Guruji's life experiences

Guruji: I was born on Sep 26, 1934; started becoming aware of my self from the age of three to four. Around the age of 7, 1931, for no reason I used to roll back my tongue up behind the uvula and into the upper part of palette, I could touch the septum of my nose. I used to experience a sharp pleasure bordering on pain when I touched it. Around that time I used to have a photographic memory. My father was not a man of means.

Guruji with brother

He could not afford to buy me and my brother any text books. So I used to borrow from my schoolmates books and copy them neatly into my note book. I could close my eyes and open any page, and see every letter, paragraph, beginning and end of each page exactly as in a photograph. Exams were easy for me. All I had to do was to close my eyes, read the book and write down the answers. The questions depended mostly on testing memory.  Little doubt, I was getting good grades.

Around this time, I used to see divine figures like Krisha, Ganapathy, Hanuman and Saraswati who was my favorite goddess in the patterns of leaves of trees. I used to talk to them, play with them. Involved in such pastimes, and pretty much an introvert, I was aptly called by the nickname “absent minded professor”. I used to play football, on the slopes of a steep sand hill “isaka konda” near King George Hospital. The feet used to get stuck in the sand, and going up the hill was pretty tough going. Utterly exhausted, we would go to a Hanuman temple just in time for Prasadam, and go home giggling. I learned a little Sanskrit, passed an entrance test for proficiency in Telugu and Sanskrit. My father, who used to admire Gandhi used to stitch the clothes with his own hand. Good at spinning thread with “taklis” a circular metal disk attached to a spindle, we would get clothes made from the thread we spun. This continued till my college days. My co- students used to heckle at my poor style of clothing in college, but were jealous at my performance at exams. My father passed away when he was 55, and his last words of advice to me were “do as you please”. They stuck to me all my life. Strangely, my Guru at Anakapalle also gave me the same advice. I was left with no means; my mother, brother and my elder sister and brother-in-law to be taken care of; I was hardly 17, just out of 10th grade. With the advice of my illiterate mother and pressures of family, we took a small loan of Rs 3000 at a compound interest of 120% per annum, which I had to repay, nearly 50 times over by selling my father’s house.

 I had to educate myself, and my brother. Although I passed with a high rank in school and got admission into a prime engineering IIT in Khargpur, I could not muster funds to to buy a railway ticket; I had to drop the idea. But I did manage to get my brother join the Marine Engineering college in Calcutta. I finally joined Physics Honors at Andhra University in my home town Vizag, did M.Sc by research under Prof Jnana-nanda and landed a job in the Tata Institute of Fundamental research in Bombay where I worked for 25 years. I got a PhD in Nuclear physics from Bombay University.  My father had  two sisters; the younger one was Visalakshi, who had a grand daughter called Annapurna. She visited my home when she was 5, and recited Rukmini Kalyanam. I liked her voice and face, she was 5yrs old, and I was 12 then. When I was 21, marriage proposals started coming and I told my parents I don’t want to look at any other proposals, I told them I liked this girl. After my father passed away, I got married to her. She was 16 then. Today at my 76 yrs of age, we have been married for 52 years now; have three daughters, and six grand children. 

Around the age of 11, I think I had my first spiritual experience. I was looking at the sky, Suddenly many gray globes started collapsing in my eyes. I became unconscious, had a high fever, and was nearly in a state of semi-coma, half aware. I would question my parents and elder sister, “who are you? Why are you here? What is my relationship to you?” I was wrongly diagnosed my condition as cerebral malaria, and treated with heavy doses of quinine. I was alright in a week, but by then I became nearly deaf; and lost my photographic memory. Looking back, I think it could have been a spiritual experience of Jada Samadhi wherein body consciousness is absent and any sense of “I and mine” is also lost when awake.

2 Balaji Temple 1979

In my work in TIFR, I had an occasion to visit an electronics manufacturing unit ECIL in Hyderabad. I woke up in a hotel room near Nampally station at about 4 am, and started walking aimlessly. I went up the stairs of a hill, made by Birlas called Naubat Pahad. There was a temple of Balaji; on its way there was a Hanuman temple. My early childhood flashed like a reel in minds eye. I took the vermillion, near Hanuman, put it on my forehead, and went further up. I had a Darshan of Balaji. There were I think four people ahead of me. An old man prostrated before Bala-ji, a female goddess in a male form. I was prompted to prostrate also. It was quite unusual for me. It was not me to prostrate before an icon, a symbol.

