I was initiated into a Rajadhiraja Tantra Yoga tradition when I was a student in Austin in 1993. I adopted a very healthy vegetarian lifestyle without drugs and alcohol. Within a few months the kundalini began with what would be a very long and intense awakening. As a student of psychology and world literature, I had heard of kundalini and other mystical energies but I had never thought they were real, live forces. I thought it was just interesting archaic symbolism, and not an actual force within the human body that rises up through the spinal column to awaken higher states of awareness. The universal symbol for this force is the serpent. It is said to be a covert, spiritual force beneath the surface of conscious awareness, like a coiled snake. Kundalini is the fundamental intelligence behind life and evolution, waiting to be awakened when the mind finally desires liberation from finite mental bondages. As this divine “serpent power” rises through the spinal column, one experiences states of deep spiritual realization. For the yogi, kundalini is the force that unites the human with the divine.
One day after classes and a short meditation, at which I was merely a beginner, I laid down on my back due to exhaustion. I felt a soothing force begin to rise up my spine. As this point of white, soft energy rose up into the thoracic region of the spine, I began to hear the sacred Om sound. It became frightening because there was only Om and nothing else. I opened my eyes but could not see anything. My faculties of sight and hearing were unified and there only existed Om. I knew I was being dissolved in a force that was vibrating within every particle of the universe. It was ecstatic and exhilarating but terrifying. I felt my whole identity would disappear and never return. The kundalini was entering the medulla. I began to repeat my mantra for meditation but it only made the experience more intense. Instead, I began to repeat my name, William, over and over and trying to remember that I was a student in Austin, Texas on the physical plane of reality. The kundalini began to go back down as Om diminished. I couldn’t take any more.
After that experience I became very confident but experienced a lot of mental turmoil. It was very productive turmoil in that all negative memories from my past were being quickly purged and purified. I began to feel completely whole and that I had already lived a very complete life. The second time the kundalini rose was a few months later. I saw the same light in my spine although this time it was an infinitesimally small point. Physical reality disappeared and I began to “see” from Om and nothing else. I opened my eyes but could not see anything. My faculties of sight and hearing were unified and there only existed Om. Physical reality disappeared and I began to “see” from the crown of my head a turquoise bird flying closer and closer as the point rose higher and higher. The bird landed on the crown of my head at the same time the point rose to the same place. Heaven and earth had met and I was lost in an infinite web of sound vibration where I could no longer see even this beautiful vision.
I was dissolving in a force that was vibrating within every particle of the universe. It was ecstatic and exhilarating but terrifying. I felt my whole identity would disappear and never return. The kundalini was entering the medulla. I began to repeat my mantra for meditation but it only made the experience more intense. Instead, I began to repeat my name, William, over and over and trying to remember that I was a student in Austin, Texas on the physical plane of reality. The kundalini began to go back down as Om diminished. I couldn’t take any more.
My last thought before losing awareness of not just the outer world, but also the inner world of vision, was that the forms looked Meso-American. Only years later would I learn of the Mesoamerican concept of kundalini, what they call Quetzalcoatl, the “Plumed Serpent.” The quetzal is a colorful bird of Chiapas and the mayan symbol for the kundalini, the spiritual energy of evolution and enlightenment that resides dormant within the mind.
(The kundalini was named Quetzalcoatl by the Toltecs and Kukulkan by the Mayas. A version of the image of Quetzalcoatl is on the Mexican national flag to this day. )
After this experience I lost all interest in a career and marriage and a “normal” life. I barely graduated the university and went to India seeking more understanding. There I met Chidghananda, a solitary old monk well-venerated in his order. He was regarded as a saint and I felt so honored that he took me into his close friendship and care. Sometimes I would accompany him with his evening meditations. He always heard the holy Om sound and it increased in his meditation. It was obvious that he regularly experienced ananda, divine bliss. He was truly one of the most loving human beings that I have ever met. My experiences had intensified near him at Ananda Nagar and it was clearly divine will that I had met such a teacher to guide me through these powerful processes.
