Living in the Now - Part 1

As you are born, so will you die. In this process, the duality of human existence, its inevitability, the Ego is formed and acts as a sense-based intelligence, a protector of the physical body, a survival mechanism that you associate with who you are or who you think you are — your identity, the Self. Because it deludes you into thinking that you are It, the Ego plays an important part in the maturation process and the establishment of consciousness.

As something that belongs to duality, the Ego becomes the localization of your consciousness in the body and as the silent observer of the processes of the mind, you notice that the Ego has a distinct way of operating: It thinks in terms of Past and Future. The past is your interpretation of events, a summary of willful actions and behaviors — things that you were a part of or that happened. 

The Ego uses the past to make decisions about the future. It uses logic and emotion to make these decisions. In most cases, your decisions are not premeditated, but are a result of how the Ego feels at any given moment. Nevertheless, your decisions are invariably the result of memories dredged up from past. This is how the Ego operates — using the past to plan future events. 

By creating a myth-image around the name you are given as well as your personality, likes, and dislikes, the Ego takes care of the physical body and props up your persona. It seeks to protect the Self and shield it from the perceived wrongs that occur as a result of contact with other people's Egos as well as the situations you face. It is always on the defensive and it views the Self as separate from the rest of the world. Many people never get beyond associating the Ego with the Self; the ego becomes the persona and must be bolstered and defended at all costs.

However, if you disassociate yourself from the Ego, upon proper introspection you will discover another part of yourself, namely a silent witness whose role is to watch the mental processes of the Ego and your reactions to the events of daily life. This part of the Self, the Higher Self, is motivated by another faculty of the Self — Love.

The Super Ego

Motivated by the Unity of all things and manifested by a feeling that you are no longer separate from the rest of the World, the faculty of Love is triggered by thinking beyond the Self or the Ego. An Ideal, something to strive for and live up to, it vibrates at a higher frequency than the Ego and, when experienced, produces an emotion that feels better than any emotion the Ego generates.

You are an emotional human being whose overall purpose is to be "happy." When you are able to lose yourself in this emotion of Unconditional Love, you will find it greater than the Ego's insatiable appetite for Self-Love. 

You are naturally conditioned to follow what "feels best." Once you realize that Unconditional Love can be the guiding force in your life, you function out of Unconditional Love rather than the Self-Love needs of the Ego. This in turn raises your consciousness beyond the physical plane. You start to develop virtuous characteristics and your behavior begins to be ethical and moral, a quality that is valued in our society and a willful choice for you to aspire to. 

Acting ethically allows you to "live in the Now," a state experienced more as an emotion than as a thought. The Ego is still present; the Ego is always present, but is mostly silenced by living in the Now. When things happen to you, the Ego will "rear its head" and try to guide you. But if you identify the source of this "guidance" as originating from the past Ego-imprints, you realize it is coming from the Ego and you will reject it. 

Acting from Unconditional Love is something that occurs intuitively and connects you to your Spirit. Because you can "lose yourself" in it, you tend to act under its influence. By losing yourself in the "in-the-moment process," you gravitate towards things that make you lose track of time and space.

The mind thinks in terms of past and future. Going beyond your mind means overcoming past and future thoughts and influences. It seems almost natural. And it is. Because in the Now, in the realm beyond Past and Future, beyond the Ego, is the Spirit. 

The Now

This Spirit is the highest part of you as a human being. You are not just Spirit, but a compilation of different elements. Spirit is the highest part of you and you gravitate naturally towards that which is highest in you. It is a natural inclination.

A Kundalini awakening is a transformative experience that plays out over many years in most instances. The Self goes through a process that deals with the expansion of bio-energy and consciousness. Its goal is to catapult the Self into the Now permanently. The mind is bypassed and instead of thinking logically and emotionally, the Self starts to develop an ability to think intuitively and act according to what the Spirit, the highest part of you, wills. 

This is what is meant when people talk about being one with their Holy Guardian Angel. According to Qabalistic teachings, the Holy Guardian Angel is the part of the Self derived from the Spirit. For human beings, it is the highest conception of God that can be conceived from a material standpoint.

Kundalini acts like a switch implanted within the Self by a higher Source that allows us to evolve past the material, physical world in a relatively small amount of time. It is the Great Awakening, the Rebirth from the Christian Pantheon, and the purpose of all religion. 

Because the Now is a place of pure potential, being one with Spirit, allows you to function at your highest potential. In this Pure Potential, all of your highest dreams and desires can come true because you are able to will them into existence. Past conditioning has no hold on people who live in the Now, especially those who have awakened kundalini. They operate at a hyper-consciousness level, which puts them in touch with Cosmic Consciousness.

