I continue to feel tempted to add my own comments to what I have read in Gopi Krishna’s book. I believe that this book has fully succeeded in achieving its author’s aims, namely to provide autobiographical material capable of provoking further discussion and research on this profoundly important subject: the spontaneous awakening of kundalini as the initial phase of the individuation process.
After reading the subsequent chapters—chapter twelve in particular—I asked myself what the reason was for his continuing suffering. He writes that he managed to cope with the initial shock of the awakening of kundalini. His life returned to its former course, and his physical and psychological health was almost entirely restored.
“Physically I became almost the same as before—healthy and resilient, capable of enduring hunger, heat, cold, exhausting mental and physical work, as well as anxiety and discomfort.”
— Gopi Krishna
Despite this, his suffering continues, and we understand its cause from his own words. He writes that not for a single moment did he forget the instant of the initial awakening of kundalini. Once he had tasted the nectar of bliss and of an unrestricted Self, returning to the ordinary mode of life in a body with its five senses began to resemble a prison to him—dull, grey, and endlessly oppressive.
His only consolation was his dreams, which at least partially allowed him to soothe his suffering. They immersed him in a world of vivid and saturated images, where he could once again experience a sense of expansion and ecstasy. If he failed to get enough sleep, he lacked the strength to endure the following day with even relative calm.
“The dreams were so vivid and brilliant that in them I lived in a radiant world where every object shone dazzlingly against an incredibly beautiful background, and it seemed to me that I was floating in heavens populated by benevolent beings. The last thing I usually saw before waking was an unearthly landscape or a figure enveloped in blinding light. The visions were so vivid that the surrounding world I found myself in after awakening appeared dark as a dungeon… I distinctly felt myself descending from a higher level to a lower one and noted a contraction of the surrounding space, as though from vast expanses I were entering a small room.”
For me, the explanation above is extremely important, because it describes the most essential characteristic of the depressive states that accompany the initial stages of the process of individuation / spiritual transformation—the feeling of being like a “spirit trapped in a bottle,” an involuntary inhabitant of a narrow, confined, and grey room. Most people who pass through such states, as a rule, do not understand them, because they lack a prior memory, as is the case with Gopi Krishna. Nevertheless, their experience is the same as his, because these states are the opposite of bliss and ecstasy. In the game of duality called human life, everything comes in pairs—while we are experiencing one side of the equation, its opposite is present at the same moment, but in the shadow of the unconscious.
Something similar is shared by Jung in the chapter “Visions” from his Autobiography. There he describes his experience of encountering death at the beginning of 1944, when he suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital. At that time his earthly Self had shrunk to an insignificant point in the continuum of eternity, and the return to his body was filled with immense pain and resistance to life.
“…I had the feeling that everything that had been up to then was slipping away from me; everything I had aimed at, wanted, thought—the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence—fell away from me, or was taken from me—an extraordinarily painful process. Yet something remained, for it was as though everything I had experienced or done, everything that had happened around me, was now with me. I could also say: it was with me, and I was it. So to speak, I consisted of it. I consisted of my history and felt that this was me. ‘I am this bundle of what has been and has been done.’
This experience brought me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of immense fullness. There was nothing left that I wanted or desired; that is to say, I existed, so to speak, objectively; I was what I had been and what I had lived. At first the feeling dominated that I was destroyed, stripped bare, even robbed, but suddenly that too vanished. Everything seemed to have passed away; only the fait accompli (the accomplished fact) remained, without any reference to the past. There was no regret that something had gone or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was, and that was everything.”
— C. G. Jung, Autobiography, p. 287
His experience of freedom and bliss is interrupted when, coming from the Earth in its primordial image as healer, the figure of the treating physician appears. He tells him that there is “protest” against his wish to depart, and this returns him back into the body. It takes him, however, a full three weeks before he makes the decision to live.
“In reality, another full three weeks passed before I reached the decision to live again. I could not eat, because I felt aversion toward all food. The view of the city and the mountains from my hospital bed was like a painted curtain full of black holes, or like a perforated newspaper page scattered with photographs that meant nothing to me. Disappointed, I thought to myself: ‘Now I will have to return once again to the “system of little boxes.”’ It seemed to me as though beyond the horizon of the cosmos some three-dimensional world had been artificially constructed, in which there exists a separate little box for every human being, where he sits. Now I was supposed once again to convince myself that this was something important! Life and the whole world appeared to me like a prison, and I was endlessly angry that I now had to regard all this again as something normal and in order. I had just been happy that at last everything had fallen away, and now it was as though I—like all other people—would once again be hung on strings in the little box. While I was floating in space, I felt weightless; nothing burdened me. Now all of this was supposed to end!”
— Jung, Autobiography, p. 288
Steve Rother also writes that the more difficult transition is not dying, but being born. Not the departure of the soul, but its embodiment is what is truly painful, because of the lowering of vibrations that give rise to the feeling of contraction and density.
“During those weeks I lived in a strange rhythm. During the day I was more depressed; I felt unhappy and weak, hardly daring to move. Filled with bitterness, I thought to myself—here it is again, I must return to this grey world. Toward evening I would fall asleep, sleeping until around midnight; then I would come to myself and lie awake for about an hour, but in a completely different state. I found myself in something like ecstasy or bliss. I felt as if I were floating in space, as though I were sheltered in the bosom of the universe, in a kind of majestic emptiness filled with the most complete feeling of happiness imaginable. ‘This is eternal bliss, which cannot be described at all, it is so marvelous!’ I thought.”