At the time I wanted to become a monk but Chidghananda himself told me that I was a bit of an oddity and would not fit in well with the monastic organization. He said that my spiritual work was coming to an end, and that I didn’t really need to do anything else with my life rather than meditate, live simply, and help others as much as I could. Although sharply criticized for his influence over me, he followed his conscience and spoke only the truth to me. Although very confused as to what to do with my life once the ideal of being a monk was fading, I was aided by a dream in which Anandmurti commanded me not to worry about becoming a monk, but just to “see the world as a frame-less photo and wander through the night.” Anandamurti has always spoken to me through dreams in such an elevated, poetic fashion. Later, as a confirmation he told me in another vivid dream that “all that matters is to do dhyana dasha.” He used those Sanskrit words, one of which I knew of not until a friend looked it up in a Sanskrit dictionary. What Anandamurti said was “all that matters is to do service through meditation.” I was often unsure if in these dreams I communicated with the spirit of Anandamurti, or if Anandamurti had become a mere symbol in my consciousness that had penetrated my dreams. Either way, these dreams always made perfect sense to me and enlightened difficult situations. If they were my own projections, then they came from the deepest, most intuitive parts of me that have never let me down.
It was soon after that I met Chandranath and his wife, Ram Pari Devii. They were some of the first initiates and spiritual teachers, or acharyas, personally taught by Anandamurti in the 1950’s. They were undoubtedly the most spiritually elevated beings that I have ever met. The whole environment around them was bliss. Even their lifelong employees, like the cook and the gardener, had become highly developed yogis. Speaking with Chandranath removed any doubts I had about my meditation and he told me that the intensity would calm down with time. He gave me invaluable tips about the mystical subtleties of spiritual practice and left me with the deepest sensation of divine peace that I still feel each time I recall being in his presence. Both he and his wife were established in the practice of samadhi (experiential union with the Supreme Consciousness) and could enter into it at will. They were free, realized souls whose only reason to still be physically incarnated was to help others along the path. After meeting them I realized that more important than being a monk or householder was to simply try to be at one with the Supreme Consciousness at all times, as they were.
When I sat next to Chandranath and tried to listen to him speak of the Supreme Consciousness I could not understand a word he said. He took me into himself and there was only silence and a soft. white glow. I still try to recall that experience and become so still, forget even breathing, and there is still only silence and a soft, white glow.
People like Chandranath have set a practical example of how a realized yogi can live in the world. It seems miraculous, perhaps even absurd, that the human mind can unite with the Supreme Consciousness. We can truly say “I am This” from the most sincere and complete part of our beings. However, it seems even more miraculous the benevolent grace that emanates from such a realized being and their ability to transform others. He seemed to me a man so simple and pure and I never felt that he was asking anything from me; he only gave himself wholeheartedly to anybody seeking guidance. For a yogi who practices samadhi regularly, such a conscious and humane expression like Chandranath is the most natural and simple creation of the Supreme Consciousness. When the microcosmic mind dissolves into the Supreme Consciousness, there is really no ego, nor even I-feeling, that binds one to the relative plane. Many yogis leave their bodies after such experiences. Others, like Chandranath, mysteriously returned to the relative plane of earthly existence and continued to serve others. I think that when when one enters the breathless state of samadhi and dissolves completely into the Supreme Consciousness, then it is only this One that can breathe the breath back into this unified yogi. If it weren’t for people like Chandranath, his wife and Chidghananda, who really set such a practical ideal, then I probably would have thought that such beings existed only in the distant past, in legends, and that the modern world is no longer habitable for advanced yogis. In the most mystical and subtle ways, people like Chandranath leave an undying imprint on the people they affect, and thereby leave their mark on the collective consciousness of humanity as a whole. and serve the living, vibrant Macrocosm.