Cosmic Consciousness

Once the kundalini has activated and the circuit is functioning properly with the connection to the Bindu point at the top back of the head, consciousness funnels out of this point and the initiate experiences the spiritual realm of non-duality. By focusing on this point, all thoughts and emotions are self-reconciled and the initiate experiences pure joy and unobstructed inspiration. That means being in a state of inspiration 24/7 since this fire is unhindered by the workings of the Ego which houses the duality of the mind. Hence by realizing non-duality, the initiate is constantly in the Now and experiences the power of pure consciousness and potential.

With the self-sustaining Kundalini energy now working in you, a whole new world of potential opens up. No task is too hard, no dream is too big, no obstacle can prevent success in any given area of life that you will into existence. By being in the Now, the concept of Will Power, which is your ability to manifest reality, is enhanced a hundred fold. The energy moves towards the Bindu at the top back of the head and you lose yourself in transcendental states through music or art or other awareness observing exercises.

The feeling that is generated is best described as the "Glory of God" alluded to by Jesus Christ and is the exact state he was talking about when referring to the Kingdom of Heaven. This is due to the rapture that is felt in the heart as the self-sustaining Kundalini circuit becomes fully active. Every action makes you feel as if you’re the star in an Epic movie. You are truly a King; the external world is your Kingdom. As a silent observer, you are outside your being, able to control body language and voice tonality and able to convey the desired effect to the people you interact with. The secret to being, and remaining, in this state, or in the "zone," is to be in the Now.

Reply To Critic (A Taoist) Who Doubts My Kundalini Experience

The following is a reply to a criticism of my experience. I include it merely to show how someone on the outside looking in is not qualified to comment unless they have had the same or similar experience. Doubting is fine, but insisting that a person's experience could not have happened the way it is described — without any empirical facts — is reckless to say the least. This critic's take was based solely on a comparison of my account with the Taoist books he read on various subjects related to orthodox Taoist scripture.

"What starts out as seminal fluid is distilled into prana, which is then "drawn" up the spinal column into the brain. How do I know? I followed the meditation method in The Secret of the Golden Flower. Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time contains the details on my experience and my first-hand discoveries on Golden Flower Meditation. My experience happened as I described it, pretty much as your Taoist tradition describes it, give or take differences in terminology. If I did not say it exactly as you believe it should be, I apologize."

Visiting Gopi Krishna With My Guide - JJ Semple, Kashmir, 1977

"Nevertheless, I believe we're talking about the same thing. That I didn't follow a strict formula, imposed by any orthodox religion is accurate. I went out on my own. If you think about it, that's not necessarily wrong because orthodoxies tend to get stuck in dogma after a couple of centuries of doing things the same way. No new discoveries are made or accepted. But Kundalini is a living process. Methods are not written in stone; they evolve. They should evolve. That's when real progress happens. Today's methods and means for activating Kundalini may be unrecognizable in the future because we will have made so many advances, so many seekers trying new approaches. Searching, seeking.

"Many will fail, some will succeed, others will discover unexplored byways. Take the part on symmetry that you dispute. The reason you dismiss it is because you have not experienced in your body what I have experienced in mine. You simply have no data on the subject to report or analyze. Again, if you want to understand it from my perspective, see how symmetry (and loss of it) played a role in the development of my morphology and persona, read Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time. My take on symmetry has nothing to do with the doctrine on Taoist immortals. That's second hand information you're taking on hearsay. I don't know any of these gentlemen, so I don't feel qualified to talk about them. In any case, I'm not criticizing them; I'm merely disputing your use of them to support your comments when you yourself have no first-hand experience with either theirs or my meditation or kundalini practices."

Meditation Retreat

"My account is a summary of what took place in the laboratory of my own body. Did you witness the transformation of any of those Taoist immortals? Were you there? Do you know for sure the exact morphology, somatic or metabolic structure of any of the Taoist immortals you cite? What do you know about their specific symmetry or asymmetry? I write about what I know, perhaps poorly in some instances. I'll try to do better the next time. I'd love to have someone like yourself as a reviewer to go back and forth with before publication.

"Ouspensky said, 'You must verify everything you see, hear, or feel.' Good advice for all of us doing this work. That we don't get the descriptions right the first time is understandable. After all, we're using language of the physical world to explain phenomenon of the metaphysical world. We work through a series of approximations on the way to expressing our experiences as clearly as possible. That's the beauty of the Internet: we write something; we reread it; we add in new material; we find better ways of expressing our experiences; we rewrite it. As for what should be written about and what's 'in the weeds,' I wrote about symmetry and asymmetry because I uncovered information about how our bodies are constructed, how certain stimuli (exterior or interior) affect our physical maturation and growth. This is taking human ontology down to the egg-sperm level, what happens at insemination and even before it, albeit theorizing that there is a 'controlling field' that determines our form and substance, and how stimuli can interrupt the plans for our embodiment, which is then outwardly manifested by our symmetry, which in turn influences our personalities. Please note that I'm not the only person who has lived this, or the only person investigating this. The Biology of Consciousness: Case Studies in Kundalini explores this material in depth, citing, I might add, the work of others on the notion of the controlling field, a phenomenon that is also present during a kundalini awakening in that it facilitates the collision/fusion of matter (sexual energy) and consciousness in a kind of Quantum event.

