I'd like to meet:

O people of the world unite, and pave the way to peace sublime, Divided you yourself invite Disastrous wars, unrest and crime. 7-3-1952, Gopi Krishna From the Unseen,
Kundalini is the key to higher consciousness and a more highly evolved human life form.
"Gopi Krishna was a pioneer in the land of spirituality. What he described as psychic forces in human beings are now being understood as fields of energy and information. I salute this great sage and scientist of the twentieth century and congratulate the publishers for bringing out this volume."
– Deepak Chopra, M.D., author of Quantum Healing

“Gopi Krishna was a psychenaut into the realms of human possibility, an Odysseus of inner space. The publication of his autobiography should be a major event in the documentation of who and what we really are."
- Jean Houston, Ph.D., Director, Foundation for Mind Research

"Gopi Krishna's description of the changes —psychological, phsyical, perceptual, and biochemical— which can happen to a person who is in the process of an accelerated spiritual emergence process was the first definitive work written for the Western world about kundalini awakening. This new book should be a great comfort to those trying to understand the process."
- Emma Bragon, Ph.D., Editor of the Spiritual Emergence Network Newsletter

"The writing of Gopi Krishna is an indispensable resource for anyone who wishes to begin to understand the role of kundalini in exceptional mental states and in the evolution of consciousness. His own kundalini awakening is itself an extraordinary and inspiring story of human possibility and gives one a sense of the tremendous spiritual birthright each of us carries within our own nervous system."
– Kenneth Ring, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Connecticut, and author of Healing toward Omega and The Omega Project

G opi Krishna was born in 1903 to parents of Kashmiri Brahmin extraction. His birthplace was a small village about twenty miles from the city of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India. He spent the first eleven years of his life growing up in this beautiful Himalayan valley. In 1914, his family moved to the city of Lahore in the Punjab which, at that time, was a part of British India. Gopi Krishna passed the next nine years completing his public school education. Illness forced him to leave the torrid planes of the Punjab and he returned to the cooler climate of the Kashmir Valley. During the succeeding years, he secured a post in the Department of Public Works of the State, married and raised a family. In 1946 he founded a social organization and, with the help of a few dedicated friends, tried to bring about reforms in some of the outmoded customs of his people. Their goals included the abolition of the dowry system, which subjected the families of brides to severe and even ruinous financial obligations, and the strictures against the remarriage of widows. After a few years, Gopi Krishna was granted premature retirement from his position in the government and devoted himself almost exclusively to service work in the community.
In 1967 he published his first major book in India, Kundalini--The Evolutionary Energy in Man (currently available under the title Living With Kundalini). Shortly thereafter it was published in Great Britain and the United States and has since appeared in eleven major languages. The book presented to the Western world for the first time a clear and concise autobiographical account of the phenomenon of the forceful awakening of Kundalini, which he had experienced in 1937, and the long process by which he eventually attained the perennially transformed or sahaja state of consciousness. This book, and the sixteen other published works by Gopi Krishna have generated a steadily growing interest in the subjects of consciousness and the evolution of the brain. He also traveled extensively in Europe and North America, during the last seventeen years of his life, energetically presenting his theories to scientists, scholars, researchers and others. Gopi Krishna's experiences led him to hypothesize that there is a biological mechanism in the human body, known from ancient times in India as Kundalini, which is responsible for creativity, genius, psychic abilities, religious and mystical experiences, as well as some types of aberrant mental states. He asserted that ignorance of the workings of this evolutionary mechanism was the main reason for the present dangerous state of world. Gopi Krishna passed away in July, 1984 of a severe lung infection and is survived by his wife, three children and grandchildren. The work that he began is currently being carried forward through the efforts of a number of affiliated foundations, organizations and individuals around the world.

