|
|
EMPIRICAL SCIENCE
A Life Dedicated to the Scientific Understanding of Kundalini
No one has done more to advance the understanding of Kundalini than Gopi Krishna. His masterwork, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man is still, after almost forty years, the only book of its kind. His many years of living with Kundalini, his clairvoyance, his big picture outlook, his ability to frame the debate on Kundalini set him apart. Nevertheless, as he tried to elevate the debate to the level of scientific inquiry, he became trapped in polemics over the validity of the Kundalini experience and the authenticity of Prana, as if the material scientists who questioned his accounts were on equal footing.
The Body Keeps its Own Counsel
Remember, the scientists who doubted Gopi Krishna came from the same tradition as the ones who recently decided that chills cause colds. For years scientists have been telling us that links between chilling and viral infection have “no scientific basis.” Now, according to a recent UK study, they've changed their minds. Wow, I figured that one out for myself at the age of six. Does their turn-around mean all scientific research is flawed or incomplete? No, it merely means that we can figure some things out by ourselves.
The Weakness of the Scientific Method
I'm not against scientists. They apply a method to prove a hypothesis. A good method, a time-tested method, a method involving hypothesis, proof and evidence. Problems only arise with the method when scientists find no evidence to support a given hypothesis. Then they conclude that the hypothesis is invalid. Sometimes this leads to ridicule. A link between colds and chilling? Ridiculous! How could anybody be so dumb? There's no connection between the common cold and chilling—unless we tell you there is. No connection between Kundalini and neural regeneration either. No such element as Prana in the air we breathe.
Sometimes the Evidence is Not Immediately Accessible
The problem is the evidence is not always right out in the open. It may be evidence one cannot point to or see under a microscope. Sometimes it's buried deep inside the body, where only “knowers” of the body can perceive it. Does this mean it does not exist? According to material scientists, YES! |
But the link between the common cold and chilling has always been there, even before material scientists officially recognized it. So, you see, the material scientific view of the world is largely built on supposition and premise, not on reality. When it comes to knowing Kundalini, these scientists weren't on equal footing with Gopi Krishna. Sure, they were experts in their fields, but they had never had a Kundalini experience, or even a little jolt that changed their perspective and made them more aware of the body's capabilities. Many scientists have, you know. Men like Albert Hoffmann, the discoverer of LSD. A man who, according to the New York Times, once said, “Any natural scientist who is not a mystic is not a real natural scientist.”
The Empirical Wisdom of the Body
So you have material scientists telling Gopi Krishna, an individual who lived with Kundalini for forty years, that his experience was only an extension of his imagination, driving him to the point where, in his later writings, we find him exclaiming: What's wrong with everyone? Why can't they see it? |
| As he wrote in The Awakening of Kundalini: “Now a material scientist may argue that, well, we have gained this consciousness by experience. Why has not the ox or the cow or the fish gained it? |
| “Then he will argue that, well, man's consciousness took a leap, but when we ask him how did it take a leap, he is dumb. He knows nothing. Even Darwin had to admit that we could give no definite explanation for it except that it is part of natural selection. So you see the whole structure of materialistic philosophy has been built on suppositions and premises, not on realities. The first reality we come across is consciousness. The world comes later. We know first ourselves and then the world. |
“So the wiser course is first to understand the knower. What modern thinkers have done is to ignore or bypass the knower, forgetting that it is the knower that is doing it.”
A Standard for Empirical Science
Okay, suppose there's something to the notion of seeing life from the perspective of the knower, a science of self-knowledge, an empirical science, if you will. What do we really know about the knower? Well, there's no way to debate or intellectualize empirical science, that is, unless the participants are on equal footing, i.e., all of them have raised their Kundalini, or used their bodies as a laboratory to acquire some sort of original knowledge. But is that reasonable? Well, material scientists are considered fit to exercise their profession only after many years at university, so, yes, empirical science does have a knowledge base and mastering it does require a program of study, including, I would add, getting to know the “knower” through Kundalini Yoga.