"Do I believe that every reader will accept my findings and my accounts? No. I know there will be objections that arise on account of terminology, difference in background, and experience."

Seeing The Sacred In a New Way

As has happened to many of you, Kundalini rising came as a complete surprise for me. In the fall of 2005, while attending a forty-day contemplative retreat in Tucson, Arizona, I suddenly began to experience some bizarre physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms that were very much out of the ordinary. 

After my return home to Canada in early December of that year, my concerned wife searched the internet for these symptoms and came up kundalini rising. Neither of us had ever heard of it. So at age fifty-nine, my life took an unexpected turn as the renovation process of kundalini continued its advance and I began a time of witnessing and exploring this very unusual phenomena. This exploration brought me to the writings of  Master Nan Huai-Chin and a tiny piece I would like to share here.

At one point in his book To Realize Enlightenment, Huai-Chin presents the Hundred Word Inscription, written many centuries before by Lu Ch’un-yang. He refers to it as one of the best essays available combining the three teachings of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. I found this Inscription and his further commentary meaningful as it resonated so closely with my own meditation and kundalini journey.

Hundred Word Inscription

To nurture the vital energy, the ch’i, keep watch without words. To subdue the mind, act without acting. Recognize the patriarch in movement and stillness. There is nothing to be concerned about; who else are you seeking? What’s true and eternal must respond to beings: To respond to being, you must not be deluded. If you are not deluded, real nature remains by itself. When real nature remains, vital energy returns by itself. When vital energy returns, the elixir spontaneously forms. In the vessel the fire (of conditioned awareness) and the water (of primordial awareness) are matched,Yin and yang are born in succession. Universal transformation rolls like thunder. White clouds cover the peak in the morning. Sweet due sprinkles down on Sumeru. Drink for yourself the wine of immortality as you roam free, no one will know. Sit and listen to the tune of the zither without strings: Clearly comprehend the working of creation.

Commentary

1. The true meditation work of cultivating the breath, as it moves in and out, watching without words, is the means by which we nurture the vital energy, the ch’i. Let our consciousness follow the breath. 
2. To subdue the mind, we do not try to stop our thoughts. They are already empty; the mere functioning of the mind, illusions. Thoughts are very numerous, and though we try to keep watch over them, we cannot hold them still. Let them pass by. As we observe them, they disappear. Act without acting. 
3. Movement and stillness are both unborn. If we do not attach to the movement of thoughts, or fall asleep, we can be the master over both the movement and stillness that enter awareness, and empty them out. Let the “patriarch” observe all that is going on. It is very important to recognize the patriarch in both motion and stillness. 
4. No need to seek any other method. 
5. To deal with people and handle situations, you must be able not to go against our fundamental nature. 
6. We do not have to do any work: mind and energy are joined together, and mind and things have one single source. 
7. When thoughts have truly been emptied out, vital energy returns by itself. 
8. The elixir forms by itself. It is something natural, something that is inherently present in our lives. 
9. The elixir, symbolically like the moon, is a round point within representing the point of perfect, inherently awake, spiritually illuminated, enlightened nature. The vessels represent the body, the transformative functioning of our own energy channels. Through cultivation of the breath, letting go of body awareness, letting go of thoughts, the energy channels spontaneously undergo a transformation. Yin and yang are born in succession. 
10. With a peal of thunder all the energy channels in our body are open. We move back and forth with the spirit of heaven and earth. We are one body with the universe. At this point, the central channel is really opened. 
11. White clouds cover the peak in the morning. We are anointed with the light of wisdom. Sumeru means our head. The great bliss chakra on the top of our head opens. 
12. The tune of the zither without strings stands for entering Samadhi by means of hearing, contemplating and cultivating practice.

~ Adapted from To Realize Enlightenment — Master Nan Huai-Chin

When reflecting on these ancient texts, it’s amazing how they have a way of speaking to our own personal experience of Meditation and Kundalini Rising and its subsequent development. The legitimacy of this Hundred Word Inscription is founded on the fact that it speaks to us, not just intellectually, but also as a confirmation of the spiritual path we are currently following, often not by choice. It legitimizes our own journey, and therefore, can represent a loyal guide for further spiritual development. Consider meditating on this work of wisdom to see if it resonates with your life’s experience as it did with mine.