GOPI KRISHNA
by Teri Degler
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, in Lahore, in the Punjab of British India. At the age of twenty, he returned to Kashmir. During the succeeding years he secured a post in the state government, married and raised a family. Early in his career he became the leader of a social organization that was devoted to helping the disadvantaged in his community, especially with regard to issues concerning the well-being and rights of women.
In 1967 he published his first major book in India, Kundalini—The Evolutionary Energy in Man (currently available under the title Living with Kundalini). Shortly thereafter it was published in Great Britain and the United States and has since appeared in eleven major languages. The book presented to the western world for the first time a clear and concise autobiographical account of the phenomenon of the forceful awakening of Kundalini.
At the age of thirty-four, while meditating one morning, he experienced the sudden and forceful awakening of Kundalini. As he sat meditating - exactly as he had for the three hours before dawn each day for seventeen years - he became aware of a powerful, pleasurable sensation at the base of his spine. He continued to meditate, and as he did, the sensation began to spread and extend upwards. It continued to expand until he heard, quite without warning, a roar like that of a waterfall and felt a stream of liquid light enter his brain. In Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, he describes what happened:
"The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light…I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider, surrounded by waves of light…I was now all consciousness, without any outline, without any idea of a corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware of every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction…bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe."
Gopi Krishna's experience radically altered the path of his life. He came to believe that our brains were evolving and that an individual's profound mystical experience was a foretaste of what would eventually become an all-pervasive transformation in human consciousness. In his own case, Gopi Krishna's initial experience triggered a transformative process that lasted for twelve years. During this time, the sensations of light, splendor and joy alternated with - and were often completely overshadowed by - sensations of fire, unbearable heat and bleak depression.
Being from a culture that was steeped in the yogic tradition, Gopi Krishna looked there for an explanation for what seemed to be happening to his mind and body. Immersing himself in the ancient teachings on the subject, he discovered that much of it was in symbolic and cryptic language. He learned one reason for this was that the tantric yoga masters had not wanted the knowledge to fall into the hands of those who were not fully prepared for the experience. It was believed that premature or incorrect awakening of Kundalini could cause a number of frightening symptoms, including searing lights, horrific heat, and deep depression. Some ancient yoga masters even believed that the incorrect awakening of Kundalini could cause insanity or death. However, Gopi Krishna also discovered that the esoteric teachings contained a number of simple practices that might help bring the energy back into balance after it had been awakened incorrectly. A few of these practices, particularly those related to living a moderate life-style, helped him begin a long process of bringing the energy back into balance.
Over the years, the periods of suffering waxed and waned until, finally, they were replaced by the visions of light, sensations of bliss and the spontaneous development of an extraordinary level of creative ability. Before his death in 1984 at the age of eighty-one, Gopi Krishna would write seventeen books on Higher Consciousness - three of them entirely in verse. He credited this enormous output not to his own efforts but to inspiration from a higher source. This inspiration was so extraordinary that one of his books, The Shape of Events to Come – a volume of more than two hundred pages - was composed in three weeks.
Relating to the crises that still haunt the world today, Gopi Krishna made it clear that one of the main reasons the earth teeters on the brink of environmental and nuclear destruction was that the masculine and feminine are so out of balance. Of course, he was not referring here to traits held by "men" as opposed to those held by "women" but rather those characteristics associated with the masculine and feminine principles we all hold within ourselves. Within this context, he made a forceful argument, showing how, particularly in the last two centuries in the western world, the glorification of the ideals traditionally associated with the masculine - reason, logic, power, strength, victory, territorialism - and the denigration of those related to the feminine - emotion, intuition, nurturing - had led to the proliferation of arms, the development of agents of mass destruction, the spread of war and terrorism and the systematic rape of the environment. It is not surprising that Gopi Krishna had such a keen understanding of the importance of the feminine side of our natures. Kundalini, the cosmic force that was so active in his body is seen in the yogic tradition as feminine. Known also as kundalini-shakti, kundalini is said to operate in the microcosm of the human body in ways that parallel the way Shakti - the divine feminine principle and partner of the divine masculine principle, Shiva - operates in the macrocosm that is our Universe.
One of the little known facts about Gopi Krishna's life is that he was a crusader for women's rights. Putting this in historical and cultural context shows how very extraordinary his dedication to this cause was. In 1930 it had been less than ten years since women had won the vote and the vast majority of the women in the world were still considered chattel. In India conditions for women were even worse and a man campaigning publicly for women's rights would have been unheard of.
Gopi Krishna did far more than just speak out for women. He acted, and at one point ended up imprisoned for his actions. One of his most far-reaching contributions involved bettering conditions for widows. At that time in India, the plight of a woman whose husband died was often horrific, especially if she had no grown children to help or protect her. The custom of suttee (throwing oneself on the husband's funeral pyre) though outlawed was still practiced, particularly in remote areas. Even if a widow was saved from this terrible death, she and her children were often abandoned by her in-laws. If these women's own families could not care for them - and they often could not as they had already impoverished themselves paying her dowry - begging or prostitution were her only means of survival.
Horrified by this injustice, Gopi Krishna began a movement to save these women and children. Passionately speaking out and educating others, he soon gathered together a small band of like-minded individuals in Srinagar. Eventually they raised enough funds to build a large protective compound with small individual dwellings for each woman and her children. Over the years, he and his co-workers were also able to provide the women with equipment like sewing machines and looms and the training they needed in order to operate their own cottage industry on the premises.
Gopi Krishna also fought against the custom whereby women could not remarry. He worked to educate the public about the injustice of this custom and met with some success. A number of women under the Society's care found gentlemen they wished to marry - the women's wishes being the key. These women were protected just as they would have been by a loving family and no courtship was begun or marriage considered unless the woman explicitly desired it. When a marriage did occur the couple invariably insisted on showing their gratitude by including Gopi Krishna in the wedding party, often in the role of the father giving away the bride.
Gopi Krishna's efforts to improve conditions for women took many forms in addition to his work for widows. At one point he even staged a mock insurrection in the streets of Srinagar so that a young woman who had been sold into bondage could be rescued. Unfortunately, the police jailed him and the supporters who had caused the disruption. When the news reached the ears of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, she immediately ordered his release. After Gopi Krishna insisted that all be released, the authorities relented.
Along with all of his humanitarian efforts, Gopi Krishna produced beautiful poetry and books in prose and verse form. But his main thrust over the years was to write about mystical experience and the evolution of consciousness from a scientific point of view - that there is a biological mechanism in the human body, known from ancient times in India as Kundalini, which is responsible for creativity, genius, psychic ability, religious and mystical experience, as well as some types of aberrant mental illness. In fact, he steadfastly resisted the ever increasing numbers of spiritual seekers who urged him to become a guru. From that day in 1937 when his awakening occurred, to the end of his life, the energy was fully active in his body, bringing about a radical and permanent transformation of his perceptive faculties. Traveling extensively in Europe and North America, he dedicated his life to promoting the scientific study of Kundalini and developing the Kundalini hypothesis which is described in “A Memorandum for Kundalini Research”. His books, such as The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius elucidate his theories and provide direction for possible scientific research.

