philosophy – Demystifying Kundalini

What Lies Beneath Every Religion? Kundalini, Muladhara Shakti and the Hidden Unity of All Spiritual Paths

Atmavat: Similarity Without Losing Difference

The verse “Atmavat sarvabhuteshu yah pashyati sah panditah” has always appeared to me more practical than a simple statement of non-duality. The important word is “vat”, which means “like” or “in the manner of”. It does not say that all beings are literally ourselves. It says that the wise person sees other beings as like himself. To me, this itself contains a meeting point of duality and non-duality. The difference between oneself and others remains, but a fundamental similarity is recognized. Pure non-duality, when taken to mean that all worldly distinctions should simply be ignored, is not always practical in ordinary life. We have different capacities, functions and levels of expression. Human beings, animals and other living beings are not identical. A bus and a car are also not identical, yet they have basic structural and functional similarities. In the same way, all beings can be regarded as fundamentally similar without pretending that every difference has disappeared. This preserves our distinctive human capacities while preventing those differences from becoming a justification for cruelty or indifference. We can act according to our position and responsibilities while still considering others as we would consider ourselves. That, to me, is a practical form of wisdom: difference is preserved, but fundamental equality is not forgotten. However, Jnana Yogins and older people may be able to contemplate this full similarity more easily, as they are less engaged in the practical demands of worldly life, which is necessarily full of duality. This gives greater and more immediate wisdom, but at the cost of losing practicality.

Spiritual Awareness Needs Energy

Such awareness is not always effortless. To keep contemplating other beings as like oneself while performing demanding worldly activities requires some mental and inner energy. I see two possible ways of making that energy available. One is to work slightly below one’s maximum capacity so that some attention and energy remain free for contemplation. The other is to cultivate greater inner energy through Tantra and spiritual practice so that contemplation can continue even while worldly activity proceeds at a fast pace. In my own life, I have experienced the second situation more strongly. There have been periods when increased inner capacity seemed to allow me to work at a high pace without completely losing the contemplative perspective. In advanced age, however, I feel that the first method may become more suitable. There is no need to maintain maximum worldly speed all the time. Slowing down a little can itself become a wise way of preserving space for reflection. The two approaches are also not mutually exclusive. One can increase inner capacity and still avoid unnecessary expenditure of energy.

Bhakti, Discipline and the Loss of Freedom

This understanding also shaped my reaction when I recently met a professional colleague who is a committed member of the Hare Krishna Hare Rama tradition. He follows many strict regulations: avoiding onion and garlic, observing fasts on Vaishnava holy days, completely avoiding non-vegetarian food and alcohol, attending large religious ceremonies and listening daily to Bhagavatam through an app. There is nothing inherently wrong with such discipline when it comes freely from devotion and understanding. Regular practice is valuable in spirituality just as it is everywhere else. My concern begins when one fixed lifestyle becomes the standard for everyone, or when surrender and egolessness are identified mainly with obedience to prescribed rules. A person can certainly become less ego-centred through devotion, but one can also remain egoless while using logic, philosophy, independent thought and ordinary worldly intelligence. Giving up reasoning merely to demonstrate surrender may become another form of identification. Transcending intellectual pride is not the same as abandoning intelligence.

I have also noticed that some strongly organized devotional groups can become so attached to their own path that they praise bhakti as superior and look down upon other approaches. To me, this misses an important fact: people are at different levels, have different temperaments and may need different methods. Not everyone can or should be forced into one lifestyle, belief or practice. A collective spiritual community can provide companionship, discipline and shared learning, but it should not replace individual understanding. The real danger is not group practice itself but the loss of personal discernment within the group.

Actually, he seemed quite worldly, with most of his energy being drained by worldly involvement and little left over for contemplation. He also did not appear to possess the kind of tantric force that makes sufficient energy available for contemplation regardless of the extent of one’s worldly activity. As a result, he became increasingly caught in worldly illusion and ignorance, and therefore chose a devotional path that emphasized surrender and withdrawal from certain domains of life. Had he been able to maintain a better balance between worldliness and contemplation, the very worldly engagement that contributed to his ignorance might instead have become a means of spiritual progress. But he could not sustain an all-inclusive approach in which both domains evolved together, so he had to give greater emphasis to one domain by limiting the other, allowing spiritual development to take place through that imbalance.

I further observe that Tantra does not favour overindulgence or indulgence in left-hand practices for their own sake. What is sometimes understood as the consumption of meat or liquor in Tantra is, in essence, guided by the body’s needs rather than by excess. Tantra reveres the body as the foundation of both spiritual and material life. Through Tantric practice, one becomes increasingly sensitive to the body’s needs and limitations. As a result, one learns to engage in practices that best suit the body without compromising spiritual progress.

A Mala Should Support Practice, Not Replace Choice

This became very concrete when my wife recently went to a temple where Bhagavatam katha was being held. Malas were being distributed, and people were being asked to promise that they would use them daily without fail and also listen to Bhagavatam regularly, perhaps even every day online and through reading. I refused such a commitment directly for myself and the same she followed for herself too. There is nothing wrong with receiving a mala or maintaining a daily practice when one personally understands and accepts it. The problem, for me, is making a sacred object into a vehicle of obligation. A practice can be invited, voluntarily accepted and sincerely followed, but it should not have to be imposed in the name of holiness. I also wondered whether such promises might be followed up or monitored, although the incident itself does not establish that surveillance was actually intended. My basic objection was simpler: what is the value of losing personal freedom in the name of spirituality? Discipline is useful when it grows from the heart and from one’s own understanding.

Different Religions, One Fundamental Basis

From there my thinking goes further. I do not see the different religions and sects as fundamentally separate systems. Their external forms differ greatly, but I see a common underlying spiritual force in all of them, which in the Kundalini framework can be understood as Muladhara Shakti. This is why I do not understand Tantra merely as sexual practice. Tantra, in a broader sense, concerns methods, techniques, worship, disciplined practice and systematic transformation. Different religious systems may therefore look completely different on the surface while working upon a common underlying human and spiritual foundation. The car, scooter and bus look different, but each has an engine that performs the fundamental work of movement. In the same way, different religions may use different symbols, scriptures, rituals and methods while engaging the same deeper force in human existence.

