The Present Crisis

All those who fight against this awful doom
Have firm religious sanction on their side;
They will be glorified in both the worlds,
This and the next, their conscience clear and bright,
Their triumph: mastery of lower self,
And freeing mankind from the Devil's hold.
Although resourceless, they will be recalled
With honor, love and tears by grateful crowds,
Their names engraved for e'er on loyal hearts
They rescued from the open jaws of death,
By their heroic acts, done at the risk
Of disappointing their pugnacious friends,
Who burn to kindle soon the fires of war.

The Present Crisis, Page 105



This hideous war is now approaching fast,
Beyond the power of man to avert the blow.
Already the monster hovers o'er the site
Which at the appointed hour the Fire will light.
0, ye encrowned elite of every state,
Tone down your fervor and slow down your pace;
Let not your own descendants take your name
With horror and abhorrence for the pain
And agony that will fall to their lot,
By your impatience, lack of wisdom or
Your want of insight to foresee the end.


For Heaven's sake, retrace your steps before
It is too late, reduce your pressure and
Soften your tone, relax the tense state of
Your mind, slow down the preparations for
A war, abandon fast the nuclear race!

The Present Crisis, Page 102 - 103


For Heaven's sake, O, ye much-honored chiefs,
Ye brilliant penmen and ye great elite
Of every clime and country on the earth,
Forbear, and let not your ambitious plans
For more dominion, prestige, markets, wealth,
Resources, domination or revenge,
Pervert your thinking and subvert your will,
And losing sight of what a war would cost,
When fought with nuclear engines, pray restrain
Your ardor and in calmer moments ask
Yourself: How can you gain your cherished ends
If, only after a few hours of fight
With missiles, earth would be a wilderness,
And all that on which you now build your plans
Dissolve into air, like a vanished dream,
And you will find yourself, if still alive,
The monarch of the waste surrounding you!

The Present Crisis, Page 133




The Present Crisis -- Chapter X
The Only Sure and Honorable Way Out

How would the law adjudge the acts of one
Who proves a traitor to his motherland,
Deceives the nation, sells her to a foe,
Imposes on her and betrays her trust,
Tells vital secrets to her enemies,
Dishonours her in the eyes of the world,
And by these actions does her grievous harm.

He braves the anger of his country-folk, Draws on himself their insults and abuse, Disgrace and condemnation for his crime; Aware they would despise and hate his name, And, if in their grip, would demand his life, To avenge the serious wrong he did to them.


He knows all this when he commits the sin, Driven to it by burning thirst for gold, Or high position or possession or His passion for a charmer whom he loves, Who lured him from his nation and his home And made him face the tempest for her sake.


If we conceive Faith as our native land, The soil on which we were brought up and bred, With God as Sovereign Ruler, Heaven as home, And heavenly beings as compatriots, Which is the true position, if we trust The gospels of our creed, declaring that We are the children of a heavenly Sire, With angels, cherubim and devas as Our close companions, dwellers on the land To which, in solemn truth, we all belong- The land of seraphs and immortal orbs Of life-divine, who drest in clay descend To earth to play their parts, allotted by The Sire, in keeping with Celestial Laws, Beyond our ken, as girt by walls of clay, We lose touch with the customs of our land And need, to win back our divine estate, Continued effort to unearth the Key.


O, ye Believers in Religion and The Truths which it upholds for common good, How can we justify our lack of faith When we shut from the mind our pure descent, Our high position as Empyrean-born, Our tall imperial stature as a Soul, Above the good and evil of the earth, Above its opulence and poverty, Above its storm and stress, dispute and strife, Above its squalor, dirt, refuse and filth, Above all that disturbs us in the least, Or acts against our native state of bliss That reigns supreme in our celestial home, Above the din and noise, disease and pain, Despair and hope, distress and fleeting joy, Which make up, for a while, our worldly life?


Why have we given up this gold to waste The Time allowed to us by waiting death, In heaping litter and in hoarding trash, Which, when beyond our need, are valueless And only satisfy a morbid itch For show and grandeur, boundless power or wealth, Or mad desire for all-devouring love, Which all end in frustration or remorse Or vain regrets, when with decaying health And bent with age, we ponder o'er the past?


There can be no two views about the fact That we cannot be loyal to our faith, If we discredit its accepted truths, Or fail to act upon the injunctions laid To discipline our lives in keeping with Its tenets and beliefs held all along. We must behave, if loyal to our creed, Which tells us that we have a deathless soul, In ways which do not savour of pretence Of guile or false belief to save our face, And must work diligently all our life To gain the Kingdom of Heaven, Nirvana Or Paradise or Brahman, as the Peak For which we have to strive, with all our strength, And how: This too is clearly underlined In Sermon on the Mount, Commandments Ten, The Gita, Dhammapada or Quran And scriptures of the other holy faiths.


How can we class a mortal who is loud In his avowal of a holy faith, But does the opposite of what she says, Calls God his Father or Creator or By what-so-e'er relationship he likes; But by his acts belies the love professed; Accepts that his soul is immortal and That Gospels hold inspired commands of God, Or of his incarnation, or of One Among the highest of enlightened Souls, Or of a Prophet with a Message from The Lord to show the right way to the fold; But far from acting on the precepts taught Does the reverse, obeys the cannons laid By breaking each and every one of them, Invokes the Grace of God for help in need, And then repays it with ingratitude; Except in lip-deep worship, prayer, rites, Ignores the Gospels as if of no worth; A fibster, outwardly who owns a creed With lips, but soon disowns it with his deeds; A crime worse than unmasked apostasy. How far do we obey the tenets of Our faith, how far act on the word of God, Can be assessed by our aversion to A simple, humble life of peace and truth, Compassion, love for neighbour, charity, Subdued ambition, passion, lust, desire, Downgraded anger, hate and violence: A life attuned to God and His image pure Of what is good and noble in the world. But what will we find, if we try to probe How far our life is modelled on our Faith; How far we reach the ideals carved by her, How far we carry out the Will of God? If we are lax, what do we merit for Our gross intransigence 'gainst the laws, Against what is ambrosia for the soul, Whom we drag in the mud of our desire; Against what can attest our love of God Against all that we must uphold as right If we admit we have a soul to save, To prove we are above unthinking beasts, And have a Crown of wit upon our head?


But if we fail in this emergent task And act contrarily, then are we not As good as traitors to our native soil, Seduced from duty by the very same Alluring chattels which entice one who Betrays his country for some tempting bait? Is it surprising then that Man is faced With a threat to his whole community?


The menace, too, does not descend from heaven But is our own creation, for it is Born of our own intelligence and wit, Which are the prompters, too, of our revolt. And so our treason 'gainst our native land In dire calamity might soon recoil. 'Tis our superb intelligence that won For us the richest empire on the earth, But now an outlaw for her grave defiance Is waiting for the Rod to set her right.


Do you think in the preparations made For war the Powers-that-be can have no hand, And that the nuclear weapons, forged by us, Have not their concurrence and active help? Have you e'er pondered o'er the issue that The Omnipresent and Omniscient God Can ne'er be ignorant of what we do, Nor can we act against His edicts nor Can aught materialize against His Will?


So, if a true believer, one cannot Refuse to own that we are face to face With that phenomenon which ancients called The "Wrath of Heaven," descending on the earth, To put insurgent Man back on the Path. And so the weapons, piled up fast, provide The scourge, devised by human wit, to whip Herself to sanity, with awful pain, Out of her drunken state of arrogance.


The plea that progress in technology Confers on those who can prepare the stuff The right to use atomic armaments Is as untenable as the logic that One who invents a new machinegun can Employ it lawfully in a roadside fray To win more honour from his neighbours, or A larger portion from the market stock, Or a predominant position in The neighbourhood with greater right to grab Whate'er he chooses for the reason that He is more powerful, richer, more advanced, And has a new machinegun in his hand!


