Inner Experiences
Early
Experiences
When
I was young probably ten or eleven I had a strange experience, a sort of out of
body experience. I was fast asleep in bed, and in the distance I could hear some
footsteps coming down the hallway, that must have half awakened me from my
slumber. I laid there half asleep for a while,
slightly focusing on listening to my brothers talking in the distance. Then a
strange thing happened, my awareness moved out of my body, and it was as if I
was then up in the corner of the room just below the ceiling looking down at my
body in bed. Then my younger brothers quietly crept into my room making sure
not to wake me because I was asleep in bed. Then I spent what seemed like some
time above them, listening to them and watching the whole mysterious scene
before me.
Awakening
the Heart Chakra
1981
When
I was twenty four, I started attending weekly Hatha Yoga classes with a good
friend, it was mainly to increase my flexibility with the hope it might help
improve my surfing. I was a complete atheist then, having had enough of the
Catholic Church brainwashing in my younger primary school years. We used to
smoke a bit of Ganja (Marijuana, Grass) socially in those days, like most of my
friends did in the late 70’s and early 80’s even when we did our asanas. I liked the feeling of stretching your body as far
as it could go and really feeling into your body, and I thought that the high
helped me feel more into it. After a year of this I decided to get a Yoga book
to improve my knowledge of Yoga as I then knew nothing about any other Yoga
practices or anything about Yoga’s History.
I
purchased a copy of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and
opened it up, and the first thing I saw was the word Kundalini. This was what I
was looking for everything now began to make sense to me, reincarnation, moksha. I did not put the book
down until I read it from cover to cover. My friend and I then started to ask
ourselves deep questions like the meaning of life, what is enlightenment, could
it possibly exist, what is god. Then we decided we would give Yoga more respect
and listen to the words of the masters and see what happens. My friend also had
recently returned from a holiday to
I
took a bath and lay there for some time contemplating to myself “does God
really exist”, then I made a pledge to myself. I then
prayed to God with all my heart, and said to myself mentally “God if you really
exist show me a sign now to prove it, I would leave my atheist beliefs and
dedicate myself to finding the truth”.
Suddenly
something happened within me, I started to feel something within me coming to
the front of my chest from within, and I began to feel a loving spiritual
presence and started to hear strange sounds, tike tiny bells ringing in my
ears. After sometime I closes my eyes full of devotion to God and I was then
amazed to witness behind my closed eyes, a beautiful light softly glowing. The
whole experience had a transformative effect on me, and then I immediately
declared to all my friends that God exists and that now I am taking Yoga
seriously. I then began living a real Yogic lifestyle
and so did my friend who was having his own spiritual experiences.
I
gave up everything that I thought was un- yogic. The social enjoyments of the
past were no more, gone was smoking grass and alcohol. Next was meat, fish and
chicken and anything else that posed a hindrance to my Yogic path. We started
trying to meditate using techniques that we found in the yoga books, but still we were fond of
reading about the saints in the bible. Pretty soon people we knew from Yoga
class and friends were coming to my house and I found myself leading a sort of
meditation class. We used the Jesus Prayer, in a number of ways with our breath
and focusing into the heart. I did not know about Chakras or where they were in
the physical body, having not yet seen any pictures yet in any books. I had
been attending three Hatha Yoga classes per week with my respected teacher for
three years and spent endless hours at home exploring asanas
and eating all the right foods.
1984
Sometime
in 1984 after three years of dedicated Hatha Yoga practice, my teacher invited
me to attend a International Yoga Teachers Association
(IYTA) Retreat, which was to be held at a Christian Monastery in
On
the day we arrived to attend the class, and to my amazement the Swami was
dressed in Geru (ochre colour)
Robes and had an Indian name as well. On that very day I experienced Yoga Nidra and real Meditation techniques for my first time. In
Yoga Nidra, I could not feel my body, had visions and
could hear the inner sounds again. I also felt a deep spiritual connection that
was coming through the Swami, something that I did not feel with my teacher of
three years. I purchased a book from the Swami, it was called the teachings of
Swami Satyananda Saraswati (volume one). That weekend my teacher drove me to
The
classes were great, and the retreat was well attended by about sixty five
people. It felt unusual being one of only three men the rest females. One
Indian man named Ram Das, who was there with his wife
and the Yoga teacher who was a monk were the other two men. I felt outnumbered,
but very comfortable being around the women as they made me feel very welcome
and part of the group. As the retreat progressed we all came to the practice of
Yoga Nidra, which I had recently experienced earlier
in the week at Yoga class. The Yoga Nidra was a
fantastic experience for me, and when the practice was over we all were told to
sit up and tell the person next to us about our experience in Yoga Nidra. The lady next to me told me of her deep relaxing
experience and then it was my turn to tell mine.