This also explains why I resist sectarian superiority. If the same underlying force is present in all, then the external vehicle should not be mistaken for the engine itself. One tradition may use devotion, another meditation, another prayer, another ritual, another philosophical inquiry, yet all may be working upon overlapping foundations of attention, emotion, consciousness and transformation. This does not mean that all religions teach exactly the same doctrines or that every practice is equally useful. Their historical and theological differences are real. My point is that difference in external form does not necessarily mean difference at the fundamental level.

The Whole and the Part: From the Emerald Tablet to Sharirvigyan Darshan

This view also connects with the ancient microcosm-macrocosm principle: what is found in the whole is reflected in the part, and what is above is related to what is below. Whatever exists in the Sahasrara or brain in the form of religion, sect, emotion, faith or intellectual belief has its fundamental basis in Muladhara. The same Muladhara Shakti rises and expresses itself in different forms at the intellectual levels of the Ajna and Sahasrara chakras, giving rise to diverse religions, sects, beliefs and spiritual philosophies. These differences are like the different bodies of cars, scooters and buses, all built around the same fundamental engine. In the same way, different religious practices and systems are different expressions of the same underlying force of Muladhara Shakti also called sometimes sexual essence. The Emerald Tablet expresses a famous version of this correspondence. The popular holographic analogy points in a similar direction, although I would not claim that modern holographic physics literally proves that every part contains the whole universe. Its value here is as an analogy for recurring patterns and correspondence across levels. My own framework in Sharirvigyan Darshan takes the body, consciousness and larger reality as related through such correspondences. From this perspective, human spiritual systems can also be understood as different expressions of deeper common principles.

The important distinction is between personal experience, traditional teaching and philosophical inference. My personal experiences can be reported directly, while traditional Kundalini and Tantric teachings can be examined in their own context. My understanding goes further from a simple common-sense observation: whatever form spiritual feeling takes—devotion, prayer, meditation, surrender or contemplation—it depends upon the cleansing and refinement of the mind. I see this mental cleansing as primarily connected with the ascending movement of Muladhara Shakti. The same underlying force may therefore be active throughout different spiritual paths, even when its upward movement is not consciously recognized. In intensive tantric practice, this movement can become sufficiently strong and perceptible to be experienced more directly. From this perspective, the common Muladhara basis of different religions is not merely an abstract comparison but a philosophical synthesis arising from the shared process of mental purification and spiritual development.

Unity Without Uniformity

The idea that connects everything for me is that similarity does not require identity. Atmavat means like oneself, not literally oneself. The microcosm may correspond to the macrocosm without being identical to it. Different religions may share a fundamental spiritual basis without having identical beliefs or practices. Spiritual practitioners can share the same human potential without being forced into the same lifestyle. Discipline can support freedom when it is consciously chosen, but it can undermine freedom when obedience itself becomes the goal.

Perhaps the most practical form of spirituality is therefore not to erase all differences or to make everyone follow one system. It is to recognize what is fundamentally common while allowing the surface differences to remain. The deeper unity does not require uniformity. It requires understanding.

Kundalini Awakening Through Karma Yoga and Nonduality: Why Worldly Life May Hold the Key to Spiritual Realisation

The Missing Link Between Worldly Love and Spiritual Wisdom

I have been reflecting on the relationship between worldly life, love, devotion, surrender, Kundalini awakening and self-realisation. My central thought is that spiritual development need not always require withdrawing from worldly experience. Sometimes, living fully in the world while maintaining a nondual perspective may offer a distinctive route to spiritual awakening. This raises an important question: can a person become so absorbed in advanced yoga or philosophical knowledge that they overlook the value of love, emotional fulfilment and ordinary human relationships, only to recognise their importance later in life?

Why Vedavyasa Felt Dissatisfied Despite His Immense Wisdom

According to the traditional account in the Bhagavata Purana, Maharishi Vedavyasa felt dissatisfied even after composing extensive spiritual literature. Narada Muni advised him that he had not sufficiently glorified the Supreme Lord and the sweetness of loving devotion. Vyasa subsequently composed the Bhagavata Purana, which gives special prominence to Krishna’s divine qualities, activities and relationships with devotees. The story suggests that intellectual knowledge and philosophical wisdom do not necessarily provide the same fulfilment as experiencing divine love and devotion. The word rasa expresses this inward sweetness, the deeply relished experience of love rather than merely an intellectual understanding of the Divine.

I wondered whether Vyasa might have recognised this dimension earlier had he experienced worldly love, devotion and surrender before pursuing advanced yoga and knowledge. The traditional story does not say that he regretted missing romantic or worldly love; his dissatisfaction concerned the incompleteness of his spiritual expression. Nevertheless, his story raises a broader human question. A person may devote years to knowledge, discipline, professional achievement or spiritual practice and discover only later that loving relationships and emotional experiences were also essential parts of life. By then, some opportunities of youth, romance, family life and shared experiences may have passed. Although affection, companionship and tenderness remain possible in old age, certain experiences cannot simply be recreated. Spirituality should therefore not require us to postpone being human until little time remains.

Jnana Yoga and the Limitations of Worldly Competition

Jnana Yoga emphasises self-inquiry, discrimination between the transient and permanent, and freedom from identification with the ego. These aims may conflict with competitive worldliness, where people pursue wealth, status, influence and recognition. As attachment to such goals diminishes, motivation for conventional competition may also decline. Jnana Yoga can cultivate sustained clarity, detachment and inner elevation, but it does not automatically prevent professional achievement, love or compassionate engagement with society.

My point is that a person who focuses primarily on transcendence may have less reason to participate in the full range of worldly experiences. If someone renounces worldly life before understanding its emotional dimensions, they may later wonder whether they abandoned something they had never genuinely experienced. This does not mean that everyone must first experience every worldly pleasure before pursuing spiritual realisation. Rather, it suggests that premature rejection of life and mature freedom from attachment are not necessarily the same thing.

Karma Yoga as a Two-in-One Approach

I see Karma Yoga as a potentially integrated approach, combining worldly participation with spiritual development. A Karma Yogi can work, maintain a family, experience love, pursue professional excellence and fulfil social responsibilities while practising awareness, surrender and non-attachment. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that one can act wholeheartedly without becoming psychologically dependent on the fruits of action. This is different from abandoning action or becoming indifferent to its quality.

