Letter To The Free Daist Communion - Request For Assistance - Overview Of My Kundalini Symptoms - Jones Uses Lidocaine With No Adverse Reactions

Letter To The Free Daist Communion - Request For Assistance - Overview Of My Kundalini Symptoms - Jones Uses Lidocaine With No Adverse Reactions - Petition To Live In Fiji Denied

Presents a letter to Da Avabhasa's association, the Free Daist Communion (pdf), soliciting their guidance on a variety of topics.

The letter presents an overview of my past spiritual experiences and present kundalini conditions.

Kundalini Awakening - Spiritual Signs And Symptoms - November 5, 1994 (a)

Franklin Jones' "Knee Of Listening" (1972 edition); Saniel Bonder's "The Divine Emergence Of The World-Teacher - Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda"; and the expanded version of "The Knee Of Listening" (2004 edition, with about 600 additional pages) by Jones now renamed "The Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj."

*1994.11.5. (a)

I wrote the following letter today, earnestly soliciting assistance from Adi Da's organization.

Dear Correspondence Department of the Free Daist Communion:

This letter is a request for a list of spiritual texts by Da Avabhasa and other authors. I read that through your organization I can purchase his books as well as related works by other adepts and scholars. I would appreciate your sending me a catalogue and order form for purchasing these items. I have eight of Da Avabhasa's books, as well as a couple of dozen other spiritual texts, and it is likely that in my pursuit of spiritual knowledge I will purchase several more. I hope very much that you will be able to assist me in this matter.

Also, if it is possible, I would appreciate some assistance in selecting books pertaining to my specific area of interest. I am extremely interested in books describing the various gross and subtle symptoms and signs of spiritual development. I am looking for very specific information: bodily sensations, gross and subtle perceptions, and so forth. I am trying to follow my heart -- my intuition -- in all of this, but my mind would like a great deal more information. Perhaps you could say seeking intellectual knowledge is something of an egoic distraction. But I am hopeful that I can amass both an intellectual and an emotional-physical understanding at the same time.

To enable you to better select the appropriate books for me, I will give you some information about myself and present some questions.

Some nine years ago, when I was twenty, I was meditating deeply on love and unexpectedly awakened the kundalini force at the base of my spine. It pounded my head and flooded my extremities with warmth. It took me two days to calm it down to the point where I could sleep. It was only this past summer that I began meditating again. One night this past July I felt the ascending current strongly at the back of my head, desiring some kind of union with the central portion of my brain. I started to submit, feeling my individual identity begin to implode as the force rushed inward. There was no fear or existential drama at the time. (Anxiousness came later when I was resisting the force.) But then, out of nowhere, just as I felt some great inner event about to occur within the center-most portion of my brain, I felt a claw of fear in my chest. What appeared to be the sino-atrial node of my heart leapt up in a spasm, as if to say, "No, dummy! Enlightenment is down here!" It was the most overwhelming feeling I've ever had. Following my heart's demand, I staved off the energy in my brain, and a couple of hours later directed the same force into my chest. The point at which I did this, a feeling of wondrous irrigation occurred through several nerves going across my chest. The feeling was five hundred times more powerful and fulfilling than an orgasm. In fact, a sexual analogy is altogether misguided. It was a radiant, transcendental, maddening feeling of love the likes of which I had never heard or thought possible. It was so pure and powerful! It was qualitatively different from anything I had ever experienced before. And on a level of magnitude, it was, as I said, perhaps five hundred times more powerful than anything I had ever experienced as well. The feeling lasted only a couple of seconds, but it marked the beginning of a series of developments apparently directed at adapting my mind and body to a life suffused with this radiant feeling of love and fulfillment. Within my brain, it appeared that this breakthrough was directed by my pituitary or hypothalamus glands. The pituitary seems most appropriate, as it has been identified as being responsible for regulating so many other developmental processes.

Over the past couple of months I have felt incredible warmth and richness filling my chest. I frequently sit on my bed dumbfounded, contemplating this amazing energy and radiance in my chest. When I go outside, the feeling is intensified two- or three-fold if the sun is shining directly on my chest. And, most recently, this feeling has begun to spread. My chin and neck are now as sensitive to sunlight and this internal radiance as my sternum and brachial plexus areas.