Research of genius and enlightened persons In the light of Pandit Gopi Krishna's experiences he himself has started to search the life of geniussen and enlightented persons in history for clues of kundalini awakening. He proposed an organisation to be erected to conduct scientific research on the matter.
The research should, according to him, consist of research on biological processes in the body, psychological and sociological research of living persons. According to Mr. Krishna the lives of historical persons should also be investigated.
One organisation has picked up the wish of Mr. Krishna to futher investigate the lives of saints, geniussen and inspired people, namely the Institute for Consciousness Research.

Kundalini Research Foundation Ltd
Gopi Krishna says: “When we look at the causal world, it is rigidly bound by cause and effect. But when we reach a higher dimension of consciousness we find that the rigid walls of matter melt. Space and time lose their rigidity, and there is a mingling of the past, the present, and the future. Looking at the whole thing from this point of view, what we think about the universe - the laws, the effect and cause - is a product of our own consciousness. In our dimension of consciousness, the world is not illusory. It is real. But in the next higher state of consciousness it loses its solidity.”

Music:

E-mail

The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd.
Post Office Box 2248
Darien, CT 06820

Movies:

THE LAST INTERVIEW WITH GOPI KRISHNA VIDEO by Tom Zatar Kay

A Conversation about Higher Consciousness and the Evolution of the Human Brain

I watched the whole of the video on your page last night - one of the best I've watched in quite a while. Ryan

Television:

A modern Hindu teacher who focused attention on the kundalini, the latent force in the human organism said to be responsible for sexual activity and (in a sublimated form) higher consciousness or mystical experience.
In Hindu mythology kundalini is personified as a goddess with creative and destructive aspects and serpentlike movement. Kundalini is often described as a serpent that sleeps at the base of the spine, darting upward when aroused, bringing sexual excitement or enlightenment or pain. This concept has been loosely correlated with the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the serpent and has analogues in other religions as well.
Gopi Krishna was born in Kashmir in 1903. After failing his college examinations he devoted himself to a personal discipline of yoga and meditation while working as a minor civil servant.
In 1937 he experienced the sudden arousal of kundalini energy. The experience was a shattering one, because the energy was aroused prematurely in a negative form. Although the pandit had strange visions and insights, the shock resulted in his suffering ill health for a number of years. He sustained the ordeal, however, and after years of practice he discovered that the energy had transformed him gradually and manifested a positive aspect, with states of higher consciousness, mystical insight, and some paranormal side effects.
Gopi Krishna's first book, The Shape of Events to Come (1968; reissued 1979), describes a New Age-like vision of human affairs characterized by materialism and decadence. He writes of an impending nuclear war, after which human beings will re-discover the importance of the moral and ethical principles that are the basis of most great religions and thereby prepare the way for a great evolutionary surge.
Several of the pandit's books are in verse format, "dictated by a Higher Intelligence" at great speed. At the apex of the pandit's condition of higher consciousness in 1950 he spontaneously dictated poems in German, French, and Italian, languages that he had never learned. His prose works concerned with the concept of kundalini transcended his own simple education and average intelligence. Like his poetry they were written during full consciousness, not in the trance condition of a psychic or channeler. Yet his writings were a product of his higher consciousness.
Although accounts of the arousal of kundalini through yoga practice—culminating in mystical consciousness—have appeared in Hindu Scriptures for centuries, firsthand accounts are so rare in modern times that some consider kundalini a mere fable. Gopi Krishna was one of several mid-twentieth-century gurus who succeeded in arousing kundalini and as a result wrote a number of books on the subject. He was known for his detailed description of the aroused kundalini state. His writings draw upon his outgoing personal experience of higher consciousness.
He claimed that kundalini is a biological force with an important role in human evolution and believed that the goal of higher consciousness may eventually lead humankind away from materialistic ambition and world conflicts toward new goals for religion and science.
Gopi Krishna's books attracted the serious attention of such eminent thinkers as Carl von Weizsäcker of the Max Planck Institute for the Life Sciences, Germany. The Indian government also expressed interest in the subject of kundalini. In 1974 Dr. Karan Singh, minister of health, announced an ambitious kundalini research project, to be sponsored by the All-India Institute of Medical Science, to research "kundalini concept and its relevance to the development of higher nervous functions." Unfortunately the project was discontinued with a change in the Indian government.
Meanwhile sympathizers with the work of Pandit Gopi Krishna founded the Central Institute for Kundalini Research at Srinagar, Kashmir, India, and the Kundalini Research Foundation was established in New York (later relocated to P.O. Box 2248, Darien, CT 06820) and in Switzerland at Gemsenstrasse.
Gopi Krishna died in Srinagar, Kashmir, on July 31, 1984, at age 81. During the last week of his life, he met with Hindu leaders in order to convince them of the importance of strengthening and unifying the Hindu community so that adequate social services could be developed in case of difficult times in Kashmir.
During his lifetime he made great efforts to interest scientists in investigating and verifying the phenomenon of kundalini as a biological force in human affairs, with implications for the study of the paranormal as well as the intellectual and ethical evolution of humanity.