In this sense, Karma Yoga may offer a two-in-one approach: a person continues living and developing in the world while simultaneously working toward spiritual freedom. Worldly life becomes a field for learning rather than merely an obstacle to overcome. Relationships can reveal possessiveness, desire and vulnerability, while responsibility can teach discipline and selflessness. Love may begin with the desire to possess another person but gradually mature into care that does not demand complete control. Thus, worldly experience can itself contribute to spiritual understanding. Worldly life acts like a raw material to make spiritual progress.

My Kundalini Hypothesis: Worldly Engagement, Prana and Nonduality

I believe that worldly engagement may also contribute to the distinctive character of certain Kundalini awakening experiences. Competitive activity, love, emotional challenges and responsibilities can heighten attention and mental activation. In yogic language, I interpret this heightened vitality as intensified prana, although prana should not be equated directly with physiological arousal in scientific terms.

My hypothesis is that nondual contemplation can redirect this heightened vitality toward an inner meditative image. This is helped by nondual attitude of sharirvigyan darshan and quantum darshan among worldly activities. The image may gradually become vivid, immersive and seemingly alive rather than remaining an idea deliberately maintained by the mind. In deep absorption, the ordinary sense of separation between observer and experience may also change.

I have found worldly nondual contemplation can produce effects that resemble those sought through physical yogic practices, pranayama and other traditional methods. My proposed sequence is worldly engagement creating heightened vitality, nondual contemplation giving that vitality direction, deep absorption making the meditative image experientially alive, and a possible sudden awakening involving changes in bodily awareness, breathing or the sense of self. This remains an experiential hypothesis, not an established physiological mechanism, and a vivid experience alone cannot prove Kundalini awakening or permanent self-realisation. However in advanced later stage of karmayoga, gyanyoga enhances its effects to awakening level.

Can Karma Yoga Produce a Different Kind of Awakening?

I do not suggest that Jnana Yoga alone cannot lead to Kundalini awakening or a glimpse of self-realisation. It may also produce sudden and profound experiences. My distinction concerns their possible experiential character. An awakening arising through sustained contemplative withdrawal may have a different texture from one arising amid worldly relationships, emotional richness, embodied experience and nondual awareness. The latter may retain what I call a worldly tinge, not necessarily in the sense of attachment, but in the richness of its connection with lived experience.

The intensity of an awakening, however, does not establish the permanence of realisation or the maturity of a person’s conduct. A sudden experience may be followed by a long process of integration. Likewise, gradual contemplative practice can lead to profound transformation. Worldly engagement may contribute to the conditions of awakening for some practitioners, but excessive stress and agitation can also interfere with meditation. More intensity does not automatically mean more spiritual progress. Work should be moderate—not too demanding or too light, but comfortably within one’s capacity, leaving enough energy for nondual contemplation.

Sharirvigyan Darshan and the Integration of Body, Action and Awareness

My understanding of Sharirvigyan Darshan centres on exploring spiritual development through embodied existence, worldly action and nondual awareness rather than treating ordinary life merely as something to escape. In this framework, worldly participation supplies experiential richness, Karma Yoga transforms the relationship with action, and Jnana Yoga helps examine the self and loosen identification with the ego.

I see Karma Yoga as a two-in-one approach because it allows spiritual practice and worldly development to proceed together, while Jnana Yoga can appear more like a one-in-one approach when pursued primarily through direct inquiry and contemplation. A Karma Yogi may increasingly rely on Jnana Yoga in advanced stages to understand the experiences arising through action. Yet Jnana Yogis do not necessarily exclude Karma Yoga; many combine knowledge with service, compassion and devotion from the beginning. The Bhagavad Gita itself presents knowledge and action as closely related paths rather than entirely independent alternatives. However, Karma Yoga may be an option rather than a necessity for a Jnana Yogi, while Jnana Yoga may become valuable and a necessity for a Karma Yogi, especially in the later stages of spiritual development.

Why People Follow Renowned Jnana Yogis Instead of Finding Their Own Path

Different people may find different approaches to spirituality meaningful, depending on their temperament, circumstances and responsibilities. Teachings centred on meditation, detachment and self-inquiry can be valuable, just as Karma Yoga offers a way to explore spiritual growth through everyday work, relationships and responsibilities. My interest in Sharirvigyan Darshan is to explore this latter perspective and its relationship with nonduality, without suggesting that one path is universally better than another.

Similarly, devotional films such as Hanuman Ansh and philosophical works such as Sharirvigyan Darshan serve different purposes and reach audiences in different ways. Presenting spiritual ideas through stories and emotions may be easier than explaining a philosophical framework that requires sustained thought and reflection. However, a more engaging or better-presented film is not necessarily more effective in practical life; the actual impact depends on the individual and how deeply the ideas are understood and applied. A film may inspire devotion, while a philosophical work may offer insights that readers can explore in their daily lives. Both have their own value, and their practical effectiveness cannot be judged by presentation or popularity alone.

Conclusion: Spiritual Awakening Need Not Require Abandoning Life

My central insight is that spiritual development need not be divided rigidly between worldly life and transcendence. Jnana Yoga can cultivate sustained clarity and may also culminate in sudden awakening. Karma Yoga can integrate action, relationships, embodied experience and nondual contemplation, potentially giving some awakening experiences a distinctive experiential richness. The two approaches can complement each other, and neither guarantees a particular result.

Perhaps the heart should not be treated merely as something to transcend after the mind has completed its work. Love, devotion, surrender, knowledge and meditation can mature together. Rather than postponing life until worldly experiences are no longer available, we can learn to participate in work, relationships and responsibilities with increasing awareness and decreasing possessiveness. The deeper possibility explored through Sharirvigyan Darshan is that worldly engagement and spiritual realisation need not be enemies: lived experience may become part of the journey toward inner freedom.

Sun, Quantum Interactions, Living Organisms and Kundalini: A Cyclic View of Karmayoga, Samadhi and Nature

The Sun as a Realm of Extreme Interaction

I began with a simple thought: the Sun is not merely the gravitational hub of the solar system but a tremendous center of physical interaction. Compared with the relatively cool planets, asteroids and other bodies moving around it, the Sun is an extraordinarily energetic environment in which an immense variety of processes are taking place continuously. Nuclear fusion occurs in its core, charged particles interact in its plasma, photons are absorbed, emitted and scattered, atoms and ions are excited and ionized, and electromagnetic and magnetic processes constantly reshape its plasma. In that sense, the Sun can be thought of as a gigantic natural laboratory of nuclear, quantum, atomic, electromagnetic and plasma interactions. This does not mean that every quantum interaction in the universe is centered on the Sun, but it does suggest that the Sun is one of the most intensely active natural environments in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood.

