NDM: Then if someone were interested in learning more about kundalini, how would you suggest they go about this?   Where do they begin? 0: This is a tough question as some of the traditional texts are ok but bad translations don't help.  What is being taught as Kundalini Yoga is mostly Hatha Yoga by teachers with little more than having taken a 200 hour course with glorified ideas but no real  experience with truly awakened Kundalini.  Taking a Kundalini Yoga course is most definitely not the same as working with a Kundalini Completed Shaktipat Guru. One  must be quite cautious about doing the Pranayam (breath practices) as if imbalanced it can cause quite a problem for a seeker. Kundalini that is active does not come with an on and off switch. Once activated there can develop much phenomena which while something many want to pursue and is touted by many teachers as something to strive for it does nothing to move one closer to Realization and blowing out the conditionings. All phenomena is within the realm of duality and keeps it in play. i have a book out entitled Kundalini from Hell to Heaven which gives pointings and some basic guidelines.    Would say begin there.  NDM: What about something like Kapalbhati Pranayama, (Glowing of Skull) to prepare oneself for meditation? 0: No wouldn't recommend for anyone with a Kundalini awakening.

NDM: Can you also please tell me what is a Kundalini Completed Shaktipat Guru?

0: It should be a Guru that can awaken Kundalini and one that rests in Realization that is no longer navigating the Kundalini experience of phenomena etc. 

NDM: How did you get your Indian name, why did you change it and what does it mean exactly?

0: The name is of no importance - and there is a question at this point to be asked. It was said that the magazine is based on nonduality. When is this interview going in that direction?  

NDM: Ok. What is do you mean by non-duality?  What would you say this is? 

0: When all has effectively dismantled into that One that is prior to birth and death or re-birth. When that one without a second has been entered as the living reality. Am not speaking of oneness that has a quality of separate parts as a whole. As this is yet still the mindset of dualistic experience and experiencer. 

NDM: What is this One exactly that is prior to birth and death or re-birth?

0: Even One is not correct as One can be subdivided and Absolute is never divisible.  Some may call this God but for God to exist there must be something other than and this is the illusion of Maya.  

NDM: What is it that gets dismantled?

0: Duality - Mind - Constructs - Belief Systems - Conditionings in totality

NDM: How does one do this dismantling?  Can one do this without a guru?

0: It happens when a *Spontaneous Neti Neti or Self Enquiry*  takes place. Am not speaking about a mental loop that a person is going to choose to do. At the endpoint of the journey this begins and it tears asunder all the constructs that have been collected. Just as Kundalini will put all the fears and identifications in ones face to be seen. This is a process a Guru YES can be a valuable aide to keep seekers going in a productive direction to avoid costly and deadly pitfalls along the way.

NDM: Going back to kundalini, how does this put all the fears and identifications in ones face to be seen? 

0: Everything you have held to will be challenged in one way or another.  Is the world real - am i real -  fears will manifest in some way or another. What is repressed will come forward.  Belief systems will crumble. Everything becomes pronounced - hearing - seeing - feeling - energy can become overwhelming - one may think they are becoming possessed as all that one thought was in place will suddenly be unfamiliar and shifting in strange ways one could never imagine.  

NDM: Can you please tell me about some of the pitfalls when this begins to happen?  What some one should look out for in case this spontaneously happens to them?

0: Chasing powers - becoming ungrounded - getting a messiah complex - there are so many things that can take place. One needs to learn how to come to and remain in balance. 

NDM: Do you have a method of grounding this energy?

0: Yes - it's more than just a quick fix grounding it takes a diligent path of ongoing attention  to the process. 

NDM: So when you teach this. Is it in a sat-sang, in a group as with hatha yoga, or one to one?

0: Through Satsang, Videos, Book, One to One and through an online ashram system. 

NDM: Do you have all of these traits listed below?

