Kundalini by ©Pandit Gopi Krishna (1)

Kuóðalinì

 Kundalini by  © Pandit Gopi Krishna, 1976

Chapter One

one morning during the Christmas of 1937

I sat cross-legged in a small room in a little house on the outskirts of the town of Jammu,

the winter capital of the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India.

I was meditating with my face towards the window on the east

through which the first grey streaks of the slowly brightening dawn fell into the room.

Long practice had accustomed me to sit in the same posture for hours at a time without the least discomfort,

and I sat breathing slowly and rhythmically,

my attention drawn towards the crown of my head,

contemplating an imaginary lotus in full bloom, radiating light.

I sat steadily, unmoving and erect, my thoughts uninterruptedly centered on the shining lotus,

intent on keeping my attention from wandering and bringing it back again and again

whenever it moved in any other direction.

The intensity of concentration interrupted my breathing;

gradually it slowed down to such an extent that at times it was barely perceptible.

My whole being was so engrossed in the contemplation of the lotus that

for several minutes at a time I lost touch with my body and surroundings.

During such intervals

I used to feel as if, I were poised in mid-air,

without any feeling of a body around me.

The only object of which I was aware was a lotus of brilliant colour,

emitting rays of light.

This experience has happened to many people who practise meditation in any form regularly for a sufficient length of time,

but what followed on that fateful morning in my case,

changing the whole course of my life and outlook, has happened to few.

During one such spell of intense concentration

I suddenly felt a strange sensation below the base of the spine,

at the place touching the seat,

while I sat cross-legged on a folded blanket spread on the floor.

The sensation was so extraordinary and so pleasing that my attention was forcibly drawn towards it.

The moment my attention was thus unexpectedly withdrawn from the point on which it was focused,

the sensation ceased.

Thinking it to be a trick played by my imagination to relax the tension,

I dismissed the matter from my mind and brought my attention back to the point from which it had wandered.

Again I fixed it on the lotus,

and as the image grew clear and distinct at the top of my head,

again the sensation occurred.

This time I tried to maintain the fixity of my attention and succeeded for a few seconds,

but the sensation extending upwards grew so intense and was so extraordinary,

as compared to anything I had experienced before,

that in spite of myself my mind went towards it,

and at that very moment it again disappeared.

I was now convinced that something unusual had happened

for which my daily practice of concentration was probably responsible.

I had read glowing accounts,

written by learned men,

of great benefits resulting from concentration,

and of the miraculous powers acquired by yogis through such exercises.

My heart began to beat wildly,

and I found it difficult to bring my attention to the required degree of fixity.

After a while I grew composed and was soon as deep in meditation as before.

When completely immersed I again experienced the sensation,

but this time, instead of allowing my mind to leave the point where I had fixed it,

I maintained a rigidity of attention throughout.

The sensation again extended upwards, growing in intensity,

and I felt myself wavering; but with a great effort I kept my attention centered round the lotus.

Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall,

I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord.

Entirely unprepared for such a development,

I was completely taken by surprise; but regaining self-control instantaneously,

I remained sitting in the same posture, keeping my mind on the point of concentration.

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.

It is impossible to describe the experience accurately.

I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider,

surrounded by waves of light.

It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body,

normally the immediate object of its perception,

appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it.

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.

I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be,

a small point of awareness confined in a body,

but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point,

bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe.

After some time, the duration of which I could not judge,

the circle began to narrow down; I felt myself contracting,

becoming smaller and smaller,

until I again became dimly conscious of the outline of my body,

then more clearly; and as I slipped back to my old condition,

I became suddenly aware of the noises in the street,

felt again my arms and legs and head,

and once more became my narrow self in touch with body and surroundings. When I opened my eyes and looked about,

I felt a little dazed and bewildered,

as if coming back from a strange land completely foreign to me.

The sun had risen and was shining full on my face,

warm and soothing. I tried to lift my hands,

which always rested in my lap,

one upon the other,

during meditation.

My arms felt limp and lifeless.

With an effort I raised them up and stretched them to enable the blood to flow freely.

Then I tried to free my legs from the posture in which I was sitting

and to place them in a more comfortable position but could not.