This led me to a more unusual question: why should we not compare the Sun with a living organism? At the ordinary level they seem completely different. One is inorganic and enormously hot, while the other is organic and living. But when we look deeper, both are made of matter governed by the same underlying physical laws. At atomic and quantum levels, both involve particles interacting, exchanging energy, changing states and participating in larger systems. Their mechanisms are not identical, but the basic fact of continuous interaction is common to both. In the Sun, extreme heat, pressure and energy make countless interactions possible; in a living body, enzymes, molecular structures, energy gradients and cellular regulation facilitate and control an enormously complex network of interactions. Heat is not literally the equivalent of an enzyme, because heat mainly increases molecular and particle energies whereas an enzyme is a selective catalyst that lowers an activation barrier and regulates a particular biochemical reaction. Yet the comparison remains meaningful at the level of a system in which energy enables and sustains interaction.

From Chaotic Karmayoga to Stabilization

From here I began to see the quantum particles of the Sun metaphorically as Karmayogis. They are continuously active, continually interacting, moving and transforming in an extremely energetic environment. When matter leaves such extreme conditions and becomes part of a cooler and more stable planet, the same activity is no longer expressed in the same chaotic intensity. Matter becomes comparatively stabilized. I began to see this as somewhat similar to a Karmayogi gradually turning toward sitting Kundalini Yoga. First there is intense activity, then stabilization, then deeper observation and stillness.

In this view, the history of matter can be imagined as a cycle rather than a straight line. In the Sun there is intense interaction, something like a highly active worldly condition. In cooler environments there is increasing stability. On a developed planet, highly organized matter eventually gives rise to living organisms. Life brings back intense activity, but now the activity is far more ordered. This difference between earlier chaotic activity and later organized activity became important to my thought. The earlier activity can be compared symbolically with Karmayoga before the deeper regulating principle has been consciously observed. The later activity, in living organisms, resembles a more orderly worldliness, in which countless processes are coordinated through an extraordinary degree of regulation.

Pure Awareness and the Return to Ordered Action

I then connected this with the yogic cycle that I have experienced and contemplated. A yogi may begin in active worldly life, gradually cultivate observation and regulation, move into Kundalini Yoga and deeper meditation, and eventually enter states of profound stillness such as Samadhi. But Samadhi does not necessarily mean permanent abandonment of activity. Activity can return. What changes is the quality of that activity. After the regulating principle has been seen directly, worldly action can become more orderly, less chaotic and less dominated by unconscious reaction.

This is why I found a parallel between cosmic activity and yogic development. In my interpretation, the particles are not being said to feel or think like human beings. I am not proposing that an electron experiences pure awareness, performs Karmayoga or enters Samadhi. The comparison is based on observable or structural behaviour rather than on claiming identical inner experience. A particle undergoes interactions, energy exchange, transitions and stabilization; a human being experiences action, mental movement, regulation, stillness and renewed action. The inner reality may be completely different, while the pattern of movement can still appear similar. The important distinction is therefore between similarity of pattern and similarity of consciousness.

The Universe as a Cycle or Chakra

This made the idea of the chakra especially meaningful to me. Reality appears less like a straight road and more like a wheel: interaction leads toward stabilization, stabilization allows deeper organization, deeper organization gives rise to more sophisticated activity, and activity can again move toward stillness and observation. The yogi experiences such movement inwardly, while nature displays comparable cycles outwardly. In the yogic case, however, the cycle becomes consciously observed.

This is also why I related the idea to the Dharma Chakra of Buddhism. A wheel suggests continuous movement rather than a final linear endpoint. Stillness and activity are not necessarily enemies. One may move from action to stillness and then return to action at another level. The return is not simply a repetition of the beginning; it can be a return informed by what was discovered in stillness.

Sun Worship, Karmayoga and the Living Body

From this perspective, even ordinary spiritual practices began to acquire a new meaning for me. Giving water to the rising Sun in morning worship can be understood symbolically as aligning oneself with an active, energetic principle. The ritual involves standing, movement, intention and conscious orientation toward light and energy. It can therefore encourage alertness, vitality, gratitude and readiness for action, making it resemble the mental quality of an active Karmayogi. The comparison is not that energy from the Sun’s quantum particles is literally transferred into the worshipper’s mind. Rather, the Sun becomes an object through which a particular quality of consciousness may be cultivated.

By contrast, meditation on simpler and apparently more peaceful objects, such as a stone or a quietly flowing river, may encourage a calmer and more observant state. A stone appears stable even though microscopic interactions continue within it, while a river is continuously moving without displaying the restless complexity of human thought. Contemplating such forms of nature can therefore become a way of cultivating peaceful Yogic awareness. Again, the point is not that the stone’s particles are literally peaceful or that the river transmits a quantum state into the meditator. The object of contemplation acts more like a mirror for the quality of consciousness being cultivated.

Sharirvigyan Darshan provides an especially interesting bridge between the two modes. When the body itself becomes the object of contemplation, one can observe that it is simultaneously intensely active and capable of being observed in stillness. Countless organs, cells, molecules and biochemical reactions are continuously functioning, while the meditative observer can remain quiet. Thus the living body brings together the two poles of the idea: ceaseless activity and silent awareness.

One Pattern Appearing at Different Levels

My larger intuition, therefore, is not that the Sun, a stone, a living body, a quantum particle and a yogi are literally the same thing. They clearly are not. The Sun is a plasma-filled star, a stone is stable matter, a living body is an extraordinarily organized biological system, and a yogi is a conscious human being. What interests me is that similar patterns may appear at very different levels: interaction, transformation, stabilization, organization, renewed activity and, in the human case, conscious observation of the whole process.