Books:

Gopi Krishna is, and will always be my main man. I must have read "Living with Kundalini" a dozen times. It has been 15 years since I read his books, and I still to this day think about what he talked about. It was by chance that I picked up his book in some new age shop in philadelphia. I was very curious about his awakening, and searched myself for the same unique experience. M.D.
Gopi has been a major force in my life and I've read nearly all of his works, interviews, videos, etc. It has always been a dream of mine to forward Kundalini research, and as soon as I have the financial resources I will make it happen. It's a slow process but a worthy one. I've also thought a documentary should be made about Gopi's life and possibly the kundalini research initiative.
For example, the Doc. could follow the lives of some ten kundalini research volunteers for a year or more as they follow the methods prescribed by Gopi. What an effect that would have once released. The Western world could use an awakening =) Best, Duncan
The kundalini paradigm hypothesizes that the operation of a psycho-somatic evolutionary mechanism in the human frame, sometimes called kundalini, is responsible for genius, creative expression, psychical perception, inspiration, and other paranormal phenomena, when its workings are benign, and insanity when the mechanism goes awry.
All systems of Yoga are based on the observation that living bodies owe their existence to the agency of an extremely subtle substance pervading the universe and designated as Prana, which is the cause of all organic phenomena. Prana --known in various cultures as chi, vital life, bio-energy, orgone, astral light, manas, spereima, the breath of life, and the holy spirit-- is not matter, nor is it mind or intelligence or consciousness, but rather an inseparable part of the cosmic energy or Shakti which resides in all of them and is the driving force behind all cosmic phenomenon, as force in matter and vitality in living organisms.
Carl F. F. von Weizsacker, the eminent physicist, has written that the concept of prana is compatible with present-day physics. Pointing out that prana is spatially extended and vitalizing, Weizsacker compares this "moving potency" to the "probability amplitude" of quantum theory. (please see Carl F. F. von Weizsacker's introduction to The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius, by Gopi Krishna, New York & London, Harper and Row, 1971: 42-3.)
Kundalini, a Sanskrit term meaning "coiled up," is the evolutionary potency of Prana. The term kundalini designates a force which is normally latent or dormant, but which can be activated by spiritual disciplines and made to act like a spring when it is released.
In the individual human being, Prana is thought to be concentrated in the sex-energy as a biochemical essence composed of the subtlest elements, existing as radiation on a subatomic level. According to the kundalini paradigm, the reproductive system also functions as the evolutionary mechanism. By "the arousal of kundalini" is meant the reversal of the reproductive system, as a fine stream of nerve-energy is sublimated and transmitted up the cerebrol-spinal system, irradiating the brain.
The kundalini paradigm also states that the evolutionary transformation can be duplicated and verified, in the same manner as any scientific demonstration. The procedures and conditions are elaborated in the sacred literature of every culture, and include all forms of yoga and meditation that attempt to harmoniously develop the whole personality --the physical, mental, ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual.
"By each of these disciplines," says Plato in The Republic (VII:527e), "a certain organ of the soul is both purified and reanimated which is blinded and buried by studies of another kind; an organ better worth saving than ten thousand eyes, since Truth is perceived by it alone."
The purpose of the Kundalini Research Foundation is to encourage the scientific investigation of "these disciplines" and of the ensuing evolutionary transformation of consciousness. This is an important step in the development of a unifying world view that is capable of guiding humanity to a more healthy, peaceful, and prosperous future.
copyright, Kundalini Research Foundation
THE SHAPE OF EVENTS TO COME: Download
WHAT IS COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: Download
"Your work helped me realize the happening in my own body.. magic, Thanks for all your enlightened works, they continue to inspire me onward and upward. as if I had a choice!!" - lore

Heroes:

Q: WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR MANKIND'S PROGRESS?
A: Scientists in general, and biologists in particular, prefer to shut their eyes to the obvious explanation for the progress made by humankind thus far, because the implications of continued biological evolution of the human brain are too terrific to contemplate. In the first place, it shatters one of the fundamental concepts of biology--that evolution is not predetermined and has occurred by random mutation of the genes.
The second issue raised is, what is the target of this evolution? If the target is a more elevated state of consciousness, the conclusion becomes irresistible that there is a plan in creation, which shatters the materialistic concepts of modern science. The third issue which arises is, if there is a biological evolution of the brain, how does it influence our social, political or religious life, and what steps are necessary to take to conform to this irresistible change in the structure of the brain.
The host of social, political, economic, spiritual, and philosophical problems, which the acceptance of this single idea involves, is so vast that the average intelligent mind is incapable of dealing with it. Once the idea is accepted, there will occur an upheaval in every sphere of human activity and thought. The world will not then be what it is now, and mankind will not continue to live in the same way.
From A Kundalini Catechism, by Gopi Krishna.