They were heavy and stiff.

With the help of my hands I freed them and stretched them out,

then put my back against the wall,

reclining in a position of ease and comfort.

What had happened to me?

Was I the victim of a hallucination?

Or had I by some strange vagary of fate succeeded in experiencing the Transcendental?

Had I really succeeded where millions of others had failed? Was chers,

after all,

really some truth in the off-repeated claim of the sages and ascetics of India,

made for thousands of years and verified and repeated generation after generation,

that it was possible to apprehend reality in this life if one followed certain rules of conduct and practised meditation in a certain way?

My thoughts were in a daze. I could hardly believe that I had a vision of divinity.

There had been an expansion of my own self,

my own consciousness,

and the transformation had been brought about by the vital current that had started from below the spine and found access to my brain through the backbone.

I recalled that I had read long ago in books on Yoga of a certain vital mechanism called Kundalini,

connected with the lower end of the spine,

which becomes active by means of certain exercises,

and when once roused carries the limited human consciousness to transcendental heights,

endowing the individual with incredible psychic and mental powers.

Had I been lucky enough to find the key to this wonderful mechanism,

which was wrapped up in the legendary mist of ages,

about which people talked and whispered without having once seen it in action in themselves or in others?

I tried once again to repeat the experience,

but was so weak and flabbergasted that I could not collect my thoughts sufficiently enough to induce a state of concentration.

My mind was in a ferment.

I looked at the sun.

Could it be that in my condition of extreme concentration,

I had mistaken it for the effulgent halo that had surrounded me in the superconscious state?

I closed my eyes again,

allowing the rays of the sun to play upon my face.

No, the glow that I could perceive across my closed eyelids was quite different.

It was external and had not that splendor.

The light I had experienced was internal,

an integral part of enlarged consciousness,

a part of my self.

I stood up.

My legs felt weak and tottered under me.

It seemed as if my vitality had been drained out.

My arms were no better.

I massaged my thighs and legs gently, and,

feeling a little better,

slowly walked downstairs.

Saying nothing to my wife,

I took my meal in silence and left for work.

My appetite was not as keen as usual,

my mouth appeared dry,

and I could not put my thoughts into my work in the office.

I was in a state of exhaustion and lassitude,

disinclined to talk. After a while,

feeling suffocated and ill at ease,

I left for a short walk in the street with the idea of finding diversion for my thoughts.

My mind reverted again and again to the experience of the morning,

trying to recreate in imagination the marvellous phenomenon I had witnessed,

but without success.

My body,

especially the legs,

still felt weak,

and I could not walk for long.

I took no interest in the people whom I met,

and walked with a sense of detachment and indifference to my surroundings quite foreign to me. I returned to my desk sooner than I had intended,

and passed the remaining hours toying with my pen and papers,

unable to compose my thoughts sufficiently to work.

When I returned home in the afternoon I felt no better.

I could not bring myself to sit down and read,

my usual habit in the evening.

I ate supper in silence,

without appetite or relish,

and retired to bed.

Usually I was asleep within minutes of putting my head to the pillow,

but this night I felt strangely restless and disturbed.

I could not reconcile the exaltation of the morning with the depression that sat heavily on me,

while I tossed from side to side on the bed.

I had an unaccountable feeling of fear and uncertainty.

At last in the midst of misgivings, I fell asleep.

I slept fitfully,

dreaming strange dreams,

and woke up after short intervals in sharp contrast to my usual deep,

uninterrupted sleep.

After about 3 a.m. sleep refused to come.

I sat up in bed for some time.

Sleep had not refreshed me.

I still felt fatigued and my thoughts lacked clarity.

The usual time for my meditation Was approaching.

I decided to begin earlier so that I would not have the sun on my hands and face,

and without disturbing my wife,

went upstairs to my study.

I spread the blanket,

and sitting cross-legged as usual,

began to meditate.

I could not concentrate with the same intensity as on the previous day,

though I tried my best.

My thoughts wandered,

and instead of being in a state of happy expectancy I felt strangely nervous and uneasy.

At last,

after repeated efforts,

I held my attention at the usual point for some time,

waiting for results.

Nothing happened and I began to feel doubts about the validity of my previous experience.