The Sun may represent intense activity; the cool planet, stabilization; life, highly ordered activity; meditation, observation and stillness; Samadhi, profound stabilization; and the return to life, Karmayoga informed by awareness. Seen this way, the universe, the living organism and the yogic journey can all be contemplated as different expressions of a recurring cycle. Nature provides the outer pattern, while Yoga provides the possibility of experiencing such a cycle consciously from within.

Quantum Darshan: From Atmavat Sarvabhuteshu to the Unity of Consciousness

There is a Sanskrit teaching that has suddenly appeared to me in a new light: “Atmavat sarvabhuteshu yah pashyati sa panditah” — one who sees all beings as oneself is truly wise. I have often approached spiritual ideas through direct observation rather than through belief, and this verse now appears to me as one of the deepest philosophical foundations of what I spontaneously call my “Quantum Darshan.” What interests me is not merely its familiar ethical meaning, as though it simply advises us to treat others as we would like to be treated. Its deeper possibility is ontological. It suggests that beneath the apparent multiplicity of individual beings there may be a fundamental commonality of consciousness. In that sense, the verse becomes much more than a moral instruction. It becomes an observation about reality itself: many beings may appear separate at the level of body, mind and personality, while the underlying principle by which experience is known may not be as divided as the external world suggests.

Atmavat Sarvabhuteshu and the Mystery of One Consciousness in Many Beings

This understanding fits closely with the direction of my wider writings on Kundalini, meditation, awareness, non-duality and spiritual psychology. Again and again, my own experience has led me toward a distinction between the changing individual structure and the awareness in which that structure is experienced. Normally, the world encounters consciousness only through its association with a particular body. We therefore naturally think of consciousness as belonging to separate individuals: this person has consciousness, that person has consciousness, and every being appears to have its own isolated center. But when attention turns inward through meditation, this assumption can become less obvious. The body remains, sensations remain, thoughts may remain, but awareness itself can be experienced in a way that seems less restricted by ordinary personal identification. This is also connected with my earlier experiences of deep dhyana, breathlessness, Keval Kumbhak, Savikalpa and the movement toward states I have described in relation to Nirvikalpa. The essential question becomes whether consciousness is truly fragmented or whether fragmentation is largely a feature of embodiment and identification.

It is not limited to living beings but extends to non-living beings as well. All matter, whatever its nature or external appearance, also holds a deeper existence that remains unaffected by its outward form. In casual living, we generally consider outer forms as real, but their inner, deeper and pure existence is their true nature. This is why we speak of Paramatman as Atman present in everything.

Even in Sharirvigyan Darshan, the body’s cells, tissues and structures are contemplated as non-distinct from the meditator’s own sense of being. Quantum Darshan simply extends this inquiry further, to every fundamental particle, and ultimately even to the underlying space in which everything exists. A brick, for example, is not ultimately separate from the soil and material from which it is formed. In the same way, no material form can be considered completely separate from the deeper existence underlying it.

Therefore, there is a reason to regard Sharirvigyan Darshan and Quantum Darshan as practical modern extensions of the ancient insight expressed in the verse, “Atmavat sarvabhuteshu yah pashyati sa panditah.” This does not mean that only when the meditator reaches a purified state of the Self can he meditate on his similarity with the world. The sense of selfhood associated with every thought, emotion, bodily structure and interaction also needs to be included in this inquiry. Every cell and every fundamental particle participates in the innumerable interactions that collectively constitute what we call a human being, just as they participate in the interactions of the wider material world. Thus, the same principle can be followed progressively from the human level to the cellular level, from the cellular level to the quantum level, and ultimately to the very ground of space itself up to fundamental pure existence, extending the contemplative insight from the individual body to everything that exists.

Moreover, atmvat literally means “like oneself,” not “fully oneself.” Different beings and things express consciousness to different degrees, so they are not entirely equal in their expression of consciousness. However, their basic structure and fundamental functions are similar, just as a bus and a car are not equal in size or capacity but share the same basic structural principles and serve similar functions.

From Kundalini Experience to a Quantum-Like Vision

My use of the word “Quantum” is therefore philosophical rather than a claim that ancient scripture has scientifically proved modern quantum mechanics. I am not presenting Kundalini or this Sanskrit verse as experimental evidence from physics. Rather, I find that some modern scientific ideas provide a useful language for expressing an intuition that arose independently through contemplation and experience. In my spontaneous formulation, the sequence is simple: one underlying consciousness, apparently expressed through many observers, each associated with a separate body and mind. The multiplicity is real at the empirical level, but perhaps not final at the deepest level of awareness. This is where the phrase “Atmavat sarvabhuteshu” becomes especially powerful. To see all beings as oneself can mean not merely developing sympathy toward them, but recognizing a deeper continuity of being. The individual remains individual in practical life, yet the ultimate subjectivity behind experience may be understood as less divided than the personalities through which it appears.

I even feel that this verse is the core of every secret of spiritual development. Without this understanding, there can be no real spiritual development, while with it, spiritual development can continue in every condition of life. It gives a direction in which every experience and every condition can become part of spiritual development. However, one still has to do good karmas, because the fruits of karmas are inevitable and have to be tolerated when they come. Spiritual understanding does not make one free from the fruits of one’s actions; therefore, good karmas remain necessary while progressing on the spiritual path.

I feel that my first awakening came through this verse, which entered my life naturally through a Sanatana family environment. My second awakening came through the same verse again, but this time in a completely different and unexpected form, disguised as Sharirvigyan Darshan and later as Quantum Darshan. The outer forms were different, but I now feel that the underlying insight was the same. This is what makes the mahima of this verse indescribable and apparently infinite to me.
Because of this personal experience, I find it difficult to compare this verse with other mantras or spiritual teachings, even with Gayatri Mantra. To me, it stands at the top of everything that existed, exists, or will exist. This is not a claim that others must accept, nor do I intend to diminish the importance of other mantras or paths. It is simply how the verse has revealed itself through my own life and spiritual development. Others may experience another mantra or teaching as supreme, and I have no doubt about that. For me, however, the same simple insight has appeared again and again in different forms, first through my family environment and later through my own contemplative discoveries, making me feel that its depth is far beyond what I had understood when I first encountered it.