Gopi Krishna

The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd., established as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization at the request of Gopi Krishna in 1970, Contributions are tax-deductible. Send your check to the K. R. F., Ltd., P. O. Box 2234, Darien, CT 06902.
E-mail
O people of the world unite, and pave the way to peace sublime, Divided you yourself invite Disastrous wars, unrest and crime. 7-3-1952, Gopi Krishna From the Unseen,
"Gopi Krishna was a pioneer in the land of spirituality." - Deepak Chopra, M.D.
“Gopi Krishna was a psychenaut into the realms of human possibility, an Odysseus of inner space. The publication of his autobiography should be a major event in the documentation of who and what we really are. - Jean Houston, Ph.D., Director, Foundation for Mind Research
Gopi Krishna's description of the changes —psychological, phsyical, perceptual, and biochemical— which can happen to a person who is in the process of an accelerated spiritual emergence process was the first definitive work written for the Western world about kundalini awakening. This new book should be a great comfort to those trying to understand the process. - Emma Bragon, Ph.D., Editor of the Spiritual Emergence Network Newsletter
GOPI KRISHNA LIBRARY Writings on Higher Consciousness, Mystical Experience, and the Evolution of the Human Brain
"The ambrosia is the nectarlike reproductive secretion which, at the highest point of ecstasy, pours into the brain with such an intensely pleasurable sensation that even the sexual orgasm pales into insignificance before it. This unbelievably rapturous sensation--pervading the whole of the spinal cord, the organs of generation and the brain--is nature's incentive to the effort directed at self-transcendence, as the orgasm is the incentive to the reproductive act." - Gopi Krishna
GOPI KRISHNA LAST INTERVIEW WITH ZATAR
TK: Mr Krishna, you have had a Kundalini experience. I wish you could explain what a Kundalini experience is and what its ramifications are.
GK: Before I start to describe my own experience, perhaps it would be better to give a little detail about what Kundalini means. We are not using the totality of the human brain. According to various estimates, most of us use only ten percent of the brain and according to some only eight percent. That means 90 percent of the brain is unutilized, that there is still a large margin in the brain which could be used for other purposes, and nature has provided it for certain purposes which are not yet known to science. According to Indian tradition, there is a region in the brain below the crown and about the pallette which is called Brahmarendra or the cavity of Brahman. This region can be activated by certain disciplines and when activated it can give to the individual the same vision of the universe which all great mystics of the Earth have described. When it is awakened the normal energy of the body or the blood is not able to fuel the center. It needs a more powerful and constrained psychic fuel. This fuel comes from the reproductive system, which is transformed into a kind of radiation and that radiation awakens and makes the center function.
In my case, the awakening occurred at the age of 34, in 1937. I had been meditating for 17 years and then all of a sudden during Christmas, while I was sitting cross-legged in a state of meditation, a strange thing happened. Something exploded in my brain and a current of silvery light rising from my spine radiated throughout my whole brain, and I felt myself expanding in all directions. This expansion was so incredible, so amazing that I thought that something unusual had happened in my inner ear. After this I had two other experiences of the same kind, at short intervals apart, and it then succeeded.
But something was changing in me and I could perceive this change for many, many years, day and night. In fact, I passed through grave crises during that period. Finally, I became stabilized in that condition of consciousness in my 49th year. Since that time I have been living in that condition. That is to say, before my 34th year I was living in this world thinking, seeing, perceiving in the same way as other people do, but since my 49th year I have been living in two different worlds. One is the normal world of senses and reason, and the other is the world which is much higher, much more happy and which is totally apart from anything that we can know of the earth. It is the world of consciousness.
TK: How do you see the world?
GK: We know what all people perceive of this world. I can understand what you perceive of it, you can understand what I perceive of it. That is, this perception is uniform. Everyone has the same perception. But this other perception is different. In this other perception you do not see the world as a solid, real, objective creation. The real objective creation is consciousness. You see consciousness everywhere. You see the ocean as if it is consciousness everywhere. You see the ocean as if it is living; you see a mountain as if it is living; you see the sky as if it is living; you see the Earth as if it is living; you see life or consciousness everywhere. And this life or consciousness is not something which is really dead or which is something you can understand. It is unfathomable. It is wonder and everytime you see it, you perceive it. The wonder grows deeper. I am never tired of sitting in quiet and reflecting on myself. I am never tired of looking at the sky. The sky, to me, does not appear as it appeared before my 34th year; it is so fascinating. It is such a beautiful vision that I would like to look at it for days and months on end. In other words, in the air a fountain of happiness, a new kingdom, I should say, is opened. This is probably what Christ meant when he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." This is the Nirvana of Buddha; and this is the state of Vada mentioned by the Suffi mystics. In fact, in this inactive state what we perceive is consciousness in its most magic form, in its glorious form, and not consciousness as a point looking through the eyes or hearing through the ears, but a consciousness which has its own channels and which knows that it is the master and not the slave of the material forces which knows it is the creator. It is infinite: it is deathless. In this state one feels himself to be a king, he feels himself to be the master of what he sees. It is not the ego. I should say it is not the ego; it is the very condition of this consciousness. That is the reason why it is said that no mystic would change his state even for a kingdom. It is somehing so unique, so glorious, so elevating that I have no words to describe this state.
TK: What type of life must a person live to awaken their Kundalini?
GK: In order to make this clear, I would like to say that it is not Kundalini per se, Kundalini is the power, the mechanism. But actually, what we do is awaken to activity a certain region in the brain. This means that nature has already provided a potential in the brain which has to be awakened. This means that the brain can still organically evolve to a higher performance. This is my experience, that the human brain is still organically evolving in the direction of the great mystics, in the same direction as the great geniuses. For this evolution a certain type of life is necessary.
For instance, throughout our life this evolution is relentlessly going on and we have to cooperate with it. When we do not cooperate with the inner evolution we create problems for ourselves. For that purpose, for the last 5,000 years at least great prophets have been born. Beginning with the Vedas, then Buddha, then Christ, then Mohammed, then Guru Nanak, and all the ancient prophets of the Bible, they have been born time after time, and they have given some 'teaching to mankind', which was a direction for how to live while the brain is still evolving. Their Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments, the Discourses of Buddha, The Bhagavad-Gita, and all those directions contained in the religious scriptures of the Earth -- they are all meant to regulate our life so that we may live in harmony with the law of evolution which governs our life.
The revolutionaries have come to regulate the lives of human beings so that they may work in harmony with the law of evolution that is at work day and night within their brains. When they depart from this law of evolution, they always bring calamities or problems upon themselves. The present time is one such occasion when we have digressed from the laws of evolution and the result is that we are threatened from many directions.