Making up for Lost Time
Unfortunately, the empirical movement has lagged behind the material science movement because its knowledge base and program of study have been so fragmented. Its practitioners have lacked a single recognized method—like the scientific method. Empirical science, you see, has been undergoing an identity crisis for centuries. |
In the minds of many, empirical science is an adjunct of religious mysticism. But religion involves organized groups; early empirical science was a solitary activity, undertaken by so-called mystics and spiritual seekers, who, for whatever else they might have discovered during their lives, always started with the study of the body. Because these empirical scientists went off on their own, never bothering to tie their discoveries to the discoveries of others, empirical science became fragmented. It wasn't able to present itself to millions, it didn't know how to fill its coffers with contributions, and it didn't even have a God. Nevertheless, empirical science is not religious mysticism. It's a science. Read all about it in my book: Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time.
The Ancients Perfected a Science for the Body
In fact, empirical science is older than both modern material science and organized religion. Modern science, you see, is actually based on the discoveries of ancient self-knowledge practitioners—those solitary individuals who went to the desert or to the mountains to find answers to life's eternal questions. These men came away from their lonely pilgrimages with empirical knowledge about the body's hidden powers. |
| But once the disciples of those ancient practitioners shifted their attention towards the material world and away from the study of the “knower,” empirical science began to drift, surfacing from time to time under the vague labels of mysticism and the occult. |
The real problem with empirical science, however, has been its lack of a single coherent method for its practitioners to rally around. Gopi Krishna suggested that Kundalini was the biological basis of religion. He was correct, but by defining Kundalini as the basis of religion, he went only halfway. Kundalini, as the basis of empirical science, is also the father of material science.
Clues to the Origin of Science
I realized this after reading The Secret of the Golden Flower. Not at first, however. No, because of its arcane language and Taoist overtones, at first, I thought it was a “spiritual” document. Nevertheless, as I delved deeper, practicing its method of meditation, I recognized that this book dealt more with the laws of science than the canons of religion. It described a method capable of reproducing the same results over and over, no matter the specific religious beliefs or cultural predispositions of the practitioner. You see, The Secret of the Golden Flower is really a science book. I call it The Empirical Science Bible, using the word bible not in a religious sense, but in a comprehensive informational sense, like The Standard C++ Bible.
Tools of the Trade
I got to thinking, if self-knowledge is to be considered a science, it must employ the paraphernalia of a science, its instruments and equipment. Material science, after all, uses microscopes and computers, centrifuges and cyclotrons, chemical formulae, test tubes and beakers to perform experiments on matter; empirical science uses meditation, Yoga, Kundalini, self-observation, and the trained, observant mind to perform experiments on the knower. The difference between the two is the method of experimentation: |
| • |
Material science claims the results of an experiment can only expect to be consistent as long as conditions are standardized.
|
| • |
Empirical science makes no claims because each empirical scientist uses a different means to achieve a given end.
|
Empirical Research is Science, not Religion
There are other similarities between material and empirical science. Unlike religion, both material science and empirical science travel. By that I mean the atomic weight of Cobalt (58.9332) is the same in Afghanistan as in Chicago. The same is true for someone who uses RM to raise his or her Kundalini. Regardless of geography or culture the result will be the same if the method is the same. |
Religion, however doesn't travel. A person born in Afghanistan is likely to be a Muslim whereas a Chicagoan is likely to be a Christian. This shows that there is a cultural component to religion, which is in contrast to the true nature of either material or empirical science. Science investigates material facts or premises and tries to derive laws or concepts. Religion confines itself to matters of belief, and beliefs are affected by cultural and environmental influences.
Kundalini: The Key to Empirical Science
To master empirical science, Kundalini must be awakened. Not in a haphazard manner, but by a method capable of producing predictable, standardized results. Is raising Kundalini essential to empirical science? Yes, because it's the biological basis of advanced empirical science—a science respected in the ancient world, but fallen into disregard because it lacked a central unifying principle or method. |
| Being an ancient discipline, empirical science bequeathed us a strong written and aural record. The problem is no one has ever forged a standardized program of study around this record. Thus, unlike material science, there has been no way of testing or synthesizing the many discoveries made by empirical scientists. As a result, empirical science has drifted. With one foot in science and the other in religion, it has stagnated. A true crisis of identity. |
The discovery of RM has changed that. As Gopi Krishna once stated: “All of my ambitions, all of my desires, truly my only aim, is to leave a legacy of authentic material about the transcendent plane of consciousness, so that posterity can lay the foundation of a new science.”
Back to top
|
|
|
|