During
the Yoga Nidra, I had a profound experience and it
went like this. As it proceeded and we got deeper into the practice, we were
told to follow a guided visualization. I do not know how but it went perfectly,
I must have achieved complete sensory withdrawal (pratyahara)
because I could see everything I wanted to see, I walked down a long corridor
and then turned a corner to see a huge wooden door. I opened the door and
beyond it I saw the chapel inside the monastery. I moved forward and looked
around in all directions until I could see the large statue of Jesus.
When
I saw the statue of Jesus, my awareness suddenly went into the statue and
before I knew it, I felt like I was encased in the statue (became the statue)
of Jesus, and then I was looking out of the statue. It was a powerful
experience. After the practice I had to tell the lady what had just happened
during the practice. After I told her, she was so shocked and said “I have been
practicing and teaching Yoga for thirty years and I have never heard of anyone
experiencing anything like that”. I said that is what happened to me. She then
told the Monk, who later came and spoke to me in private. He was very pleased
for me to have this experience in his chapel, and then encouraged me to
continue my practices.
The
next morning the only other male in the class, named Ram Das
saw how keen and dedicated I was, and said to me” if you are serious about Yoga
then you should go to the Satyananda
The
next day I felt something was happening to me, I had an intense feeling of
unconditional love and compassion. I even said to the whole class when the
retreat was over, “that I love you all”. This was really strange for me, to
hear this coming out of my lips. On returning home I had to tell my dear Hatha
Yoga teacher that I was moving on and that something deeper was calling me, and
I needed to learn to meditate. I asked her what she thought about meditation
and she replied that “ I think it is a lot of mumbo
jumbo” . Obviously she had no experience beyond asanas.
So from that day on I learned from the Swamis as much as I could.
My
close Yoga friends had grown in number by now to three, hard core seekers of
truth. As we all were going through some shift in consciousness, it did not
seem strange for us to continue seeking, reading more about Christianity and
going to all different types of churches to see where we fitted in. Some had no
feeling at all, just dry intellectualism, and others I felt were full of good
vibes and overflowed with the spirit.
At
one service the pastor asked the congregation to pray for the holy spirit to descend from heaven and enter the church. He
then asked any who wanted to accept the spirit to come down to the alter to
receive the holy spirit’s blessings. I was feeling immense
feelings in my chest area of love and the presence of God. I rushed out the
front to the alter, and was the first one to await the
blessing. Others followed and lined up on my right side and then the pastor
began laying hands on the devoted peoples foreheads, and to my astonishment the
people began falling over backwards, blissed out from
some kind of spiritual awakening. Everyone was falling like flies and the
pastor was making his way towards me. I was feeling so empowered with spirit
already that when he got to me, I just stood there fully blissed
out.
It
did not work on me, so he reluctantly continued along the line. Everyone went
down except me, and then I thought never mind, I have been reserved for someone
else. Never the less this experience and the preceding one at the monastery
were important experiences related to the awakening of Anahata Chakra. When my
Christian friends and the different pastors asked me to renounce Yoga, I
decided to renounce all the religious bigots instead who craved total control.
With
two yogic friends we decided to visit the Satyananda Yoga
He
advised me to learn Siddhasana and Yoni Mudra, and Dr Swami Nadamurti who
was a resident in the ashram advised me to check out my hearing with a
specialist. Over the next two months I visited three hearing specialists who
all commented how excellent my hearing was, and perfected Siddhasana
and learnt Yoni Mudra.
As
time went on, my Yoga Sadhana grew from asanas to
encompass Pranayama, Mudra,
Bandha, Mantra, and Kriya Yoga and the experiences
got deeper. From 1984 I started to visit the ashram almost every month up until
returning from
My
First Experience
1986
I
can still remember this experience in July 1986, like it was yesterday. I woke
early, and whilst still in bed I looked towards the wall at the foot of the bed
(the room was pitch black) and to my total astonishment there was an clear
vision, or apparition of Swami Satyananda Saraswati (from the shoulders up) in
front of me. My mind then became as if paralyzed and began to automatically
focus on the manifested vision of Swamiji. The vision remained for some time,
and although his lips did not move he was speaking to me and I was receiving
his message.