The life to be lived is just as you see in the sermon on the Mountain - a life of humility, a life of love, a life of purity, a life in which you wish for others what you wish for yourself, a life in wich you are pure, you are not sophisticated, you are not overly clever, you are not smart, you do not use your cleverness or smartness to take what belongs to others, a life of extreme purity and a life of simplicity, that you do not waste the resources of the Earth.
As you know, every animal satisfies his basic needs from the recycled resources of the Earth. Man is the only creature who is wasting the basic resources -- the minerals -- for his own luxury and pleasure. That is what the Sermon on the Mount is meant to teach, that humanity should live simply, beautiful, pure, compassionate lives. That is the type of life necessary for the awakening of Kundalini.
TK: And this is what all religions of the world say?
GK: Every prophet, every great mystic, even every philosopher, for instance, Socrates or Plato. We will find that this life is okay: purity, compassion, love, service is the ideal life which human beings have to live.
TK: Is there no change in consciousness in birth or in death? Would you explain that?
GK: Here we come to metaphysics. We see the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. Actually, is there any change in the sun? The same is true of consciousness.
Consciousness is eternal: our souls. They are eternal, immutable, omissive, omni-present, omnipotent, and our spark partakes of the same nature as the divine, so there can be no death for this, no change for this. The change occurs in our shells, mind, intellect, the senses. But not in the essence, the principles which is consciousness.
TK: The more we use our mind, the greater our development of our evolution takes place.
GK: The human brain is evolving rapidly because from morning until evening we are applying our brain to some task, we are reading, we are looking through the newspapers, we are watching the television or we are working in the office.
Most of the people are applying their brain throughout the day, this was not the case before when people hunted or when they were tilling the soil; they had no need to apply their brain in such a constrained way.
We are now applying our brain in a very constrained way, from morning until night. In other words we are meditating, though on material objects. The result is a rapid state of evolution.
Our way of life must change, but we have not changed, on the other hand. We have made our living and our life more and more complex and intricate, so that all day we are working and working and working to feed our belly, to live. We are giving no time to the mind, no time to the spirit. We are not giving any thought to it. The results is that there is a disproportionate evolution. We have developed a very powerful intellect as seen by the scientific discoveries that have been made and the changes that have occurred in our life, but on the other hand our spiritual and moral growth has been negligible.
So what we have in mordern times is a disproportionate human being, a giant of the intellect, on the one hand, and a pygmy of moral or spiritual growth. This disproportion is at the base of the present threatening situation of the world.
TK: What can we do to remedy that?
GK: What we can do is to make a thorough research of all the religious scriptures of mankind, of all the occult traditions of the past, and to make experiments on the brain. In fact, yoga was devised in India to make experiments on the brain. The very word "yoga" means to yoke, to join the individual soul with the over-soul, with moderation, with temperance. It is this type of life that has to be led, not a luxury life of wasting the Earth's resources, of pollutants polluting the planet, so that nature's forces are now creating a situation in which either calamity occurs which will change the direction of human life, or by their own sensible reaction they will change themselves. Change has to occur in any way.
TK: The research of this force is the most urgent task of our time.
GK: It is the most urgent. I have been saying it, after observing my own state for at least 30 years. For 30 years I said nothing because I wanted to confirm that my experience was real experience, and not a delusion and that it is corroborated by ancient tradition. I made a study of those traditions, and I found that my experience is in conformity to the ancient traditions. After that I wrote my first book, and now in my 80th year I solemnly say this and this alone is the answer to modern crises.
The answer is this: The brain is evolving and present science doesn't know how. There is complete darkness about it because you cannot see this evolution of the brain. By external observation can see only neurons and their connections. It has to be seen from internal observation by awakening this power. When this power is awakened, then you are able to observe the internal working of the brain and that shows you that you are still evolving.
TK: What do you propose? How do we investigate this?
GK: I think any sane government, any good government, should first make research on the brain, on the nervous system. The ancient religious traditions, the ancient occult traditions. After all, we have to understand that religion has always been a companion of man. We have evidence that man was religious even two hundred thousand years ago. The first relics found show that those people were performing religious rituals, so it means religion has always been a part of human life.
What research have we made on it? We have made research on psychic coma. But no research on religious tradition and religious experience. If we were to devote as much time and resources as we devote to other scientific experiments, the results would be a hundred-fold more precious.
TK: The results would prove...
GK: The results will show that the human brain is still organically evolving, that certain lifestyles, certain ways of behavior are necessary to live in conformity to the inner changes, and that religion came in time to guide mankind on this path.
TK: And it is the path that will lead us to the stars, if it is our purpose to.
GK: It will lead humanity to this new dimension of consciousness. It will lead to the goal which nature has assigned for her. It will lead humanity to a peaceful co-existence, to happiness, to long life, to much greater achievement than she has done, even now. It will lead her to the exploration of the universe.
TK: How will this affect the political structure?
GK: I need not say, for the experiments will show what kind of life and what kind of environment a human being must have to evolve completely in harmony with the law of evolution, there will be more freedom.
TK: I believe that things happpen not by chance but by purpose to our life, that there is a purpose to our existence.
GK: Now, please tell me, can such a vast creation be purposeless? Can such a vast creation come out of nothing? Can such a vast creation ruled by laws be all composed of dead, insensitive matter? The very idea of being - existence - - comes from the mind. A rock or a mountain or an ocean has no idea of existence, this existence comes from intelligence, and the author of the universe must be intelligent. If we didn't have an intelligent creator, there would be no purpose to this existence. There must be a purpose. If there was no purpose, how have we then come to have a purpose in ourselves? We do everything with a purpose. How has this purpose come if there is no purpose in creation? How do we act on purpose? So it means that purpose and plan is a part of consciousness.
TK: The very fact that we build nuclear weapons is spiting nature's wrath. You said that nature is very merciful, and that nature will use the least amount of force to put us back on the proper path.
GK: Unless nature were merciful, how would we be here? You see this Earth, inside the Earth, fire, it is a volcano, inside inferno and outside the Earth fire. You have cosmic rays coming, for which you have an umbrella. Known as the "Heaviside layer" this umbrella is 50 miles from the earth. If you didn't have this layer there would be total destruction of all life in a short time. We are so protected that even on single slip or error can destroy all of life on Earth. If nature were not merciful, how could we live? The very fact that we are alive and that all these hazards around us are controlled by other powers means that nature is merciful and kind.
TK: And even though we are building nuclear weapons, spiting nature's wrath, nature will be merciful.
