The complete Integrated Path is a way of life that is easy to adopt in a short time, although it may appear difficult. I found it very convenient while living the life of a university professor. And my feeling is that one can achieve results in a single lifetime, although the period may vary from a few weeks to a few years, depending on how much one puts into it. However, there are certain yogic postures practicants may not like to do, or certain disciplines one may not like to incorporate. Likewise, one may practice only two hours a day instead of six. When a person perseveres, however, progress is bound to take place. Over time, other elements may be added according to personal suitability. The whole process may be understood, again, through the example of water. To boil water, the fire must be powerful enough to bring the water to the boiling point. But once the water reaches the boiling point, it will instantly convert into steam. Similarly in yoga, you may have to make several kinds of effort to bring yourself to your personal “boiling point”; once this is done, personality is converted into Godhood. And then you cease being simply human and begin to live as God. But remember, there is always one step more. Godhood is an everlasting journey, from perfection to perfection. The only difference is that you have the bliss of being on the path and have knowledge of the truth, while previously you lived and suffered in ignorance and material attachment.
When your kundalini is awakened, you know you have broken the chain of further births.
The Integral Path presented if followed in the correct manner, can awaken the kundalini in one lifetime and then all can join those who know themselves to be as and of God.
God has no life; he is existence, and the experience of this existence is called samadhi. Normally, when the “inner atom bomb” explodes—that is, when kundalini reaches sahasrara—there is a brief experience of death and resurrection. One passes through samadhi and the experience of Self or God, and then comes back to normal life with a change. The change is received through a second birth; one is reborn, mere humanness ends, and Godhood begins. But in later encounters with this reality, and some-times even in the first encounter, the person may be absorbed and gone forever; one may not return from this sojourn to the normal existence one had before samadhi. One is dead on the physical level, and the translation into a higher realm has taken place. This is called “the point of no return.”
Let me say here that the rule of “fixed destiny” does not apply to yogis, who are the ones gone beyond the force of gravitation. A yogi makes his or her own destiny and is free to choose the time of death. There have been innumerable realized souls who are unknown to the world because they had no literary training or could not have a known impact on the world for one reason or the other. And it is only those who have gone beyond who can tell of their experiences and teach us about what is beyond, to whatever extent it may be possible within communication constraints. There is no other source. It is not unusual to find that special interests in the lives of saints and prophets or other realized souls kept them alive and on earth. Hence, such people should not be criticized on the basis of those special interests and must be preserved as the advocates of truth.
Cosmic consciousness is the direct experience of not only the universe and God’s true nature; it is also the experience of our own true being as well. In that first instant of dawning, the fearful shadow of misunderstanding begins to evaporate before the light of universal love. This is a purely natural phenomenon that cannot be forced or counterfeited and will manifest in all beings at some point in every being’s infinite spiritual evolution. Perhaps we can delay its coming by sleepwalking through life, but our ultimate awakening is as inevitable as the birthright of our existence. There is also the strong possibility of encouraging and speeding its coming. Arousal of kundalini energy is one way to begin the dawning of cos-mic consciousness and to attain freedom from life after life of experience founded on fear and judgment.
Cosmic consciousness lies within us, just as the path to realize it also lies within.
The desire for awakening can come as part of the personality drive at birth or evolve slowly over a lifetime of acquiring enough knowledge to discover that awakening exists and is an achievable reality. On the arrival of awakening and Self-realization, much of the burden of judgmental, polarized knowledge is released back into the illusion it spawned from. This freedom, so sought after by humankind, is freedom from our own belief in fear and judgment. We are searching for salvation from our own beliefs. God-realization is that salvation; it comes from within. All humankind is ultimately a candidate for cosmic consciousness, whether it occurs as a spontaneous event arising out of crisis or is consciously pursued with an open heart. Learning of the commonality in the natural source of the awakening is a conformation for both the spiritually educated, trained students of liberation, and for those in whom the experience is sudden and unexpected.
The rising of kundalini and subsequent expansion of awareness are powerful tools in our ability to heal and spiritually evolve. The healing of fear and separation and spiritual evolution are mutually dependent. Kundalini is energy of clarity. There may be much opportunity for confusion as it rises in partial stages, but when fully risen, the ability to clearly focus and to understand the underlying and unified compassion-ate nature of reality dawns with the clear light of the soul.
