Mystical Experience & Psychic Energy

Our difficulty in explaining the nature of mystical experience stems mainly from the fact that we are not able to visualize a state of consciousness superior to our own. We cannot even imagine the state of mind of a musical or a mathematical genius. A child cannot imagine the mind of an adult. We can understand the position better if we suppose that consciousness has an infinite series of gradations from the most strong to the most dilute. This we can illustrate by treating our consciousness as the faint glimmer shed by a spark of fire and comparing it with the blinding glare on the gigantic surface of the sun. The human eye cannot even bear the sight of this splendor. It would be struck blind even when millions of miles away.

Our consciousness is an extremely dilute form of this splendor. Another analogy would be to liken our mind to a droplet of water and to compare it to an Ocean of Life. If this one small droplet of Divine Intelligence in man has been able to create the present amazing world of art, philosophy, science and the wonders of technology, what is impossible for the Almighty Ocean itself? What is there to prevent us from conceptualizing the truth that the whole universe, with its millions of galaxies and billions of suns and planets, is the creation of an Infinite Intelligence so concentrated that but one highly diluted atom suffices for all the mental activity of man?

We are not able to perceive this Almighty Intelligence or its Splendor because our sensory equipment is designed the other way. In fact, we are held prisoners by our brain. We are not able by any means to look into the mind of another person, as we look into a material object. Any mind other than our own is a completely unknown territory to us. Each one of the four billion human minds, dwelling now on the earth, is an enchanted island invisible to the rest. There is no instrument that can see, measure, touch, smell or taste consciousness. Then how can we be conscious of Universal Consciousness, even if all our life we live, sleep, think and act in it?

This explains why mystical ecstasy has such an overwhelming impact on the mind. The visionary, for the first time, perceives the all-surpassing Splendor of Cosmic Intelligence. This is also the reason why intellect and science are both lost in the labyrinth of matter, for they look at the universe, as it were, through a filtering glass. The veil before our eyes is the creation of our senses. They act only within a particular range. Areas beyond that range are completely shut out from us. For instance, we cannot perceive the electromagnetic waves with any of our senses, but only through instruments and devices designed for the purpose. Even our instruments, at this stage, cannot predict an earthquake, though some forms of life can sense in advance the coming shocks.

A moth can smell its mate from even as far off as seven miles and a shark can scent blood two miles away. A bloodhound can detect the scent of an absconding criminal for scores of miles among thousands of other scents left by animals and human beings that walk over the same path. Bees find their way by polarized light imperceptible to human beings, and whales locate their prey with sonar-echo thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean. What worlds are hidden from us we cannot even imagine. For all we know, our sensory equipment might be but one set peculiar to the earth out of millions operative on other planets and other planes of creation in the universe.

We are mystified by U.F.O._s and the psychic phenomena, because we are not prepared to concede that there are other planes of creation and other beings whose bodies are formed of other materials invisible to us. Mystical experience, in an instant, shatters the illusion that our subjective and objective worlds are the only actual realities. In the mystical state a new element dominates the whole scene. The world of awareness and the world of matter fuse into one, a stupendous Consciousness now penetrates and encompasses all in a blaze of glory impossible to describe. As the Vision unfolds itself, the whole universe seems to melt in the splendor of the One present everywhere.

In order to understand mystical ecstasy in its true proportion, it is necessary to mark the difference between the animal and the human mind. The animal mind is extremely restricted and has absolutely no awareness of the world of knowledge, thought, imagination and feeling existing in man. It has absolutely no idea of science, mathematics, philosophy, poetry, literature, medicine, music, painting and sculpture which, all together, comprise a whole world entirely out of the reach of any other form of life on the earth. How has man taken this prodigious leap over the brute? How has the new world opened in him? Obviously by the addition of more brain matter and a difference in the quality and configuration of the brain.

We are told that the reptilian and animal brains still survive in man. Be that as it may, it is clear that the undoubted superiority of the mind of man over that of the animal is primarily due to the superiority of the human brain. Dolphins, too, have large brains and, as is well known, they are among the most intelligent creatures, below man, on earth. Here we come to a crucial point in our discussion. So far as science is concerned, the human brain is a sealed compartment and has no other potentiality present in it over and above those manifested so far. This is an error and, as long as we continue to hold this view, the phenomena of mystical consciousness and extrasensory perception will continue to be unsolvable riddles for mankind.

We have seen what a tremendous change the addition of some ounces of brain matter has made in the life of man as compared to that of animals. But the mere quantitative or qualitative change in the brain does not explain the whole story. Dolphins, with an almost parallel brain weight, bear little comparison to man. Some small species of monkeys have proportionately larger brains than human beings. The ant with its tiny brain has an organizing capacity and a social order which is amazing. Science is still at sea as far as the phenomenon of life is concerned.

A Max Planck or an Einstein in the science of mind is needed to correct the error of the mechanistic interpreters of life. It is not elements of matter, like carbon, oxygen, calcium, hydrogen and others or the DNA and RNA molecules alone of which life forms are compounded, but there is another element in nature, imperceptible to our senses, which is at the bottom of all phenomena of life. We can call it by the name of life-energy. It is this force which is credited with magical or miraculous powers in all the occult systems of the past and is known by various names, such as astral light, odic force, psychic energy, orgone, super-solar force, chi, etc. In India it is known as prana, and has been universally held to be the lever behind mystical vision and paranormal gifts for the last more than three thousand years.

