INTERVIEW WITH GOPI KRISHNA
BY CLAES NOBEL
TALK ABOUT
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
INTERVIEW WITH GOPI KRISHNA
BY CLAES NOBEL
TALK ABOUT
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
Itis a privilege to be here and to meet you in person. This is a particularly beautiful setting, with the mountains and the wonderful lake in front of us. It must give a person much inspiration to live in such beauty and solitude as this.
It is a strange coincidence, because it is in this type of surroundings that the ancient sages of India spoke to the seekers after truth. The entire philosophy of the Upanishads is based on the teachings delivered by the sages, inhermitages located on hills, on the banks of rivers, or on the banks of lakes where nature bloomed in all its glory and beauty.
Solitude and nature are absolutely necessary for the proper development of a human being.
It is an a mixture of natural life, lived in solitude, amid beautiful surroundings of nature and what we call an arboreal life, which is absolutely necessary for the poise and harmony of the human mind. Otherwise, it becomes too much distracted, and that distraction is fatal for its evolution towards a higher dimension of consciousness.
The blunder made by us at present is to put the human mind in surroundings among machines, speeding cars, and airplanes, which do not allow it to have that repose and calm environment where it can grow in the right direction.
Couldyou tell me a little about this particular area? I understand that youwere born in Kashmir and have been living here for most of your life.
I was bornin a village about 21 miles from Srinagar. This area is considered to be one of the most beautiful and most productive in Kashmir. It is lavish with fruits and produces an abundance of corn. It is said that some ofthe greatest philosophers that Kashmir has produced have been residing in this area, such as Abhinava Gupta.
The spring which supplies water to our buildings and garden, overlooking Dal Lake,is known as the Gupta Tirth, the Hidden Spring, and it is said that someof those sages lived here, close to the spring, and at other places onthis slope.
And these mountains? Are we in the Himalayas?
Yes, they arethe foothills of the Himalayas, and on the other side of this mountaina stream is flowing which comes from a lake about 13,000 feet above sealevel. It carries the water to a place about six miles from here, wherean artificial lake has been built by the government. The lake supplies drinking water to the entire city of Srinagar, about 10 miles away. It is very beautiful water, and this valley, on the other side of the building, is a reserve where wild animals are allowed to live.
I amvery interested in wild animals and have been working with various environmentaland ecological organizations to protect them. What kind of animals do youhave in these mountains?
Jackals, wolves, and even some variety of tiger. Also bears in large numbers, and they sometimes come into our garden.
I would like to say that what particularly brought me here to visit with you ismy very strong concern over matters related to peace. Today it seems asif we are on the brink of another world war. A third world war could confront mankind, and bring out the most destructive weapons we have in our arsenals,the nuclear missiles. Among many of the books you have written is The Shape of Events to Come, which I carried with me from the States. It is a mind-boggling book, and I would like to hear about it from you. What is the message youare trying to get out to the world?
In this book, I am in particular trying to draw the attention of the world to a very important fact that at the present moment our scientists, our educators,leaders, and politicians are only aware of natural laws, and even thoseare not known completely or perfectly. In addition to material laws, there are also spiritual or psychic laws in the universe. We have absolutely no awareness of these laws. Time and again, a glimpse of these laws has been given to mankind by the great prophets and Messiahs who appeared indifferent parts of the world. We have rejected their teachings as puremyth or superstition. But actually those teachings contain germs of truth that are essential for the safety and survival of the race.
The tragedy is that we have rejected the evidence of religion or of the teachings of great sages about the spiritual world and the soul which dwells in the human body. Since spirit, mind or soul is not perceptible to any of our senses, or to any of our scientific instruments, we presume that they haveno independent existence apart from the body or the organic organ, the brain, and therefore we need not worry about what happens to them. But actually they do have an independent existence. They have a universe of their own, and they have profound influences on all that we do, on all that we think, on all that we create.
But this influence is conditioned by certain laws which are totally a sealed book to us. These laws are operating at present and driving mankind to a catastrophic war to end the present order, which is against the evolution of the brain.
What laws are you referring to now?