I am a Christian and have been deeply immersed in it for many years. If read in their proper context, many passages in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, have a similar effect. To appreciate this, you must go below the literal reading and look for the underlining meaning the writer is expressing. When you do this, the words convey a meaning that is not only understandable, but which can be applied personally to your own journey of faith, thus providing a clear test of its legitimacy — something I generally do not question.

However, I also have to admit that many areas of Christianity, at least the sector in which I am involved, do not meet this test of legitimacy. Although I may understand it, where it originated from, and even why some may choose to believe it, in my mind their legitimacy has not been made real or proven. To be honest, my Christian faith would not change a bit if these things were to disappear suddenly. A lot of these things have to do with dogma and doctrine developed over the centuries and have very little to do with the primary Christian message. Others have to do with traditional practices that have been declared sacred, but, nevertheless, contradict the primary Christian message. Others, as mentioned before, have to do with paying too much attention to the literal word and completely missing the underlying message, thereby turning what might be considered sacred into the imaginary.

  

One of the major obstacles that I experience in Christianity is its failure to acknowledge and benefit from the legitimate and informed wisdom found in the texts such as Lu Ch’un-yang’s Hundred Word Inscription.

Every Christian who has experienced Kundalini Rising faces the tension of being in a community which has declared the very thing that makes that person a more true and loving Christian a heresy.

So that we may all see what is sacred in a new way and without judgement, it is my hope that science will eventually affirm the existence of the subtle body system, the hidden (kundalini) energy system, along with a path to revolutionize and evolve consciousness.

Ah! But even these are thoughts, illusions, to be passed by, emptied out:

"Sweet due sprinkles down on Sumeru.
"Drink for yourself the wine of immortality as you roam free, no one will know."

Kundalini – Then and Now

Forty years ago, when I activated kundalini, I was a blank slate in more ways than one.

For one, I was a lost soul, immature and self-destructive. Two, I had never heard the term Kundalini. To give you an idea of just how surprised I was to watch this alien energy take over my being, the book I was practicing kundalini meditation with, The Secret of the Golden Flower, does not even mention the term Kundalini once, even though it’s an ancient method for awakening it. Not one mention. Nada.

Instead, it uses the term “Primal Spirit” to denote Kundalini — in opposition to “Conscious Spirit,” which is a stand-in for the ego. So, the book outlines a meditation method — which I dutifully practiced for over a year. At the same time, it presents some venerable insights into human ontology, specifically insights on the battle between the Primal Spirit and Conscious Spirit and how, if you succeed in following the method correctly, you will awaken the Primal Spirit (kundalini) and it will dislodge the Conscious Spirit (the ego) and take its place as the ruler (the guiding instrument) of your being.

Basically, it states that under the thrall of the Conscious Spirit, you have been going about life all wrong. An idea common to many spiritual methods, i.e., Ouspensky's Fourth Way.

Activating the Primal Spirit (Kundalini) fixes this. Little did I know that these words would be prophetic, that over time, Kundalini (Primal Spirit) would do exactly that — completely overhaul my being. 

Of course, it’s not very meaningful until you’re actually living it.

Not that, once awakened, kundalini takes care of every aspect of your life. No, it’s a gradual process. I had to first surrender to it, before it changed me somatically, metabolically, anatomically, hormonally so that, as a result, I could watch these organic changes affect my psychic and emotional states, my mental capacities, and my spiritual nature, allowing me to see and perceive metaphysical activity and experience a conscious, energetic shift in being. In effect, the awakening experience resembles a nuclear reaction as matter in the form of sexual energy collides with consciousness in a kind of Quantum event.

Back then, 40 years ago, in the early 1970s, there were no kundalini support systems, no formulas for activating this energy, not that awakening kundalini or the Primal Spirit was my actual goal. For most of my practice, I considered the discussion about the Primal and Conscious Spirits to be so much allegorical babble. It was only when I started feeling sensations inside my body — the awakening of certain energy centers — that I began to take what I had been reading seriously. The allegorical, mystical contents began to make empirical sense.

When I started the practice, I was living in Paris. As the sensations I felt began to affect my body, my brain, and my sexual nature physically, I realized I would have to change my environment — which to me, meant either going to an ashram or, like my role model, Milarepa, find a place to work alone. Realizing that finding someone who understood my situation was problematic, I chose the latter course, becoming a solitary seeker/practitioner.

I found an old house in the south of France that I rented for about forty dollars a month and with my meager possessions — a few records and books — I moved into a house in Languedoc, about ten miles from Lodève, where I stayed for over a year until Kundalini finally awakened.