Sexually, there have been ramifications as well. For example, I masturbated recently and during orgasm I felt horrendously powerful contractions that affected my thymus gland, heart muscle, and brachial plexus. The feeling was so intense and overwhelming that I thought I would die on the spot from a cardiac arrest. Since my awakening of kundalini nine years ago, I have felt similarly odd contractions in my brain's gland areas. But now the contractions occur also in my heart region. My experience leads me to believe that there is a circuit whereby sublimated sexual energy is distributed throughout the body. The lymphatic, endocrine, and nervous systems are all interrelated and interconnected to an extent that Western medicine has only the vaguest knowledge. These systems likely play key roles in the awakening of the human body to spiritual awareness.

Currently, my ego, which has steadfastly not succumbed, is weakening. Transcendence appears imminent. I feel that it is unhealthy to put it off any longer. Da Avabhasa said that the heart is central and that enlightenment there brings everything else with it. I am trying to hold to this directive, but a radiant energy comes up my spine every day looking for union. I wish it would focus on my heart and leave my brain alone. But the "problem" is that my brain seems entirely ready for illumination while my heart region appears to have some time yet before it has enough of a reservoir of vital energy by which to sustain illumination.

When I come home from my daily hike, I feel very heavy -- haggard may be a more accurate description -- with unilluminated energy. For instance, last night after my hike I had tremendous difficulty finding the resolve to call my mother, take a shower, and wash my hiking outfit. All I wanted to do was assume a supine position on my bed and let this impatient radiance take me. Finally, I laid down; and as soon as I became deeply relaxed I felt and heard a current rise up my spine that wanted to spill into the gland area of my brain -- the seat of my self-consciousness. As soon as it began to penetrate this area I pulled back my attention, thinking that this energy was making a mistake and that its focus should be upon the heart.

This kind of energy play has been going on for some weeks now and when I choose not to submit -- by forceful, constant intellectualizations -- I feel a big, uncomfortable knot of energy form in the center of my head. This knot makes sleeping difficult. It also makes it difficult for me to feel relaxed. The only way to diminish the knot is to draw from my grab-bag of spiritual dissipation: over eating, over exercising, and masturbation.

So, having heard my story, I have a few questions for you.

Will my system be thrown into an unusual flux like Gopi Krishna's was if I submit to enlightenment in the brain via this ascending current? My feeling is that since Gopi Krishna did not complete the circuit -- that is, open up the central nervous system to the peripheral nervous system -- there was an energy overload in the brain due to its not being the proper terminus for kundalini.

How is subtle energy distributed throughout the body? How are the lymphatic, endocrine, peripheral nervous, and central nervous systems involved in spiritual development?

What will happen if I am enlightened in the pancreas gland/ solar plexus area prior to the brain or thymus gland/ chest region? A couple of times I have felt an irrigation of fluid into my pancreas gland. I felt that my pancreas was swelling like a balloon and would explode like a supernova. I felt that my whole being was collapsing like a house of cards into this gland. Would it burst forth with internally perceptible light? What would be the implications of this event for the rest of my endocrine and nervous systems? I have been very restrained thus far, and have not yet allowed what you could call an "inner orgasm" at any gland area.

Is there a particular developmental sequence in terms of enlightening each gland and associated nerve plexus? Are you SURE that enlightenment of the heart region brings forth light into the other nerve plexuses too? Given Gopi Krishna's experience, it seems that it might be possible for each gland area to experience its own particular enlightenment. Since the pancreas is lower down in the endocrine system, would an enlightenment there enlighten the heart, too? Is it okay or possible to become enlightened in the brain and then work on the heart afterwards?

These concerns are all urgent ones for me, as I am not sure whether I can hold back much longer.