I tried again,

this time with better success.

Pulling myself together,

I steadied my wandering thoughts,

and fixing my attention on the crown,

tried to visualize a lotus in full bloom as was my custom.

As soon as I arrived at the usual pitch of mental fixity,

I again felt the current moving upward. I did not allow my attention to waver,

and again with a rush and a roaring noise in my ears the stream of effulgent light entered my brain,

filling me with power and vitality,

and I felt myself expanding in all directions,

spreading beyond the boundaries of flesh,

entirely absorbed in the contemplation of a brilliant conscious glow,

one with it and yet not entirely merged in it.

The condition lasted for a shorter duration than it had done yesterday.

The feeling of exaltation was not so strong.

When I came back to normal,

I felt my heart thumping wildly and there was a bitter taste in my mouth.

It seemed as if a scorching blast of hot air had passed through my body.

The feeling of exhaustion and weariness was more pronounced than it had been yesterday.

I rested for some time to recover my strength and poise.

It was still dark.

I had now no doubts that the experience was real and that the sun had nothing to do with the internal lustre that I saw.

But, why did I feel uneasy and depressed?

Instead of feeling exceedingly happy at my luck and blessing my stars,

why had despondency overtaken me?

I felt as if I were in imminent danger of something beyond my understanding and power,

something intangible and mysterious,

which I could neither grasp nor analyze.

A heavy cloud of depression and gloom seemed to hang round me,

rising from my own internal depths without relation to external circumstances,

I did not feel, I was the same man, I had been but a few days before,

and a condition of horror,

on account of the inexplicable change,

began to settle on me,

from which,

try as I might,

I could not make myself free by any effort of my will.

Little did I realize that from that day onwards,

I was never to be my old normal self again,

that I had unwittingly and without preparation or even adequate knowledge of it roused to activity the most wonderful and stem power in man,

that I had stepped unknowingly upon the key to the most guarded secret of the ancients,

and that thenceforth for a long time I had to live suspended by a thread,

swinging between life on the one hand and death on the other,

between sanity and insanity,

between light and darkness,

between heaven and earth.

I began the practice of meditation at the age of seventeen.

Failure in a house examination at the College,

which prevented me from appearing in the University that year,

created a revolution in my young mind.

I was not so much worried by the failure and the loss of one year as by the thoughts of the extreme pain it would cause my mother,

whom I loved dearly.

For days and nights I racked my brain for a plausible excuse to mitigate the effect of the painful news on her.

She was so confident of my success that I simply had not the courage to disillusion her.

I was a merit scholarship holder,

occupying a distinguished position in College,

but instead of devoting time to the study of assigned texts,

I busied myself in reading irrelevant books borrowed from the library.

Too late I realized that I knew next to nothing about some of the subjects,

and had no chance whatever of passing the test.

Having never suffered the ignominy of a failure in my school life,

and always highly spoken of by the teachers,

I felt crestfallen,

pierced to the quick by the thought that my mother,

proud of my distinction and sure of my ability to get through the examination with merit,

would be deeply hurt at this avowal of my negligence.

Born, in a village,

of a family of hard-working and God-fearing peasants,

fate had destined her as a partner to a man considerably senior to her in age,

hailing from Amritsar,

at that time no less than six days journey by rail and cart from the place other birth.

Insecurity and lawlessness in the country had forced one of my forefathers,

to bid adieu to his cool native soil and to seek his fortune in the torrid plains of distant Punjab.

There,

changed in dress and speaking a different tongue,

my grandfather and greatgrandfather lived and prospered like other exiles of their kind,

altered in all save their religious rites and customs and the unmistakable physiognomy of Kashmir!

Brahmins.

My father,

with a deep mystical vein in him,

returned to the land of his ancestors when almost past his prime,

to marry and settle there.

Even during the most active period of his worldly life he was always on the lookout for Yogis and ascetics reputed to possess occult powers,

and never tired of serving them and sitting in their company to learn the secret of their marvellous gifts.

