Subject: [K-list] Interesting Perspective
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000

In a message dated 1/14/00 3:45:11 AM Pacific Standard Time, puranATnospamappliedmeditation.org writes:
    I'm a meditation teacher in the Sufi tradition. I've mastered Samadhi, the goal of Kundalini work, to the point that my heartbeat stopped for five minutes in clinical tests in a hospital here in Boston. Also the Delta waves in my EEG were very high, higher than in deep sleep. These waves are the slowest of all brain waves and when produced consciously are another indicator of Samadhi. Furthermore, I have many students that have done these things. Of course these are just the outer indications; the inner experience is one of being beyond life, space, and time, similar to death, in order to conquer death's fear and understand life.

But after 30 years of experience with Samadhi, I've stopped teaching it.

First, it's just too dangerous. It can easily lead to a variety of mental disorders that one doesn't see coming. It's not the "fast path" that many think because it takes a long time to recover from the disassociativeness.

Second, it's not helpful to a life in the world. Samadhi was developed for use in a monastic setting. It's amazing and wondrous, but it's only half-way. The second half of the path, according to the Sufis, is bringing the realization of Samadhi back home and living it out. But for that, the method needs to be completely different. Bringing it home uses the downward energy, flowing in the spine in opposition to Kundalini. Also, if you see "Living from the Heart" as the goal, then enormous progress can occur without much Kundalini. So the meditation to practice in the downward type -- that's the harder part. Kundalini rises on its own, given even a slight boost from conscious breathing. The harder part is to steer that energy into the heart and let it express itself in heart-centered behavior.

Third, it's been done. The frontier of human consciousness has moved on in the last three thousand years. There are new challenges today, challenges that are as exciting as it must have been for Yogi Patanjali and later the Buddha to explore the world "beyond time and no time, beyond space and no space, beyond existence and no existence." Instead of aspiring to NO thoughts, I aspire to ALL emotions, all at once.

If you are interested in the meditation of OUR time, concentrate on your heart, not your etheric body. It's safe, it's practical, and it's very challenging.

The Web site for the Institute of Applied Meditation is a good place to start.

Blessings from the heart,
Puran Bair

El responds:
   The following are my comments to Puran:

While I never developed your discipline for entering Samadhi states at will (or being able to suspend my biological functions), I began having spontaneous Samadhi states in the 60's and and Kundalini rose of its own accord (I was doing no practices to awaken it) in '91. I have experienced Kundalini-related phenomena daily ever since. I am very impressed by the innovative view you've expressed. I agree entirely with your emphasis on allowing oneself to experience the full range of emotions. In both the modern secular world and in many religious circles, emotion is regarded as an impediment to clarity of mind and spirit. I find that the opposite is true. Emotion and symbolic perception are both instinctual and primal intelligence: the language of the body and soul.

The heart speaks most clearly through emotion and feeling. My heart chakra radiates heat whenever I am in the presence of someone with great heart-energy, which is how I can immediately identify them. In a similar manner, I am moved to tears by anything that expresses love. This is how I can distinguish the authentic from the imitation (which pervades so much religious/metaphysical/psychological lore).

I used to push away emotional reactions of fear, anger, hurt, etc. when interacting with others, under the mistaken idea that these were judgmental responses. Now I appreciate them as an internal barometer which informs me when something is crying for attention : either something in the attitudes/ideas/behaviors of another needs to be addressed, and/or I need to re-examine my own motives and attachments. Sticking with feelings of fear/anger/woundedness invariably takes me to new levels of awareness and preserves (or restores) my integrity while enabling me to stay true in relationship to others. Best Wishes,
El Collie

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