Or if a man discovers a new way Of dalliance with women he should be Allowed to show his skill in public parks Before the eager eyes of hungry crowds! Or let a student who invents a bomb Which, using only air, can kill a crowd, Can deploy the new device, when in class, To cow down teachers, frighten other boys, Or rob the school of books and magazines, And, when restrained, explode in self-defence To blast the offending kids, as their restraint Would mean infringement of his right to do Whate'er he likes with this new wonder of His more enhanced skill in technology.


The truth is that a vile, infernal stuff, Prepared in secrecy by clever brains, By wrongly using their great intellects, Howe'er high in repute they might have been, Howe'er high their attainments and their skill, To be used by their nation which, without Regard to principles of justice, truth And fair play, laws of ethics, human rights, Divine Commandments and the rules of war, Employed it for revenge on innocents. To exact the penalty imposed for such A wild defiance of Celestial Law, The stuff-assuming now the awful form Of an infernal Monster-is about To pounce upon the guilty intellect, And hovers close to every spot on earth The ends of heavenly justice soon to serve. A Dragon reared up by man with his wit, To inflict due punishment for guilty acts Of his own and to learn a lesson which He shall recall with awe for centuries.


The wonder is how all the world is dead To so gross a denial of the rights Of other nations, threatened by the blasts, Though not a party to the deadly feud, Who run the risk of radiation, death, Pollution, famine, dearth, disruption, loss And e'en a direct hit with missiles, when The war is at its height, and palsied hands, Inert with horror at the ghastly sights, Mis-aim the monsters to unchosen sites. Who will then pay the damage done as none Out of the parties may survive the clash, Or be in a position to make good The loss inflicted on a neutral land, Which is inevitable in a war With nuclear engines of the latest type?

This raises issues how on moral grounds, And how, while advocating human rights, A nation can deploy a weapon so Uncertain and unmanageable that It can cause grievous harm to distant soils, And wreck and ruin them beyond repair, Can damage and disrupt contiguous lands, In no respect connected with the war, With fallout and contamination of The native elements essential for The existence and survival of their life?


How can we justify a weapon which Can prove as lethal for noncombatants As for belligerents? Where is the law Or e'en convention which permits a state, Wittingly or unwittingly, to blast A neutral land, with irreparable loss Of life and property to its unarmed And guiltless folk? How can a foul device, That has this possibility, be used By nations proud of their traditions for Uprightness, freedom, justice, rule of law, And human feeling shown for all the race? How can they reconcile the two, O God? How can they reconcile their word and deed?


It is beyond the slightest shade of doubt That, judged by any standard, e'en of war, The use of nuclear weapons is a crime Against both man and God, and all upheld As Right by law and world religions both. No arguments or logic can defend What will be undefendable to the end. 'Tis but a waste of time and energy To whitewash what is but a heinous crime. How odd that this egregious sin is made A subject of debate, when it would meet Only contempt and condemnation from The law-abiding nine-tenths of the race.


The nuclear nations know it too well that Their lives will be in gravest danger, when Atomic weapons are employed, and hence Those well informed about this menace try Their best to end the overhanging threat, To save their own dear lives, well knowing that They may cause e'en more damage to their land Than to that of the distant enemy, For no one can predict whose aim will be More true, or favoured more by chance, to hit The most strategic sites on either side.


We know these foul contraptions have not been Accepted e'en by all the people of The nuclear nations, and but one exchange Of fire might cause upheavals that may force The ones in power to quit or end the war. Those who are counting on the nuclear arm For their ascendancy, survival or Subdual of the foe live in the land Of dreamers, and will be the first to reap The fruit of their revolt against the Law, By paying forfeit with their robes and gowns; For such a murderous frenzy will soon grip The crowds that they will stop at nothing, and, May rise in mad rebellion 'gainst the few In power who will be out-and-out for war To end at once the diabolic fray.


How does the conscience of the leading ranks Of these ascendant lands remain unpricked, When they know that their own compatriots Live with a dread sword hanging o'er their heads; That pregnant mothers, crowing babies and The toiling crowds of simple, honest folk, Who bide contented with the tithe they have, Delighted to be moving and alive, Will all be instantly hurled into hell, For no fault on their part, no sin, no wrong, No action done to merit such an end, Save that of cheering loud the ruling teams Whene'er they chanced to pass their way or, when They saw them in a gala function held To listen to the words they had to say- Without least knowledge of their hid designs Or actions or what they intend to do- A state of trust unparalleled on earth, But often from one side alone, returned But seldom by the other and, sometimes, Repaid with treachery by those adored?


If all the world upholds this kind of war, This murder from a distance of the folk Of hostile lands, in millions at a time, Unarmed, defenceless women, children, men- That does not mean 'tis not a heinous crime.


If all the world upholds a way of life Which contravenes the gospels of a faith, And acts conversely to the precepts taught, Or revels in defying all the rules, That does not mean adherents of that creed Are right in their behaviour, in the least, Or true to their profession or belief.


If all the world upholds ideals which Confer equality on one and all, With liberty and brotherhood to add, And then to enforce these high ideals puts To sword and into concentration camps, For grinding labour with frostbitten hands, Millions of victims in dark secrecy, It does not mean that what is done is right And that the principles professed are sound.


This is what ails the clever mind today, 'Tis dead to its transgressions all the time; It ne'er perceives the ugly, darker side Of its behaviour or its thought and act, And, as one pets a sweetheart, hugs its faults, Condones its errors, justifies mistakes, Excuses misdemeanours, waives off sins, By self-deceit keeps merry all the time, Dwells on but its good traits, ignores the bad, Which, when remembered, might its conscience prick, And thus, oblivious to its own defects, Which one must keep before one's eye to mend, With slow erosion of the moral side, Has made embellished lie a passable norm Of man's behaviour in his business deals- A practice which, condemned by every faith, Is honey to sophisticated minds.


The outcome is that of the leading brains The bulk delights in what it thinks or does And often views an action, e'en if wrong, In the light of its broader interests; Or of the high position which it holds, Judging them not by the criteria laid, Nor by some standard fixed for what is right, But by its interests, objectives, aims, Or nature of the expediency- An egotistic and narcissistic mind, Which firm believes 'tis always in the right And salves its conscience with the logic that This was the only course it could pursue; In that position all would do the same; That was how it could best its country serve, Its firm or office or its interest, Casting morality in diverse molds, Like wax, to make it suit its ends and aims.


Since moral values are essential for Mankind's survival in the atomic age, It would be virtual suicide to break The wall that stands between us and sure death. 'Tis for this reason that the actions done By leading minds in all academies, In trade, in politics, professions, arts Or in the media-the leading wit And skill in every sphere of human life- Unless restrained by strict adherence to The Moral Laws would jeopardise the race. The present crisis is a warning sign From heaven, reminding us to change our ways; But since we are bedazzled by the glow Of our achievements in the earthly fields, There is a common error that we can Defy the moral laws that rule our lives, A fatal blunder at the very base Of dangers which now stare us in the face.


A full-blown nuclear war is suicide, A mad itch for self-immolation done To meet some foul distemper of the mind, For sanity can ne'er become so mad To walk into the jaws of death at choice.


Those who display a lack of sense to see The present hideous conflict in this light Betray a deadness of the instinct for Self-preservation, the primordial urge On which survival of the race depends.


A half-way nuclear war is out of count, For once the Demon of Hate is at large, And the exchange of nuclear missiles starts, With capitals as the first targets hit, Who will retain the sanity of mind To call a halt to the exploding bombs! For there will not be one but many states Involved in this infernal give and take, With wounded, dying and dead everywhere, The country in a shambles, transport and Communication wrecked, the leaders out Of wits, a thousand problems on their mind; The people in the grip of mortal fear, Running in panic, dead to everything Save how to flee from the pursuing flames; A wild stampede, more than frantic rush, In which the weaker would be crushed to death; Who will maintain his balance, keep his wits In these macabre, mind-unhinging scenes, Unfolding with the speed of lightning and Beyond the power of man to handle now?