The amazing thing is that it does not say that the Atma, or pure Self, is similar to everything, as many religions and sects do. Such an idea can become impractical because one cannot live ordinary worldly life while constantly remaining established in the pure Self. Instead, it says atmavat—whatever self-status you actually have is similar to everything. This makes the teaching practical, workable, and effective in ordinary worldly life. Interestingly, the same core message is carried by both of my nondual philosophies as their very foundation—not deliberately or intellectually, but through experiential understanding alone.

The beauty is that ātmavat does not necessarily point to an abstract, pure Ātma that no one can ordinarily observe; with paśyati, it can point to the self as actually experienced—whatever self-status one inhabits. Thus, instead of merely saying “the Ātma is in all,” it offers a practical principle: see others as you see yourself, making nonduality workable in ordinary life.

Had the intended meaning been the pure Ātma itself, the expression could have used ātmanam in an appropriate grammatical construction; the use of ātmavat instead emphasizes “like oneself” or “as oneself.”

On final analysis, the single reason for the principle’s practical ineffectiveness appears to be that people first try to experience the pure Self and then meditate on making that Self similar to everything. But the principle seems to work in the opposite direction: the pure Self cannot be approached experientially without first meditating on the similarity between oneself and everything outside. That “oneself” is not the yet-unexperienced pure Self, but the experiential self-status—the gross self containing all the thoughts, actions, emotions, sensory feelings, and other experiences present at a particular time. If one has already attained the pure Self, why would one need to meditate on making it similar to everything, when nothing other than the pure Self is then experienced? Thus, ātmavat points more naturally to this experiential self-status rather than the pure Self, making the principle practical and workable in ordinary life.

The Core of Quantum Darshan

Seen in this way, the Sanskrit verse becomes a remarkably concise starting point for the whole inquiry. “Atmavat sarvabhuteshu” begins with the perception that the self seen within oneself is not fundamentally absent from other beings. From there, the question naturally expands: if consciousness is experienced as the subject here, what exactly makes it fundamentally different there? Individual bodies, memories, personalities, nervous systems and life histories clearly differ, yet the bare fact of awareness presents a deeper philosophical puzzle. My Quantum Darshan or earlier sharirvigyan darshan grows spontaneously from this tension between apparent multiplicity and possible underlying unity. It does not claim to have converted spirituality into physics. It attempts something more modest and, to me, more meaningful: to place direct meditation experience, ancient symbolic wisdom, non-duality and contemporary scientific thinking into one field of inquiry without forcing any of them to become something they are not. The Sanskrit sages expressed the insight in the language of the self and all beings; my own experiences have led me to approach the same mystery through looking at similarity between scince and spirituality.

Why Puranic Stories Have Endless Layers of Spiritual Meaning

The Many Layers of a Puranic Story

Puranic stories are amazing psychology because they can benefit almost every kind of reader, even when different readers understand completely different things from the same story. I have been thinking particularly about the stories of Ganga and how they seem to work at many levels at once. A child may simply enjoy them as wonderful fictional stories filled with extraordinary events, characters, imagination and adventure. There is no need for the child to understand philosophy or yoga for the story to give joy. As the same person grows older, however, the story can begin to provide moral, social, cultural, devotional and spiritual meaning. The remarkable thing is that discovering a deeper meaning does not make the earlier meaning useless. The story can continue to operate at several levels simultaneously. Thus in a way these stories are wonderful spiritual sanskar builders since the childhood so that yoga doesn’t look strange in later life but well known since quite earlier. Ganga story is just one example among plethora of such awe inspiring stories.

Ganga as Nature Worship and Spiritual Practice

The first important layer I see is the nature-worshipping layer. A person who does not understand yoga or symbolism may simply regard the physical Ganga as sacred. He worships the river, respects it, visits it and develops reverence toward nature. In this sense, he may unknowingly participate in something close to a nondual spiritual attitude: nature is not treated merely as an object outside oneself but as something worthy of sacred recognition. He does not need to intellectually understand nonduality or quantum philosophy for this attitude to influence him. By regarding the natural world as sacred, he is indirectly prepared for a more spiritual relationship with existence.

This is especially interesting because the Puranic tradition repeatedly gives sacred significance to rivers, mountains, forests, animals and other aspects of nature. The ordinary person therefore receives a spiritual orientation through something immediately accessible. Spirituality does not have to begin with an abstract philosophical concept. It can begin with a river.

The Same Ganga as a Yogic Symbol

At another level, the same Ganga story can be approached by a yogi. The river can be understood symbolically as an inner current, and its descent, flow and relationship with Shiva can be contemplated as representations of an inner spiritual process. In my own way of looking at Kundalini and yoga, such imagery can be related to the movement of consciousness and the Sushumna. The physical river remains a real river, but it can simultaneously become an inner map. Although inside is same as outside like microcosm inside macrocosm. So Ganga as sushumna also give similar nonduality effect when revered. Additionally it gives direct yoga benefit too. Together, Nonduality and yoga lives together in cause and effect relationship.

This makes me wonder whether nature worship and yogic symbolism are not accidental additions but two especially important layers of Puranic storytelling. Both belong to major spiritual domains, and the Puranas are known primarily for dealing with religious and spiritual subjects, although they also cover cosmology, mythology, ethics, ritual, sacred geography, devotion and social life. The possibility therefore arises that the stories were designed to communicate spirituality through forms that could be understood at very different levels. I would not claim that every particular yogic correspondence was consciously encoded by an original storyteller without textual evidence, but the structure certainly allows such a reading.

The Social and Behavioral Education Hidden in the Story

The same narrative can also work at a social and behavioral level. A woman reading a revered female figure may find respect for womanhood and may receive an example of qualities considered admirable, such as courage, dignity, devotion, responsibility, compassion or strength. A man may receive another kind of lesson. Seeing a feminine figure treated with reverence can encourage him to understand that externally visible physical strength does not determine human worth. A woman’s lesser average physical strength cannot become a justification for domination, humiliation or mistreatment.

The story therefore does not have to be understood as a yogic text to influence conduct. Someone interested only in ordinary human behavior can still receive ethical education from it. The important point is not that every person must literally imitate every action of a mythological character, but that the narrative can provide models from which people draw principles appropriate to their lives.