GK: It gives us chance after chance. Just as we overeat and go on overeating, many times nature forgives us. But when we indulge too much in this bad habit we have a serious pain in our digestive organs. When we overdo a thing then naturally disaster overtakes us, so we cannot blame nature. But ourselves, we have an intelligence, we have reason, we have learning. But if by having everything we ignore it, then of course nature has no alternative except to teach us by suffering. For instance, 16 civilizations have perished so far, and we are not even aware of what reasons prevailed that made those civilizations at the height of power mingle with dust. The reason is that at every stage of progress, life of man has to change.
For instance, a child grows up and he lives one type of life when is an infant. Another kind of child, has tastes, his activities change when he is an adolescent, then further when he is an adult. Then when he is mature and at last when he is old. At every stage he has different tastes, different activities, different ways of life. The same is the case of nations and people. They have to change at every stage in their development. For instance, there were once feudal systems: before that, clans, tribes, or monarchies. But now we have democracy, so even the systems of our governments are changing. Why? Because our brain is evolving. But when we stop living according to the laws of our evolution, we degenerate indignantly. This is also happening at present.
TK: If a man wants to go into his room and hang himself, no one can stop him. This is what we are doing with nuclear weapons.
GK: When we deviate from the path we invite suffering and disaster for us. There are devices in our brain, in consciousness, which when we digress we invite a calamity or disaster. We are devising nuclear weapons: there is no sense in that. War can be fought without nuclear weapons but we are devising weapons to punish ourselves.
TK: So what is the hope? Where does the hope come from?
GK: Heaven is always merciful. If we analyze the course of our present dilemma -- crisis -- and try to change that, try to live more in harmony with the laws of evolution, this threat will be averted. But if we continue like this there is no chance. We must suffer.
TK: What would you tell the leaders of the world?
GK: The leaders of the world have to be convinced and for that convincing the experiment is necessary.
TK: The analyzing of Kundalini energy?
GK: We have to show that the brain is evolving, and that this evolution needs a certain kind of harmonious life. If this life is denied, man degenerates and brings calamity upon himself.
TK: You have the Kundalini Research Foundation in Canada and in Switzerland. Please explain to the public what this is.
GK: It can be started anywhere. If it is good, it is started in many places. The United States can provide a beautiful environment for this experiment.
TK: You propose taking a hundred people and...
GK: For the experiment a hundred people will be needed but for running the organization we can have any number of people who have a deep passion for spiritual matters and who are prepared to mold their lives in consort with the spiritual laws. They would be more than welcome in this organization.
TK: And these hundred people will lead a life prescribed and hopefully out of this hundred, one or two will awaken.
GK: Out of the hundred to whom the disciplines are given, maybe three or four will show the symptoms, some time after which scientists can observe them.
TK: What would examples of this be? What will happen to these people?
GK: What will happen is that the brain activity will be increased and its effect will be found all over the body. There will be metabolic processes which can be measured. There will be physiological changes which can be measured.
TK: And the effects of this on the world?
GK: They will convince the biologist that this change of the mind, of the brain, has physiological systems. Those into whom these processes start may bloom into geniuses. By blooming into a mystic, both sides will be confirmed. For it is the evolution of the brain that creates a mystic or a genius.
TK: And these are the same mystics and geniuses all throughout time, that we would study in the past?
GK: For the first time we will study the religions and the occult literature of the world with an aim to finding how the brain evolves, and what methods are needed to make it more active so that the evolutionary processes become faster.
TK: So in effect this will be the spearhead of a new race of human beings to prove all human begins have this ability.
GK: It will be a spearhead for many things. It will be the spearhead of changes in the social and political systems. It will be a spearhead for the first time bringing to the notice of the race that there is the potential in every human being which is the most precious asset that he has, and which can transform him from a mortal into an immortal and eternal source of happiness.
TK: Is this what evolution has meant of human destiny and it is inevitable for this to take place?
GK: Man has come for this purpose. Otherwise please consider this for a moment: one whole planet -- the Earth -- and all its kingdom -- mineral, animal, everything -- is placed at his disposal. Why? Because man has to attain to other states of consciousness for which all these recourses are needed by him. Otherwise, if it is not a planned creation it would be useless to put all this at his disposal. If he has nothing to do, only to live like animals. It is because he has to reach to higher dimensions of consciousness that all this Earth and its resources have been placed at his disposal, and he has been granted an intelligence to make the best use of it.
TK: A strong love from birth, a strong mother and father, a strong, loving environment will help develop this.
GK: I can't say strong, but I can say that a more harmonious, more peaceful, more happy, more contented humanity will come out of this, and then in every generation there will be some people who have reached the higher dimensions. They will be the rulers, political leaders, scientists, and educators. They will guide the race to rise higher and higher and higher.
TK: And we don't have a spiritual leader of that magnitude today?
GK: At this time we do not but they will come. They will be born when experiments are made and what I say is confirmed.
TK: What is your wish for the children of the future?
GK: Children should be brought up with the ideal cultivated in them that the universe is ruled by an intelligent power, that they must cultivate purity, honesty, truth, compassion and live ideal lives. In that way they will conform to the evolutionary needs. That is the best thing we can do for the children.
TK: How can we help the people today who have been lost to drugs or have killed people? What do they need to know?
GK: When you place before them an alternative that in their own entirety there is a mind of happiness, an ocean of eternal life, and prove it they will take that path. You must show them a better incentive.
TK: What do we need to evolve moderate lifestyles? How can we effect our evolutionary process the best?
GK: We need healthy food, simple dress, a clean shelter, a wholesome occupation, education for our children, to have the highest happiness on the earth. Happiness comes from the mind, not from the world. A man may have all the luxuries but his mind might be depressed. He will never be happy. It is the mind that gives us happiness. A peasant, a poor farmer eating just a bread with a little salt, sometimes has a better appetite and eats with more relish, than a rich man who eats all his delicious food. Nature is very, very wise in this. I have seen people who live hardy lives who eat with such an appetite, simple foods that one would like to eat with them.
TK: Are the biological bases of manic depression, schizophrenia, and genius all manifestations of the same thing?
GK: Yes, they are interrelated. You see, if you do not live a disciplined life, then the awakening of this center can be unhealthy. We know that many of the geniuses perhaps have been most mentally unhealthy, had on mental disorder or the other. This is due to the fact that they did not know how they had to live. Similarly, we have this schizophrenia. Many people who think they are poets, some who think they are spiritual geniuses, some who think they are in touch with God. That means a distorted vision of the same power.
TK: It means that their Kundalini --if that's the right word -- is off balance.
GK: Yes, it means that the system is not pure and that the energy is not working in a healthy way.
TK: Do you feel that there are other life forms beyond our life?
GK: There can be in the universe different species of life more intelligent than we. It is a vast place and there can be thousands of species different and more intelligent than we.
RELATED ARTICLES:

