Dear Allan,

Regarding the metaphysical side of experiences. I was raised a Catholic in a Muslim country. When I was 10 years old we migrated to USA. At 15 I began meditation; at that time I would sit for 5 to 7 hours in our balcony facing this small mountain. I had no teacher, but I was sick of all the written beliefs and I wanted direct knowledge. Being raised Christian, I realized that going towards the "good"/Christ might be too difficult as I am not-pure, so I rationalized that going towards "evil"/Satan would be easier journey, and that the closer I am to "pure evil" I will be next to "pure good". So that's how I started; I closed my eyes and went looking for pure evil/Satan. At that moment my body died, I went to this infinite black spaciousness. It seemed like my soul was headed away. I really felt I would not return to body. All of a sudden I saw a figure that looked like Christ come and raise his arms as I got thrown back into my body. What followed from my meditations was that I began becoming familiar with my astral body and began to align it with my physical body. My mind's eye began to open and I started being able to look under neath the soil of the mountain and see the beings beneath it. I began experiencing many mystical beings like Gnomes, Cubies... it lead up to my first experience with a Dakini which had forceful sex with me... I had the most amazing orgasm throughout my entire body, and meanwhile I was held down and couldn't move my body... I saw her at that time as an insane woman who was doing this to me. Out of my fear and having no context for all the experiences I prayed on a daily basis for all these experiences to be taken away from me. It wasn't till later when I was 18 and had my own apartment, after I broke up with a long term girl friend that I first woke up and saw the blue faced Goddess watching over me... I thought to myself, I've gone full crazy now, and I had intended to check myself into an asylum... as prior to this I was having way too many experiences. The day after the experience with the blue faced Goddess I met my first teacher, a short south-indian man who had lived for many years in the jungles and himalayas... he was trained under many secret cults, tantrics, aghoris, and many others. He had just a few changes of cloths, just two plates and couple of pots for cooking what he bought from the market that day. He worked as a consultant on a H1-B visa to some big company. He had one laptop, one cell phone, and one regular phone. he had basically nothing but bare bare essentials, no sofa, no chairs, no carpets, just white walls and bare carpeted apartment floor. Sometimes he would sit in meditation for 3 days straight without food... sometimes while I was sitting with him, he would begin talking out loud as if he is talking inwardly but didn't notice he was speaking out loud to some beings which I couldn't see... sometimes he would all of a sudden be bowing to someone in front of him which I couldn't see... it appeared that he had daily visitors that I couldn't see.

So he began the process of talking to me about 6 hours a day. He would cook for me everyday and suggested that his cooking was specifically good for meditation and that I should not eat anything else. He told me stories about the many mystics he met, about the Aghori's that he saw take dead flesh and convert it into a banana which was given to him. About the many mystics who have dropped their physical bodies but still reside in certain jungles and they have been around for long time, hundreds of years. He suggested many times for me to go to India with me and he would introduce me to them... and told me that because of him they would talk to me. Then the process of him going through my ego began. On a daily basis he was triggering my ego, pushing my buttons. He would get me to the point of literally wanting to kill him, or going into insanity which I found to be the greatest bliss. He is an Avadhut, and the training of insanity was very important as passed through his Guru... I went through many lessons with him.

Point being, the real kundalini journey for me began with him. He had me sit across from him as he looked above my head, he was looking probably about 6 feet above my head... so if he was focusing on a chakra, it would be above the 7th for sure. He began rising my kundalini and I entered this complete white world.... everything disappeared... my vision became 2D, then all colors faded into white and there was just a gray outline of everything... even that disappeared and we entered what he called the astral plane. He said at this time that my kundalini was raised successfully up to my 5th chakra in full, and he began to tear... I asked him why is he tearing... he said that he was so happy that he has met a student that could go this far on our first experience, that he was so happy and grateful... after all of his rigidness I was thinking to myself nah, that can't be a real emotion from him... he must just have something in his eyes :-)

He began teaching me prana yama practices. The "basti" fire breath. He explained how my intention needs to be violent like killing anyone anything, and as I began doing these breaths, there was another student of his in the room. The student remarked that he was amazed as he began feeling waves of intense heat rising from my body. Then that student tried to do the same thing, and our teacher stopped him and said that it would be dangerous for him at this time. There was great significance taught about the the Sushumna... about being able to keep both nostrils clear to breath easily and both nostrils having the same level of open-ness for taking breath in and out.... without the Sushumna balanced and open he suggested our practices would make us mad. Later I learned the Nadi Shodahana Pranayama (alternate nostril breathing). There was a ratio to our breaths, I believe it was 4 seconds on the in breath through the left nostril, holding it in for 12 seconds, and breathing out for 8.

