Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man

Gopi Krishna (30 May 1903 – 31 July 1984) was a yogi; mystic; teacher; social reformer; and writer. He was born in a small village outside Srinagar, in the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India. He spent his early years there, and later lived in Lahore, in the Punjab of British India. He was one of the first to popularise the concept of Kundalini among Western readers. His autobiography Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, which presented his personal account of the phenomenon of his awakening of Kundalini, (later renamed to Living with Kundalini),was published in Great Britain and the United States and has since appeared in eleven major languages. According to June McDaniel, his writings have influenced Western interest in kundalini yoga.

At the age of twenty, he returned to Kashmir. During the succeeding years he secured a post in the state government, married and raised a family. Early in his career he became the leader of a social organisation that was devoted to helping the disadvantaged in his community, especially with regard to issues concerning the well-being and rights of women. His autobiography, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man.

At the age of thirty-four, while meditating one morning, he reported to have experienced the sudden and forceful awakening of Kundalini. "The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light...I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider, surrounded by waves of light...I was now all consciousness, without any outline, without any idea of a corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware of every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction...bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe."

Gopi Krishna's experience radically altered the path of his life. He came to believe that the human brain was evolving and that an individual's profound mystical experience was a foretaste of what would eventually become an all-pervasive transformation in human consciousness. By his own account, Gopi Krishna's initial experience triggered a transformative process that lasted for twelve years. During this time, the sensations of light, splendor and joy alternated with – and were often completely overshadowed by – sensations of fire, unbearable heat and bleak depression. In the introduction to Krishna's book, Frederic Spiegelberg writes:

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