JJ Semple's Kundalini Awakening House in France

The details of this sojourn are set down in my book, Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time.

Today, the solitary retreat is out of fashion. And yet, there’s a lot to recommend it. It was the norm for thousands of years. Buddha, Jesus Christ, Lao Tse, Milarepa, St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart — all travelled the solitary path. All experienced the exhilaration, as well as the pain, doubt, loneliness, and despair that accompanies the mystical experience.

In the solitary context, you learn to figure things out  — without Twitter, Facebook, Google Hangouts, blogs, Meetups, chat rooms, or digital bulletin boards. And without disparaging any of these, I do believe the time-tested solitary path works well because it turns you into a spiritual detective, makes you self-reliant.

But, today, given the interconnected, interdependent paradigm we live in, it’s hardly practical. Today, my $40 a month fortress would cost four hundred to a thousand dollars a month.

Nevertheless, since those bygone days of 40 years ago, not only have the number of individual kundalini accounts increased exponentially, they have done so regardless of geography, culture, language, and religion. What’s more, these accounts share many of the same effects. People state that they experience the same effects or results over and over, time after time. Kundalini affects them in the same ways. What does this mean?

It means that kundalini is no longer dependent on any of the institutional orthodoxies of our day. Anyone can raise it. You don’t have to be trained in science, education, religion, business, or politics. You don’t have to be a cult follower. As a matter of fact, it’s probably better if you aren’t under the influence of any orthodoxy — religious or otherwise. Why? Because you can do it on your own.

Kundalini is a branch of biological science in search of validation and it should be approached as such.

Around 1931 Science Overtook Religion as a Field of Interest

Somewhere around 1931, there occurred a major cultural and social milestone: science passed religion as a field of interest. As you can see from this Google NGram (above), which tracks mentions of words and terms in books and other publications, the two lines of interest crossed in 1931: there started to be more talk about science and less about religion. A major tectonic shift.

A second shift, a big surge of interest in spirituality occurred in the 1970s. As you can see in this second NGram, the gap between physics and spirituality narrowed.

The 1970s Saw Big Upsurge of Interest in Spirituality

As interest in spirituality increases, interest in religion decreases, and although the following chart shows us that the one is not going to overtake the other any time soon, it does show a narrowing and a clear picture of a movement or an impulse on the rise.

Interest in Spirituality Increases as Religion Decreases

Gopi Krishna recognized this shift. It was reflected in his writings on sexual sublimation and the biological nature of kundalini, that Kundalini is:

• A biological phenomenon with metaphysical overtones, but without a causal connection to any religion,
• One of the predominant drivers behind this shift.

And there are two possible hypotheses for the increased interest in kundalini:

1. The notion that an energy continuum some call consciousness is causing greater numbers of Quantum events that consist of the release of sexual energy in greater numbers of people which awakens kundalini with greater frequency. Kundalini is now being passed on and activated through genetic improvements at a greater rate, and, as such, we no longer have to strive to awaken it because nature is doing the job for us. In effect, we’re being pollinated by an evolutionary impulse. Or,
2. Quite simply more people are practicing the mindful arts and meditation methods that lead to kundalini activation.

Examples of the first hypothesis are found in the rise in spontaneous kundalini events, caused, it seems, by any number of triggers — from drugs to sexual encounters, from doing nothing at all to eye-gazing. At present, we don’t know a lot about the reason for these events, but we are beginning to study them.

A case study that illustrates the second hypothesis is the work of Dr. Herbert Benson, the creator of the Relaxation Response, a movement which divorced meditation from its religious influences.

If you think about it, the popularity of pastimes like meditation has motivated the disassociation of religion and spirituality. As more people began to meditate to relieve stress, EKG and other stress-related tests showed us there was a science behind meditation; it effects could be measured.

And that’s why more and more people meditate. Because it’s become a secular pastime, which has removed the barrier for many individuals put off by having to adhere to some religion in order to participate. Meditation became an acceptable self-improvement activity, like aerobics.

Doctor Benson imported his method from the East, making sure it remained agnostic. Agnostic and relatively safe. By this, I’m referring to the fact that he only imported the first two steps of the venerable Eastern method — diaphragmatic deep breathing and control of heart rate. I wondered why he had left out the final step — the backward-flowing method, the step I discovered in The Secret of the Golden Flower and was finally able to master, the key to raising kundalini.

I figured he had left it out for one of two reasons: either he didn’t understand it, or he was afraid its implementation would be problematic for the average Western practitioner.

My analysis is echoed in Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment, a book by Mariana Caplan.

“Unfortunately, but inevitably, in the mass importation of Eastern spiritual traditions onto Western soil what has been imported are the visible, tangible practices.”