 Then I had a thrill passing through me lasting about 10-15 minutes. I really lost all sense of time; I did not have a watch. I was not exactly an atheist, but would consider religion as not my domain; I very often questioned religious beliefs. I used to think, what is the need to believe in facts?  You need to believe only if it is not a fact. I also used to think, why should I believe what I don’t experience? God is not verifiable! I don’t see God do I? So why believe in God? Such was my attitude. Pure arrogance of science! But this thrill was something new. The experience was undeniable to me. If I told to someone else, they may shrug it off like “come on, you must be kidding!”  I remembered my younger day experiences. I used to hear a humming sound coming from within me around 300Hz, increasing in pitch as I used to observe it. I realized it wasn’t a single frequency but a spectrum of audible frequencies, passing over into visible experiences. I thought, why don’t I investigate what is happening in my mind? Unlike in science, it wasn’t something out there, but it was me that I was observing. Observer is me; but the observed is also me. The fact that I am observing would make the observed observe me. I had a say in what I am observing. I decide what I want to see, and therefore I see it. The object and subject being the same, I was changing the object; the object was changing me. This was quite a new feeling, not common with outside world; it was like a mirroring participation between the seer and the seen. It was like I am a part of the world, and the world a part of me. How could a part be the whole? That was bothering me. Any way I decided to explore my inner world.

An experience, a jolt was given to me to question my attitudes at the Bala-ji temple. I decided to give it a chance. I started thinking: where and how do I start on a quest? The inner sound seemed a natural choice. I started observing it. Then it burst.

3 Explosion  1979

I used to sit up on my bed, with my wife sleeping next to me. I was just listening to the inner sound, which starts as the sound of a radio before the station comes on air, around 300 Hz, and goes up into sharper frequencies.  For the first three days nothing happened. The next night I had felt as if a bomb was placed in my heart and I exploded into bits and pieces, thrown off to ends of galaxies.  I saw a blank screen on which about 10 sanskrit stanzas were written. Before I could read the first half of a line, it vanished. I remembered that: it was īśāvāsyam idam sarvaṁ. Then I blanked out. When I woke up, I was really scared. I thought, “How did the dangerous explosion take place in meditation? What will happen to my wife and daughter if I die? Who will look after them?” I decided to stop all such dangerous activities. A week passed by, and I was curious. How and why did the explosion take place? Then I argued, “true, there was an explosion, but I did not die, did I? So why is it dangerous?” Curiosity overcame my fear, and I started on meditation again. Again I started sitting up on my bed to meditate at 2 in the morning.

4  Volcano  1979

For the first two days, again nothing happened. Then some tickling pleasant sensation started at the base of my spine, near the coccyx bone. Some thing started moving up, and I heard the familiar 300Hz sound in the heart, and it started rising up further. As it reached the neck, it was a roar, like a huge torrent. It seemed as if I was sitting on top of a volcano which was pushing me out of myself. Again I was scared. I did not have any clue as to what was happening, or how to cope with the situation.

5 Saraswati 1981

Then I remembered that I used to see Saraswati in my childhood and prayed to her thus:

sarasvati namastubhyaṁ varade kāmarūpiṇi |

vidyārambhaṁ kariṣyāmi siddhirbhavatu me sadā ||

padmapatra viśālākṣī padma kesaravarṇinī  |

nityaṁ padmālayā dēvī sāmāṁpātu sarasvatī ||

Which means, Saraswati, I bow to you. You give boons fulfilling my desires. I am beginning my studies. May I attain the  knowledge I desire. With eyes wide as lotus leaves, and color of the pistils of lotus, you sit on a lotus. Please, protect me.

