Core-Experiences

Written by Gary Osborn between 1993 and 1997.

Are Our Experiences Kundalini Related?  

As mentioned earlier, only days after his own core-experience in 1991, my brother began eagerly searching for some answers as to what had happened to him. He eventually stumbled across some information about a phenomenon called Kundalini. What he discovered about this phenomenon seemed to correspond with his own experiences. Again, many mystics and Yogi’s – especially those in the East – will often spend many years meditating and adopting certain Yoga positions to eventually reach enlightenment. It seemed that on that day in 1991, enlightenment had come to my brother, spontaneously and unexpectedly without any conscious desire on his part.

  As said, we both discovered that the same thing was happening to many people in the West, but in different ways. All this has led to a kind of ‘pigeonholing’ regarding people’s accounts of the same phenomenon, and all under the many appellations that have been given to different kinds of paranormal phenomena. It’s no wonder that these experiences are then interpreted as such – even though they feature the same ‘energy phenomenon.’ It seemed that people had not yet realised or understood that all our paranormal and mystical experiences are the many conditions of this one phenomenon, and that man and all his experiences, whether they are normal, paranormal or mystical, owe their very existence to it.

  Most of the works I looked at usually included second-hand or rehashed quotations that had been originally drawn from the ancient Sanskrit texts, the Vedas. The bits of information that I had gleaned from these works were important only in giving me an outline of the knowledge that had been gathered about this ‘energy phenomenon.’ The best information came from those who had actually experienced it: intelligent and articulate individuals like Swami Vivekananda and Gopi Krishna, who were passionate about detailing and defining it, not only for themselves but for others.

  For the majority of people living in the ‘humdrum’ everyday life of our Materialistic Western societies, knowledge of this ‘energy phenomenon’ is virtually unknown. It seems that in general our society has no knowledge or perception of it.

  My brother wanted answers and could find none. No one knew what his experiences were – no one really wanted to know.

  As already mentioned, Paul later found references to this energy in some obscure books tucked away in the ‘occult’ or ‘Eastern Mysticism’ sections in certain specialist bookshops. Since then, we have seen the emergence of many publications of the paranormal and the mystical that have in them a reference to this mysterious energy called Kundalini.

  Again, Kundalini is a Hindu term, not only for this energy, but also for the experience or ‘awakening’ of this energy.

  As mentioned, this energy is also known in different parts of the world as ‘Chi,’ ‘Prana,’ etc. To put it simply, a person can become receptive to an energy that they may, or may not be able to channel properly and this depends on the level of consciousness at the time of the person’s experience of this energy and its many manifestations.

  If the energy is channelled properly, this pure energy will alter the person’s consciousness whereby the individual may reach a certain level where he or she will experience psychic phenomena – and may even have new powers and abilities known as Sidhis, that are seen to be extraordinary compared to a normal person – especially if the individual had not possessed these abilities before.

  During such an experience, and If one sustains consciousness enough to reach the highest level, then ‘illumination’ or ‘enlightenment’ will be granted and this will give him or her the perception to see what is true and what is false.

  But again, if this energy cannot be channelled properly because of an individual’s stubborn level of consciousness, then this new surge of power can “blow the person’s mental and physical circuits” as it were, and can be very painful and disastrous – both mentally and physically – Such an experience may even destroy the individual mentally and physically.

  There have been cases where a person may have had the harmful effects first, but later they have been able to channel it to an enlightening degree.

  Such cases are that of Gopi Krishna and the late Jiddu Krishnamurti – two extraordinary individuals of our time whose lives we will be looking at along with a few other extraordinary people as we go through this work.

  It was about this time that I purchased Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man by Gopi Krishna.1 When I showed the book to Paul, he immediately took it off of me. A few days later Paul brought the book back, and as I opened it I found that he had underlined certain sentences and passages, and had inserted a few annotated notes of his own in the margins.

  For example, at the beginning of chapter one of Gopi Krishna’s book, Krishna writes about the first time he experienced the ‘Kundalini Awakening,’ which came on while he was meditating in the Yoga lotus position. Paul underlined these words from the book in pencil:

‘The intensity of concentration interrupted my breathing; gradually it slowed down to such an extent that at times it was barely perceptible.’ [1]

At the bottom of the page, Paul wrote, ‘This is the Key.’ It was this deep sleep that had slowed down Paul’s heart rate and his breathing which also lasted throughout his experience – even after he had become conscious, which was gradual, as he came out of the dream he was having which featured the lecture hall.

  As mentioned earlier, Paul had said that his breathing had stopped or was so shallow that it was imperceptible. At first he thought he had died, or was close to death. As regards the normal activity of the organs of the body, all activity had ceased; everything had stopped.

  The connections Paul made with Kundalini seemed right somehow regarding the way in which this energy manifested in our experiences – especially when I began comparing our core-experiences to the accounts given in the books on Kundalini, but still I was reluctant to say that our experiences were Kundalini related until I had done a little more research.

