transhuman consciousness—the great mystics and founders of religions—both in their mental stature and mode of life evidenced certain extraordinary characteristics that are absolutely beyond the territory of altered states of consciousness induced by drugs, biofeedback, hypnosis, or autosuggestive meditation techniques.

All these methods produce only ordinary men and women. Some may be prone to visionary experiences, clairvoyant insights, or even to creative flashes, but ordinary all the same. None are even remotely comparable to these outstanding figures of the past.

Many individuals today claim to have achieved the highest state of consciousness, but it would take pages to list their names. We can begin with familiar writers such as Ram Dass (he has often claimed to have reached samadhi, both with drugs and without) and John Lilly, who says the same in the introduction to his book, Center of the Cyclone. Then there are many mystics, Masters, Gurus and Saints, hailing from India, Tibet, the Middle East and other places, who all claim to be in the state of Super Consciousness or Cosmic Consciousness. All of these advocate different techniques, but none discusses the biological aspects or the evolutionary processes.

The validity of psychic phenomena is widely admitted even by some scientists, though no one is able to assign a plausible reason for it. Some scientists are even prepared to accept the credibility of bizarre phenomena, like that produced by Uri Geller and others. Dr. Andrija Puharich ascribes some of Geller's extraordinary