She heard my prayer; her lovely smiling form appeared in front of me. “Why did you call me?” I said, “ Don’t you see? I am in danger. Please help me” She gave a big smile, and said, “I am giving you an experience of being out of yourself. Enjoy it.” I said, “Enjoy? I am dying!”  She said, “Don’t worry, this fear is temporary. It will pass. After this, there will be a few more unpleasant experiences, because there are stored memories in your genes, unknown to you. Whenever you are afraid, call me. I will take you out of danger. There will be many enjoyable experiences. I am with you, Have no fear” By this time the volcano vanished, and I was flying in sky peacefully like a swan, and I felt like a child in the lap of Saraswati.

As predicted there were a few nightmarish experiences, but I was confident: I could cope with them, with Her help. I realized then that it is most important to seek  divine power to help in crisis.

Saraswati became my Guru. She would come in my meditation (listening to inner sound), give me books to read in my meditation. Surprisingly, when I went to Bombay University library, I used to find the books I already read on the shelves. How could this be true? This shattered my rational beliefs. She showed me some of my past lives. After I saw two, I said enough, I don’t want to know any more. My past life showed the connection between me and my wife.

Then She used to take me to different places and times. I held Her little finger like a child. We would walk on rainbows. Wherever Her foot was placed, a beautiful lotus would appear under it. She took me to places and civilizations in other worlds, unfamiliar life forms. I would ask and she would answer.

“What comes after my death?”

“You go back to the elements. You become a spirit. Then you have the form of earth, water, fire, air, space and time.”

“Then how come you appear with a form?”

“You decide how you wish to see me, and I take that form out of the elements”

“How old are you?”

“Millions of years.”

“Then how come you appear so young?”

“We are really ageless beings. We can appear to have any age. I can be 9, 15, 18, 33, whatever age you wish to see me with any time.”

Such were my conversations with Her.

Once She was playing on Veena for hours together. I was rapturously listening to the heavenly music. After some time, I saw that my head replaced Hers! To my question what it means, she answered you come from my lineage. So you carry that name as a guru. “If I am to be a guru and someone asks me a question for which I don’t know the answer, what do I do?”   “When a question is put to you, an answer may spring to you in your mind. If it doesn’t, or it takes some time, understand that the solution is going to manifest in future, not immediately. Any case, don’t pretend you know all the answers. No one does. Not even me.”   “Why not you?” “The future is made by so many living beings together. So it is somewhat hazy.” “Can I change my destiny?” “Of course you can. But usually the environment plays a very large role in what is going to happen, not merely your action alone. So it appears that you can know your destiny in a statistical sense but can’t change it. But with an extraordinary effort which can influence your environment, you can change your own and the environment’s future. Look at the new paradigms and cooperation needed to understand genes, or make hardwares / softwares, or build mega structures or invent mathematics. Information drives action, and action drives information. This is the loop for expanding awareness; it can happen only with integrity and cooperation between thousands of people. Cooperation means surrender of a little sense of credit for doing, and shifting the focus to results”

6 Hazy colours 1979

For the next few months, I would see blobs of cloud like lights with bright colors dancing in front of me. I could not figure out what and who these were. They were sometimes more like dancing points of light, discovering and locking themselves into patterns which made sense. And I observed that as time went on, they became sharper and more defined. It was as if I was recognizing them and forcing them into a shape of my liking. Perhaps they were other spirit forms, who were trying to connect with me. My attention was giving them a shape. As they were taking clearer shapes, I could recognize some beings from the past; they were mostly in the left side of my visual field. And I would recognize some geometric shapes in the right side of my visual field. I knew they were future beings, higher in evolution than humans. The visions that were straight ahead, I could connect with other places in the present some place far away. In some way, past, present and future were mapped into left, middle and right fields of my view.

7 Intelligent triangles 1980

Around this time, I started reading about yantras. The first yantra is just a point. It has no dimensions through which it can be observed. I thought the next yantra is a circle, zero, a closed figure, a point in motion, which goes in cycles: away from itself to come back to the same point. It represented harmonic motion. But any kind of motion is impossible without space and time in which any vibration can move. So the creation of space and time should take place before any thing can move. How could the point, having zero dimensions, create something that is not zero? I realized that if a “1” was to be created, a “-1” should also be created, so that the sum is still zero. This creates three entities: 1, -1 and 0. Similarly,  x, -x and 0. We realize that the trinity +, – and 0 must have been the first creation. It cant even be called creation, because the idea of time is necessary for the concept of creation. Creation  means, it did not exist before, it exists now; it requires time. Two entities now represent the same truth of nothingness. It was strange; the triplet, a triangle, was the same as a point; no, it was identical with the point. Dimension and dimensionlessness merge into the point. So the point represents nothing and everything. Who makes it this or that? “I”. It is not this or that, it is this and that.

