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consult a physician and constantly watched over me day and night, frantic with anxiety.
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My brother-in-law could not grasp the significance of what I related to him, but said that his
guru had once remarked that if by mistake Kundalini were aroused through any other nadi
(nerve) except Sushumna, there was every danger of serious psychic and physical
disturbances, ending in permanent disability, insanity, or death. This was particularly the case,
the teacher had said, if the awakening occurred through pingala on the right side of the spine
when the unfortunate man is literally burned to death due to excessive internal heat, which
cannot be controlled by any external means. I was horrified by this statement and in
desperation went to consult a learned ascetic from Kashmir who had come to spend the winter
at Jammu. He heard me with patience and said that the experience I had undergone could not
at all be due to the awakening of the serpent power, as that was always blissful and could not
be associated with any agency liable to cause disease or disturbance. He made another
gruesome suggestion, heard from his teacher or picked up from some ancient work, to the
effect that my malady was probably due to the venom of malignant spirits that beset the path
of Yogis, and prescribed a decoction, which I never took.
On the suggestion of someone I glanced through a couple of books on Kundalini Yoga,
translations in English of ancient Sanskrit texts. I could not read even a page attentively, the
attempt involving fixity of attention which I was incapable of maintaining for any length of
time. The least effort instantly aggravated my condition by increasing the flow of the new
born energy into the brain, which added to my terror and misery. I just glanced through the
books, reading a line here and a paragraph there. The description of the symptoms that
followed the awakening corroborated my own experience and firmly strengthened my
conviction that I had roused the vital force dormant in me; but whether the agony of mind and
body that I was passing through was an inevitable result of the awakening or whether I had
drawn up the energy through a wrong nerve, I could not be sure. There was, however, one
very briefly stated injunction call it accident or divine guidance I picked up from the huge
mass of material in that very cursory glance. It was to the effect that during the course of the
practice the student is not permitted to keep his stomach empty, but should take a light meal
every three hours. This brief advice, flashing across my brain at a most critical moment when
I hovered between life and death and had lost every hope of survival, saved my life and sanity
and continues to do so to this day.
At the time I paid no attention to this significant hint which, based on the experience of
countless men, many of whom had probably lost their lives in the attempt to arouse the
serpent, had come down through the ages as guidance for the initiates. Even if I had tried my
hardest to do so, I could not have acted upon the advice at that time, as food was so abhorrent
to me that my stomach revolted at the mere thought of it. I was burning in every part of my
body while my mind, like a floating balloon, bobbed up and down and swayed sideways
erratically, unable to keep itself steady even for a moment.
Whenever my mind turned upon itself I always found myself staring with growing panic into
the unearthly radiance that filled my head, swirling and eddying like a fearsome whirlpool;
even found its reflection in the pitch darkness of my room during the slowly dragging hours
of the night. Not infrequently it assumed horrible shapes and postures, as if satanic faces were
grinning and inhuman forms gesticulating at me in the blackness. This happened night after
night for months, weakening my will and sapping my resistance until I felt unable to endure
the fearful ordeal any longer, certain that at any moment I might succumb to the relentlessly
pursuing horror and, bidding farewell to my life and sanity, rush out of the room a raving
maniac. But I persisted, determined to hold on as long as I had a vestige of will power,
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resolved at the first sign of breaking to surrender my life rather than lose myself in the ghastly
wilderness of insanity.
When it was day I longed for the night and during the night I fervently prayed for the day. As
the time wore on, my hope dwindled and desperation seized me. There was no relaxation in
the tension or any abatement in the ceaselessly haunting fear or any relief from the fiery
stream that darted through my nerves and poured into my agonized brain. On the other hand, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]