I
then got up to commence my Sadhana while my wife was asleep. It was about 3.30
am, I first had a shower, and then started my Yoga Sadhana. I did jala neti,
followed by Surya Namaskar 10 rounds, Bhastrika 50 Breaths Left, Right, Centre
X 5, Nadi Shodhan 10 Rounds with Mahabandha, Trataka 10 Minutes followed by Ajapa Japa, pranayama
and mantra within Sushumna.
It’s
weird how you remember these things, but some things stick in your memory
vividly. It was as I got into the Ajapa Japa, and was concentrating on the afterimage of the candle
flame that my breath got extremely extinguished, and then suddenly all I could
feel was an awakening in Mooladhara (this was the
first experience) Chakra, and it became intense.
As
it continued, I became as steady as a rock and it felt like my spine had locked
bolt upright. I quickly wondered if this was what I had been desiring,
actually happening now. Chidakasha started to become
expansive, and it looked as if I was looking up or out into the sky, and all
that I could see were clouds moving continually quickly from left to right. I
actually wondered then if my eyes were open or closed and if I had a body or
not.
My
mind went back to the only thing I could feel in my body, the Shakti in Mooladhara going off like a generator, and I wondered if I
should concentrate on my breath in Sushumna “which
felt it was conducting electricity”. I simultaneously foucused
on slowly breathing up and down Sushumna whilst
looking into the clouds, when all of a sudden an intense connection happened
between Mooladhara which went backwards a bit and up
a bit into the next Chakra, then it felt like the generator was fully switched
on and the next centre which felt somewhere within the sacrum was radiating
intensely.
The
next experience whilst looking within Chidakaska and
into the clouds, was that I felt like I was loosing
I
was spaced out for sometime but could not tell anyone, because nobody would
understand. I then decided to slow down a bit on the intensity of my Yoga
Sadhana that I had been used to, and for sometime I wondered what would have
been the result, if I had not felt fearful of the unknown inner realm. Then my wife who was pregnant with our second child (who was born 27thJuly
– Guru Poornima) who did not even
practice yoga, told me that she woke up in the middle of the night and saw with
her eyes open a vision of Sri Paramahamsa Ramakrishna in our
bedroom.
She
had only seen his picture once in one of my Yoga books. Her visions continued
to appear of Sri Ramakrishna, on doorknobs, in the mirror. This scared her a
lot, especially when she went into the kitchen one morning and she saw an
apparition or an open eyed vision of a whitish women
with a white covering calmly beaming at her. My wife said that she was not
scared and she felt very peaceful during the vision of the Lady, and that the
apparition of the women stayed there for some time, then
eventually disappeared. Later In 1988, I asked Swami Satyananda about this
phenomena- see below 1988 Meeting my Guru.
My
Second Experience
1986
I remember later in 1986, that I
had become intensely dedicated to Pranayama and Kriya Yoga having read some
classics like my first Yoga book, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, The teachings of Swami
Satyananda Saraswati (over and over) and Paramahamsa Yogananda Giri’s
Autobiography of a Yoga at least five times.
Many times when I was practicing
Kriya Yoga in those days, I used to start my practice at around
One morning, seated in Bhadrasana I
began the Manduki Kriya, with the towel pressure on the Mooladhara Chakra
pressure point. Mooladhara awareness was always constant, then the focus would
begin to focus in Nasikagra drishti (the space at the nose tip). Eyes fixed,
the awareness would slowly begin to consolidate into the subtle flow of the
incoming and outgoing breath right inside my nosrtils. Holding your
concentrated awareness there without your mind wandering here and there is
difficult. No matter how difficult you continue, after some I became become
totally absorbed in the subtle flowing feel of the breath starting to become
perfectly balanced.
I started to feel like I was making
spiritual progress, my mind became concentrated and energized and then came a
feeling of the awakened energy within Mooladhara, which then began to flow up
and connect with Swadhisthana.