Those who complacently talk of this threat Which can make earth a fuming hell in space, While lolling in their chairs, with pen in hand, Smoking, as if they are the lords of earth, Looking so calm and undisturbed, the while They speak on this unspeakable curse of war, Treating atomic fights, too, as routine, Howe'er accomplished, are a hopeless prey To that abnormal state of intellect, Which barren of compassion and the power To place herself in the shoes of the crowds That will fall victims to the awful blasts, And form the objects of those grisly scenes, They, like the colour-blind who have no sense Of colour, fail to assess the pain involved- A common failing of conceited minds, Which all their life think only of themselves, Against injunctions laid by every faith To think of others in one's prayers and To exercise compassion off and on. For sans this love of neighbour and the thought Of poor and helpless in one's daily life, The mind becomes too self-indulgent to Think kindly and humanely of the world- The type of mind neglect of faith has bred.


The mighty heads of states, on whom devolves The great responsibility of our time To avert the threatened holocaust, should not Bend low to listen to the phobic lot, Who ne'er can taste the bitterness of that Which they propose unless themselves hit hard. The only potent method to resolve This hard dilemma is to moderate The heat, stop adding fuel to the fire, And slowly bring to a halt the weapon race, Convene effective meetings of the states Which stand up stoutly for a peaceful world, Ban weapon sales to needy lands for gain, For you thus arm yourself potential foes, Nor e'en supply them free to your allies; Reduce production of this ware until The curse of war is lifted from the earth.


Key up the U.N.O. to push this cause, Alert the people of all lands and climes About the dangers of a nuclear war, In duty bound, as you first should have done Before embarking on this fatal course. Enlist their full support in this campaign, Their cry will be resistless and shall win E'en in the lands where their voice is suppressed.


Begin discussions with the foe to evolve A formula for coexistence in A climate of peace, friendship, love and trust, And draw up soon a mutual agreement, With fullest safeguards set for either side, Each bound to observe for e'er the solemn pact, Each bound to honour and respect those who Are parties to this holy covenant.

This is the only dignified way out, The only sure and honourable course, Which, with pure efforts and the Grace of God, Can grant humanity a further lease Of life to win the glorious prize ordained To crown her hard millennial toil on earth. Do not forget when in fear of this war That Hope is ne'er away from human hearts, And blank despair is ne'er the only course For those beleaguered by an adverse Fate, As Grace of God is always near at hand To fill the darkest day with bright sunshine.


April 13, 1981


Written by: Gopi Krishna

The Way to Self-Knowledge

This book is from the Super-Mind
A fast dictated gift sublime,
The Message it contains will find
Full confirmation in due time.

This well-observed phenomenon,
So new to modern intellect,
Has been exhibited, off and on,
In varied tongue and dialect,

Right from the old Egyptian times,
By many a richly gifted mind,
Of which the evidence in some climes,
One can in holy scriptures find.

The current theories, which ascribe
This outflow to the unconscious mind,
Are pure concoctions of a tribe
Of scientists that cannot find

The right solution in their texts,
Or in what their elite have writ,
Who, too, belong to diverse sects,
Each one depending on his wit

Which, in the vast domain of mind,
Is like a pin lost in a stack
Of hay, impossible to find,
When one in search has turned his back

Towards the huge, offending pile,
As Knowledge has turned his to God,
To please himself but for a while,
Intensely searching clay and sod.

The top psychologists whose fame
Still high in learned circles lives,
Are not entirely free of blame
For giving currency to views

About religion, God and soul,
Which are completely off the track,
As far from Truth as the South Pole
Is from the North, and some e'en smack

Of fabrication with a view
To enhance their prestige and their fame,
A subterfuge which is not new,
But in a holy cause, a shame.

The Almighty Power that rules this All
Is neither male nor female nor
Androgynous, and that we call
By names we have a liking for.

Our life can't be a simmering broth,
Where true and false conjointly live,
But there must be a purer Path
From which we Soul's estate can view.

The self-awareness of the soul,
To know her own divinity
Denotes the purpose and the goal
Of human life, as it should be.

That is why holy scriptures grip
So hard the normal human mind,
More than the love of scholarship,
And firmly to religion bind.

Mankind is passing through the age
Of dreams come true of scientists,
And with their gifts has set the stage
Now for the rule of nuclear fists.

What mental plagues will be her share,
If this accursed, infernal race,
With more and more destructive ware,
Continues at a faster pace,

Unless kind nature takes the stand
To make the hotheads see the light,
And comes down with a heavy hand
To bring to dust their vaunted might.

The arsenals built by the urge
To power, by lust, ambition, greed,
Nature will soon use as the purge
To cure these current ills with speed.

This awful Drama shall reveal
How marvelously nature works,
And how in all with which we deal,
Her hand behind the curtain lurks.

This gifted book will leave no doubt
That all we do is preordained,
And knowledge of what comes about,
Before it happens can be gained.

Ambition, passion, lust, desire,
Each impulse, urge or appetite,
Which move, propel or set on fire
Or fill with pain, grief or delight

The mind, must be judiciously
Brought under the control of man,
To help him climb courageously
The height prescribed in nature's Plan.

The bounden duty, in this fight,
Of every parent is to grow
In nobleness and moral height,
Their seeds in every child to sow.

The view of some psychologists
To give a more loose rein to sex
Is poison, and one must resist
Excess, ere it the system wrecks.

The ignorance, just at this stage,
Of this one, all-important Law,
When humankind has come of age
To end the rule of tooth and claw,

Can prove disastrous for the race
And has already done much harm.
That is why she will soon retrace
Her steps back to the field and farm;

And start the steep ascent to reach
The Kingdom nature has ordained,
One which religion came to preach,
When she self-mastery has gained.

Knowledge, entirely in the dark,
About this Crown of human life,
Must soon a new course embark
To clear the erroneous notions rife.

Hence this inspired direction came
To guide humanity aright,
As Dogma has made knowledge lame,
Bias and Hubris weak in sight,

So he cannot discern the Path,
Which nature for Man has aligned.
His cooks too many spoil the broth,
More so, when some are lame, some blind.

That is why Revelations come
To set the wrongs of Knowledge right,
To muffle his loud beating drum,
And bring his faults and fibs to light.

No poet, scholar, scientist
This Wonder-book can duplicate,
Or its innate appeal resist,
As Truth must triumph soon or late.

'Tis come to herald the New Age,
For which some people fondness show.
Like parrots talking in a cage,
What "New Age" means they do not know.

This Book is aimed to make it clear
That the existing two pursuits
Of wealth and power we must forswear,
As both are hence forbidden fruits;

And mankind must begin the ascent,
Free of the faults that block her way,
To reach the glowing firmament
Of Life-Divine without delay.

A new World-Order must emerge
That has no room for rivalry,
Where all attention would converge
On friendship, love and harmony.

Where every human flower must
Receive the thought and care it needs
To bloom divinely, in full trust,
That there are no encroaching weeds.

One can imagine it must be
A comic spectacle for gods
Our proud, intelligent selves to see
Stooping to tricks, deceptions, frauds

To o'ertake or outpace a mate,
A stranger, neighbor, kith or kin
And leave, what we accumulate,
Behind, when bade to quit the bin;

While in us there is, all along,
The Spark which, with a little care,
Can change this life into a song
Of heavenly music all can share.

But we discredit or ignore,
Or for mere trifles sacrifice
This deathless Treasure, evermore,
Which grows in beauty and in price.

There might be many who will try
To pick some hole or find some fault
In this book, but in vain their cry,
As coming storms the attacks will halt.

The more discerning will forbear
From making comments, till the time
When patent signs can make it clear
How far prophetic is this rhyme.

This heaven-sent verse will be excelled
By future Seers, on their Rebirth,
Whose mighty visions might be spelled
In all main languages of the earth.


Written by: Gopi Krishna

Evolution & the Science of Consciousness

A thousand more years of daily technological triumphs and oceans of temporal knowledge, gained by science, can never succeed in calming the fever of the intellect caused by its inability to know itself. Continued evolution of the intellect and continued extension of all the treasures of art and philosophy, possessed by mankind, would not tend to diminish this fever but, on the contrary, make it more acute. The ferment in the hearts of the youth in all parts of the world is a symptom of the exacerbation of this malady. There is no possibility for man to explore his own mystery, save by further development of his brain, and the activation of the center designed for it by nature.