PROPOSAL FOR A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION INTO THE BIOLOGICAL MECHANISM BEHIND HUMAN EVOLUTION EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS

For more information:

Gopi Krishna Homepagee-mail The Kundalini Research Foundation, Ltd.
Post Office Box 2248
Darien, CT 06820

"Gopi Krishna is a truly remarkable man, and I have always been inspired by his works." - Ariel.
Gopi Krishna (1903 - 1984) of India was a yogi, mystic, teacher, social reformer, and writer. His autobiography is known under the title Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man.
In the 1970s he founded together with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker a research foundation "for western sciences and eastern wisdom".
He chose the path of yoga due to his circumstances. His father renounced the world to lead a religious life leaving his twenty-eight year old mother with the responsibility of raising him and his two sisters. His mother now pinned all her hopes for success on her only son.
But he failed to pass the examination to enter college, and he now took a lowly job and established his family. He also started on a discipline of meditation to discover who he was. After having been engaged in this for many years, he had his first Kundalini experience at the age of 34, which he describes thus in his autobiography:
Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord.
Entirely unprepared for such a development, I was completely taken by surprise; but regaining my self-control, keeping my mind on the point of concentration. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness without any outline, without any idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware at every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe.
Kundalini Research Foundation Ltd
"Many thanks for the inspirations" - Sarvaman
"Your writings are amazing. Thank you" - Harlan Mark Vale