From Childhood Imagination to Yoga

This suggests a gradual ladder of reception. A child enters through imagination and fictional joy. An ordinary adult may receive moral and cultural instruction. A person concerned with social behavior may learn respect, duty and appropriate conduct. A devotee may develop reverence for the sacred. A nature-oriented person may learn to see the natural world as worthy of respect. A spiritual seeker may discover symbolic and psychological meanings. A yogi may recognize an inner map involving consciousness, prana, chakras or Sushumna. A deeper contemplative may eventually use the same imagery in nondual contemplation. Although all these steps of ladder complement each other beautifully.

One possible limitation, especially in the modern context, is that a person may become too fascinated by the miracles, supernatural events and extraordinary fictional world of Puranic stories. Instead of using the stories as symbolic, devotional or ethical pathways, some readers may begin to take every extraordinary element literally. In a modern life that depends heavily on practical reasoning, scientific understanding and evidence-based thinking, this could sometimes create tension with a person’s ordinary intellectual and practical outlook. This does not mean that Puranic stories necessarily produce such an effect, nor that everyone is affected by them. For many people, the imaginative and miraculous elements may remain simply part of the storytelling tradition while the deeper values are retained. The concern is that, for some readers, excessive attachment to the supernatural surface may overshadow the symbolic and practical dimensions of the stories, at least to some degree. In earlier traditional societies, where religious, mythological and everyday life were much more closely integrated, the same tension may not have appeared in the same form. Modern readers, however, live simultaneously in a scientific, technological and highly practical world, so maintaining a distinction between symbolic mythology and empirical fact can sometimes be important. The challenge, therefore, is not necessarily to reject the miraculous dimension of Puranic storytelling, but to allow imagination and spirituality to coexist with scientific reasoning and practical life.

These layers need not replace one another. A child who once enjoyed the story can later discover its moral meaning, then its devotional meaning, and perhaps much later its yogic significance. The story grows with the reader.

Why the Layers May Be Practically Endless

I think the layers can go almost endlessly. This does not necessarily mean that every possible interpretation was deliberately placed inside the story by its original composer. Rather, a rich symbolic narrative can interact with different ages, personalities, life situations and levels of understanding, producing new meaningful readings. Its depth is therefore not exhausted when one hidden meaning is discovered.

Perhaps this is one of the great strengths of Puranic storytelling. The story does not demand that everyone understand spirituality in the same language. The child receives wonder; the ordinary person receives values; the devotee receives sacredness; the nature-lover receives reverence for the world; the socially oriented person receives behavioral lessons; and the yogi can discover an inner spiritual map. The same narrative can entertain, educate, shape behavior, cultivate devotion and prepare consciousness for yoga.

The Outer River and the Inner River

The Ganga example brings the whole idea together for me. The outer Ganga can remain an actual physical river and at the same time become sacred nature, an object of devotion, a cultural symbol and an inner yogic metaphor. The ordinary worshipper does not need to know the yogic interpretation for the practice to have value. The yogi does not need to reject the physical river after discovering the inner meaning.

Perhaps this is the deeper genius of Puranic storytelling: it gives spirituality an outer form that almost anyone can approach while leaving room for an inner meaning that can unfold progressively. Nature can be sacred outside, while the same sacred geography can become yoga within. What begins for one person as a child’s wonderful story can become for another a moral education, for another a way of relating to nature, for another a devotional practice, and finally for a yogi a doorway into the mystery of consciousness.

Upward Movement, Infinite Sky, Sushumna and Kundalini Awakening

This is an experiential inquiry into a striking observation from my own practice: the same signs that arise through yoga, pranayama and shirshasana—head pressure, an upward movement, freer sushumna flow, subtler breathing and deeper dhyana—can also arise through contemplation alone, by experiencing the Self as Ekarnava, the infinite sky-ocean. What makes this observation particularly interesting is that one route works through the body and breath, while the other works through consciousness and identification. The possibility that both may lead to the same underlying movement of energy is the central discovery explored in this post.

Upward Movement and Spiritual Awakening

Flying, rising, ascending, or moving upward is commonly associated with awakening, Samadhi, Self-realisation, enlightenment, and transcendence. Across spiritual traditions, upward movement often represents a movement beyond ordinary, earth-bound consciousness toward something higher, freer, wider, or divine. This does not mean that every experience of flying or rising proves enlightenment or Samadhi, but the symbolism is remarkably consistent. The direction itself seems to carry a deep spiritual meaning: from limitation toward expansion, from contraction toward freedom, and from ordinary identification toward transcendence.

The same pattern can be noticed in very different traditions. In the caduceus, the ascending serpents culminate in wings, which naturally invites an esoteric interpretation of rising consciousness, although historically the caduceus is associated with Hermes and cannot simply be declared to be a Kundalini symbol. The Emerald Tablet also speaks of ascending from earth to heaven and descending again, with the transforming movement associated with the wind. From a yogic perspective, this can be compared symbolically with prana, although that identification is a comparative interpretation rather than the original historical meaning of the text. Yogic traditions themselves contain much more direct imagery of Kundalini rising, prana moving upward, passage through the chakras and sushumna, and yogis flying or becoming capable of moving through the sky. These different images need not have a single historical origin to reveal a common symbolic pattern of vertical ascent and transcendence.

Why the Divine Is Called the One Above

This also makes expressions such as “Upar Wala,” the One Above, understandable as spiritual symbolism. If upwardness is repeatedly associated with heaven, higher consciousness, transcendence, awakening, and liberation, then “the One Above” can be seen as a simple expression of that ancient metaphor. “Above” need not mean a literal physical location. It can mean beyond ordinary consciousness, beyond ego, beyond limitation, or transcendent to the usual sense of self. At the same time, many mystical traditions ultimately say that the Divine is not merely above but also within. Thus the movement toward what seems higher may finally become a recognition of something that was never truly separate from the deepest Self.

My Experience of the Infinite Sky

My own experience has made this symbolism much more meaningful. I have noticed that when I contemplate the Self as infinite sky often with gaze at Agya chakra, instead of imagining myself as a small individual confined to a particular body and local identity, something changes in meditation. The mind seems less bound to this local identification. There is a feeling of becoming open, vast, and unbounded, as though the sense of self is no longer limited to one point in space. After this contemplation, the sushumna seems to flow more freely upward, accompanied by greater bliss, deeper dhyana, and a more effortless and subtle breath, sometimes approaching a naturally breathless condition. I also experience genuine pressure in the head, but it is not uncomfortable.