The evolutionary process tending towards this development cannot be neglected or ignored with impunity. It would be like neglecting or ignoring the growth of a child. Nature has taken every precaution to ensure that human beings do not by their ignorance or recalcitrance impede or obstruct the operation of the great law. Deep-rooted urge for transcendental experience, hunger for occult powers, curiosity about the supernatural, lure of magic, thirst for spiritual knowledge, love for religion, desire for worship and prayer, and the impulse of self-reformation are all devices installed by nature to draw human beings to the target of evolution without exactly knowing the reason responsible for the urge or the hunger which they experience.

Yoga is designed to fulfill this unspoken demand of nature and to meet this unwritten law by prescribing a way of life which is in conformity to the process of evolution working in the system. It is therefore obvious that Yoga is not what it is or has been held to be-a system of discipline for personal salvation, efficacious on account of certain unknown or magical properties, dependent for its success on the favor or grace of a guru. The actual position is that Yoga, as we know it at present, is merely the first step of a long process aimed to enlarge the capacity of the human encephalon, ultimately resulting in the establishment of a super-science for the exploration of transcendental realities. This exploration, conducted through Yoga, of the super-sensory planes of existence, which are the real cause of creation and the basis of the extremely complex phenomenon we call life, will have far greater fascination for the intellectual elite at no distant future than exploration of the material world has for them today.

There are millions upon millions of people whose love for religion is only skin-deep, whose attendance at the church or temple is motivated merely by desire to conform to a convention, or whose interest in God or the Hereafter is only superficial, without exerting the least influence on their daily thought or act. There are millions upon millions of other people whose interest in Yoga or the occult or the supernatural is cursory, the outcome of a passing curiosity, when they observe others' interest in these subjects. In contrast to these there are others deeply imbued with love for their faith or keenly interested in Yoga and the transcendental who make serious efforts to conform their lives to the ideals of their creed or the disciplines they undertake.

On the other side, too, there are legions for whom Yoga, worship, prayer, as also dabbling in the occult or the supernatural, or interest in magic represents merely a peculiar bent of mind in some people or a hobby or fad and they allow them to indulge in their fancies without evincing any desire to imitate or emulate their taste. There is another category of human beings, including statesmen, industrialists, scholars, thinkers, scientists, writers, teachers and others whose number too is large, for whom religion, God, Yoga, occult or the supernatural have no significance. They often applaud their own mental acumen in not being led astray by what they believe is an irrational pursuit, a mental aberration, hysteria or superstition from which they are happy to be free. There are millions of practical, hard-headed men and women who do not even give a thought to the occult or the Beyond and continue in their round of duties as if they do not exist at all. This disposition the Indian masters ascribe to tamas, the downward pressing force which retards evolution.

On the other side, those who practice some form of spiritual exercise or regularly attend the church as a duty, with faith and love, or daily worship and pray carried away by the ego, not unoften congratulate themselves for their observances and faith in God. In some cases this self-applause has the adverse effect of increasing vanity which makes them consider themselves more blessed and privileged than others for their good way of life and conduct which is denied to the rest. These attitudes of mind and active thinking have as pronounced an effect on the evolutionary career of human beings as spiritual discipline and cultivation of virtue. The law of gravitation operates uniformly in every nook and corner of the universe. Similarly do the laws of light and motion and similarly the laws of life.

The Law of Evolution acts precisely in the same way in every human being and in all intelligent forms of life in all parts of the universe. The skeptic who applauds himself for this practical common-sense in not subscribing to, what he calls, superstition or softness of the brain in the religious-minded, is as under the operation of the law as the one who flatters his ego for his piety and goodness, thinking himself superior to those who lead a different life. Whatever the idea and way of life of a human being, he is always under the operation of this mighty Law. Just as, while sitting, sleeping, walking, running, or flying in an airplane, we are every moment under the operation of the law of gravitation and can never escape its force all our life. In the same way, from birth to death, every human creature, thinking, acting, sleeping, waking, laughing or grieving is under the sway of the Law of Evolution, ceaselessly working in his body and brain.

The force of gravitation penetrates to each particle of earth and into every atom in our system, holding every cell and molecule in its place. A sudden cessation of this law would create an inconceivable situation, an explosion of which no one can visualize all the consequences. In the same way a sudden cessation of the law of Evolution will have unpredictable results and gradually transform mankind into an inconceivable species of life, making its survival as an intelligent creation entirely out of the bounds of possibility.

In order to obtain a clearer idea of how the forces of life and the Law of Evolution can be conceived of, in the context of the current theories about the elemental forces of matter, it is sufficient to say that the classical concepts of extremely minute solid objects which combined, like diminutive bricks, to form molecules and compounds has been demolished. The material world has now to be imagined as a stupendous ocean of wavelike patterns of probable interconnections of which it is not possible to form a precise image by any means possible to man.

"A material particle, such as an electron," says Hermann Weyl," is merely a small domain of the electric field, within which the field strength assumes enormously high values, indicating that a comparatively huge field energy is concentrated in a very small space. Such an energy knot, which by no means is clearly delineated against the remaining field, propagates through empty space, like a water wave across the surface of a lake; there is no such thing as one and the same substance of which the electron consists at all times."1

From this plain description of the invisible levels of matter, we can readily form the image of a human being as he actually exists-as a fluidic field of interconnected and interacting forces devoid of the form, shape, size, color and substance, presented to our mind by the senses and the brain. With this picture the world of name and form vanishes away completely. This dissolution of the objective world into Consciousness is a phenomenon known to yogis for thousands of years. Universal Consciousness (Brahman) with its maya-Shakti, existing behind the energy-field of the universe, lies completely beyond the range of our observation, the real source of all creation, yet entirely aloof and unaffected by its constant movement and activity. The Law of Evolution springing from the maya-Shakti of the Creator is operative at the finest levels of our organic structures, subtler than the neurons and their constituents or, in other words, in the invisible energy fields to which they owe their existence, shape and form. The issue has been touched in passing to bring out the colossal implications of the law of Yoga as a discipline designed to remodel the human brain at its deepest levels, completely hidden from our knowledge and sight.

We are seldom conscious of the Grace that keeps us alive every moment of our life. "My delusion is destroyed . . . and I shall do your bidding," says Arjuna at the end of the Gita because, humbled by the Vision, he sees the Lord in every atom and event of the Universe. The mighty discipline of Yoga, by melting the ego and extending the horizon of human consciousness, reveals the ineffable Presence of one Omnipotent Intelligence behind the infinite variety and ceaseless activity of the cosmos-a Vision so overwhelming and magnificent that the human mind reels under the impact.

The all-embracing Cosmic Law of human evolution is still unknown to modern savants. The reason is preponderate attention to the outer world at the cost of the inner. Man has forgotten himself in his excessive love for the body. It has been an error to explain the origin and evolution of different species of living creatures with hypotheses and assumptions which completely ignore the fact that a superintelligent cosmic law, governing life, is in operation throughout the universe. There is no awareness that it is a natural law and not accident that brought about the change in the storm-swept surface of the earth and made it the abode of the marvelous organic kingdom, full of the variety and wonder we find everywhere, each form perfectly suited to its habitat. The reason for it lies in the fact that the Almighty Force of Life is imperceptible and will continue to be so until the capacity of the brain is enhanced to include super-sensory perception of other levels of creation.

Even at the present advanced state of science, apart from its action on the body, we cannot, by any means whatsoever, perceive mind or consciousness in a living creature, as a tangible reality, visible to the eye or to the most delicate instrument devised so far. From this constantly observed fact, it should be easy to infer that it is equally impossible to perceive, by any means, the all-pervading Ocean of Consciousness and Intelligence, present as an invisible medium in every part of the universe, and in every atom and molecule of matter of which it is composed.

