AUTHOR'S NOTE: Events happen for a reason. Sometimes it takes a while to see how they fit together. I now understand that if the accident hadn't occurred, I might never have discovered the amazing transformative power of Kundalini. The fact that one seemingly small event could have such startling repercussions made me realize that my life has had a Karmic purpose.

My mother and stepfather drive me to the Hersey School for Boys in Westchester County. I am nine years old, a fourth grader and already a veteran boarder. I'm resigned to it. All part of belonging to the eastern Brahmin establishment, says my 19-year-old cousin. When I tell him about the school in Florida, he laughs, tells me St. Paul's or Andover is where boys in our family go to school.

“You're lucky to be going to the best schools,” says my father.

Well, my new school does seem less impersonal than Fetterden, and the Headmaster projects a friendly attitude of concern. So after a few months I forget the school in Florida and throw myself back into the competition of sports, studies and other activities. With two exceptions.

Home for Christmas vacation, I tell my mother, “I forgot how to do math.”

“Nonsense, you're just out of practice, dear,” she replies.

“No,” I insist, “I can't move the numbers around in my head any more.”

“That Florida school was much too easy. You missed half a year of math.”

“I used to be able to do problems in my head.”

My mother's explanation sounds plausible, but I know she doesn't understand. I actually have forgotten how to do math. All of a sudden it's a grind. Problems I solved in my head in the third grade are like tangles of spaghetti. Rules I understood so easily and my ability to apply them have evaporated. Now numbers are, well, just numbers. Like in the way everyone else learns, by memorizing. That's it! Just to get by, I have to memorize. I can no longer calculate in my head. Okay, I've been in a fog for seven months, but that doesn't explain what's happened. Of course, no one pays attention. I don't dare tell my father. He'd say I'm not working hard enough. It's easy for my parents to explain the lapse. For all practical purposes, I missed a year of school.

It should have been a warning. After all, who knows more about my capabilities than me? But even if my parents had believed me, what could have been done to remediate the situation? Tutoring?

“That isn't necessary,” says my mother. She thinks I'm a child prodigy.

Schools like mine have the best teachers. I'll catch up over time, she says. In the end, I probably would have accepted my mother's explanation if it hadn't been for yet another sign.

At the Fetterden school I sang in the choir. I had an amazing voice. Whenever I sang as a soloist, everyone, including my fellow choir members, turned to look. I loved to sing and was proud of my voice.

Although we don't have a choir in my new school, we sing popular songs like, “Home on the Range” and “Jimmy Crack Corn” at Friday night assemblies, and before Christmas vacation, carols and holy songs. The first time I sing with my new schoolmates I notice that no one pays attention. This puzzles me. Then I notice I'm having trouble controlling my voice. Previously, I pitched my voice by placing it in various parts of my body and controlled the dynamics by using my breath to regulate the flow of air. In fact, I had an endless supply of breath. Yet, by the end of the first year at Hersey School, not only am I struggling with math, I'm singing off key. Again, I tell my mother. But this time I have nothing to go on because, aside from humming around the house, I've been away at boarding school so much my mother has never heard me sing in performance.

What would you do if your nine-year-old child came home one day announcing that he had forgotten how to sing and do math? The same as my parents, I'll warrant. They didn't take me seriously. So I end up pushing the warning signs away.

By the time I start fifth grade I've accepted my mother's explanation completely. Still, in the back of my mind, I know I once possessed these gifts. But what good is it to wonder? There's no practical way to get them back. I certainly don't believe hard work will do it. If anything, I feel cheated, a victim of some goofy hoax. Nothing in the entire universe can be done. I am growing in another direction, away from my lost abilities. And although that realization slowly slips beneath the surface, returning from time to time to shape the ways I think about myself, generally I just plain forget, burying my loss away in the lower layers of consciousness.

Much later, I came to discover the relationship between my accident and my lost abilities in math and singing. At the time though, I certainly didn't know about Pythagoras and his idea that math and music are related to harmony and physical symmetry. In fact, Pythagoras formed a cult around the idea that we are harmonically symmetrical beings. To Pythagoras the structure of the body and musical harmony were contained in a mathematical expression. If one string was out of tune, the whole instrument played false. We are the instruments. And while the splinter was trapped inside my foot I lost that inner harmony. I started to shrivel. Like acupuncture in reverse, the splinter blocked a network of neural passages, altering my growth. Not only did it smother my talents, it sealed off parts of my memory.

If it hadn't been for those two indicators, I probably would have permanently accepted my mother's explanation. But my sudden inability at music and math were like waveform monitors-feedback on the altered state of my being. Sadly, no one around me at the time was capable of analyzing this feedback. Nevertheless, deep inside I retained a faint recollection of my lost abilities.

So why didn't I tell my mother about the splinter? The question still haunts me. It shows that, youth or adult, we are responsible for our acts. That a foreign stimulus entering the body can alter growth. That the merest slip of courage comes back to haunt us. That at every moment, even as children, we are called to face the consequences of our actions.

There were other signs, too. At seven I was a good tennis player, able to rally with my hard-hitting father, an amateur club champion wherever he played. When I next play with him, I still have excellent form, but I'm erratic. I can't control the ball. I was better at seven than at ten. The same explanations, the same rationalizations. Nevertheless, the fact that I no longer have anything to excel at influences my feelings about myself. And I begin to adjust my persona accordingly.

Want to find out how I awakened my Kundalini? Click here.

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