My Meeting With Gopi Krishna
I met Gopi Krishna in 1977 on a visit to Kashmir, four years after my own Kundalini awakening. Was it a defining moment? I'm not sure I believe in a single defining moment, one that clears up the confusion of a lifetime in an instant. Certainly, my Kundalini awakening had the greatest impact on my life although it has taken many years to assimilate the “reappearance" of Life Force energy. As for my meeting Gopi Krishna, I listened as he advised me on a list of the "dos and don'ts" for living with Kundalini. After discussing my own Kundalini experience, we talked about the effects of sexual activity on kundalini energy, diet, the stress of work, travel, handling illness, and exercise. He said he was impressed that I had not only discovered the role of sex in raising Kundalini, he also stressed that I was fortunate to come through my awakening without pain. I told him that the GFM method I’d followed was responsable. It allowed the distilled sexual energy to be “drawn" up the spine instead of being “forced" up.
JJ Semple & Farad (his guide), Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir, Summer 1977
To many that might seem like a superficial conversation, not especially germane for someone who'd recently awakened Kundalini. However, I appreciated his sticking to basics and not running a lot of "spiritual smack" on me. I had no preconceptions about our meeting; I didn't know if he'd be telling me about visions or secret powers I could look forward to, or just plain ol' practical living. It turned out to be mostly the latter, and over time I have been grateful because that's the kind of empirical knowledge that matters in in this work.
We did talk for quite a while about Golden Flower Meditation (GFM), the method I used to activate Kundalini. Gopi Krishna was a student of The Secret of the Golden Flower, knew it to be a manual on sexual sublimation. Moreover, he had not only researched the sublimation issue, he had lived it. He was familiar with the backward flowing method, but had never tried it. Nevertheless, he knew it to be the secret of life and death.
I told him GFM could be modernized into a reliable method, one that might be used by anyone wanting to arouse Kundalini. He said a reliable, repeatable method was of capital importance. A means of permanently arousing Kundalini would attract serious research.
Gopi Krishna was the first person I met who didn't discuss Kundalini in generalities. He stuck to practicalities. Does this mean there was something missing in his understanding of the spiritual aspects of Kundalini? No, it means that something's been wrong with the general approach to this phenomenon, namely that it is the special province of the religio-spiritual complex. Gopi Krishna made me understand that Kundalini was a scientific phenomenon, bilogical in nature, and that was as much of a revelation as my awakening. It put my experience in perspective. After talking with him, I realized that Kundalini is not triggered by any exercise of religious fervor or devotion; it is as much a part of nature as sexual reproduction. It is science. And the meditation techniques used to activate are individual scientific experiments.
"Although some aspects of the ancient discipline of Yoga are currently familiar in the West, the real nature and purpose of' this science of the soul is still widely misunderstood. In the East, where the discipline was born and reached its peak many centuries ago, much of the knowledge gained has since been lost.
"Gopi Krishna, drawing upon his own experiences of Higher Consciousness, re-examined the discipline of Yoga and its psychosomatic lever Kundalini in the light of modern knowledge, presenting for the first time a clear and comprehensive analysis of this amazing phenomenon. Citing the real goal of Yoga, he described the biological and physiological aspects of the discipline, the rewards of a successful effort, and the tremendous significance true Yoga has for the continued survival and healthy evolution of the race.
"According to Gopi Krishna, Yoga and Kundalini are interchangeable terms, for there is no Yoga and no union of the individual with Cosmic Consciousness unless Kundalini is activated. The whole matter boils down to this: the human brain, as the result of evolution, has now the capacity to exhibit another kind of consciousness which can know itself or, in other words, become conscious of consciousness in order to look beyond Space and Time. What is more surprising, instead of arriving at conclusions by reasoning, as most rational processes do, an active Kundalini allows the brain to dive into an Ocean of Knowledge in which all that is knowable is known, and all the problems awaiting solutions are solved. From this ocean, droplets of fresh knowledge trickle down into normal consciousness, according to the degree of attunement with the brain, and it is these droplets of rare knowledge, not possible to recognize by rational methods that have traditionally been honored as Revelation.”
Published by: Institute for Consciousness Research (January 1, 2000)
What's kept the study of Kundalini in the dark all these years is the fact that accounts vary so wildly. Some see divine, ethereal spectres, others flashing lights, many feel overwhelmed and are moved to tears, some speak of the Godhead or special powers. Personal accounts such as — a clearer understanding of God, expanded consciousness, enlightenment, visions, oneness with humanity, unity with the Creator, an all-consuming light, absorption into the Great Chain of Being — are difficult to verify. Researchers look for commonalities. Commonalities denote critical mass. Critical mass attracts researchers. Research turns hitherto marginal topics into full-blown scientific fields. It's a vicious circle. The only way to resolve this is to document each and every experience — to identify the commonalities and document them, and that’s why I consider the biolgical aspects so important.
The Father of Modern Kundalini Research
"Gopi Krishna was born in 1903, near the city of Srinagar, in the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India. He spent his earlier years there and later lived in Lahore, in the Punjab of British India. At the age of twenty, he returned to Kashmir and during the succeeding years he secured a post in the state government, married and raised a family. Later in his career, he became the leader of a social organization that was devoted to helping the disadvantaged in his community.
"At the age of 34, while meditating one morning, he experienced the sudden and forceful awakening of Kundalini, which he described in full detail years later in his autobiography, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man. From that day, till the end of his life, the energy was fully active in his body and eventually brought about a radical, permanent transformation of his bodily structure and perceptive faculties."
Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time contains the full account of my meeting with Gopi Krishna.
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