It is unfortunate that a fact, observed and understood more than three thousand years ago, should be lost on those savants who reject consciousness as a subject beyond the scope of science. The position has been anticipated by the enlightened and the answer provided. "How can we know the Knower, how can we hear the Hearer, how can we see the Seer, how can we smell the Smeller . . ." sang the Upanishads, at least a thousand years before the birth of Christ. In fact, how can we apprehend and study the intangible principle which, acting as the observing mirror in us, reflects the visible universe with all its numberless constituents, perceptible to our senses or conceived by our intellect? To hold that a marvelous stuff, like mind, is purely the product of neuronic activity in the brain, is to stick to an absurdity which has perhaps no parallel. As Plotinus put it, it is a fallacy to suppose that awareness can be born out of insentience.

The tragedy is that, even at this stage of advancement, scholars have only a rudimentary knowledge about neuronic activity. The structure of the brain is so elaborate and complex that it has to be treated as a universe in itself. Every neuron of the brain is connected with other neurons by means of hundreds of microscopic fibrils, and the whole marvelous structure has a possibility of combinations and permutations which exceeds the number of atoms in the universe. Neurons are the smallest working units of the brain. They possess incredible powers. When stimulated they discharge fusillades of tiny electrochemical pulsations whose shifting patterns, in a mysterious way, find expression in our fields of consciousness. To believe that such a staggering instrument of observation and thought could be developed and perfected by a blind force, i.e. matter, is to hurl an insult at intelligence itself.

The last picture of the extremely complex mechanism of the brain, the most organized lump of matter in the universe, presented by neuroscientists, will remain only a picture without explaining Mind which creates it. Here we are at the last frontier intellect can reach. "It now seems highly plausible," says Keith Floyd, "that the 'seat of consciousness' will never be found by a neurosurgeon, because it appears to involve not so much an organ or organs, but the interaction of the energy fields within the brain. These patterns of energy would be disrupted by surgical intervention, and have long since disappeared in cadavers. Neuro-physiologists will not likely find what they are looking for outside their own consciousness." 2

Human consciousness will remain inaccessible to observation except through the methods advocated by Yoga. From the mind-body dualism, an essential feature of our very existence, we have failed to draw the conclusion that there has to be duality in their methods of observation also and that the methods of one cannot be applied to the other. The subjective and objective worlds, in our normal state of cognition, lie distinctly apart, constituting the duality which, from ancient times, has been classed as the 'Knower' and the 'Known'. The pool of consciousness we name as the 'Knower' has an extremely complex and marvelous territory of its own.

It is now an accepted premise that emotions like anger, grief, passion, hate, joy, excitement, and the like, have no existence in matter or the objective world, but are a property of life itself. There might be physical or physiological factors to cause these emotions, but the effect is a construction of consciousness itself. In the same way colors, sounds, smells, tastes, shape, form, figure, time, and distance are the fabrications of mind. All that we know, still very imperfectly, is that certain peculiar states or conditions in the energy fields, we call matter, give rise to these events, images, and ideas in consciousness.

Any intelligent human being, well-informed about the latest advances in science, when reflecting on mind, cannot but come to the conclusion that we have in it an element of creation entirely different from the physical universe of which it is the mirror and the receptacle.

We often fail to notice the wonder of consciousness, the wonder of our being, as the Knowers, or the wonder of the multiple power of observation which we possess, because we are accustomed to take our existence for granted and seldom care to reflect on it. On the other hand, we are thrilled, astonished or amazed when we come across a wonder-exciting phenomenon of the objective world. The sight of a grand spectacle of nature, as for instance of a cascading waterfall, a storm-swept sea or a panorama viewed from the top of a mountain, not unoften creates a sense of awe and wonder which thrills a susceptible onlooker to the core.

But do we ever stop to think that this thrilling joy, wonder or amazement does not reside in the scene or in the elements behind the scene, but in our own self-that is, in the 'Knower'? The present world is almost dead to the most wondrous plane of creation, namely, the plane of mind and consciousness which does not, in reality, consist of separate points of awareness, thought and observation, in the form of individuals and persons, but is one stupendous Ocean of Intelligence, spread everywhere, of which each individual is an infinitesimally small drop. The wonder of Yoga lies in that it is the only way by which this tiny droplet can become cognizant of the boundless ocean which acts as the 'Knower' in every form of life from the most lowly creature to man himself.

We never stop to think that we are the universe which overawes us with its complexity and size. Seldom do we know that we are the lovely landscape before our eyes, the dulcet music that we hear, the delicious fragrance that we smell, the tasty dish that we eat, the soft, voluptuous body that we caress in the transport of love. A body stricken dead by a sudden total failure of the heart or a damage to the brain, with all its sensory organs intact and whole, while still flooded with impressions from the outside world, now lacks the ponderous element that interpreted those impressions to create the marvelous world of our thought and imagination, the world of desire, passion, anger, joy, beauty, and the thrill of love. It is for this reason I say that we miss the wonder of consciousness, as we lavish all our care and attention on the 'Known' and not the 'Knower' which creates it from the diffused, unaesthetic energy fields that make up the Universe.

The testimony of hundreds of sages, seers, and mystics, born in different countries and different periods of time, brought face to face with this inner marvel, provides unshakable evidence for what I say. "I am the Vedic ritual," says Krishna (Universal Consciousness) in the Bhagavad Gita. "I am the sacrifice, I am the offering to the departed, I am the herbage, I am the sacred formula, I am the clarified butter, I am the sacred fire and 1 am verily the act of offering oblations and the sacrificial act . . . I am the sustainer and ruler of this universe, its father, mother and grandfather, the Knowable, the purifier, the sacred syllable Om and the three Vedas-Rig, Yajur and Sama . . ."

Toward the end of his discourse, Krishna explains the surpassing nature of consciousness in these words: "The Lord dwells in the heart of all beings, O Arjuna, by His illusive Power causing all beings to revolve, as though mounted on a potter's wheel." The importance of the teaching is lost on the world because an expression of this nature is treated either as an act of Divine favor or a state peculiar to yogis and mystics having little relevance to the common man or woman. But what would be the impact when it is demonstrated that every human brain is being pushed up from within to reach this marvelous state of perception which brings meaning and homogeneity to the cosmic scene? The spark of divine fire which knows, hears, sees, thinks, and plans is the wonder of wonders and the secret of secrets of the Universe. The herculean discipline of Yoga is designed to explore the stupendous mystery of man himself and to experience the wonder of the 'Knower' in him face to face.

In spite of the fact that millions of people have deep faith in religion, and millions more practice spiritual disciplines in one form or the other, the misfortune of our age is that almost all of our activity and thinking is directed towards the outer world. Except for a few notable exceptions, does any man-made institution of today, devoted to education, politics, science, literature or social issues recognize the basic fact that the study and exploration of this mysterious inner world is as necessary for human welfare and progress as that of the outer one? How can the advance of Knowledge of all these subjects be conducive to harmony and a balanced view of creation when the 'Knower' is basically ignorant about himself? Humanity, as a whole, is completely extroverted and one-sided in its approach not only to the riddle of existence but also to the solution of its everyday problems of survival and its efforts to create happiness and fulfillment for the species. The present-day world is in a precarious state of imbalance, in danger of destruction by self-created monsters, because of pronounced partiality for material well-being at the cost of the even more important inner harmony.

Yoga, or by whatsoever name the discipline comes to be called, provides the only key to open the door that bars our passage to the marvelous universe of consciousness. The 'wonder' which mirrors the universe and serves as the repository for all our knowledge and art, of our emotions, passions and thoughts cannot be approached by extroverted application of our senses, but only by introspection which turns the attention of the mind on itself. This is what Krishna means when he addresses Arjuna with these words at the end: "Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, worship Me, bow to Me, and in this way shall you doubtlessly attain to Me. This I truly promise you for you are very dear to Me."