I am referring to the first law, the Law of Evolution. This law of evolution has been referred to by every prophet; by the founder of every great faith. They have not called it a law. They called it a Path, a way, a road. Christ has called it a Path, Buddha has called it a Path, Mohammed has call edit a Path, the Bhagavad Gita calls it a Path. All of them call it a Path,the road that can lead mankind to salvation and be atitude. This Path is a law. This is what I am emphasizing with all the force at my command. And I hope and pray that science and our intellectuals would come to the same conclusion after conducting scientific experiments, before the catastrophe occurs, rather than after.
Whenyou say catastrophe, to what are you referring?
Nature, wefind, is relentless in her programs and schedules. She is also relentless in enforcing her laws. We know that the moment we digress from some ofthe biological laws ruling our life, we are punished in some way. We have a disease, we have a weakness, or we die, or something happens to us, if we violate the laws pertaining to our body.
The samething happens when we violate the laws pertaining to our mind, but we never recognize this. We are now violating this Law of Evolution, which the prophets have called the Path, very seriously. The alternatives are either mankind will degenerate, or its mind will become disoriented, as is actually happening at the moment, or it will have to revert to a lifestyle and a social system which is more in harmony with this Path.
You sayin The Shape of Events to Come that it is most likely we will have a nuclear war, and you also say that we must try to avoid it no matter what the cost. My question is this: Are we ruled by predestination or by free will?
We areruled by both predestination and also by free will.
And the predestination in this case, you feel that it will escalate to some kind of a confrontation between different ideologies? It seems as if you are saying that this is a growing process that man is going through; that wehave been going through history continually plagued by wars.
The indications are that there will be a nuclear war. But it could be averted if mankind were to obey the law which it is violating at present.
Whatlaw are we violating?
To repeat, it is the Law of Evolution, the Path referred to in every great faith of mankind, the Path of Christ, the Path of Mohammed, the Path of Buddha,the Path described in the Bhagavad Gita. As I have said, the Path described in every great scripture of the world.
But if it has been described in all the leading religions, why is man so foolish as to disobey those findings, and why are we not following the prescribed path?
There is avery valid reason for it. The scientists of the 18th century, and evenbefore, expressed views which are mostly skeptical. They denied the existence of God, immortality of the soul and the hereafter. The result is that atthe present moment the intelligent mind is wavering between the precepts of religion and the concepts of science.
This has been a great tragedy. In fact, it is this premature expression of skeptical views that led Karl Marx to formulate his entirely materialistic theories. These premature views have divided mankind into two blocs; one of themwho believe in God and the other who deny God.
When you say the two blocs, are you referring to the Communistic bloc, which denies religious freedom, and the Western Capitalistic bloc?
Yes. It has been a real tragedy that Western scientists never studied other religions,such as the Indian religion or the ancient tradition of Egypt. They only concentrated their attention on Christianity. Even after concentrating their attention on that one particular religion, and pointing out certain anomalies, they still could have studied the phenomena in an objectiveway instead of rejecting the whole finding of religion altogether.
If they had done it, if they had studied the occult literature of the world just as they studied alchemy and astrology, and the ancient sciences of medicine and the like, and then out of the amorphous mass crystallized certain laws and facts, then they would have come to the conclusion that there is alaw to which all these prophets were referring. And that is a spiritual law which relates to the evolution of the human mind, and also to the emancipation of the human soul and its rising to higher dimensions of existence.
You speak with such assurance. Having read a number of your books, I know that youhave had a great personal enlightenment. Thanks to this enlightenment, your illumination as you also call it, you are in a position where youcan indeed look into the future and discern events to come. Could you tell me when this happened, and what kind of experience it was?
I had an incredible experience in my 34th year. And from that experience started a processof transformation in my body which continues to this day. This transformation led me to a state of consciousness which I had never experienced before.It is a strange experience. In the normal human being, one's personalityis a small flame of consciousness or awareness. And seen from that smallflame, the world appears to be a gigantic expanse of stars, planets, oceans, mountains, deserts and plains. But when this transformation of consciousness occurs, the whole picture is reversed. It is now the consciousness which becomes an ocean. It is now the consciousness which surpasses these suns, planets, mountains, oceans, plains and deserts. It is now consciousness that becomes the fundamental reality of the universe. And all that we seenow, with our sensory equipment, is like an image projected on it.