At this point there would come an
obsticle to difficult to ignore. I would automatically have this experience of
my sexual organ becoming erect, to the point that it would make me either start
to fantasise sexual thoughts that would then begin to flow, or I would start to
feel how useless am I?
Often I would get absorbed in the
unconscious thoughts that would then manifest during my Sadhana and in my
dreams at night where you are not supposed to be aware of your ego or desires.
During this stage of my Sadhana sometimes my dreams were full of either huge
snakes or sexual thoughts or Yogis.
In the dreams I would often be
fully awake and aware, like lucid dreaming. Then I became aware that I could
alter the dreams at will and play with them and construct scenes or epics.
Sometimes before I went to sleep, I would pray for it to not happen again. I
used to think this Kundalini is making me nuts, because if I go to sleep I
would be confronted with a seductive temptress and then the unconscious primal
desires would take over.
“See my notes below in italic on
this phenomena.”
I thought this strange, because I
was a married man with a healthy sex life. Around the same time I was having many
deep experiences in meditation, astral levitation and taking flight into
chidakash and constant nada began and continues to this day.
“Years later I experienced that
the only way to move through this inner sexual temptations experience, is that
the Inner Guru, must come to your aid and help you awaken Viveka
“discrimination”. ( This is what happened to me, in a dream/ vision/
awakening I was being tempted and was
beginning to manufacture what I desired
to see psychically, when the
inner guru in the form of “Swami Niranjan” told me”
there is a way Viveka. In the powerful vision Swamiji and I, were washing out hands in a bathroom hand basin,
and I could clearly see his image in the mirror as he told me this wisdom”. I
believe that Swamiji rescued me from being stuck in an endless psychic realm,
of primal fantasies and temptations.This is my belief, the astral form of the
Guru teaches you how to progress. I highly recommend that anyone desiring to
awaken their Sushumna or Kundalini, must find a real Guru before getting deep
in uncharted waters. And pray for their grace and inner assistance.
Also related to primal sexual desires and Yoga is another dream/vision that I will share
with readers. I had this experience one night in January 1998 while staying at
Kodari, which is a small village in a
huge himalayan gorge at one of the Tibetan and Nepalese border passes. I saw very
clearly a beautiful naked yogini smeared with ash, and then I immediately
started to sexually desire her. As the desire became strong and my power to
manufacture any changes increased Shiva appeared in front of me. He had long
white hair and his third eye which was vertically open beamed at me. Shiva then
said to me that “ you can . I
am only here for one reason and that is Gods love”
After this and other such experiences, I have come to the conclusion that the
ultimate goal of Yoga and Tantra is to know Gods love.
My
Third Experience
1986
Around the same time in 1986, one
night after I had been making love with my wife, I rolled over to my side of
the bed. As I relaxed and calmed down I closed my eyes. To my surprise my inner
vision was of a totally white light that filled the whole of Chidakasha. As I
relaxed and looked into the white light, I knew this was something special and
deep, something that has come to me now as a result of my Sadhana.
As I lay still trying not to move,
mooladhara started to awaken. I kept looking within the white light and
listening to the nada of the the inner sounds within me. I started to slowly
breath up and down Sushumna and began to concentrate my mind within. After some
time I could feel the awareness of energy starting to rise by it self. As I
stopped conscious breathing and began to relax more into the light, I noticed
that I could not feel my body anymore.
Suddenly my awareness started
travelling within, into what felt like a tunnel of white light. And as my
awareness started to move within faster, the nada started changing frequencies.
So many indescribable sounds were experienced, and it felt like I was flying
extremely fast within.
It was so intense, but I don’t know
where it ended because in the morning, when I woke up all I knew was it was
something very different and powerful, related to Kundalini and the sexual
experience.
1988
1988
About two years
later April / May 1988, I had to go to
I first mentioned the visions of Sri Ramakrishna at Satsang with Swami Satyananda. Everyone in attendance was
of Indian nationality, and all were very surprised when I mentioned the name
Sri Ramakrishna. Swamiji, reminded me of Sri Ramakrishna’s title, that of a
Paramahamsa. At this first meeting with Swamiji which was a group satsang, as I was silently listening to the hindi voice of Swamiji, I started
pondering thoughts of what I should ask Swamiji if I get a chance. A prominent
thought came to my mind about a Mudra in
Kriya Yoga, then all of a sudden I saw clearly with my eyes open a “luminous”
vision of what I had to do regarding that Mudra. Then Swamiji told me to meet him in private,
later. That’s when I first spoke to Swamiji in private, about my inner
experiences and about my wife’s visions.