 

Table 1: Possible “Markers” of a Jivanmukta’s Mind:  # Trait Indicator Detectable in 1. Universal “Love” (Maitri) High levels of Oxytocin Blood   2. Equipoise High levels of Serotonin Blood   3. Tranquility High levels of Serotonin; Low levels of Corticosteroids; Low levels of Norepinephrine. Blood     4. Sense of happiness Squirts of Dopamine from Ventral Tegmental Area to Cortical and other areas produce “Happy” feeling.  Activity in Prefrontal Cortex, Insula etc.  depends on an external agent for stimulation in an ordinary person to generate a feel of happiness.  The “Ever Happy” feeling in a Jivanmukta could be governed by a different neural circuit. (The pituitary and the brain stem may be more active). Imaging     5. Absence of sense of “self” A sense of ‘self’ possibly emanates from activity in ventral medial Pre-Frontal Cortex, precuneus (responsible for autobiographical memories).  Recent research showed that lower activity in right parietal cortex is linked to a lesser sense of ‘self’. Imaging   6. Absence of ‘Doership’ Consciousness of a decision for taking an action takes place much later than the ‘brain’ initiating a ‘precursor potential’.  Latest research shows that the brain initiates an action by as much as 10 secs before we are consciously aware of deciding to act! (See Ref: 6). A Jivanmukta may lack this second potential of having made a decision to act (“I am acting”). Imaging       7. Gamma activity in brain Gamma activity in Meditators and Non-Meditators differs significantly.  We may find a different range in a Jivanmukta. EEG   8. State of Deep Sleep with Awareness (Yoganidra) Deep Sleep is characterized by slow brain waves in the EEG.  Activity in the brain during Deep Sleep takes place in isolated islands of brain as reported recently in the work of Dr. G. Tunoni.  Sensory information from external worlds is not received as sensory cortex is inactive (asleep).  Therefore, ordinary persons will be unaware of the world during sleep.  Because of the fact that a Jivanmukta appears to be in Deep Sleep and also is aware, we must be able to notice slow wave activity with the sensory cortex working in Jivanmukta, though further downstream processing of the signals in the brain may not be present.  Promises to be a good marker. EEG           9. Fearlessness and Detachment Subdued amygdala activity. (See Ref: 7) Imaging 10. Always in the “Now” “The left lateral parietal cortex was differentially activated by nonpresent subjective times compared with the present (past and future > present). A similar pattern was observed in the left frontal cortex, cerebellum, and thalamus.” (See Ref: 8).

NDM:  Who is this scandalous Nithyananda you mentioned above? Do you mean this young Indian man who goes by the title of Swami-ji Paramahamsa?

0-  That would be the one...  yes...  

NDM: You said earlier that kundalini does nothing to bring one closer to realization or to 'blow out the conditionings"

 

Then how do these conditionings become unbinding?  Do you mean just through self enquiry or other means like samadhi meditation of some kind?

 

0: Have already answered that .... At some point a Spontaneous Neti Neti or Self Enquiry will arise... This will cut the threads. 

NDM: Then how do these conditioning's, habits, likes and dislikes, aversions and desires become unbinding? 

0: When the Me implodes into the Absolute the drama of the story is at an end. Doesn't mean that the persona that others view as a me is going to do terribly much different --- yet it is no longer binding. 

NDM: Do you mean that self-enquiry will do this alone or do you mean by samadhi meditation of some kind or other practices?

0: Self Enquiry rises and then one may be blown out within a Nirvikalpa Samadhi when and IF it goes forward to become a Sahaja Nirvikalpa State of ease.  All this to say there is no revolving mental play nor being caught up as another me story. That ends.

NDM: You said that you had experienced nirvikalpa samadhi in an interview with Buddha at the gas pump at around 7 minutes into this interview.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4kclhyX4No&NR=1

You also said that this blew out all of your “conditionings"  By "conditioning's", do you mean all your sankharas, (pali) or samskaras (sanskrit), as well as your vasanas meaning aversions and desires, proclivities, tendencies, habits and so on?

0: The form may continue going on and others may not notice a huge difference in the outward quirks but what has changed forever is the inner world as there is no me to be found within anywhere. Don't confuse the body aspect with what remains within the consciousness. 

NDM: When you experienced this nirvikalpa samadhi, were you meditating? 