Consciousnessnow appears to be the basic reality, to be the universe in fact. And what we see, the material manifestations of the universe, are but projections of this very consciousness. We can say they are like shadows, phantoms, like a mirage floating on it.
This consciousness that developed in you at the age of 34 became a super-consciousness, a thing which happens very seldom to people. Perhaps in our times it has happened to only a few people. Is there any way that this can be triggeredin others by some sort of activity?
I believe so. I believe that this transformation is not a haphazard affair. We have inus a mechanism implanted in the human system by nature. This mechanism rules the cerebrospinal system in our bodies. Once it is aroused to activity,the cerebrospinal system works in a certain predetermined direction. Anew form of energy flows in the body, and a new form of consciousness develops in the brain.
For instance,in my case, I always dwell in a world of light. There is light in my interior, there is light on the exterior for me, also. Everything I see is bathed in a luster. Whenever I turn my attention inward and close my eyes, I am bathed in light. In dreams also I am always walking, running and moving in ethereal spaces filled with luster. I now live in the same world which has been experienced by mystics of all ages and climes, a world of light,of unutterable happiness and of intellectual illumination. It is in this state of consciousness that I get these hints and visions and directions, precognitions and awareness of future events, to tell me that this is the path chalked out for mankind, and that she has digressed from this path,with the result that her evolution and very existence is threatened.
Yousay that different people have different receptivity in these matters,or intelligent energies that are in the cosmic universe, that we are indeed like receivers, and that some individuals are more able to receive them than others. We know from the various religions that anything having to do with creation stems from thought. And if there is a universal creative thought, we see the manifestations in plants, trees, and in the acts that man performs.
What you are also saying is that this is such an enormous, powerful instrument,this new consciousness in yourself, but that we have failed to use it properly in recent centuries due to the fact that mankind has been too actively involved in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. We have therefore forgotten the knowledge as to how to communicate with cosmic intelligence. Is thatcorrect?
You are very right. Some minds are more responsive and more receptive to this cosmic reservoir of intelligence than others, for instance, geniuses. It is wellknown, and it is admitted by geniuses themselves that they receive whole chapters, whole books, whole ideas, whole poems, just as if somebody elseis feeding them with the material.
So when a genius works, it is not something that his mind does by itself but theideas or thoughts come to him, that he is the instrument of the creative process?
Certainly, when it comes to the original things. Now, it is not that the genius does not make any effort. The effort is made, but his brain is so constituted that it has easier access to this reservoir of eternal knowledge than others do. Similarly, we have the psychics, prophets, clairvoyants, prodigies,great artists and the great musicians. They all receive new ideas, new flashes, new music, and new art from this intelligent source, which isbehind the human mind. We are making a grave mistake in supposing that consciousness or the mind is the product of our brain. That is what isat the root of the present disaster. Consciousness or mind is an energy by itself. It is an independently existing universe. It is a self-sustainingocean from which a drop filters into our mind. Our mind, our neurons, our nervous system, is but a computer. They are just the parts of a computer worked by this energy. The moment we come to realize this fact we can begin to make experiments to prove it. That is what I mean when I say that we musthave experimental centers where we can do research on the evolutionary mechanism that is implanted in every human being. In the ancient India scriptures, this mechanism is often referred to as Kundalini.
Now you've brought in a new word.
Well, Kundalini, in the Indian tradition, means a reservoir of psychic power in the humanbody which can be aroused to activity by certain mental or spiritual disciplines, as for instance, Yoga. Kundalini is said to be the basis for illumination, genius, miraculous power, and for all extraordinary faculties and possibilities latent in the human mind.
I assume that Kundalini is a very old doctrine, not something that has surfaced just at this time.
It is as oldas pre-dynastic Egypt. That means it was known more than 5,000 years before the birth of Christ.
Written by: Gopi Krishna
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