— Jung, Autobiography, p. 289
It is easy to see the parallel between Jung’s experiences in the world of visions / dreams and those of Gopi Krishna. Jung also suffered during the transition from the expanded nocturnal consciousness to the constricted consciousness of the day:
“All these experiences were wonderful; night after night I immersed myself in a state of the purest bliss, ‘surrounded by the images of all creation.’ Gradually the motifs blended into one another and faded. The visions usually did not last more than about an hour, after which I fell asleep. With the coming of morning I already felt: here comes the grey morning again! The grey world with its little cells! What an absurdity, what a dreadful meaninglessness! This world appeared downright ridiculous in comparison with those fantastically intense inner experiences of mine! My visions and states ceased after nearly three weeks, with my gradual return to life.
One can hardly imagine the beauty and intensity of feeling during these visions. They are the most extraordinary thing I have ever experienced! And what a contrast with the day! It was a true torment, and my nerves were completely shattered. Everything irritated me—everything was so material, so crude, clumsy, limited both spatially and spiritually. For some unknown reason everything had been artificially forced into fixed frames, and yet possessed a kind of hypnotic power that made one believe that all this was reality itself, even though one had clearly grasped its emptiness. In fact, despite my regained faith in the world, from that time on I was never able to rid myself of the impression that this life is only a segment of existence, played out within a three-dimensional world system created especially for this purpose.”
— Jung, Autobiography, pp. 290–291
The loss of the meaning of life is also one of the characteristics of depressive states. For this reason, a description such as the one above helps to explain why they are an inevitable part of processes of spiritual awakening (other names are “nigredo,” “the dark night of the soul,” “the third kind of suffering”). Proximity to what lies “on the other side of the veil” is an approach toward death, and this renders meaningless everything that our earthly ego values and strives for. But since such proximity also contains many dangers, this is the reason why we have no memory of the beyond.
From the subsequent chapters of Gopi Krishna’s book (chapters fourteen and fifteen), we learn in detail about this danger. After resuming his meditative practices, he gradually finds himself once again immersed in a world of bliss and ecstasy. This time, however, the “voltage” of the energy passing through him is so strong that his physical body cannot withstand it, and the ensuing nervous and physiological collapse is even more painful and terrifying than the initial one.
From what Jung shares, we also understand that returning to life was a very difficult decision for him. Proximity to the “other world” seriously endangers our connection to earthly life—once one has tasted the bliss of expanded consciousness, it becomes difficult to return again to life in the little box.
“I would never have thought that a human being could experience something like this, that a state of permanent bliss is possible. The visions and experiences were completely real; nothing in them was the product of subjectivism, they were absolutely objective. The word ‘eternity’ frightens us, but I can describe what I experienced only as a timeless state of bliss, in which present, past, and future merged into one. Everything that happens in time was there as a single objective whole. Nothing was situated in time, nor could it be measured by temporal concepts. What was experienced could rather be described as a state of feeling that cannot be produced by the imagination. For how could I imagine that I exist simultaneously yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Then one thing would not yet have begun, another would be pure present, and a third would already be finished—and yet everything would be one. The only thing feeling could encompass was a totality, a wholeness with shimmering nuances, containing the expectation of what is beginning, surprise at what is happening, and satisfaction or disappointment at the outcome of what has passed. An indescribable whole, into which one is woven and yet perceives it completely objectively.”
— Jung, Autobiography, p. 291
The longing to experience once again the ecstasy of the expanded Self can turn into a drug for some people who suffer from the limitations of time and space. In order not to succumb to the song of the sirens, faith in meaning is required—a meaning that helps one understand the purpose of embodiment: the generation of consciousness and creativity on Earth.
“After my illness, a fruitful period of work began for me. Many of my major works were created only then. Insight, or the view of the end of all things, gave me the courage for new formulations. I no longer tried to consolidate my own opinions, but trusted the flow of my thought. Thus, one problem after another flowed toward me and took shape.”
— Jung, Autobiography, p. 292
There was also something else, even more important, that followed his illness:
“Something else followed my illness. I could formulate it as a ‘yes’ to existence—an unconditional ‘yes’ to what is, without subjective objections; acceptance of the conditions of existence as they are—as I see them, as I understand them. Acceptance of my own nature as it is. At the beginning of the illness I had the feeling that I had made a mistake in my conduct, that to some extent I myself was to blame and bore responsibility for the failure. But when one follows the path of individuation, when one lives one’s own life, one must also accept errors; otherwise life would not be whole. There is no guarantee—not for a single moment—that we will not fall into some error or even mortal danger. One imagines that perhaps there exists a secure path, but that would be the path of the dead. Then nothing happens anymore, or at least nothing right happens. Whoever takes the secure path is as good as dead.”
— Jung, Autobiography, p. 293
It becomes clear that the unconditional “yes” to life does not lead to inert drifting with the current, but to precisely the opposite—to greater courage to remain faithful to oneself and the freedom to follow one’s individual path, overcoming the inevitable fears of life in a material body.
“Only after the illness did I understand how important it is to accept one’s own fate. For in this way there is present a Self that would not bend even if something incomprehensible were to occur. A Self that endures, that bears the truth; a Self that copes with the world and with fate. Then even a defeat is a victory. Nothing is destroyed, neither outwardly nor inwardly, because one’s own continuity has withstood the flow of life and time. But all this can happen only when one does not interfere crudely with the working of fate.”
— C. G. Jung, Autobiography, p. 293
Of all the quotations above, for me this one is the most valuable—not only because it shows what the most important means is for coping with the dangers along the path and not yielding to forces we do not understand, but also because it describes what the most precious result of a completed process of renewal looks like—the philosophers’ stone of the alchemists: a Self that nothing can destroy, neither from without nor from within.
Before that, however, for a long time we remain in depression—the favored face of the Destroyer.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
