Kundalini Experience by Ennio Nimis

After having bought the works of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Gopi Krishna and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (a big volume with comments by I.K. Taimni), I finally decided to buy also the autobiography of an Indian saint, whom I will indicate by P.Y.. It was a book I had already seen some years before without buying it since, skimming through its pages, I had observed that it didn't contain practical instructions. My hope now was that I would be able to find out useful information such as the addresses of some good schools of Yoga. Reading this autobiography enthralled me and originated a strong aspiration toward the mystical path: in certain moments, I found myself almost burning from an internal fever. This situation provided a fertile ground for the coming of an event which was radically different than what I had experienced before. It was a kind of "intimate" and spiritual experience; nonetheless, since I listened to the description of similar events from the lips of many researchers I have decided to share it.

The premises happened when one night, immersed in the reading of P.Y.'s autobiography, I had a shiver similar to an electric current that spread itself throughout my whole body. The experience was insignificant in itself, but the point was that it frightened me a lot. Knowing my temperament, my reaction was rather strange. The thought had flashed upon my mind that a deeper event was going to happen in short; that it was going to be strong, very strong and I would not be able to stop it in any way. It was as if my memory had an inexplicable familiarity with it and my instinct knew its inescapable power.

I made up my mind to let things happen unimpeded and go ahead with the reading. Minutes passed by and I was not able to continue reading; my restlessness turned into anxiety. Then it became fear, an intense fear of something unknown to me which was threatening my existence. I had certainly never experienced such a terror. Normally, in moments of danger I would remain paralyzed, unable to think. Now the anxiety was of a different quality: I perceived something was approaching which was alien to the common experience.

I felt the urgency of doing something - even though I did not know what. I set myself in the position of meditation and waited. The anguish increased. I was sure I was close to madness – or death. A part of me, maybe the totality of that entity I call "myself", seemed at the point of melting away. The worst thoughts hung over me without a clear reason.

(In those days I had finished reading Gopi Krishna’s Kundalini: Path to Higher Consciousness. Here the author described the splendid awakening experience he had following an intense practice of concentration on the seventh Chakra, whereas – because his body was probably unprepared – he later met serious physical and, as a reflex, psychic problems as well. According to his description, inside of his body energy was put in constant motion from the base of the backbone toward the brain. So strong was that energy to force him in bed and to prevent the accomplishment of the normal bodily functions. He literally felt as if he was burned by an inner fire, which he could not put out. Weeks later, he intuitively discovered the way to check out the phenomenon, which became a stout experience of internal realization. As far as I am concerned, I was afraid to have come to the threshold of the same experience but, since I did not live in India, I was scared the people around me might not understand. The experience would have been terrible! Nobody could make sure that, like for Gopi Krishna, my experience would be channeled toward a positive conclusion.) The spiritual world appeared to me as a sorrowful and horrible nightmare, able to annihilate and destroy whoever would imprudently approach it. Ordinary life, on the contrary, seemed the dearest and healthiest reality. I was afraid I might not be able to get back to that condition anymore. I was absolutely convinced that a mental illness was tearing my inner self to pieces. The reason was that I had opened a door looking out on a reality far more immense than I had ever foreseen.

I decided to take a break and put off the fatal moment as long as possible. I myself stood up and left the room, out to the open air. It was night and there was nobody to whom I could communicate my panic! At the center of the yard I was burdened, choked, almost crushed by a feeling of desperation, envying all those people who had never practiced Yoga. I felt guilty and ashamed for hurting through harsh words a friend who had been involved in a part of my search. Like so many others, he had shunned any practice, forgot lofty readings and engaged in working and enjoying life. Equipped with a juvenile boldness, I had addressed him with a tone far from being affectionate, which then started to thunder inside of my head. I felt sorry that I had thrown unjustified cruelty at him without really knowing what was in his mind and soul. I would have done anything to tell him how sorry I was to have brutally violated his right to live the way that was best to him. I thought he preferred to protect his mental health rather than become unstable or insane through practices he was not sure about.

Because of my great passion for classical music, I hoped that listening to it might yield the positive effect of protecting me from the anguish and help me to get back to my usual mood. Why not try, then? It was Beethoven’s Concert for Violin and Orchestra I listened to with a pair of headphones in my room that soothed my soul and, after half an hour, eased my sleep. The following morning I woke up with the same fear in my mind.

Strange as it may seem, the two pivotal facts that today stir the most intense emotions of my life - that there is a Divine Intelligence at the very basis of everything existing and that man can practice a definite discipline in order to attune to it - conveyed to me a feeling of horror! The sunlight poured into the room through the chinks in the shutters. I had a whole day before me. I went out to try and amuse myself joining other people. I met some friends but did not talk about what I was experiencing. The afternoon was spent cracking all sorts of jokes and behaving like the people I had always considered lazy and dull. In this way, I succeeded in hiding my anguish. The first day went by; my mind was totally worn out. After two days, the fear diminished and I finally felt safe. Something had changed anyway, since I actually did not succeed in thinking about Yoga: I went around that idea!

One week later I began, calmly and detachedly, to ponder on the meaning of what had happened. I understood the nature of my reaction to that episode: I had cowardly run away from the experience I had pursued for such a long time! In the depth of my soul my dignity led me to continue with my search exactly from the point where I had quit. I was ready to accept all that was to happen and let things follow their course, even if this process implied the loss of my wholesomeness. I began the practice of Pranayama again, as intensely as before.

A few days went by without detecting any form of fear. Then, I experienced something awfully beautiful. (Many readers will recognize, in the following description, their similar experience.) It was night. I was relaxed in Savasana when I had a pleasant sensation. It was as if an electric wind was blowing in the external part of my body, propagating itself quickly and with a wavy motion from my feet up to my head. My body was so tired that I could not move, even if my mind imparted the order to move. I had no fear. My composure was serene. The electric wind was replaced by another feeling, comparable to an enormous strength filling into the backbone and quickly climbing up to the brain. That experience was characterized by an indescribable, and so far unknown, sense of bliss. The perception of an intense brightness accompanied everything. My memory of that moment was condensed into one expression, "a clear and euphoric certainty of existing, like an unlimited ocean of awareness and bliss".

In his God Exists: I Have Met Him, A. Frossard tries to give an idea of his spiritual experience. For that purpose he creates the concept of the "inverse avalanche". An avalanche collapses, runs downhill, first slowly, then faster and violently at the same time. Frossard suggests that we should imagine an "upsidedown avalanche" which begins strengthening at the foot of the mountain and climbs up pushed by an increasing power; then, suddenly, it leaps up toward the sky. I do not know how long this experience lasted. Its peak definitely held out only a few seconds. The strangest thing is that in the very instant I had it, I found it familiar. When it ended, I turned on my side and fell into a calm, uninterrupted sleep. The following day, when I woke up, I did not think of it. It only came up some hours later, during a walk. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, for many minutes I was literally enthralled by the reverberation of this memory upon my soul. My rational mind tried to grasp and gain confidence over an experience which was beyond it – an impossible task. All the things I had thought about Yoga until then did not have any importance at all. To me, the experience was like being struck by a bolt. I did not even have the chance to find out which parts of me were still there and which ones had disappeared. I was not able to really understand what had happened to me; rather, I was not sure that "something" had really happened.

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