  I discovered that it has only been in the last twenty years that certain individuals have acknowledged the fact that experience of Kundalini energy is becoming more and more pronounced in the West and that it may have something to do with human evolution . . . but still it is generally unknown in the West.

  Personally, I find this ignorance very frustrating – especially when after our own experiences, my brother and I had both awakened to the possibility that this ‘energy phenomenon’ (which of course can be linked with the Kundalini phenomenon) could be the very force that lies behind all phenomena; whether the phenomenon is seen as natural or supernatural.

  As I have gone on learning about Kundalini, it does seem possible that many things can be explained by it – especially when we discover the Source of the Kundalini phenomenon and have understood something about it.

  My feeling is that not only does this energy and its Source have a lot to do with the quantum leaps in our evolution, but it also seems to be the very same energy that gives us our existence. For a long time now, my intuition has been that this energy – known as ‘Prana’ in the Sanskrit texts, and the Hindu scriptures – is consciousness itself, but in its purest form.

  There are only a few researchers and writers who have noticed the recent manifestation of this phenomenon in the West, and here is a typical comment made by one of these writers which will lead us on to our next theme:

‘Kundalini is a term used in the East, but full-blown experiences of Kundalini awakening are being heard more and more frequently here in the Western world.’ ‘Anyone who desires to awaken spiritually can invite this energy into their lives to guide them through the journey of spiritual awakening. The more we read and learn, the more powerfully this energy may appear to us as signs and manifestations. At the same time, coincidence beyond the average and possibly even psychic abilities will appear . . .’ [2]

Yes, I would say that the above quote, and especially the last two lines, is essentially correct. After our experiences, my brother and I had many of these so-called “coincidences” or what we like to call synchronicities. Our lives were literally flooded with them, one after another. And we noticed that those around us were also experiencing synchronicities in their lives; more than they normally would.

  From the insights that were the result of this ‘energy phenomenon,’ I have now discovered the process behind these synchronicity experiences. This process is related to this ‘energy phenomenon’ and reveals how these synchronicities are generated. All this will be included later in this work.

  Our insights into this process were often preceded by many coincidences and synchronicities – which is not surprising in light of what we have discovered about synchronicities. My personal understanding of these insights are that it was Paul’s first experience that opened up a channel or “conduit” in both our minds so that we could later access or receive the insight and knowledge associated with this energy. This knowledge evolved and has now become the main theme of this book – The Void. I now feel that one’s awareness of, understanding, and knowledge of these things is a direct result of the kind of ‘energy phenomenon’ we both experienced in each of our core-experiences . . . as long as one is open to it.

  As our accounts show, it was sometime after his own core-experience that Paul discovered that his experiences could be related to what’s known as a so-called “Kundalini Experience” or “Kundalini Awakening.”

  At first, we didn’t want to jump to conclusions and say that this energy phenomenon was Kundalini just yet – although we noted many identical similarities between our own experiences and others who claimed to have had a Kundalini Awakening.

  We felt that any final conclusion we made would have stopped us from making more connections that would probably allow us to see this phenomenon in a fresher light. We had to remain looking at this phenomenon in a new, innocent, and unassuming way so that any understanding we did have would not be tarnished with any system, belief, or dogma. We were certain that our focus on any of the ‘known interpretations’ would have stopped us from going any further in discovering the now obvious connections this energy phenomenon has with other things.

  However having said this, my brother and I would definitely answer with a straight ‘Yes!’ if each of us were seriously asked if we thought that our experiences had anything to do with Kundalini. But I would like to bring the reader to this conclusion slowly so that on the way we could make many other connections with things that are usually considered as having absolutely nothing to do with what’s already known about Kundalini.

  My brother and I now understand that our insights into what this ‘energy phenomenon’ really is, goes far beyond what the metaphysical scholars already know about Kundalini; this is because we didn’t have a clue what Kundalini was until sometime after our first experiences.

  Before we discovered Kundalini, we had already made connections with other things and had developed some theories of our own about this energy. By having already made these connections, our minds were not corrupted by any second-hand knowledge that had already been established regarding this phenomenon.

  We later found that our theories made important additions to this derived knowledge. And so from here we knew that we had made some important discoveries of our own that could probably take this knowledge further and make it easier and more accessible as regards any societal understanding of this energy phenomenon.

  Paul and I were looking at all kinds of explanations, while at the same time we were both having insights into what connects all these kinds of experiences together.

  If someone told us, or had insisted, that what we had both experienced was a “Kundalini Awakening,” then our interpretation of this ‘energy phenomenon’ would have been limited to just that explanation and so all our subsequent experiences would have been interpreted in just that way.

  By saying that the energy phenomenon we both experienced was ‘definitely’ Kundalini at this point in our own investigation would have also undermined any other significance this phenomenon may have held as regards other areas of paranormal research.

  In the next part, I will show that this ‘energy phenomenon’ known as Kundalini also shows up in certain paranormal experiences.

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