The advice of Krishna is designed to draw the attention of the devotee from the external to the inner world, for the Lord, the intangible and ineffable 'Knower', the wonder of creation, resides in us. The crude material instruments of science, however delicate, precise, and sensitive they might be, cannot reach this holy of holies, this Knowing principle which, lying disguised in the brains of the savants, is himself their inventor, designer and architect. It is not material science, but a loftier discipline that alone can hope to explore this most mysterious inner universe. Present-day Yoga, cultivated with love, dedication and reverential care would slowly flower into the new Super-Science of consciousness, the guiding light of mankind in the near future, for it is only this Sovereign knowledge that can harmonize the present imbalance and ensure a more judicious and disciplined use of the products of exuberant technology.


Written by: Gopi Krishna

Living With Kundalini

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.

It is not a little more calmness or relaxed condition of the mind nor a little more creative ability nor a feeling of euphoria nor visionary experiences nor a little more efficiency in work that determines whether or not a transformation in consciousness has occurred in an individual. Rather, it is a complete metamorphosis of the personality that points to it.

The craziness of religious mania is similar to the eccentricity and madness of genius. Only the aberration takes a different form. It is only the highest luminaries, comparatively speaking, who have been free from it. Excessive penance, horrible self-mortification, utter seclusion, denial of love, renunciation of the world and family, abnormal ways of life and behavior, quaint appearance and dress are all part of this mania.

Unless the mind has been disciplined from an early age, a stimulated kundalini brings with it an irrepressible desire for the occult and the bizarre. It is incredible to what extent the victims of this desire can be duped by pseudo-Godmen, charlatans and impostors...In my own lifetime, one of these Godmen, residing in a village in Kashmir, used to urinate into a silver vessel in full view of the crowds that came to visit him and then sprinkled the liquid over the audience, both men and women. It is even said that his admirers held up their faces and uncovered their bosoms to receive the sanctifying drops.

The need for a highly balanced and regulated life, as a prerequisite for cosmic consciousness, was recognized in India from very early days. The emphasis of all great religions on a chaste, consecrated life stems from the same necessity.

The awakening may be gradual or sudden, varying in intensity and effect according to the development, constitution, and temperament of different individuals; but in most cases it results in a greater instability of the emotional nature and a greater liability to aberrant mental conditions in the subject, mainly resulting from tainted heredity, faulty modes of conduct, or immoderation in any shape or form.

It seemed as if I had abruptly precipitated myself from the steady rock of normality into a madly racing whirlpool of abnormal existence. The keen desire to sit and meditate, which had always been present during the preceding days, disappeared suddenly and was replaced by a feeling of horror of the supernatural. I wanted to fly from even the thought of it. At the same time I felt a sudden distaste for work and conversation, with the inevitable result that being left with nothing to keep myself engaged, time hung heavily on me, adding to the already distraught condition of my mind.

The nights were even more terrible. I could not bear to have a light in my room after I had retired to bed. The moment my head touched the pillow a large tongue of flame sped across the spine into the interior of my head. It appeared as if the stream of living light continuously rushing through the spinal cord into the cranium gathered greater speed and volume during the hours of darkness. Whenever I closed my eyes I found myself looking into a weird circle of light, in which luminous currents swirled and eddied, moving rapidly from side to side. The spectacle was fascinating but awful, invested with a supernatural awe which sometimes chilled the very marrow in my bones.

I seemed to have touched accidentally the lever of an unknown mechanism, hidden in the extremely intricate and yet unexplored nervous structure in the body, releasing a hitherto pent-up torrent which, impinging upon the auditory and optic regions, created the sensation of roaring sounds and weirdly moving lights, introducing an entirely new and unexpected feature into the normal working of the mind that gave to all my thoughts and actions the semblance of unreality and abnormality.

For weeks I had no respite. Each morning heralded for me a new kind of terror, a fresh complication in the already disordered system, a deeper fit of melancholy or more irritable condition of the mind which I had to restrain, to prevent it from completely overwhelming me, by keeping myself alert, usually after a completely sleepless night; and after withstanding patiently the tortures of the day, I had to prepare myself for even worse torment of the night.

A man cheerfully overcomes insurmountable difficulties and bravely faces overwhelming odds when he is confident of his mental and physical condition. I completely lost confidence in my own mind and body and lived like a haunted, terror-stricken stranger in my own flesh, constantly reminded of my precarious state. My consciousness was in such a state of unceasing flux that I was never certain how it would behave within the next few minutes. It rose and fell like a wave, raising me one moment out of the clutches of fear to dash me again the next into the depths of despair.

It seemed as if the stream of vitality rising into my brain through the spinal cord, connected mysteriously with the region near the base of the spine, was playing strange tricks with my imagination. Also I was unable to stop it or to resist its effect on my thoughts. Was I losing my mind? Were these the first indications of mental disorder? This thought constantly drove me to desperation. It was not so much the extremely weird nature of my mental condition as the fear of incipient madness or some grave disorder of the nervous system which filled me with growing dismay.

No one could even suspect what was happening to me inside. I knew that but a thin line now separated me from lunacy, and yet I gave no indication of my condition to anyone. I suffered unbearable torture in silence, weeping internally at the sad turn of events, blaming myself bitterly again and again for having delved into the supernatural without first acquiring a fuller knowledge of the subject and providing against the dangers and risks of the path.

I did not know then what I came to grasp later on--that an automatic mechanism, forced by the practice of meditation, had suddenly started to function with the object of reshaping my mind to make it fit for the expression of a more heightened and extended consciousness by means of biological processes as natural and as governed by inviolable laws as the evolution of species or the development and birth of a child.

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; I 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 darkness.

...There was a sound like a nerve thread snapping and instantaneously a silvery streak passed zigzag through the spinal cord, exactly like the sinuous movement of a white serpent in rapid flight, pouring an effulgent, cascading shower of brilliant vital energy into my brain, filling my head with a blissful luster in place of the flame that had been tormenting me for the last three hours. Completely taken by surprise at this sudden transformation of the fiery current darting across the entire network of my nerves only a moment before, and overjoyed at the cessation of pain, I remained absolutely quiet and motionless for some time, tasting the bliss of relief with a mind flooded with emotion, unable to believe I was really free of the horror. Tortured and exhausted almost to the point of collapse by the agony I had suffered during the terrible interval, I immediately fell asleep, bathed in light, and for the first time after weeks of anguish felt the sweet embrace of restful sleep.

In the case of a sudden, powerful arousal of the Serpent Power, the utmost care has to be taken of the following: (1) the state of mind, (2) the intake of food, and (3) erotic behavior. The will must have been already cultivated to exercise control over the now chaotic state of the mind. Like the pendulum of a clock, it oscillates between hope and fear, anxiety and assurance, joy and sorrow, for no apparent reason, as if pushed from this side to that and back again by an invisible force from within in a manner entirely unpredictable to the subject of the experience. If the will is not firm and lacks the strength to hold itself in check, the oscillations can lead to those irresponsible acts which are a characteristic of mental disorder.

There was no diminution in the vital radiation which, emanating from the seat of kundalini, sped across my nerves to every part of the body, filling my ears with strange sounds and my head with strange lights, but the current was now warm and pleasing instead of hot and burning, and it soothed and refreshed the tortured cells and tissues in a truly miraculous manner.

I was in an extraordinary state: a lustrous medium, intensely alive and acutely sentient, shining day and night, permeated my whole system, racing through every part of my body, perfectly at home and absolutely sure of its path. I often watched the marvelous play of this radiant force in utter bewilderment.

What made me hesitate in according publicity to it is the unique nature of the phenomenon; it neither falls in line with the known manifestations observed in mediums, nor does it seem similar in kind to the recorded experience of any known mystic or saint, Eastern or Western. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that, in its entire character, the phenomenon represents the attempt of a hitherto unrecognized vital force in the human body, releasable by voluntary efforts, to mold the available psychophysiological apparatus of an individual to such a condition as to make it responsive to states of consciousness not normally perceptible before.

