BY CLAES NOBEL
TALK ABOUT
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
And you say it has been recorded in the ancient scriptures?
Hundreds and thousands of books mention it. It is recorded in Chinese books, the Egyptian hieroglyphics, in the Indian Tantras and Shakti Shastras. There are thousands of books on Kundalini in India, dating from prehistoric times.
And it is a biological force in all human beings? Is that what you are referring to in your book, The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius?
Yes. But, unfortunately, science has no awareness of this Power Center, which is in fact the evolutionary mechanism. Some scientists believe that evolution has occurred through random mutations, which is disputed very hotly by others. But the fact is that there is a biological mechanism in every human being, and this mechanism is known as Kundalini. It can be accelerated through the discipline of Yoga or through other religious exercises. And when it is accelerated, one can, in one life, attain to the same state of expanded consciousness as would otherwise be attained in many incarnations.
This is what you did as a young man; you were actively pursuing this and you awakened this evolutionary mechanism?
It aroused
not only because of my efforts but first, probably, because my nervous
system and brain were mature for this awakening. I had it through heredity
in my own system.
Wouldn't
this be of great importance if we could have decision-makers and world
leaders become exposed to this subject, this doctrine, so that they could
understand more about how the mind operates and how everything fits together?
It is of the
utmost importance. If we study Plato deeply, especially his Republic, he
is referring to this type of man as the philosopher who should be the highest
ruler in the state. It is this type of man who is discussed in the Upanishads,
the man who is illuminated, who has risen above normal temptations. He
alone should be entrusted with the responsibilities of rulership.
And if
this could be done, then maybe we would achieve peace, harmony and happiness
in the world.
It has to be
done. It is not only a question that it could be done. We have now gained
control over the most terrible power in the universe, the power of the
atom. Unless mankind has sober, patient, selfless human beings at the top
in every sphere of activity and thought, to control and moderate the passions
and ambitions in others, there is no possibility of human survival in the
next fifty or hundred years.
Isn't
it strange that mankind has been ignoring, or unaware of this profound
knowledge instead of using it to great advantage and benefit? Why are we
not using it?
Mr. Nobel,
it is a matter of great pain for me. For the past thousands of years, in
Grecian times, among the Romans, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, everywhere,
the greatest thinkers have been believers in the Power ruling the universe.
They have written profound systems of philosophy, especially in India.
They are the most profound systems even today. But all of a sudden scientists
appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries, saying that this whole mass of
knowledge was a myth and superstition, and they made those assertions without
ever experimenting on it.
So what
do we need to do now, today, in order to correct this mistake or reverse
the trend?
As you say,
we have to reverse the trend. We have to make a thorough study of the religious
scriptures of the world.
On a
scientific level?
Yes, on a scientific
level. We have to see the points of resemblance. We have to see where they
refer to the occult disciplines. We have to see what is the state of illumination,
what has been the experience of the great mystics. We have to gather all
this data, and then we have to make experiments on volunteer subjects for
the arousal of this power in them. I am as sure as that the sun is shining
before me that this will be proved and established within the next twenty
years, provided we were to make the right efforts for this purpose.
Gopi
Krishna, how do you distinguish between the false prophet, which we know
existed even in Biblical times and continues to exist today, and the genuine
prophet?
The genuine
prophet does not normally run after disciples; is not ostentatious. He
is spontaneous. He is humble. He is compassionate, and he has certain faculties,
certain visions of, if I may say, a newly developed inner eye by which
he can discern things and solve problems which it is not possible for a
normal man to do.
The first sign
of an illuminated personality is that there is a spontaneous flow of wisdom.
This is known as vaikhari in India. That wisdom generally deals with the
spiritual side of man. It must be original. It must be correct. And it
must be born within himself without the aid of external reading or other
things. You will find that in the case of all great mystics whatever has
been given out has usually been in verse or in a very beautiful form of
prose. The illuminated mind has its own language, its own expression. The
illuminated mind will never exaggerate, it will only give out the truth.
There
are many ways by which we can distinguish a true prophet from a false one.
In India one of the methods was that only those who could write original
commentaries on what is known as parasthan atray, that is, the Upanishads,
the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, should be acclaimed as those having
attained to higher consciousness. It is not an easy task to write an original
commentary on either the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads, because one who
does so must have attained to the same realms of consciousness as described
in those books.
We have
had illuminated human beings in India who were wonders from the age of
8 or 10, Guru Nanak, Jnaneshwar and Shankaracharya. Shankaracharya passed
away at the age of 31 after leaving a prodigious amount of philosophical
and religious thought. Jnaneswar, who passed away at the age of 22, wrote
a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita at the age of 16. It is a masterpiece
and perhaps unparalleled in recent literature on the subject. Guru Nanak,
the founder of the Sikhs, was a spiritual prodigy from the age of 8.