He was a firm believer in the traditional schools of religious discipline and Yoga,

extant in India from the earliest times,

which among all the numerous factors contributing to success allot the place of honor to renunciation,

to the voluntary relinquishment of all worldly pursuits and possessions,

to enable the mind,

released from the heavy chains binding it to the earth,

to plumb its own ethereal depths undisturbed by desire and passion.

The authority for such conduct emanates from the Vedas,

may,

from the examples themselves set by the inspired authors of the Vedic hymns and the celebrated seers of the Upanishads,

who conforming to an established practice prevailing in the ancient society of Indo-Aryans,

retired from the busy life of householders at the ripe age of fifty and above,

sometimes accompanied by their consorts,

to spend the rest of their lives in forest hermitages in uninterrupted meditation and preaching,

the prelude to a grand and peaceful exit.

This unusual mode of passing the eve of life has exercised a deep fascination over countless spiritually inclined men and women in India and even now hundreds of accomplished and,

from the worldly point of view,

happily circumstanced family men of advanced age,

bidding farewell to their otherwise comfortable homes and dutiful progeny,

betake themselves to distant retreats to pass their remaining days peacefully in spiritual pursuits,

away from the fret and fever of the world.

My father,

an ardent admirer of this ancient ideal,

which provides for many a refreshing contrast to the ‘dead-to-heaven and wed-to-carth’ old age of today,

chose for himself a recluse’s life,

about twelve years after marriage,

his gradually formed decision hastened by the tragic death of his first-born son at the age of five.

Retiring voluntarily from a lucrative Government post,

before he was even fifty,

he gave up all the pleasures and cares of life and shut himself in seclusion with his books,

leaving the entire responsibility of managing the household on the inexperienced shoulders of his young wife.

She had suffered terribly.

My father renounced the world when she was in her twenty-eighth year,

the mother of three children,

two daughters and a son. How she brought us up,

with what devotion she attended to the simple needs of our austere father,

who cut himself off completely from the world,

never even exchanging a word with any of us,

and by what ceaseless labor and colossal self-sacrifice she managed to maintain the good name and honor of the family would make fit themes for a great story of matchless heroism,

unflinching regard to duty,

chastity,

and supreme self-abnegation.

I felt guilty and mortified.

How could I face her with an admission of my weakness?

Realizing that by my lack of self-control, I had betrayed the trust reposed in me,

I determined to make up for the lost opportunity in other ways.

At no other time in my life should I be guilty of the same offence again.

But in order to curb the vagrant element in my nature and to regulate my conduct it was necessary that I should make a conquest of my mind,

which by following unhindered its own inclinations to the neglect of duty had brought me to such a sorry plight,

a prey to poignant grief and remorse,

fallen low in my own eyes.

Having made the resolve,

I looked around for a mean,

to carry it into effect.

In order to succeed it was necessary to have at least some knowledge of the methods to bring one’s rebellious self into subjugation.

Accordingly,

I read a few books of the usual kind on the development of personality and mind control.

Out of the huge mass of material contained in these writings,

I devoted my attention to only two things: concentration of mind and cultivation of will.

I took up the practice of both with youthful enthusiasm,

directing all my energies and subordinating all my desires to the acquisition of this one object within the shortest possible period of time.

Sick with mortification at my lack of self-restraint,

which made me yield passively to the dictates of desire to substitute absorbing story books and other light literature for the dry and difficult college texts,

I made it a point to assert my will in all things,

beginning with smaller ones and gradually extending its application to bigger and more difficult issues,

forcing myself as a penance to do irksome and rigorous tasks,

against which my ease-loving nature recoiled in dismay,

until I began to feel a sense of mastery over myself,

a growing conviction that I would not again fall an easy prey to ordinary temptations.

From mind control it was but a step to Yoga and occultism.

I passed almost imperceptibly from a study of books on the former to a scrutiny of spiritualistic literature,

combined with a cursory reading of some of the scriptures.

Smarting under the disgrace of my first failure in life,

and stung by a guilty conscience,

I felt a growing aversion to the world and its hopelessly tangled affairs that had exposed me to this humiliation;

and gradually the fire of renunciation began to burn fiercely in me,

seeking knowledge of an honorable way of escape from the tension and turmoil of life to the peace and quietude of a consecrated existence.