I was now a spectator of a weird drama enacted in my own body in which an immensely active and powerful vital force, released all of a sudden by the power of meditation, was incessantly at work and, after having taken control of all the organs and the brain, was hammering and pounding them into a certain shape. I merely observed the weird performance, the lightning-like movements of the lustrous intelligent power commanding absolute knowledge of and dominance over the body.

I do not know how it happened that, even in that extremely abnormal state of my mind, needing constantly the application of new measures to adapt it to changing circumstances, I often hit upon the right procedure to deal with unexpected and difficult situations arising in my day-to-day contacts. If I had even so much as hinted to colleagues a word about my abnormality and the bizarre manifestations which were now a regular feature of my life, I might have been labeled a lunatic and treated accordingly.

To the frivolous inquiries directed to gathering more information about my experience, I usually turned a deaf ear, maintaining a reserve which has continued to this day. Failing to gain satisfaction for their curiosity and finding no remarkable change in me, the story of my spiritual adventure was treated as a myth, and to some I even became an object of ridicule for having mistaken a physical ailment for a divine dispensation.

From a unit of consciousness, dominated by the ego, to which I was habituated from childhood, I had expanded all at once into a glowing conscious circle, growing larger and larger, until a maximum was reached, the "I" remaining as it was, but instead of a confining unit, now itself encompassed by a shining conscious globe of vast dimensions...Speaking more precisely, there was ego consciousness as well as a vastly extended field of awareness, existing side by side, both distinct yet one.

An ordinary man in a humble walk of life, burdened with responsibilities, as I always have been and think myself to be, I never allowed any false idea about myself to take root in my mind after the new development. On the other hand, my absolute helplessness before the lately manifest power in me had the effect of humbling what little remnant of pride I still possessed.


Written by: Gopi Krishna

Science & Mystical Experience

There is a great deal of variation in the accounts of mystical vision available to us for study. Apart from the traditional mystics, whose frame of mind was essentially religious and who underwent various spiritual disciplines to attain the mystical state, there have been poets, philosophers, scientists and scholars who had a sudden visionary experience, once or several times in their life, without the practice of any orthodox religious or esoteric discipline. Pascal, Bucke, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Tagore are a few examples of this type of mystical vision. According to his own statement, a few moments before his epileptic seizures, Dostoevsky experienced a state of lucidity and bliss which, he says, counted more than a lifetime of ordinary experience.

How are we to account for this phenomenon? From immemorial times the mystical state has been held to be a vision of Divinity, or God or Allah or Brahman or any celestial or supernatural Being. There are hundreds of books from the pens of mystics themselves or of theologians and other scholars supporting this view. For this reason a deeply religious life, involving seclusion from the world, renunciation, submission to Divine Will, contentment, austerity, even penance with extreme love of the Deity, and utter devotion, has been considered to be the essential prerequisite for success in this sublime quest. The Revealed scriptures of mankind are all explicit on this point. From this point of view, the anomaly created by the mystical ecstasy of those on whom the experience was, as it were, thrust in the course of normal life, devoted to worldly pursuits, without having made the surrenders and sacrifices to deserve the reward from Heaven, is hard to explain.

There have been well-known mystics in recent times in whom ecstasy started from boyhood, as in the case of Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharishi. In both of them the state of intense absorption was, as it were, a natural state of the mind. Guru Nanak and Jnaneshwar were mystics from birth. The former in his talk, behavior and poetic composition was a religious genius from the age of ten, while the latter wrote his famous commentary on the Bhagavad Gita known as Jnaneshwari, and considered to be a classic, at the age of sixteen. There is no rational explanation for these extraordinary cases of mystical consciousness.

There are still many scientists who, like Freud, treat the whole phenomenon of religion as an illusion, a pathological condition due to repressed sexuality--their one answer to many problems of the mind. According to this view, the whole irrational fabric of faith should have been exposed to its bottom by now. But, strange to say, the reverse has happened. Mystical vision and the miracles associated with it, now classified as psychic phenomena, have assumed an urgency and importance that they never possessed before during the last two centuries. This shows how erroneous the intellect can be. The widespread thirst for self-awareness or the occult side of nature, which is a striking feature of our day, is utterly inexplicable in the light of modern psychology.

It is incredible that the learned world should still be in the dark about a phenomenon that has been at the base of civilization and culture, also all the moral and intellectual progress made by mankind. The religious impulse and the lure of the supernatural, which we see always associated with the life of man from as far back as archeological record is available, provide irrefutable evidence to show that the human mind has been occupied with the occult and the divine almost from the beginning of reason. The priest, the witch doctor, the medicine man and the shaman appear on the scene from the remotest periods. In the prehistorical world we see all the vanished civilizations of the past completely dominated by religion. In fact, in some of them the kings performed the offices of the ruler and the high priest both. The current faiths that took form from about 2,000 years before the birth of Christ to medieval times kept as firm a hold on the imagination of man as those that preceded them by thousands of years. In this sphere of the human mind, science is but a helpless spectator of the scene.

The world is tense and the race lives under the overhanging threat of a holocaust because we are violating an Almighty Law of nature. We have not even the awareness of this Law. It is not mere chance or accident or hysteria or the machinations of charlatans and priests that brought the current major faiths of mankind into existence. In such an event, they could never hold the tremendous sway which they did over the minds of people in almost all parts of the world. It is not by chance or accident that the great spiritual luminaries were born to reveal the mode of life and the pattern of behavior to be followed by the multitude to live in concord with the evolutionary processes working in the race. It is the impact of their teachings and the order they established which prepared the soil for the great achievements of modern science. The parents, grandparents and the great-grandparents of the pioneers of science were, in most cases, deeply religious men and women with faith in God and a righteous way of life. What will be the achievements of the progeny, born in all parts of the world, two or three generations from now, in the mental climate which undiluted rationality has created we have still to see.

The signs, however, are not auspicious. Pregnancy and birth in a tense, highly charged and threatened mental atmosphere can never be above fault. The tragedy has been that the custodians of faith attached more importance to formulism than to the basic teachings of the founders. At the same time, many of the great thinkers and scientists, during recent times, failed to understand the importance of religion as the outward symbol of the deeply rooted evolutionary impulse in human beings. They failed to note that all the revealed scriptures of mankind had a common purpose which is to implant an ideal of a Heavenly Deity, called by the name of Brahman, God, Jehovah, Vishnu, Allah, Buddha or Ahura-Mazda, etc., and, to prescribe the way of life and the mode of behavior necessary to achieve union with or proximity to that Being. In other words, the aim was to present an evolutionary ideal and the methods to achieve it.

Religion came, as I have said, to prepare the ground for science. The advent of science, too, did not come by chance or accident. It marks another stage in the evolution of the human mind. We do not see the connection because there persists an erroneous impression, even in the ranks of science, that the human brain is static and has been so for the last, at least, twenty thousand years, since the time of the Cro-Magnon type of man. We are, however, prepared to concede that there must have been some kind of a qualitative difference between the brain of a genius, as for instance Einstein, and a man of average intelligence. In fact, it is to locate this difference that portions of Einsteins brain have been under observation for the last many years.

The wonder is that while we are ready to acknowledge that there must be a variation in the brain of a genius as compared to that of a common man, we still naively believe the myth that there has been no appreciable change in the human encephalon for the past thousands of years. Even a champion of evolution, like Teilhard-de-Chardin, subscribed to the same view, probably under the impression that what the biologists of his day propounded was the last word on the subject. The bloom of science and the bloom of intellect, we see today, compared to the dense, slow-moving mind of the Stone Age man, shows as great a gulf, if not greater, as exists between a highly talented individual and a blockhead in our time. What physiological factors are responsible for this difference? No one is able to answer this riddle at present. The moment this difference is located, the enigma whether or not the human brain is still in a state of evolution will be solved.

