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."