Prana can well be the matrix from which even physical energy is born. It might be present in the atom and sub-nuclear particles without ever being detected by any means known to science. It is, no doubt, a galling position, but it is true. The pranic force, in combination with atoms and molecules, fashions the bricks as also the complex structures of life. For this reason, it has been held to be the architect of the organic kingdom and the driving force behind evolution.

The Power of the Creator which brings the universe into existence is known as Shakti in India. Shakti is mind and matter both. Gnosis or Knowledge comes from the Creator. This is the Divine Spark or Soul in us--the Inner Light that illumines the mind and the intellect both. We sometimes become aware of this real "Knower" in states of deep contemplation or in the impartial Self which tells us that we are wrong, when, in the heat of anger or passion or in any other turbulent mental state or disturbed reason, we wrongly act or think. It is this Self or atman, as it is named in the Upanishads, which becomes more clear and perceptible in the mystical state.

Shakti, as the Power of the Creator, is incomprehensible to the intellect. We are already at the frontier, in the investigation of matter and mind both, where the unfathomable nature of the deeper layers of creation, with the tools available to us in the form of our senses and the mind, is becoming increasingly apparent to the leading scientists and thinkers of our day. Shakti is unconditioned and limitless, capable of creating any kind of world or substance that one can conceive of or that is inconceivable. Prana, too, is a form of Shakti. It is the Energy behind the phenomena of life. It is the Power behind faith-healing and miracles, as also behind time, space or causality, also emptiness, timelessness and chaos.

What amazing worlds, what incredible forms of life and what unimaginable planes of existence it has created or will create we can never know. The dream state is a distant sample to show its bewildering play. It is maya, the incomprehensible and unexplainable illusory power of the Creator, which our intellect can never entirely understand. The theory of relativity, the progressive discovery of subnuclear particles, with amazing properties, and the new finds of black holes, pulsars, quasars, the expanding universe and antimatter all point to the conclusion that, with every advance in knowledge gained so far, the universe has not become simpler and easier to understand, but more complex and more difficult to grasp by the intellect. To what undreamed of conclusions the investigation done by science will lead, in the course of even one century, no one can predict.

The Indian metaphysics is based on the experience of samadhi or mystical vision. In this state the subtle worlds of mind and prana become perceptible to the Yogi. In the time to come, science will have to adopt the same methods to reach these transcendent planes. There is no other way for man to find other areas of creation, not perceptible to our senses. It is only then that the true proportion of creation can be understood by the human mind. At present we deal only with the fraction perceptible to us. The longing for spiritual experience exists even in the most intelligent minds, because there is always a subconscious sense of insufficiency in the physical knowledge gained and of emptiness in one_s knowledge of the self.

Prana is the bewildering source behind the amazing organizations and instincts of living creatures. With the first breakthrough in the discovery of prana, which is imminent now, the incredible behavior of the intellect that has persisted in ascribing the phenomenon of life and evolution to pure unpremeditated chance will at once become apparent. There is a different spectrum of prana for each form of life, with modifications for each individual of that form. We know very well that the organic structures and their chemical compositions in every species of life vary from each other, and there are slight differences in the individuals of each species. This is true of prana also. Each distinct human personality reflects a distinct type of pranic spectrum. No two spectrums are alike in every respect, as there are no two personalities similar in every way. The differences in our mental constitutions and character are all due to variations in the spectrum of prana of each individual. In the pranic plane, human personalities exist as clear and distinct as their mortal frames in the physical world.

During the course of mystical ecstasy a new, more potent stream of prana enters the brain, creating a revolution in consciousness. The flow of this new pranic current is caused by a slight but clearly marked activity in the brain. It looks as if a hitherto silent area has leapt to a sudden activity, demanding a more potent psychic fuel to sustain it. When the available store of this new pranic fuel is spent, the mystic again reverts to his normal consciousness returning, as it were, from a smiling, brightly lit Garden of Paradise to the humdrum existence of a prosaic world. No words can express the grandeur and sublimity of the experience nor the happiness and serenity felt during the interval. In rare cases, the experience can become a perennial feature of human life. In India, it has been called the sahaja or jivan-mukta state.

The whole ocean of prana, sustaining the human race, is in a state of flux. It is this motion in the fundamental element of life which is behind the evolution of the brain and the transformation of consciousness. The human world is advancing in knowledge as prana is moving in that direction. This movement, in turn, causes subtle evolutionary changes in the brain which we are not able to measure yet, but will do so when the mystery shrouding prana is solved. This will also solve the riddle of talent, genius and extrasensory perception for a well-marked change in prana is responsible for these conditions, too. The evolutionary change occurring in the race now is irresistible. Mankind is being carried to an, at present, unknown destination by the very ocean of life which feeds every individual mind night and day. This destination is a new dimension of consciousness which has not been previously defined so far. We call it by the name of mystical experience, illumination or enlightenment without knowing precisely what that means. All of us are sailing in the same mysterious ship without knowing for which port it is bound.


Written by: Gopi Krishna