The tragedy is that the human mind is never able to frame a correct picture of the state of its knowledge even a few decades ahead. The great intellects, alive in the late 1800s, could never imagine the state of knowledge of the intellects alive today. Similarly, the latter can never visualize correctly the mind of those living in the late 2000s. There are extremely few who can think ahead of their time. The science of life has reached a stage where a breakthrough in our knowledge about the brain is imminent. This would show that the religious impulse is genetically present in human beings. Where it does not exist, a departure from the normal is indicated. The aim of the impulse is to effect coordination between the evolutionary modeling of the body and the surface consciousness of the individual. I say this because there is no other explanation for mystical experience. The fact that those who laid the foundation of all current faiths of mankind made a clear avowal of the position that what they were preaching was revealed to them by God, or an Angel, or a Divine Consciousness, or an Enlightened state of mind is a clear indication of this fact.

With the breakthrough in the knowledge about the brain, the stage will be set for rapprochement between religion and science. The real purpose for which science took birth is to bring about an acceleration in the evolution of mankind. From this point of view, science is not the end but the means to an end. This is the reason for the highly increased tempo of progress in our time. We are all a witness to the fact that changes and innovations that, in medieval times, took centuries to occur are often accomplished in decades now. How has this come to pass? The answer that this is due to highly sophisticated technology is only partially correct. Technology itself is inextricably linked up with the capacity of the human mind. It is the technological brain that has evolved to the pitch where the amazing achievements of our day have become possible. If the evolution of the brain does not keep pace with the speed of progress, a state of stagnation would ensue beyond which it would be impossible to proceed.

The past history of mankind is standing witness to this ossification. What happened to the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, the people of the Indus Valley, the Indo-Aryans, Chinese, Persians, Greeks and Romans after their rise to lofty heights of culture and even technological achievements of which we see surprising relics even today? Stultification and decadence occurred as the brain ceased to keep pace with the demands of the progress achieved, and decay set in to level the once victorious and ascendant nations to dust. As many as fourteen civilizations, whose achievements are scattered all over the earth, which, some believe, were harvests of their contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, have already paid the forfeit for their ignorance of this Almighty Law. Our civilization will follow the same course, if science continues to ignore the fact that spiritual evolution is the real goal of human life.

The time-defying pyramids and the wonder-exciting temples of Egypt could not save the populace from falling a helpless victim to decline, when the brain ceased to cooperate. Space rockets, skyscrapers and all the wonders of modern science, combined, will not be able to save the race, if the brain refuses to tolerate the pressure to which it is subjected now, because of ignorance of the Law. The result would be what we are already witnessing--a desire to drop out of the struggle, perverted thinking, drugs, promiscuity, escapism, discontent, violence, crime and wishful thinking of a holocaust. The top-heavy, ponderous structure of modern civilization, in every part of the world, is actually rocking. Only we are not fully aware of it, as we are not conscious of the worldwide rebellious trend of the human brain.


Written by: Gopi Krishna

Beyond the Higher States of Consciousness

Even with its nuclear arsenals and contamination of air, water and earth, it is not science that has become destructive; it is the distortion and vitiation of the human intellect that is responsible for the present unsafe situation of the world.

Knowledge can be both constructive and destructive. The ultimate arbiter is the human intellect. This is the reason why revelation has always been a necessary instrument for the spiritual progress of the race. Intellect, unable to see centuries or even only decades ahead, cannot determine the evolutionary needs of mankind. It is liable to make serious errors in calculation at any time.

Human life is so complex and the course of evolution so full of bewildering situations that it is only a cosmic intelligence that can guide it rightly to the destined goal. Can even a whole galaxy of the highest intellects, in every branch of knowledge, make an accurate forecast of what would be the state of mankind after the span of only the next quarter of a century? Or even what changes will occur in the current concepts of science, politics and religion?


If not, doesn't it plainly signify that the race is drifting toward an indeterminable goal at the mercy of forces over which it has no control?


The error of science has been that it has entirely ignored the spiritual side of man and devoted all its attention to the physical and organic fields. The outcome is that mankind faces a threat of annihilation on one side, or death with poisoned air, water and earth on the other, and of mental distortion on the third.


On the political side, it has become a seething cauldron of aggression, violence, lust for power and hate. On the spiritual and moral side we see confusion rampant everywhere. There are as many ideas, concepts, systems and doctrines as there are scholars or teachers expounding them.


It is not surprising, therefore, that science has failed to create that harmonious progress of mankind in the social, political and spiritual fields.


Science today is suffering from the same distemper of mind which affected faith during the period of her supremacy, namely dogmatism, vanity and arrogance. It is amazing to what extent even scientists can be led astray by vanity. They understand very well that all we know about the visible cosmos is but a drop in the possible ocean of knowledge. Not a year passes when they are not forced to revise their opinions about certain issues.


But with all this uncertainty, most of them display a dogmatic attitude toward mind and consciousness. It is chiefly because science has been one-sided in this investigation--ignoring the spiritual side of man--that it has failed to bring about that wholesome transformation in the mental and moral sides as it has in the physical.


The neglect of the material side brought about the fall of the once-highly honored sovereign faiths of mankind. In the same way, the neglect of the spiritual side is now tending to undermine the position of ascendancy gained by science.


In either case, it was the intellect that failed to assess the position correctly and to err in over-emphasizing only one side of man and neglecting the equally important other side.


Therefore, it is not science itself but the overweening vanity and shortsightedness of savants and scholars--or, in other words, a faulty intellect--that is responsible for the destructiveness of modern technology.


The first thing that should be done to bring about a harmonious development of human beings and the eradication of present-day irrational beliefs in the spiritual realm is to embark on a scientific investigation into consciousness.


There is a huge volume of literature available in both the East and the West, describing methods for attaining the higher states of consciousness and the nature of these higher states. A documentary research into these volumes, followed by systematic experimentation, can, I am sure, lead to an understanding of the biological relationship between expanded states of consciousness and the brain.


When this is achieved, the next step would be to find the laws underlying this relationship. Enough material would be available--when this is done--to enable scholars and scientists to determine the path and the goal of evolution designed for mankind. They would then be able to understand the nature of the changes imperceptible occurring in the brain and consciousness.


It is not only by experimentation on the methods leading to higher states of consciousness, but also by the observation of the psychic forces responsible for genius, mediumistic faculties and insanity that these evolutionary processes can be understood.


The all-inclusive nature of sex energy has not yet been correctly understood by psychologists. In fact, the very term reproductive, or sex energy is a misnomer: Reproduction is but one of the aspects of the life energy, of which the other theater of activity is the brain. The cephalic activity is so slow and subtle as to be almost imperceptible. But it is this activity that is the cause of genius, uncanny psychic powers and also insanity.


Once this fact is empirically demonstrated, we come to a turning point in our present concepts about mind and consciousness--even about matter and the universe as a whole.


The first harvest of this change will be the beginning of a new science dealing with subtle intelligent energies in the cosmos. When this happens, the gigantic physical world--now dominating the whole mental horizon of science--will be relegated to its proper position. It is but the visible peak of an infinite creation, of which the unbounded major part is sunk below the surface of the space-time ocean, forever hidden from the sight of man.


It is only in higher states of consciousness that a fragment of the submerged portion comes into view, causing a state of wonder and exhilaration which is beyond description. It is only when the evolving human organism and the cosmos are viewed in right perspective that the appropriate ways of life and conduct, favorable for this transformation, can be devised by science.


Try as we might, without a clear knowledge of the goal ahead, we can by no exercise of the intellect determine the right pattern of life essential for mankind on the evolutionary path: A united world, abolition of war, demolition of armaments, disbandment of armies. An environment more in harmony with nature. A life more natural and simple. Removal of barriers between man and man, inculcation of altruistic and humanitarian principles, moral education, social equality and universal brotherhood. These are some of the basic factors that contribute to the harmonious progress of mankind.

This may appear idealistic or even fantastic and impracticable to many people. But the conclusion is unavoidable. At its present intellectual stature, the alternatives facing the race are either self-caused annihilation with dreadful agony for myriads, or knowledge of and obedience to the laws of evolving consciousness.


*This article is from Gopi Krishna's book "Higher Consciousness", published by The Julian Press. The article appeared in the New York Times October 6, 1973.


Written by: Gopi Krishna

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