In other words, formulas, but not the cultural matrix from which they arose. So while stress-relief meditation, or meditation-lite, has continued to make headway, kundalini meditation has no real substantive connection with the Eastern tradition from which it sprang. In the West, Kundalini activation methods are fragmented and frequently at odds with one another.

Interest in Kundalini Took Off In the 1960s-70s

The will is there, and so are the signs of progress — as evidenced by the growth in all types of kundalini awakenings. Kundalini has influenced the Global Shift of Consciousness.

However, as you can see by the following chart, there’s still a lot of ground to be gained. When kundalini is matched up against some of the major social preoccupations of our era, there is very little name recognition, much less understanding of its properties:

Comparing Kundalini Against Major Social Preoccupations

Moreover, when you mention kundalini in the same breath as many of the sacred cows of the spiritual movement, kundalini has nowhere near the name recognition:

Comparing Kundalini Against Recognized Spiritual Trends

If it is to be positioned as a subject that scientists are eager to explore, it needs to achieve critical mass.

We cannot stand idly by; we must perfect safe and repeatable methods for awakening kundalini and we must document the various triggers and effects of the kundalini experience.

Fortunately, a passing of the baton from an older generation of explorers like myself, a generation that had first-hand contact with Gopi Krishna, the 20th century’s foremost writer and researcher on the subject, has begun. Younger individuals such as Michael and Linda Molina, Duncan Carroll, Vivek Govekar, Neven Paar, and others I have not yet met, have introduced new skill sets into the mix: software engineering, artificial intelligence, innovative website creation, documentary film and video production, scientific analysis, collection, collation and compiling of kundalini experiences.

We look to these young persons to spearhead the repositioning of kundalini as a subject that achieves the critical mass necessary to eliciting scientific interest and peer review.

Heredity, Environment, and Karma

We know about the influence of heredity and environment on the ontological(1) and psychological evolution of groups. To some degree, we can even predict the development of individuals.

For instance, the current US population is 325,000,000 (three hundred million). A recent Surgeon General's report states that one in seven (1/7 | 14%) are, or will become, addicted. That would amount to 45M persons becoming addicted. The USA Today summary of the report states that “genetics accounts for about half of a person’s likelihood of becoming addicted.” Could this curiously worded sentence also mean that half of the 45M will become addicted due to heredity factors? And if this is true then the other half of the population’s addiction will be due to environmental factors? Even if we take the more literal meaning, it still tells us that addiction is half heredity and half environmental so that:

• A person might become addicted because he or she was exposed to prescription drugs for medical reasons and, after treatment ended, is psychologically unable to return to his or her former prescription-less life style, or, 
• A person might have sampled the wares in a friend’s medicine cabinet and become immediately dependent because his or her DNA receptors, inherited from a parent, had flipped a switch in the brain. 

So where does karma fit in? Setting aside the issue that karma is not something that science acknowledges as real — not that science accepts the Christian notion of God either — it is part of the present topic.

Karmic Lovers

What is karma? This quicky, Internet definition states: (in Hinduism and Buddhism) "the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.”

A definition, which, in our example, might impact an individual’s chances of becoming addicted, or, in a more spiritual context, might influence an individual’s chances of successfully arousing kundalini.

In a recent Symposium, we discussed the attributes that facilitate Kundalini awakenings, one of which was the notion of the Field, or a kind of Quantum event that “bounces” the affected person out of his normal vibrational alignment into an alternate, random or intentional, alignment of matter and consciousness that ultimately produces a Kundalini awakening.

“The greatest book in the world, the Mahabharata, tells us we all have to live and die by our karmic cycle. Thus works the perfect reward-and-punishment, cause-and-effect, code of the universe. We live out in our present life what we wrote out in our last. But the great moral thriller also orders us to rage against karma and its despotic dictates. It teaches us to subvert it. To change it. It tells us we also write out our next lives as we live out our present.”
~ The Alchemy of Desire—Tarun J. Tejpal

The thesis of my presentation was that matter (sexual energy) and consciousness, in their own right, are not enough to guarantee a kundalini awakening; these elements must be accompanied by a Quantum event. This would explain why certain persons are unable to arouse kundalini no matter how hard they try. It would also explain why kundalini visits certain persons without their ever wishing for it.

It might also explain why some people resist addiction in spite of harboring the characteristics of the 17%. There is a random, aleatory aspect to the energy continuum that influences karmic certainties — reasons why some individuals escape poverty and others escape addiction when all environmental and heredity markers point to becoming dependent.

Can we then overthrow the effects of heredity and environment in order to create an entirely independent new Being? Kundalini provides a biological basis — a jumping off point for karmic realignment. However...as you move forward, take nothing for granted.