So I thought that a triangle is the next to meditate upon. I started doing that by writing a triangle in my mind again and again. When any activity or an idea is repeated again and again, it becomes a mantra; mantra means repetition and protection which comes through that. Repetition of drawing the yantra in the mind was the mantra. Even constantly reminding oneself to speak only the truth (Satyam), or avoid violence(Ahimsa) can become mantras. Gandhi practiced them to get Independence for India from the British rule.

As I started writing a triangle in my mind’s field of vision, the first thing that happened was that it was getting perfect; from being hazy and ill defined to well defined perfect equilateral triangle. After that, it would stay there in front of me without effort. And then it started dancing.

How? How can a triangle dance? It used to become smaller and smaller, and vanish into a dimensionless point. It would become larger and larger and engulf me in it; it would become bigger and bigger; I see myself as becoming smaller and smaller and vanishing in its center. It would start rotating. Slowly at first, picking up speed, and then so fast that it looked like a circle with hazy edges. It would turn its plane so it would look like an isosceles triangle, and rotated in that plane to become an obese triangle. It seemed to be a very intelligent triangle that seemed to be teaching me many things. 1. Small and big are the same. 2. Equilateral isosceles and obese triangles are just different ways of looking at the same thing. 3. Triangle and point both represent a zero sum. 4. A point can explode into a circle or a triangle without any energy required because net remains zero before and after explosion. 5. A circle with sharp edges is the same as that with hazy edges ( fast rotating triangle looks like that). 6. Everything is the same as nothing. 7. A point appears as space;  time = life;  matter = energy = information; all different forms of nothingness. A living yantra is a great teacher! And what made it a teacher? It is the mantra; a repeatedly drawing in my mind’s eye. So I make the yantra come alive by mantra, repeating it. Now I rediscovered the magical formula of manifestation: repeated intention, till the hazy intention takes a clear shape and manifests over time.

8 Kamakhya 1981

Kamakhya means: kama = any desire, but more commonly sexual desire, akhya = name. It is the root cause, the womb, of any desire to manifest. It is driven by the pleasure of pairing of opposites, ecstasy of dance or music. It lights up one life from another by coupling two people, a sperm and egg into a new life. I saw her.

By this time, I left my job as a scientist; came back to my home town Vizag. Prompted by Saraswati, I performed a Deviyagam in which 3 acres of land was donated. It was located between Anakapalle and Sabbavaram, 33 km from Vizag. I saw Kamakhya, in a triangular yoni rock which is a symbol of the power of God to create new life. I was meditating there.

It was 12 noon. I heard the sound of anklets. I opened my eyes and saw a huge ball of light in front of me. It condensed into a female figure, her body made of  lightnings, bedecked in bridal attire, who spoke thus to me. “Will you do puja to me? I am Kamakhya.” I said “What a blessing!  But I don’t have any articles for puja.” She smiled and said, “I will visualize and they will come to you.” Once I agreed to do puja, she did a couple of strange things. First she bowed down to my feet. I was stunned. “What is the meaning of this?” I asked. She said, “You are going to be a Guru in my lineage. The people who worship me will bow down to you. I am all of them. You will promote yoni and linga pujas, and also of paired female and male energies to manifest new orders of consciousness through circle rituals. You will be a Kaula, meaning you will worship all, female, male and pairing energies” Then she removed Her jewelryand clothing without inhibitions. She opened up to me. I was familiar with the idea of nude worship in Bhairavi chakras. So I could accept its sacredness and power to produce higher life forms through congregation of egoless people in circles. Yet the idea of physically interacting with a divine power was totally new to me.