Leading the prana yama practices, my body began feeling lighter each day, I began to have so much energy that I was no longer sleeping at all. I began not eating food at all, I was just drinking water. Sometimes at night when the lights were off and I was looking for something my hands would light up like light bulbs... so literally physical light was coming from my body. I began being able to lift things that there was no way for me to lift, like being able to lift a truck from the back... I could run and jump much higher than usual and my heart/breath would not tire... a few times I ran up and down a hill and I had no sweat or heart beat variation. The process continued and my body began turning what I could perceive as clear white. A regular friend came to visit me during that time, and she told me that my body looked green to her at that time. I was fully celibate, no masturbation, no ejaculation, no erection, no thinking of sex or ANY desire, no dreaming or any unconscious play. It was a non-attachment practiced to the level that if I felt tired I would not sleep, if I was hungry I would not eat, if I was in pain while sitting I would sit in the pain until I was comfortable with the pain... it was in a way a very violent way of learning detachment and later progressing to non-attachment. I had to always maintain the kundalini stayed at 3rd or above chakra's as well.

I had a closet that I would sit inside for meditation. As I would sit, I would notice my kundalini was up to 3rd charka. Then I would bow to all my teachers, and as I would raise my body up from the bow, I would see that kundalni had raised to the heart... I would begin with prana yama, and then move onto mantra. The energy would build up so much that often I had the feeling that if I moved my small finger the walls around my apartment from shatter. I was later told by my sister who often visited me and I would go into my closet that every time I would go to my closet, at some point the electrical power for the apartment would go out for at least 3 minutes... fax machines, computers, and tv would all be rebooting... clocks had to get reset. If I start writing about all the experiences and beings that I met in meditation I would never end typing.

The miracle expereinced continued to deepen. When it was raining outside, I would open my apartment door and that instant the rain would stop. As soon as I would get to my car, sit inside, and close the door, the rain would start that instant. I would get to the office at work, open the door and rain stops. As soon as I would walk into the office, close the door, the rain would start. It was like this every single day. It would be raining and I would look up at the cloudy sky and I would think to myself, I wish I could see the clear blue sky... I look back up I would see a big opening. This phenomena continued... I began to hear audibly the thoughts of others... I began testing myself by telling people exactly what they were thinking, or had friends to play back songs in their head and I would tell them the words to the song... and some were songs I had never heard before. One time I realized my sister wanted to go out to a see a movie, I told her the name of the movie... and took her out to the theaters. On our way there, I realized she wanted a hot chocolate from a local start bucks. We walked into the startbucks which had two lines, one to each cash register going outside of the shop. Once our turn got up, I thought to myself, I've spent a lot of money, but that's ok, she's my sister and I haven't taken her anywhere. When the cash register guy punched in our order, he told us the register machine froze. He tried to turn it on and off and it wouldn't work. He then waited for the other register next to him to free up, and began to punch our order on that one, and that register also froze (stopped working)! He said we get our drinks for free, and he yelled to everyone (at least 30 customers in line) that all drinks are free. As soon as we stepped away and next person walked in, both registers began to work. I made sure to tip him what our total would have been and more.

I've always been surprised about the miracle experiences that are happening. Many have happened and still do, not as much like before as my life just has a different focus right now.. but they still do happen.

.... so to bring some of this home...

I believe that if anyone commits his life to sadhana, intense practices like Mantra and Prana Yama along with a good system like Raja Yoga... and does this continuously for some years... every single day doing hours of meditation in the morning and hours at night... there is NO WAY not to have many experiences and openings.

.... the next thing is... I also observe at least to me, that when my thoughts are still, being is still, the kundalini naturally rises...
every single day, after my daily work is done, after we have put the kids to bed, I just walk back to the living room and I notice I'm back into a very deep meditative state... it's just a natural state... and once the daily things are done, that's what I go back to

... I still have much further to go in this journey, I know this...

I did all these practices for a 3 year period. Finally in 2004 one day I woke up and cleaned up my apartment. I had a feeling to turn all the spiritual books I had cover facing out... so I could see the photos of all the masters looking at me. That day when I came home with my friend was when the Nirvikalpa Samadhi happened. It was after this experience that the gates opened and all this trauma processing began. Later after this I joined a Sufi path. In between I had also been taught Native American practices for a year, and had visited with many others Masters... some I would run into at random places... like I ran into Ammaji (www.amma.org) at the San Francisco air port randomly! I would run into such people at places like coffee shops. The Sufi training was what really helped me ground back. The Shaikh at the Sufi path I was in after 2 years when I was leaving the path told me that if I left that path, he predicted that I would be a Master of another path. I have no such feelings and still feel I have much growing up and maturing to do.

So I began my journey as the "energy mastery" and at some point the "spirituality" began when the Nirvikalpa Samadhi in 2004... and following that the "therapy" process started to help me be a full functioning human being as a father, lover, entrepreneur etc. And of most recent I'm beginning to go through a whole new stage of consciousness where Essence has become cognizant of itself as Essence... and while this is happening, all the other states of conciousness in a transparent way are happening at once... the body/mind is there while essence is aware of itself... so the body/mind pose questions and Essence is responding. I have no idea where this is going... but I've begun having Shamanic vivid dreams again... last night was the this gigantic brown Bear the size of a whale... it came after me to kill me... I was shooting at it, but I'm pretty sure it killed me, then I woke up. I had these Shamanic dreams as the Bear flying through the air the week before the Nirvikalpa experience.

At this point, I do have two teachers who are more like friends who have gone the path, and assist me when I need help. But certainly the Guru is Essence itself.