It is not difficult
to distinguish a spiritual prodigy or a spiritual genius, just as it is
not difficult to distinguish a secular genius in other branches of knowledge.
But with the investigation that I have in mind, it may become possible
to find physiological evidence also, evidence in the blood, the cerebrospinal
system, in the brain, even in the organs, the tissues, that show differences
between an illuminated human being and an average person.
This
scientific evaluation, is it something that has been done before or would
it be something new?
It will be
entirely new. I believe that science is now in a position to be able to
notice the differences and also the effect of the transformative processes
that occur in the body on the arousal of this evolutionary power.
Something
that surprises me is that you write such beautiful verse, or lyrics, in
English when it is not your native language. Is that by inspiration, something
that just flows?
Yes, it just
comes. What I am trying to express needs a deep study, because it is a
very a profound subject. I must tell you, Mr. Nobel, without arrogating
any importance to myself, in a humble way, just as a statement of fact,
that I am a living witness to the truth of religion. I am a specimen of
the class which has been known as mystics. I am a living model of transformed
consciousness, a testimony to the correctness of the esoteric doctrines
of the world, embodying in myself what has been said by the great religious
teachers of the past, of whom recent examples in India have been Ramakrishna
and Ramana Maharshi . It is a rare class. We can at once distinguish the
genuine from the false. It is a matter of great pain for me to see the
skeptical attitude of modern scientists about a phenomenon that has been
the most important in history in changing the direction of human thought.
Buddha, Shankaracharya,
Mohammed, Socrates, Zoroaster, Guru Nanak, all of these great leaders,
who brought out radical changes in the thinking of mankind, belonged to
this class. So it is not difficult to distinguish a genuine prophet, mystic
or enlightened being from the false. But still there can also be psychological,
intellectual and physiological tests by which this distinction can be easily
made.
Earlier
in our conversation you said that this wonderful gift that you are endowed
with is something that can come to every person in lesser or greater degree
if they are properly trained and motivated. Today we are annually spending
some $450 billion on armaments, and I can well remember The Manhattan Project,
which produced the first atom bomb, and at a tremendously high price.
If we
could just invest a small amount of these funds, which are meant for death,
towards research for life, towards spirituality and enlightenment, and
to develop super-consciousness, wouldn't it be of great benefit to all
of mankind? The research could proceed hand-in-hand with science.
The very fact
that we are spending $450 billion on armaments and armies, that is on machines
meant for destruction, is clear evidence for what I am saying, that the
human mind has deviated from the right path. Millions are dying of starvation,
millions become blind because they do not have the necessary vitamins,
millions live on only one meal a day, and millions lack medicines, lack
education, and live without shelter. Do you think that a sane species or
a sane nation or a sane community should spend billions on weapons of mass
destruction, or on sending rockets into space, when humanity needs every
penny of these funds to survive?
Frankly,
I cannot understand it, either.
That, my friend,
is the reason why a devastating war is coming. We have lost faith in Heaven.
We have lost the idea that every moment we are watched by the eyes of God.
Again,
I must ask, how have we gone wrong?
We have gone
wrong by believing that religion is but an individual concern, that religion
is a hobby of the individual and that it has no place in government administration,
or politics, science, in our projects, or in our planning for mankind.
But it
used to be in America and Japan and Europe, that the state and religion
worked together and misused their powers. That's why politics and religion
were separated.
That is true.
But we have to understand that at no time was proper study or research
directed on religion. The religious leaders were given a free hand, and
naturally they slowly became too fond of temporal power, even ecclesiastical
power and the easements that were provided for that, rather than following
in the footsteps of the founders of the faith.
This
is also what has happened to science. Scientists have become dogmatic,
and now they also have their vested interests. That love for science and
scientific discoveries, that selfless service, is very rare today. So religion,
since it became dogmatic and obsessive, needed a purging; it needed a cleansing
process, just as science needs today, as every human institution needs
after a time.
Even the Indian
institutions needed it in their own time before they degenerated. But that
was never done. On the other hand, it was just pushed aside, and our entire
economy, or political and social systems, were just considered on a secular
basis, on a basis where religion has no say. It was just treated as an
individual concern. But religion is dealing with universal laws.
In a few words,
science deals with material laws, religion deals with the laws of the spirit.
We have become one-sided. We have gone too far into the material side and
too far away from the spiritual side. The result is that there is a lopsided
development of our intellect. It has become a dry intellect, without the
sobering and harmonizing influence of religion.
Written by: Gopi Krishna
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