As promised, I would seek the articles of puja; and they would manifest by Her grace. When it came to bathing her, I looked at Her again. She looked at the sky, and clouds gathered, over us, we were drenched in rain. She took me in the rain walking to the place where the present Chakra temple is, and told me to build it like a pyramid, with all attendant deities, the main icon being Lalita on top of Siva creating new worlds of higher harmonies. To the question of how do I get the forms of attendant deities, she said, meditate, they will appear to you and play games with you. Don’t run away from their erotic plays, that is how they transmit their powers. Then we walked back to the yoni rock. I did puja to all her limbs till She was satisfied. She then embraced me, told me I will feel it always, and vanished into the triangular pit in the rock. How true it was! Whenever I was alone, I could feel Her gentle love play within me.

9 Love Power Hladini  1983

Balancing the aggressive male dance thandava with the soft female dance Lasya was Her intent. I left my job to build a temple for the goddess as instructed by Kamakhya to get men connect to divine shakti through worship of women.

Erotic love power of Krishna is called Hladini Shakti, one who gives enjoyment. She is more familiarly known as Radha. She came into my life. In the view of the world, She was parakiya, wife of another man, but in the larger view of Krishna who owns all powers, she is his own power, Svakiya. Also, it was important that puja be done to parakiya, not one’s own. Only then the full force of all social stigmas will come. Liberation wont come unless you cut away all such knots of I and mine. You can’t hide your shame with God who is inside of you looking at the world and watching you from outside, being the world.

The temple to be built had two major aspects to it. The first was the geometry of the pyramidal Srichakra called the Meru. It took 4 years, taking care to see the accuracy of the geometry of the yantra on ground. It was no mean task. I was helped at every stage of construction by Kamakhya. When in doubt, I would ask a question and She would answer, always in embrace. The second part was populating it with the deities of Khadgamala. The first part took four years of effort with Kamakhya being my consultant.  Hladini took over duties from Her. Then meditation on each deity of Khadga Mala, seeing Her form, posture and weapons, sitting with the sculptor and creating a beautiful female form, finishing the structure; all of these activities took 7 years. The Sri Meru temple in Devipuram was consecrated in 1994, 11 years after it was begun. During this phase, Hladini took all these forms and was constantly playing hide and seek erotic games with me. It was such a wonderful feeling, constantly feeling love to the untold beauties of nature.  I understood that Lalita and Hladini were the same!

 

Hladini told me the secret of the 16000 gopis dancing in a circle with Krishna. The Goloka is the pineal gland, between the neck and crown of head. Around the neck, there is a sixteen petal lotus. On the crown of head, there is a thousand petal lotus. If we connect all the 16 petals with each of the thousand petals we get the 16000 mental forms of Gopis. Krishna is the dark-unknowable-self reached only through silence. When mind is not silent, each Gopi is a loving dance form. Between two silences (Krishnas), there is a thought (Gopi). Between two thoughts (Gopis), there is a silence (Krishna). This is the circle dance. Goloka being the pineal gland, how true it is said, that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder!

Krishna was a true Guru. He told the Gopis, get rid of your body consciousness. Don’t cover your bodies; there is nothing to be ashamed of there. Love your bodies; they are the  temples I live in and adorn. Let go of inhibitions. Open your hearts and come as lovers to me. Then you will find peace in my arms. This is the story of Krishna stealing the clothes of bathing Gopis.

Hladini once dictated a Sahasra nama of Her. I could record about 993 names. A friend from Bombay took the only copy I had written. It never came back to me. Later I learned that it was eaten up by white ants! I could never get it back. Such is life. It is always pain and pleasure in balance.

10 Sharp rings   1990

I used to see circles with sharp glow around the edges. They were all the same size. They filled my entire field of vision. They were actually uniformly bright globes; but looked from a side, the center glow would show much less, the periphery would seem bright.  I was reminded of Fresnel interference rings in optics. And I would see one meditating figure in each of the spheres. It was as if the person was creating the halo around. The globes were close packed in a planar array. It couldn’t be 3d array because the globes would intersect. Were they different worlds, being created by people in deep meditation? I could never tell. This was a repeating pattern, I observed them when I was totally relaxed. They never came on demand; they came unexpectedly, suddenly, in meditation.

11 Pixelating disks  1993

After I saw the vision for about 18 times or so, the sharpness gradually diminished at the edges, more colors entered them and they were bright disks, all same size. There were patterns in them, not unlike like the color blindness test patterns. They would stay for a few minutes, and then they would become grainy pixels, crumble and disappear altogether. I tried to figure it out, but could not.