When I entered Swamiji’s room,
which was on the top floor of Ganga Darshan (which is a seven story building that was designed
from a vision of Swamiji’s which symbolizes the route
of the Kundalini through the seven Chakras) at Bihar School of Yoga, I was awestruck by his holy
image and powerful presence.
We were completely alone, and Swamiji was sitting in a
meditative posture (like a statue) in a large room on a huge mat. He radiated a
godly presence, and looked like divinity in his geru
dhotis.
Swamiji then asked me to sit down right in front of him, only
about one metre away. I could not believe it, to me it was like meeting god face to face. I still
cherish this moment/experience as a gift from the divine.
First I told Swamiji, in depth of my wife’s visions, and he
said in a nutshell that she must have a guru.
Then I told Swamiji, of my first strange inner experiences
that happened in 1986. He asked me then to close my eyes and try to meditate.
Then after what seemed like five or ten minutes, I opened my eyes and looked at
Swamiji, who still had his eyes closed meditating. After about another five
minutes or so, he opened his deep piercing brown eyes and said: * You have been very fortunate, I can see no future
problems for you* You do not have to go to Rishikesh. I did not ask Swamiji
what that meant.
Swamiji
also
recommended diet changes, saying that * You should increase the fat content
in your diet”. This was a revelation for me, as I was until that day a very
lean vegan with a strict diet which resulted in minimal body fat. Swamiji could
easily see that, and what was great about his practical wisdom is that he could
offer guidance from the physical to the hidden mystical with absolute precision
and inner clarity.
I also told
Swamiji about my distracting erections that happened during my second inner
experience in 1986 while practicing Manduki Kriya during Kriya Yoga Sadhana.
And Swamiji said: * Mounamurti you are married aren’t you, and you know what
to do!. I gathered from that answer, that a Sadhaka facing inner awakenings
is benefited by having a loving Shakti or wife.
When I eventually was leaving his room, Swamiji said: * Mounamurti
you can, if you wish continue with Kriya Yoga, as it is better than not practicing
any Yoga Sadhana at all, but the most important thing for you is to be innocent”,
and then I said “just like a child”. And when I said that, I felt like Swamiji
was my spiritual father and that I loved and revered him so much.
Whilst I was staying at Bihar School of Yoga in Munger,
nearly every couple of days, a Swami would appear at my door with some fruit
that Swamiji had sent to me. Then he
would say that Swamiji wanted me to come for his Darshan
and Satsang. Often at the private meetings and at Satsangs, I would be lost for words, but sometimes I asked
Swamiji questions about his Sannyasa days at
Rishikesh and the Himalayas etc in private, and I could see his mind actually
going there and then Swamiji told me that:* Goraknath
is at Gangotri. Swamiji also told me about the novel
way he used to get rid of mosquitos at Rishikesh
which was quiet funny.
I asked Swamiji if he would ever come to
On the day I was leaving the
I was travelling with a close yogic
friend from
I felt very honored that he would
trust me to do this small job for him, and I guarded that mail like my life
depended on it. It was like being given a mission from God, or my Guru who I
regard as godly. When I left BSY, I felt that those Swami’s
living with him are so lucky.
May 1988
In the photo above we had
just had a brief tea break in the presence of Paramahamsa
Satyananda
The energy field which was
radiating through him was so powerful it was hard for me to move
I am seated at far right, after feeling
the infusion
of this self realized saint, Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati
When I went to
To cut a long and painful story short, when I got back home after
returning from
Soon I moved out to a small beachside country town, so that I
could try to get on with life. It was so difficult, not so much at work but
when I was alone, and especially driving back home from work. It was so bad
that for a long time, I used to have to pull off the road too have a long cry
before I could get back behind the wheel. For many years I kept myself
extremely busy with Yoga, Surfing, Fitness and anything that was healthy and
positive, that would keep me busy enough so that I did not have time to think
about what I was depressed about. I really had to bury that pain (Samskara)
deep within my mind.
For a very long time I struggled, and blotted out the emotional
pain which started straight after I returned from meeting my Guru Swamiji. I
felt that everything had sped up after that meeting with Swamiji, and without
the memory and inspiration from Swamiji and the Yoga that I had learnt, I
definitely would not have survived.