At this time of acute mental conflict,

the sublime message of the Bhagavad Gita had a most profound and salutary effect on me,

allaying the burning mental fever by holding before me the promise of a perennially peaceful life in tune with the Infinite Reality behind the phenomenal world of mingled joy and pain.

In this way,

from the original idea to achieve success in wordly enterprise by eliminating the possibility of failure owing to flaccid determination,

I imperceptibly went to the other extreme:

I was soon exercising my will and practising meditation not for temporal ends,

but with the sole object of gaining success in Yoga even if that necessitated the sacrifice of all my earthly prospects.

My worldly ambition died down.

At that young age,

when one is more influenced by ideals and dreams than by practical considerations and is apt to look at the world through golden glasses,

the sorrow and misery visible on every side by accentuating the contrast between what is and what ought to be tend to modify the direction of thought in particularly susceptible natures.

The effect on me was twofold: it made me more realistic,

roughly shaking me out of unwarranted optimism based on the dream of a painless,

easy existence,

and at the same time it steeled my determination to find a happiness that would endure,

and had not to be purchased at the cost of the happiness of others.

Often in the solitude of a secluded place or alone in my room,

I debated within myself on the merits and demerits of the different courses open to me.

Only a few months before,

my ambition had been to prepare myself for a successful career in order to enjoy a life of plenty and comfort,

surrounded by all the luxuries available to the affluent class of our society.

Now I wanted to lead a life of peace,

immune from wordly fervour and free of contentious strife.

Why set my heart on things,

I told myself,

which I must ultimately relinquish,

often most reluctantly at the point of the sword wielded by death,

with great pain and torture of the mind?

Why should I not live in contentment with just enough to fulfil reasonably the few needs imposed by nature,

devoting the time I could save thereby to the acquirement of assets of a permanent nature,

which would be mine for ever,

a lasting ornament to the unchanging eternal self in me instead of serving merely to glorify the flesh?

The more I thought about the matter,

the more strongly I was drawn towards a simple,

unostentatious life,

free from thirst for worldly greatness,

which I had pictured for myself.

The only obstacle to the otherwise easy achievement of my purpose which I felt was rather hard to overcome lay in winning the consent of my mother,

whose hopes,

already blasted once by the sudden resolve of my father to relinquish the world,

were now centred in me.

She wished to sec me a man of position and substance,

risen high above want and able to lift her economically ruined family out of the poverty and drudgery into which it had fallen by the renunciation of my father,

who had given away freely whatever my thrifty mother could save from their income,

leaving no reserve to fall back upon in time of need.

I knew that the least knowledge of my plans would cause her pain,

and this I wanted to avoid at any cost.

At the same time the urge to devote myself to the search for reality was too strong to be suppressed.

I was on the horns of a dilemma,

torn between my filial duty and my own natural desire to retrieve the decayed fortune of the family on the one hand,

and my distaste for the world on the other.

But the thought of giving up my home and family never occurred to me.

I should have surrendered everything,

not excepting even the path I had selected for myself,

rather than be parted from my parents or deviate in any way from the duty I owed to them.

Apart from this consideration,

my whole being revolted at the idea of becoming a homeless ascetic,

depending on the labor of others for my sustenance.

If God is the embodiment of all that is good,

noble,

and pure,

I argued within myself,

how can He decree that those who have a burning desire to find Him,

surrendering themselves to His will,

should leave their families,

to whom they owe various obligations by virtue of the ties He has Himself forged in the human heart,

and should wander from place to place depending on the charity and beneficence of those who honor those ties? The mere thought of such an existence was repugnant to me.

I could never reconcile myself to a life which,

in any way,

directly or indirectly,

cast a reflection on my manhood,

on my ability to make use of my limbs and my talents to maintain myself and those dependent on me,

reducing me practically to the deplorable state of a paralytic,

forced to make his basic needs the concern of other people.

I was determined to live a family life,

simple and clean,

devoid of luxury,

free from the fever of social rivalry and display,

permitting me to fulfil my obligations and to live peacefully on the fruit of my labor,

restraining my desires and reducing my needs,

in order to have ample time and the essentially required serenity of mind to pursue calmly the path I had chosen for myself.

