Kundalini – The Secret of Yoga (pdf) by GOPI KRISHNA

There are few subjects relating to spiritual development so critically important and yet so incompletely understood as Yoga. Although the interest in Yoga that started in the West during the 1960’s has abated to some degree, the teaching of the various forms of the discipline has become well-established. In many eases, those who practise Yoga as it is generally taught in the West do so primarily as a means to improve health, reduce stress or maintain physical fitness.

The other aspect of Yoga given much attention is the control over the physical body that can be gained by long practice of its physical disciplines. Sensational accounts of yogis who can perform amazing feats of bodily control, such as suspension of breathing for extended periods of time, conscious control of the heartbeat and the ability to increase body heat in freezing temperatures get wide publicity. There are stories of yogis who can fly, live to an advanced age or perform amazing psychic feats.

Although these stories arc, for the most part, never properly verified, the general impression exists, both in the East and West, that Yoga can bestow magical or occult powers on those who learn its deepest secrets.

But, as Gopi Krishna points out, there is much more to Yoga than its benefits to health, control over the body and potential for developing paranormal abilities. The significance of Yoga, and the purpose for which the discipline as a whole was really designed, lies in its potential for enabling the practitioner to actually experience expanded states of consciousness and to verify the existence of levels of creation other than the one we perceive with our material senses. The other benefits arc minor when compared with the real goal.

Part of the reason for this lack of understanding is that in the West, Yoga is rarely presented in its complete form. Aspects of the disciplines which arc critical to achieve real success, i.e., a balanced lifestyle, self-discipline and control of the senses, arc not always emphasized, or if emphasized, they arc not followed. Because the primary goal of Yoga is understood in such a limited way, few people who take up the discipline arc willing to make the effort essential to real success and the potential for attaining highly enhanced states of perception remains largely untapped.

Another important aspect of Yoga is that if Kundalini, which Gopi Krishna claims is at the heart of the discipline, is the energy responsible for spiritual experience and mystical states of consciousness, then two logical conclusions can be drawn:

1) all religious experience owes its origin to this source and

2) the systematized discipline of Yoga corroborates the basic beliefs of religion which heretofore could only be accepted on faith.

They are verifiable by personal experience. So, Yoga can provide a method that alleviates the discord and rivalry that exists between the adherents of the major faiths and also a foundation for the development of a more broadly-based scientific method that could reduce the long-standing conflict between science and religion….

Gopi Krishna

was born in 1903 to parents of Kashmiri Brahmin extraction. His birthplace was a small v illage about twenty miles from the city of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir State in Northern India. He spent the first eleven years of his life growing up in this beautiful Himalayan valley.

In 1914, his family moved to the city of Lahore in the Punjab which, at that time, was a part of British India. Gopi Krishna passed the next nine years completing his public school education. Illness forced him to leave the torrid plains of the Punjab and he returned to the cooler climate of the Kashmir Valley. During the succeeding years, he secured a post in the Public Works Department of the state, married and raised a family.

In 1946 he founded a social organization and with the help of a few friends tried to bring about reforms in some of the outmoded customs of his people. Their goals included the abolition of the dowry system, which subjected the families of brides to severe and even ruinous financial obligations, and the strictures against the remarriage of widows. After a few years, Gopi Krishna was granted premature retirement from his position in the government and devoted himself almost exclusively to service work in the community.
In 1967, he published his first major book in India, Kundalini — The Evolutionary Energy in Man.

Shortly thereafter it was published in Great Britain and the United States and has since appeared in eleven major languages. The book presented to the Western world for the first time a clear and concise autobiographical account of the phenomenon of the awakening of Kundalini, which he had experienced in 1937. This work, and the sixteen other published books by Gopi Krishna have generated a steadily growing interest in the subjects of consciousness and the evolution of the brain. He also travelled extensively in Europe and North America, energetically presenting his theories to scientists, scholars, researchers and others.

Gopi Krishna’s experiences led him to hypothesize that there is a biological mechanism in the human body which is responsible for creativity, genius, psychic abilities, religious and mystical experiences, as well as aberrant mental states. He asserted that ignorance of the working of this evolutionary mechanism was the main reason for the present dangerous state of world affairs. He called for a full scientific investigation of his hypothesis and believed that such an objective analysis would uncover the secrets of human evolution. It is this knowledge, he believed, that would give mankind the means to progress in peace and harmony.

Gopi Krishna passed away in July 1984 of a severe lung infection and is survived by his wife, three children and grandchildren. The work that he began is currently being carried forw ard through the efforts of a number of affiliated foundations, organizations and individuals around the world.

Contents

Introduction

1 The Aim of Yoga
2 How This Aim Is Achieved
3 Kundalini, Fact and Fiction
4 Yoga, True and False
5 The Discipline of Yoga
6 Kundalini, the Key to Cosmic Consciousness
7 The Biological Aspect of Kundalini
8 The Physiology of Yoga
9 The Harvest: Transcendence, Genius, and Psychic Powers Appendix

About the Author
Index

Language: English
Format: PDF
Pages: 222
Size: 19.7 Mb
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