Fourth Experience
1989
I have had hundreds of dreams of my
Guru, but one night in December 1989 I went to sleep thinking about my Guru,
wishing I was with him. He appeared in my dream directly in front of me like
Shiva with Serpents wrapped all around his chest and neck, and they were moving
around his neck.
Swamiji said now I am going to
teach you Kriya Yoga, and I then readied myself sitting directly in front of
him and looking into his eyes. As I looked into his eyes, I felt Swamiji
transmit something through his mind, into my chest region.
I could feel something slowly
building up within my chest and then something happened, the feeling of love or
bliss exploded throughout my soul. I could see myself now lying on the floor,
facing upwards surrendering to the intense and overpowering feeling of love,
bhakti or bliss. Then my awareness went back into my ecstatic bady, and I
enjoyed the bhakti of the soul that was awakened by my Guru.
When I woke up I could still feel
it only with less intensity. The feeling stayed with me for a few days then
subsided. Throughout this experience and all of the others, I could tell no
one, because nobody would understand.
1993
In September 1993, I made an
appointment with Dr Swami Shankardevananda Saraswati, to tell him about what
had happened since returning to Australia from India, and the experience above
from 1989.Concerning the experience, he said that Swamiji had given me Shaktipat,
a glimpse.
Writing at length to the now
President of Bihar School of Yoga
In November 1993 I also received
initiation into the Kriya Yoga tradition of Lahiri Mahasay and Babaji by
Shibendu Lahiri in
1994
In anticipation to meeting
Paramahamsa Niranjanananda I spent one month at the Satyananda Yoga
1995
This year was continued as an
indepth search within, which again started in anticipation of Paramahamsa
Niranjanananda’s visit to Satyananda Yoga
In the letter I outlined my desire to
be initiated by him into Poorna Sannyasa, and also outlined my family situation
regarding my three children who were relatively young and not living with me.
That night I had a vivid dream that Swami Niranjan shaved my head, in readiness
for diksha/initiation (This was extracted from my spiritual diary
The next day Swami Niranjan gave a
satsang outlining the future direction for teachers of Satyananda Yoga and
about the soon to be inaugurated Bihar Yoga Bharati instiute for advanced study
in yogic sciences (later the institute became the first government accredited
As the inaugural four month
residential course at BYB progressed, I found myself spending more and more
time on my personal sadhana, late at night (after midnight) and early in the
morning before the early class commenced (out side of the scope of the course
cirriculim - sadhana). I used to wake up often around
Buddha
As soon as the course was over, the
very next day I travelled to Buddha Gaya visiting the place of the great
Buddha’s enlightenment. Next day was a train trip to the sacred city of
It was to celebrate the 100th
year since the Maha Samadhi of the great Yogi. The spiritual vibrations for me
were extremely strong, it was palpable. In this location Maha Siddha Babaji had
been many times, Lahiri Mahasay had also lived in a perpetual state of Samadhi
and taught Kriya Koga here, and this had also been the place where the peerless
Yogi had initiated Sri Sukteswar Giri into Kriya Yoga and many other great
disciples and Kriya Yoga Gurus.
After telling Shibendu what we had
been doing in
Shibendu told me of his meeting
with Babaji here, before his world
teaching tours and non stop dissemination of Kriya Yoga began. Shibendu also
said that during the next visit, that I could stay at his home “Satyalok” for
two weeks to receive the next stage of higher Kriya Yoga initiations. An offer than
I humbly vowed to take up when I visit
1997
Guru Poornima
On the night of Guru Poornima (July
20th) I had a vivid spiritual dream that I will share with readers.