At that young age it was not my intellect but something deeper and more far-seeing,

which,

building on the reverse suffered by me and triumphing at the end over the conflict raging in me,

chalked out the course of life I was to follow ever after.

I was ignorant at the time of the awful maelstrom of superphysical forces into which I was to plunge blindly many years later to fish out from its fearsome depths an answer to the riddle which has confronted mankind for many thousands of years,

perhaps waiting for an opportunity,

dependent on a rare combination of circumstances to come in harmony with modern scientific trend of human thought,

ill order to bridge the gulf existing between ingenuous faith on one side and critical reason on the other.

I can assign no other reason for the apparent anachronism I displayed at an unripe age,

when I was not shrewd enough to weigh correctly all the implications of the step,

I proposed to take in adopting an abstemious mode of existence,

to strive for self-realization while leading a family life,

instead of tearing asunder the bonds of love,

as is done by hundreds of frustrated youths in my country every year,

in emulation of highly honored precedent and in consonance with scriptural and traditional authority.

We lived in Lahore in those days,

occupying the top part of a small three-storied house in a narrow lane on the fringe of the city.

The area was terribly congested,

but fortunately the surrounding buildings were lower than ours,

allowing us enough sun and air and a fine unobstructed view of the distant fields.

I selected a corner in one of the two small rooms at our disposal for my practice and went to it every day with the first glimmer of dawn,

for meditation.

Beginning with a small duration,

I extended the period gradually until in the course of a few years I was able to sit in the same posture,

erect and steady,

with my mind well under control and bent firmly on the object contemplated for hours without any sign of fatigue or restlessness.

With hard determination I tried to follow all the rules of conduct prescribed for the students of Yoga.

It was not an easy task for a college youth of my age,

without the personal guidance of a revered teacher,

to live up to the standard of sobriety,

rectitude,

and self-restraint necessary for success in Yoga,

amidst the gaiety and glamour of a modern city in the constant company of happy-go-lucky,

boisterous fellow-students and friends.

But I persisted,

adhering tenaciously to my decision,

each failure spurring me on to a more powerful effort,

resolved to tame the unruly mind instead of allowing it to dominate me.

How far I succeeded,

considering my natural disposition and circumstances,

I cannot say,

but save for the vigorous restraint I exercised upon myself for many years,

curbing the impetuosity and exuberance of riotous youth with an iron hand,

I think I should never have survived the ordeal which awaited me in my thirty-fifth year.

My mother understood from my suddenly altered demeanour and subdued manner that a far-reaching change had taken place in me.

I never felt the need of explaining my point of view to prepare her for the resolution I had taken.

Reluctant to cause her the least pain,

I kept my counsel to myself,

avoiding any mention of my choice when we discussed our future plans,

considering it premature,

when I had not even completed my college term,

to anticipate a contingency due to arise only at the time of selection of a career.

But circumstances so transpired that I was spared the unpleasant task of making my determination known to my mother.

I stood second in a competitive test held for the selection of candidates for a superior Government service,

but due to a change in the procedure I was finally not accepted.

Similarly the disapproval of my brother-in-law had the effect of annulling a proposal for my joining the medical profession.

Meanwhile a sudden breakdown in my health due to heat created such an anxiety in the heart of my mother that she insisted on my immediate departure to Kashmir,

attaching no importance to my studies when a question of my health was involved.

Receiving at this juncture an offer of appointment to a low-salaried clerical post in the Public Works Department of the State,

I accepted it readily with her consent and left for the beautiful valley,

with no regrets,

to take part for the first time in the mechanical drudgery of a small office.

Within a year my parents followed me to Srinagar and soon after my mother busied herself in finding a matrimonial alliance for me.

Next summer,

in the twenty-third year of my life,

I was joined in wedlock in the traditional manner to my wife,

seven years my junior in age,

belonging to a Pandit family of Baramulla.

I startled her on our very first meeting by leaving the nuptial chamber at three o’clock in the morning for a bath under the copiously flowing water tap in the nearby riverside temple,

returning after an hour to sit in meditation without a word until it was time to leave for work.