Can I find more information concerning "thumbs," the "circle," the "witness position," and the other events and perceptions that Da Avabhasa describes that pertain to profound awakening? It would be great if this information could be related in as concise a fashion as possible -- like Kanya Suprithi's recounting of her experience of great samadhi in Saniel Bonder's book. I prefer simple, journal-like accounts such as hers. I have the original version of Da Avabhasa's "The Knee of Listening:" I like it -- it is less dense and jargon-filled than Da Avabhasa's later work.

Can I find more information on how to be physically healthier amidst this process? All the adepts I've seen look haggard and physically spent. Is this corpse-like condition necessary for the evolution of one's consciousness and the distribution of subtle energy in the body?

I have not felt activity in the adrenals, per se. And I have only felt warmth and tingling in the thyroid. Are these major glands? Is the thyroid area included in sort of a "packaged deal" upon the thymus area's enlightenment? I have felt distinctly different emotions emanating from the glands. The thyroid seems to be about "sadness" and seems to control my hairline down through my face and neck. The thymus seems to be about "love" and controls my chest, heart and lungs. The pancreas feels like a fundamental "is-ness" and controls my digestive system. But when I orgasm I have not yet felt contractions in either my thyroid, my pancreas, or my adrenals. Should I be focusing on these areas more? By just focusing on love and the heart, am I being somehow a wimp or dishonest by not focusing on the great sadness of the face/throat or the is-ness of the solar plexus?

Also, I have felt a number of times that the profound love in the heart, by itself, is too much to bear. As an emotion it requires a groundedness or a discipline that is beyond me. I begin to go emotionally insane if I focus my awareness there. It seems that without the rock, ground and foundation of the is-ness in the pancreas/solar plexus, I will be overwhelmed by the heart's emotional radiance. Do you think that this is the case?

I don't want any drama. I am not seeking Big Experiences. I just want to feel that God Is. Then, perhaps, with that as a foundation, I can go ahead and perceive whatever arises -- but hopefully not in any threatened or incapacitated way.

Those are all the questions I have for now. Hopefully I will be able to personally corroborate the information you give me through direct experience. I will let you know if I do!

Thank you very much for your time and patience. I am very happy that an organization such as the Free Daist Communion exists to be of service to spiritual aspirants such as myself during these troubled and ignorant times.

Sincerely,

X [edit]
Honolulu, Hawaii

Comment August 1, 2004

This letter never received a response.

Comment December 15, 2013

I had two or three conversations by phone with members of Jones' organization in the coming year and a half. None could support or validate my experiences or give me any helpful advice. Further, since I was not an advanced initiate into Jones' de facto religion -- nor a wealthy potential donor -- I could not petition Jones, now Adi Da Samraj, in person. One of the phone calls was to a devotee living at Jones' ashram on the island of Kauai, just a short flight from where I was in Honolulu. Then I had two conversations with Dr. Lee Sannella, in California, author of "The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis Or Transcendence" (pdf). I had spoken with Sannella several years earlier when I was studying mysticism at UC Berkeley. I think he was in the Stanford area at the time, and he sent me 10 copies of his book on kundalini, which was in a small, beige, soft cover manuscript form at the time. This might have been around 1985. With Sannella's help I was able to call Jones' dentist in New Zealand. I was saddened to discover that Jones did in fact use the Lidocaine anesthetic during dental work with none of the adverse reactions that had plagued me since December 1994. Even though I knew it was hopeless, I had been made so desperate by my experiences in December 1995 that I tried to get permission to live with Jones at his "hermitage" on an island in Fiji in the hopes that this would put a safe distance between me and the nearest cellular towers. I had hoped, too, that living in a knowledgeable community of spiritual practicioners would be of help as well. I was willing to drop everything and just do dishes for the guy, if I would be made physically and energetically safe in doing so. Of course, this was not an option, as even Jones' most advanced initiates rarely get the opportunity visit and study with him in person.

Moral of the story: Be prepared to be isolated on the spiritual path. Be grateful for any help you find, but do not count on it. There is a tremendous amount of darkness and ignorance surrounding this subject, and all that may guide you is the bright light -- the clear voice -- within. Cling to it and you will not go mad and you will not lose hope.

Lee Sannella: What is Kundalini? - Thinking Allowed with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove (Amazon) (YouTube excerpt) (mp4)