Kundalini Splendor

Recently, I received this perceptive letter from someone who had read "Unmasking the Rose." At the risk of seeming to be too egoic, I am including her complimentary words about this text, as well as her rich and discerning analysis of the "One Source." She makes an important point: (several, actually) and that is that Kundalini bliss is but one aspect of the divine creative force and that a complete view will take into account the other aspects of 'his" nature as well. As she notes, when we are in the grips of intense Kundalini bliss/pleasure, it is difficult if not impossible to think in a rational, analytical fashion. Only before and after intense awakening can we think in a more analytical way (but we can learn to alternate between the two modes.)

Dear Dorothy,

In the public library here in Eugene, I happened across your unique memoir, Unmasking the Rose, and I am writing to express my appreciation.

The disclosure of your kundalini awakening is far more informative than other such accounts I have read, and this is largely because of your unflinching honesty. I consider it an immense act of generosity that you have been so frank, neither minimizing nor exaggerating the character of your experience. Furthermore, the detailed account of your spiritual odyssey is fully contextualized by your personal life in such a way that I can better understand how a sublime transformation of consciousness—indeed veritable identification with Source Consciousness—still leaves room for the homeliness, doubts, and intrinsic imperfection of individual life. I am so very grateful you decided to publish rather than give in to the idea that your memoir was somehow incomplete. To my mind, the non-finality of your spiritual enlightenment constitutes a seal of its truthfulness and authenticity.

I would also like to remark that I admire your fidelity to the inner guru. It is not only exemplary, but also it is an encouragement to those of us who, for whatever reason, could not get ourselves situated, much as we might wish for it, within the community of a compatible human guru.

You may wonder what factors in my personal history move me to write you. The thing is, I have familiarized myself with this general subject matter through years of reading and intensive solitary contemplation. Yet I am not a meditator. Rather, as you describe in Part One of your memoir ("Preparation: mind encounters Mind"), there has been in my case "a passion of writing." I have spent the major energies of my life in "essays/reflections on certain fundamental truths." Rather than extensive mystical experience, I have a theological orientation. What makes me happy is revelatory ideas about the Creator, the Source Consciousness.

I value your memoir for a variety of reasons, but especially for the light it throws on human union with a particular aspect—the bliss aspect—of Source Consciousness. As you have pointed out, the extremity of spiritual bliss tends to resist (or postpone) objective comprehension. At the height of bliss, there is an annulment or eclipse of the Examiner. Thus, mystical theology, which depends on the Examiner, must usually precede or else follow in the wake of bliss consciousness. When bliss has subsided or is not yet in full flower, intellectual apprehension of Source Consciousness can filter into the human mind though intuitions or sudden knowledge-nuggets.

For me, theologically, there is the tri-unity of Shiva, indicated by his trident. For Mother-worshippers, the same tri-unity is indicated by the inverted equilateral triangle. As I see it, there are three aspects of the One Creator:

First is Presence or Omnipresence. Your memoir, Unmasking the Rose, throws very great light on the character of the divine presence, which is all presence. i.e., omnipresence—the original substance or existence, potentially capable to manifest as all the limited objects and subjects of the universe. Eternally, from the no-beginning, the aspect of Presence is creative bliss. Even before the worlds come to be, there is OM, the creative bliss ocean, characterized by the love/joy of ever-becoming-one. Within that perpetually confluent primordial maelstrom of harmonic forms there are no discrete individuals, but only the original identity, Shiva or Source Consciousness. The creative bliss so eloquently described in your memoir is, to my mind, none other than the original presence/body/world of Shiva. If and when the original presence/body/world of Shiva becomes contracted or coiled, it is known as kundalini, the vibrantly ingenious and dynamic stuff of the universe.

The second aspect of Source Consciousness is Omniscience, i.e., comprehensive understanding and also the perception of unrealized possibilities. What unrealized possibilities? In the original bliss, certain creative possibilities are foreclosed, because they can manifest only in conditions of darkness and limitation. The Omniscience of Shiva is aware of these latent possibilities.

That leaves the third aspect of Source Consciousness, which is Omnipotence—the original, almighty I, the so-called Will of God, by which Maya is activated. Maya, the limitation of consciousness, is the prerequisite of individuation. By the power of Maya a secondary reality, a contingent and inferior reality, shows its effects. This secondary reality is the universe, which comes to be because Shiva is not attached to perfection. Shiva, the original I, is absolutely free and wild. Inherently, he is beyond all obligations, and he has such a nature, he is possessed of such awful, wild asceticism, that he can actually sacrifice perfection in order to manifest the creative possibilities of good-and-evil. When the universe comes to be, it is as if original Bliss becomes the sacrificial animal, drawn and quartered to make the myriad worlds. The beauty and horror of this divine act is aptly illustrated by the sacred person of Shiva—a magnificent figure, crowned by the moon, entwined with deadly serpents, loins wrapped in the skin of a tiger, with the heavenly Ganga spilling from the tangled heap of his dreadlocks.

Again, Dorothy, I am thanking you for clarifying to your readers the originally blissful nature of Nature. This original bliss is well concealed by Shiva. What he has concealed, he alone can reveal. It seems that Shiva has arranged for certain persons to get acquainted with Original Nature through the medium of your frankly shared life experience. Hence we have been blessed to read your wonderful memoir Unmasking the Rose.

With my gratitude, admiration, and best regards,

Pavani