She admirably adjusted herself to what must have seemed to her unsophisticated mind an eccentric streak in her husband,

ready with a warm kangri * [* A kangri is a small earthenware bowl encased in wicker in which burning charcoal is kept for hearing the body.

It is usually kept next to the skin under the long robe used by Kashmiris.] when I returned from the temple numb with winter cold.

About a year after I was transferred to Jaramu to serve my term in that Province.

She followed me after a few months with my parents,

to both of whom she endeared herself by her sense of duty and unremitting attention to their comfort.

Years passed,

not without lapses on my part and interruptions due to circumstances beyond my control; but I never lost sight of the goal I had set before myself and never swerved from the path I had chosen,

decreed in this manner to prepare myself to some extent,

without having the least knowledge of the crisis I had to face in the great trial ahead.

At the time of the extraordinary episode in 1937,

I was serving as a cleric under the Director of Education in our State;

Prior to that I had been working in the same capacity in the office of the Chief-Engineer,

from which I had been transferred for having the temerity to question an unjust directive from the Minister-in-charge,

who often took morbid pleasure in bullying subordinates.

I had no liking for the work in either office,

although from the point of view of my other colleagues I held enviable positions.

I was required to maintain the classified lists and service records of senior-grade employees,

to formulate proposals for their promotion and transfer,

to dispose of their petitions and appeals,

and to attend to their requests.

In this way I had to deal with a large section of the personnel in both departments,

many of whom,

detecting chances of undeserved favours at the cost of unsuspecting fellow employees,

frequented the offices regularly,

hunting for easy gains,

obliging colleagues to do likewise to save themselves from a possible loss.

By the very nature of my duties it was utterly impossible for me to escape comment and criticism of my acts,

which influenced the life and career of someone or other.

But some of these acts had also the reverse effect of confronting me with my own conscience on behalf of a poor and supportless,

but deserving candidate.

Because of a desire to deal equal justice in all cases,

I was frequently brought in conflict with hidden influences surreptitiously at work behind the apparently spotless facade of Government offices,

which every now and then created insoluble problems and odious situations for me.

I had a strange partiality for the underdog,

and this trait in my character worked equally against my own interests,

and on at least two occasions impelled me to refuse chances of promotion,

out of turn,

in preference to senior colleagues.

Temperamentally I was not suited for a profession of this kind,

but possessing neither the qualifications for another,

nor means nor inclination to equip myself for a better one,

I continued to move in the rut in which I had placed myself on the first day.

Although I worked hard and to the best of my ability,

I was more interested in the study and practice of Yoga than in my official career.

The latter I treated merely as a means to earn a livelihood,

just sufficient to meet our simplest needs.

Beyond that it had no value or significance for me.

I had a positive dislike for being drawn into controversies with-crowds of disputing contestants on-every side as happened almost every day,

creating at times disquieting ripples in my otherwise placid mental pool,

which I strove to keep unruffled and calm,

indispensable to my Yoga practices.

Only a few years after my joining the Public Works Department,

clouds of intrigue began to gather round the then Chief Engineer,

whose attempts to put a curb on the shady acts of corrupt officers landed him in difficulties,

and a plot was woven round him by his subordinates in collusion with officials of the Ministry,

all of whom had suffered deprivation of many wonted facilities at his hands.

The conspiracy ended in his compulsory retirement from service much before his time amid expressions of amazement at such an act of injustice from those who were in the know of the affair.

With his retirement I was left defenseless against a host of powerful and vindictive enemies who poisoned ~ the Minister against me and resorted to devious ways to cause me harassment and harm.

The last straw was furnished by my own criticism under the new Chief Engineer of a defective order received from the Ministry Which,

to my great relief,

culminated in my transfer from a place whose atmosphere had become much too vitiated for my liking.

In the Education Directorate the conditions were more reassuring for me.

There were no chances of corruption on the scale that had existed in the Public Works Department.

Consequently the distracting play of plot and counterplot,

which had been a regular feature of the former office,

was also absent.

Here my path ran more or less smoothly until 1947.

It was in no small measure due to the sense of security and the congenial atmosphere in the new office,

that I was able to retain my link with it in spite of the ordeals I had to face and the suspense I had to bear for a long period,

while attending to the day-to-day work at my table.

continued