0: Sat down to do an open eye meditation and suddenly the GREAT FEAR hit in a split second it was known that i had done ALL that was possible to do and yet in this fear it was the feeling of either going to be possessed or ceasing to exist entirely. It is as if being in the Grand Canyon on a pitch black night and knowing that there is a drop off straight ahead and yet one is compelled to go forward. It flashed in the mind On the Altar of Truth i lay myself and it is up to God one way or another then there was a total release into Full Surrender. The next moment there was no world ---- no me --- just Absolute and this was what has remained in the consciousness. It is the great void that is not devoid but whole and complete without any objective existence. This is the center point of all of existence. Mind stops - and remains in Stillness and Silence. There is simply Non-duality that remains. 

     

 NDM: How long did this experience last for exactly?

0: Cannot say - it happens in the timeless realm. 

 

NDM: Do you still practice any kinds of meditation?

0: Once in Non-duality and when the Nirvikalpa Sahaja Samadhi remains it is the same as being in a full time meditation. There are no rising and falling occlusions. There is simply pure awareness as the non dual One. Meditation is meant to take one to this very consciousness. Others may call it an altered state but it becomes and is the remaining living reality. It becomes really the normal reality. One cannot remember what it is to be in revolving thoughts and the noise and divisions of duality. That simply is seen with the eyes but the consciousness remains in the seamless Non-dual reality of One. IS. Absolute. 

NDM: What are your thoughts on some of these tips on becoming a spiritual teacher?www.nondualitymagazine.org/nonduality_magazine.1andrewp.wanttobecomeaspirtualteacher.htm

0: A full load of BS - and sounds like the typical marketing plan by near do wells. But something that is rampant in the spiritual market place.  

NDM: What do you make of "enlightenment sickness", disease of enlightenment, or the stink of enlightenment known in Zen?  

James Swartz refers to this on in his book "How to attain enlightenment".   Please see below.

He says "after realization, usually a strong sense of goodwill toward everyone arises at this time and you almost invariably feel that you should share what you know with others.

0: Yes and no --  On one hand yes but then again one sees that really it will come in it's time that there is only One and as such what is there to share ? It's a paradox. 

James  Swartz

NDM:  What about this?  "But before you set out to do so, you better check you are not suffering from the disease of enlightenment. It is similar to enlightenment and is difficult for the sufferer to diagnose, although it is a well-known malady. It should be treated quirkily before it becomes a chronic condition" James Swartz 0: First there should be one in place that can see it for what it is.  NDM: And this? "One benign symptom of enlightenment sickness is transcendental boredom. It is an understandable and slightly negative feeling born out of you have accomplished everything that had to be accomplished in this life, the realization that what you do from now on will not fundamentally make any difference – ignorance is here to stay after all –  and the crystal clarity about the basic emptiness of life.  It is caused by the residual sense of doer ship and unpurified traces of rajas. You may long for a bit of excitement and confusion marked your life in ignorance but you know you cant go back. " James Swartz 0: Then that is not the emptiness of Enlightenment but the void of devoid.. Not at all the same thing.

NDM: And this?

"If you interpret this nothingness of reality as a void and become vaguely disillusioned, know that you have enlightenment sickness, due to unpurified traces of tamas. Enlightenment is not the experience of the void. There is no void, only the pureness of awareness appearing as the void." James Swartz

0: It is rather the emptiness that is full and complete - Whole. Not a devoid. 

NDM:  And this?

"If you formulate your enlightenment as a grand happening and make it into a big story, you have enlightenment disease.  If you hear yourself telling others you are awakened, or enlightened or "cooked" you have enlightenment sickness." James Swartz

0: There is no one that remains to be awakened. If there is yet a feeling of being a person that has gotten it ----- then that's not it...  No one returns in Enlightenment. 

NDM:  And this? "If you believe that your words are gospel and your deeds whether they correspond to common sense or not and with reason, or whether they are in harmony with dharma and tradition, are a teaching stratagem , you need help" James Swartz.  0: Not sure what he is trying to say here.  But There is no one that is going to save another.  For more info about Swami G visit www.guruswamig.com