°Ontology:

1. a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being 
2. a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence

Four Worlds of the Qabalah and Dream Symbolism

Most people become preoccupied with visions and dreams and spend a great deal of time and energy trying to interpret what they see which just entangles their minds and destabilizes them. In 99% of the cases, if a person dreams of a natural event such as a tornado or tsunami, it doesn't mean that they are blessed with prescience and their dream is going to become reality somewhere in the world. They may think so, but it's a waste of time and that person will be ensnared in illusion.

Every human being is a Microcosm of the Macrocosm. In other words, every human being is the center of the Universe and has a Solar System within themselves. Due to the fact that we have all have different past conditioning and we were brought up in different environments, every individual's imagination is different from everyone else's imagination. But the formula stays the same.

If the energy of St. Michael is present in a room of four people, it is highly unlikely that everyone will see Him. Some will even see a Her. A person with a Christian background will see an Angel of Fire, a Hindu will see Shiva. Another person will see the Voodoo Deity Shango, or the blazing torch held in the Olympics. It doesn't really matter. We all experience this cultural bias.

People get too caught up in their meditative or dream visions — the things they see in the Astral World when their Ego is turned off. Afterwards, they get spend time defending what they saw with their Ego.

Most of the time we say the same thing, but our Egos fail to realize it so we end up fighting and defending our positions as if they are sacred because it's what we saw. In reality, we feel and experience the same thing, but we don't see it the same way.

In terms of the Holy Qabalah there are Four Worlds. The First World is called Atziluth. This is the Archetypal World or World of Pure Spirit which activates all the other Worlds. In other words, all other Worlds evolve from it.

Atziluth — because it is Pure Spirit beyond time, beyond space, and in essence beyond manifestation — is beyond description. Some Qabalists use the term Atziluth as the Divine World, or the World where the Thoughts of God exist. This is the world of the Primal Fire. The important inference from this World is that it is the "Thought" of God as this Archetype is something we can all agree on.

It is beyond time and space — the first thing that filters through us when we relate to the world and look outwards. An apple is an apple, not an orange. Same as a cup is a cup, not a spoon. We can all agree on this. If we do not, we are labeled insane. How we see it though, depends on the other Worlds that it filters through.

The Four Worlds of the Qabalah

The Second World is Briah, also known as the Creative World. This is the World of pure Intellect and the World of Primal Water. Water is always seen in relation to its opposite, which is Fire. So the Primal Fire sends a thought impulse into Primal Water and a Thought is formed. This Thought is not a visual Thought because that takes place in the next World, but this is the seat of Intuition so it is an Intuitional Thought.

This is still a Thought, but more of an impulse, something we can feel in the deepest parts of our Being. We feel this with the Unconditional Love in our hearts. Hence the more Unconditional Love a person carries in their heart, the higher they are elevated and the more Intuitive, more Empathic they are deemed to be. They are considered feelers, instead of a thinkers.

This means their consciousness resides in this world of Briah and is the highest conception of God we can experience since the World above it, the World of Primal Fire is a Force, while Water is a Form and can be seen by human beings intuitionally with the Mind's eye.

So in relation to dream symbolism we can agree on this as well as it’s the absorbing part of the Self that receives from the World above it and reads its real form. There is still no illusion at this point.

We intuitively agree on things, but when we start to break it down intellectually with our Egos, we filter down into the lower Worlds and Light which shines from above starts to be tempered by illusion, or the reflection of the Truth, and now past conditioning comes into play and the thing we are seeing or intuitively feeling starts to get its visual form and we "see" it with our Mind's eye as a picture.

The Third world is called Yetzirah and is the World of Formation, the Astral World, which is where the subtle and flashing patterns behind physical matter are found. This is Primal Air. In this World, because it's Air, the Ego starts to get involved as it does in all Air operations since Air is a lower manifestation of Spirit that moves and gives life to Water as well as Fire. They cannot exist without Air as the medium of expression.

The whole operation is a cohesive whole which operates on the three elements of Air, Fire and Water working with each other. Air is the firmament which holds the other two elements in balance. Without Air there is no life. Air is where we feel and see the Astral World. The Astral World is created by Fire and Water, but we see it with the Mind's eye because of Air. Air is imagination.

A human being without imagination is not a fully-functioning human being. He or she resides in a body bereft of motivation, drive, inspiration, and is basically living as an automaton, feeding its bodily needs and desires, but unable to participate in the beautiful thing we call human life.

Sadly many people lack imagination and reside fully in their Egos and past conditioning. They resonate with the Past, unable to live in the Now or plan for the Future because to do so you need imagination.