In 1993, the SriChakra temple was consecrated. Thousands of people saw a steak of light with a head like a lingam drench the top spire of the temple and vanished into blue sky. By this time, Hladini   told me, don’t expect me in my human  form now. See my beauty everywhere. I will see through your eyes, and appreciate that whatever you are seeing is yourself. I am like a mirror, mirroring you to you. I wont be different from you any more. I will come as a thought, indistinguishable from your thought, for we are one. Then she reminded me that my name, Prahlada which means immense Hlada.  Hlada means happiness. Prahlada was a great devotee of Vishnu, the consciousness of space. Vishnu extends to all space. Siva is the name given to extension in all of time; he is appropriately named Kaala, which means time. His consort is life-power, prana shakti, Kali. Time moves things. The thing moved loses its present position in space-time, we may say it died there. It appears at a new place-time, we may say it is born there. So movement of time kills the present state and creates the new state. They are both the same thing, looked at from different sides. So time, life/death, consciousness and power are all intimately connected. Space-time is the called Vishnu-Siva; Energy-Life is its consort. In creation, she is Gouri, the manifesting mother. In annihilation, she is the de-manifesting Mother, the Kali. Matter is the child of the union between Space-time. It is called Brahma, the creator of life.

12 Silken cloth   1995

The next series of experiences were like a moving fold in a silken cloth decorated with fine threads of gold and silver. They would catch light, the glow lives for a little while and becomes dull. Miles and miles of the fabric would go on and on, never repeating. I was reminded of saint Kabir who used to compare God to a weaver of fabric of the cosmos. I saw a parallel to the cloth in the description of Lakshmi Hiranya varnam harinim suvaarna rajata srajam, chadram hiranmayim lakshmim jatavedo mamavaha

Golden hued, consort of Hari (Vishnu), she is made of fine threads of gold and silver, she is cool, radiating golden abundance, Lashmi; may the procreative fire get Her to me.

This is an extremely popular Vedic prayer to get abundance into every home. I think it encodes a beautiful experience of Kamala, the wealth of all pervasive Vishnu, which describes the cosmic abundance. Perhaps it is a seer’s vision of the strings in a sheet describing a cosmic surface.

I might observe that all these experiences were silent spectacles. The un-struck sound ceased to be; the body was totally relaxed, mind was alert, but only seeing in wonder whatever was happening. Perhaps these conditions enable such visions to manifest. Still, volition could give a direction to what was being observed. I did an experiment once; tried to grab a disk and throw it. I could do it. But what it did I don’t know. I felt sorry having done it; it seemed so unfair that I being a mere earthly creature should interfere with a divine plan; it created a void there. Was I a demon, destroying a  particular universe? Or, was it a discus of Vishnu aimed at a demon? I don’t know

Much later, I was observing various types of asymmetrical floral designs of perfect beauty. Later, I saw books, printed matter. As I focus on a certain region to read it, the content was changing. I got quite fed up deciphering the changing books. How could printed matter change? I had no clue.

14 Hieroglyphs 2005

Then I used to see Hieroglyphs scrolls, some times Egyptian or Atlantian, some times it was more like mathematicl symbols, describing some advanced theories. How I wished for an instrument that would video the experiences happening in the mind of a person without loss! I was not trained enough mathematically to understand what was the gift that was being given to me. The gift which came unasked for went unutilized. How sad! At 76 years of age, my memory is failing. I don’t even know how to transcribe it. I rue the day I lost my photographic memory. That would have saved the day. I learned that I was not the selected guy, remembered the movie Matrix.

15 Search for Meanings 2010

Recently I came across an article in New Scientist. I summarise it below.

Is your life the life of the universe?

This is the Vedantic idea, which says ” I am the creator.”

Is it possible that hearing the unstruck sound of anahata within a frequency range of 300 and 1500 hertz, is detecting the Planck’s Length sized grains at the edge of universe? That the attempts of Divine Mother to evolve us into divine beings at play here, in the miniscule earth we inhabit? May be! We will know soon, within our life time!