I was sitting in a park on a bench, and Paramahamsaji was sitting next to me on
my left hand side. Hovering just above the table was a small piano (only about 150mm long)
made of gold and it started playing a tune. Paramahamsaji was looking at it
intently and I noticed that after every note was played it’s shape (form)
changed slightly. I thought that the piano’s tune is being commanded by
Paramahamsaji’s thoughts, and then I thought to myself how can this happen? How
can Paramahamsaji do that, please define the laws? Then I thought “AHA” through
feeling, then Paramahsaji smiled
and put his arm around me like a hug from the side and lifted me up to a
standing position and in that instant I experienced surrender (it was as if we
melted into one another, into the bliss) and extreme devotion or bhakti. It was
beautiful love anandam. Then I immediately woke up it was
On another day at Rikhia, Swami
Niranjan sat opposite me for lunch and asked me “Mouna what are your plans”?
to which I replied that was spending one month in
Another auspicious meeting at
Rikhia was being personally introduced to Swami Amritananda Saraswati by
a yogacharya friend who was a devotee of Swami Amritananda’s. When I stood
directly in front of Swami Amritananda during that introduction, for a brief
instant it felt that my heart was cosmically opened up by an enormous influx of
bliss (then it was gone), something extremely powerful, psychic/spiritual was
going on.
This reminds me of another time
when Swami Niranjan was arriving at
Another highlight of
Paramahamsaji’s darshan was a christian ritual known as the cosmic mass which
was undertaken by Reverand Shoemaker and her assistants from
After the darshan and yajya
programs were over in Rikhia many of us travelled to Munger (
On the very first day of the
courses, during the practice of Tattwa shuddhi (after the morning Kriya Yoga
class) , I had a strange inner experience which some of you may be confronted
with also one day. Some may thnk it a negative experience and some may even
think it scary. Whatever opinion readers have, I submit it here for information
only, that on the path to meditation obstacles may arise beyond your control.
I was siting in the first row of
students in the sadhana hall of maybe eighty students or more learning the
Tantric Sadhana of tattwa Shuddhi. After sitting in a meditation asana and
performing trataka and japa for about half an hour we were all led through an
intricate visualisation technique. It was during the long meditation that
mooladhara chakra started to acutely alert me that progress was being made.
Everything felt like it was going great and there appeared in chidakash a large
spinning light which slowly captured my attention. As well as the light and
mooladhara generating great activity, I felt a great release of warmth slowly
rising from my toes and up through my pelvic area. The next thing that happened
is that the heat kept rising and the light kept spinning and then, I felt a
perculiar feeling of letting go mentally of surrendering to the feeling of
whatever was happening.
The next thing I remember, I was
regaining consciousness on the floor with nearly the whole class looking down
at me and wondering what had happened to me. My teacher Swami Sambhudananda
also looking visibly worried about me. I had blacked out, completely unconscious
and fallen forwards from my meditation position, knocked over my trataka stand,
and my forehead had smashed straight into the marble floor. I do not know how
brief the moments of unconsciousness were, but I do know that it must have made
some who witnessed the incident, a bit fearful.
So that the class would not be put off
the practice further, I soon resumed my Meditation asana and continued with the
class for the rest of the session. After the class my teacher asked what had
happened, and I told her in detail of my inner experience, before the
unconsciousness overpowered me. None of the other students were aware of what
had happened, thinking that I must have fainted. For me BSY Munger is a
powerful psychic and spiritual place of epic magnitude. Everytime I go there
something psychically or spiritually powerful happens to me. I have only been
to BSY Munger three times in 1988, 1995 and 1997, but each visit is packed with
inspiration and some inner awakening.
Nepal: After
this experience I was glad to leave the crowded ashram at BSY and trade it for
the peace of the Nepalese Himalayas. I often
wonder about that experience, was it the parasympathetic nervous system
activation and vaso-dilation of the circulatory system and the subsequent
lowering of blood pressure? Not everything can be so easily self diagnosed. I
even had a perfect opportunity in
Fifth
Experience
2001
I was in a semi conscious
state lying in bed when a brilliantly orange light appeared in Chidakasha. I was suddenly mesmerized by it its beauty and
the energy sparks coming from the sides of it. At this stage it was two
dimensional and I was the observer of it. As I looked longer and closer at it Mooladhara started to awaken, and I had no control of the
event. I felt like I was awake and totally aware but my body felt like it was
paralysed. As my mind became more engulfed in the beauty of the
In 2002 I responded to an in
depth question about “advanced aspects of yoga and the fear of chakra awakening” which was directed to (Dr. Jonn
Mumford) Swami Anandakapila Saraswati
by one of his advanced students during a student forum. Swamiji had my
response to this question on his websites teachings page for some time. To
read a brief comment about my inner experience above,(
which is an excerpt from my response to the question of “the fear of chakra awakening”)
by my esteemed friend, Swami Anandakapila Saraswati “Dr Jonn Mumford” see below.