In terms of dream symbolism, it is at this point we start to see differences in our visions, but in spite of the fact that they may be one and the same archetype or subject. But because of our Egos, we get into defensive mode since what we experienced was real to us and we fail to see we are talking about the same thing. This is the essence of the St. Michael parable cited above.

As Above, So Below

The Fourth and final World is Assiah, which is the active world, or the physical world of sensation, both seen and unseen energies of matter. This is the physical world which we all take part in and experience with the five senses of touch, taste, smell, sound and sight. The three other Worlds above are all experienced with the sixth sense through the Mind's eye.

We won't talk much about this World because we've lived in it since birth and, because of the way the five senses function, we can agree with it. It's because of the experience of the five senses since birth that the Ego evolved and attached itself to the consciousness of the physical body.

The rising in consciousness is the lifting of the Veil of Illusion and the rising of the True Self beyond the fake Self or the Ego. This is Spiritual Evolution: the purification of Karma and eradication of the Ego. Karma accumulates as a result of the growth of the Ego. To be born again in the Spirit one must shed the the Ego.

Visions are most often a product of the imagination which is a product of an energy being present in the system, the Aura. Dreams are the same thing. As the energy manifests itself in the Aura, it needs to filter through the Four Worlds in order to leave the Aura, otherwise it remains lodged there. Human consciousness has to enter into an Alpha state in order to achieve this.

This can be done through meditation or, more commonly, during dream states. Someone who does ritual Magick or energy invocations can bring in the desired energy into their Aura and this energy would affect their consciousness throughout the day until the person meditates, which is when these visions take place and the energy takes form. When they go to sleep, their dreams are influenced by this energy.

"As Above, So Below" is a Hermetic axiom that explains the correspondence between the different planes of existence, or Worlds. As one thing is happening in one "plane" it affects the manifestation in other "planes." Plane and World are the same thing in this instance. Everything which is pure energy has to filter through the Four Worlds in order to take effect.

Energy is invoked in the World of Briah by using the power of the World of Atziluth. But in order to manifest itself, it has to go through the World of Formation or Yetzirah where it can be experienced as a vision, dream, or inspired thought. I say inspired Thought because this is not a Thought which is created by the Ego, but a Thought which is created by an energy outside the Self — a direct Thought from the True or Higher Self which resides in the Primal Fire or Atziluth.

Someone who is in touch with the World of Atziluth and Briah on a continual basis throughout the day will have very a strong intuition and may receive prophetic ideas or premonitions because they see what is going to happen before it filters down through the other 2 Worlds and actually happens. But to be completely attuned to these worlds one has to be highly evolved.

Everything has to filter through the Four Worlds to come to apparition. However, those adepts are rare because to be attuned to the first Two worlds in modern day society, you have to completely lose sight of the Ego and its impulses, unless you are in a constant state of meditation which is nearly impossible.

People with an awakened Kundalini that is permanently functioning 100% in the brain will be in touch with Primal Fire and Primal Water and will be affected very little by their Ego and workings of the lower two Worlds. A permanent Kundalini awakening produces a complete numbing down of the physical body so that the consciousness is not aware of it, but is lost in itself, allowing the individual to see themselves from a third-person perspective where they literally see themselves outside of their own body.

This permanent out-of-body experience of life is one of the gradual steps of the Kundalini awakening. It may take many years to attune to it, but it is one of the ways in which humans evolve. To completely leave the body and become one with Cosmic Consciousness is Spiritual Evolution. It is the liberation of consciousness from the body to become absorbed into the Universal Whole.

In reality, we are all just sparks of consciousness localized in a physical body for the duration of time that the body is alive on planet Earth. Let those with ears of understanding comprehend this concept. It is the full breaking down of the Ego and is truly the cornerstone of all religion. But remember always that lips of wisdom are open only to the ears of understanding.

For most people these words you are reading will not make it past the second world of Yetzirah because Wisdom and Understanding take Place in the first two Worlds. And for Wisdom to exist there has to be Understanding, and vice versa.

People get caught up trying to interpret their visions. If they see something outside of the realm of their Ego or something they unconsciously thought up, they believe it has to be some prophetic vision or premonition. But in most cases it is just something that filtered through the Astral, an energy that came into the Aura in order to be seen and in most cases is not important.

If one misses a vision or can't interpret it, does it matter? No, in no way does it matter. If it filtered through a person's imagination, it did what it was supposed to do, which was enter into their aura and send them a message. The message was already received in the Worlds higher than the one where they are trying to interpret the message — the Astral World.

Spiritual Rebirth is a process of forgetting, of eradicating memories. Remove the memory of the Ego and to have the person exist in the Now. The Now is a place of No Thought. Hence, complicating your lives by trying to interpret visions actually working against you. Stay in No Thought, and ride the wave of Pure Consciousness. This is the message of the Masters.