What interests me is that the upward movement does not feel like something I am forcing. It seems to become easier when the contraction of local identification is reduced. This suggests to me that the real obstruction may not simply be an energetic obstruction but the mind’s identification with a limited body-mind structure. When the mind is tightly identified with the local self, the flow through the sushumna seems less free. When identification becomes more spacious and unobstructed, the chakras also seem to become less obstructed and the energy flow becomes more natural.

Mind, Chakras, Prana and Sushumna

Within the yogic and tantric model, mind, attention, prana, chakras, and sushumna are closely connected rather than completely separate. My experience leads me to consider whether the state of the mind directly influences how the subtle system is experienced. Local identification seems to contract attention; that contraction may be experienced as restriction in subtle flow; when identification relaxes into an unbounded sense of being, the flow through the central channel seems to become clearer. In this sense, the mind may be directly connected with the chakras, not necessarily because the physical brain is mechanically opening or closing them, but because consciousness, attention, pranic movement, and subtle experience appear to interact within the yogic framework.

This is an interpretation of experience rather than a claim that a physically measurable tube inside the body is literally blocked. “Obstruction” may refer to psychological identification, habitual tendencies, energetic contraction, or a combination of these. What matters to me is the repeatable experiential relationship: greater inner openness seems to coincide with freer upward flow, greater bliss, subtler breathing, and deeper meditation.

Flying, Samadhi and Self-realisation

This also gives a more careful meaning to experiences of flying or upward movement in relation to Savikalpa Samadhi, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, Self-realisation, and enlightenment. Experiences of ascent, expansion, lightness, bliss, inner movement, or flying may accompany deep states of meditation and may be interpreted within a yogic framework as signs of transcendence. But the experience itself does not prove enlightenment, Self-realisation, or even Samadhi. In Savikalpa Samadhi, some subtle distinction between experiencer and experience may remain. In Nirvikalpa Samadhi, ordinary subject-object distinctions are described as falling away, making the language of “I am flying upward” less applicable.

Therefore, there is an important distinction between the experience and its interpretation. “I am flying upward” is an experience within consciousness. The deeper possibility is that even the separate experiencer becomes less distinct. That is much closer to the language traditionally associated with nondual realisation. The upward movement can therefore be understood as a recurring symbol or phenomenological motif of transcendence without making the simplistic equation that flying itself means enlightenment.

From Ascent to Boundlessness

The most interesting part of my experience is that the process does not finally feel like a small self travelling upward into a distant heaven. When I imagine the Self as infinite sky, the local sense of being confined to the body becomes weaker, and the upward movement seems to happen within that very boundlessness. In this way, the old images of wings, rising serpents, flying yogis, Kundalini ascending through the sushumna, heaven above, and the One Above can be understood as different expressions of a broad spiritual language of moving beyond limitation.

My experience does not establish that all these symbols historically mean the same thing, nor that every upward sensation represents enlightenment. But it does suggest a meaningful relationship between expansion of consciousness and the experience of upward flow. When local identification relaxes, the sushumna seems less obstructed, the chakras feel more open, bliss increases, breathing becomes naturally subtler, and dhyana deepens. For me, the important discovery is therefore not simply that “upward” is spiritual, but that when the mind becomes less locally identified and more like infinite sky, the whole inner movement seems to become freer.

A final practical distinction is important: naturally subtle or temporarily imperceptible breathing should not be deliberately forced or held. Likewise, painless head pressure should not automatically be taken as spiritual progress; if it becomes intense, persistent, or accompanied by significant physical or neurological symptoms, it should be treated as a bodily symptom rather than automatically given a spiritual explanation.

The Same Effect from Two Directions: Yoga and the Infinite Sky

A Puzzle About Sushumna, Head Pressure and Deep Dhyana

I think I have finally solved a puzzle that I had been observing in my practice for a long time. Practices such as yoga, pranayama, and even shirshasana can produce a certain pressure in the head, together with a sense of upward movement, freer sushumna flow, subtler breathing, and deeper, sometimes almost breathless, dhyana. What has become especially interesting to me is that a similar effect can arise without these physical practices. When I contemplate Ekarnava, the infinite sky-ocean, and experience the Self as vast and unbounded rather than locally confined to the body, a similar type of head pressure can arise, along with a feeling of upward movement, greater freedom in the sushumna, and deeper dhyana.
This makes me think that whether one holds the ear from one side or the other, the effect may ultimately be the same. In other words, the physical route and the contemplative route may be different means of producing a similar internal result. Yogic body manipulations, pranayama, and inverted postures may influence the system from the bodily side, while deep contemplation may influence it directly through consciousness and attention.

Rajyoga and the Direct Route

This also gives me a possible explanation for why Rajyogis can say that elaborate yogasanas and pranayama are not absolutely necessary for entering deep dhyana. If the essential process is not the physical manipulation itself but the gathering and upward movement of subtle energy, then it may be possible to reach the same state through contemplation alone. The Rajyogi may not need to manipulate the body extensively if the mind can itself become sufficiently concentrated, expanded, and detached from local identification to allow the upward movement through the sushumna.
This direct route may, however, be more difficult. The body can provide a kind of support or preparation, whereas contemplation requires the mind itself to become capable of producing the necessary inward concentration and expansion. Therefore, it seems to me that the two approaches need not be opposed. The physical practices can prepare and organize the system, while contemplation can take the process further without depending entirely on physical manipulation.

Energy Rather Than Pressure Is the Main Thing

This also changes how I understand the head pressure itself. The pressure may not be the actual goal or the essential phenomenon. It may simply be a symptom or indication accompanying the gathering or upward movement of energy. Yogic practices may bring this experience about through physical and respiratory means, while contemplation of the infinite sky-ocean may produce it through a direct change in consciousness and identification.

Therefore, I would not say that head pressure itself is the evidence of progress. The important thing is the underlying process that the pressure may accompany. If there is pressure without the corresponding sense of vitality, clarity, inwardness, or energetic movement, it may simply be a physical ailment and should not automatically be interpreted as spiritual activity. The pressure is secondary; what I call energy is primary in the yogic interpretation.

Energy Everywhere

From this perspective, the idea that energy is present everywhere also becomes important. If the same underlying life-energy can support the functioning of the digestive organs in the gut, it is reasonable within the yogic model to consider that it can also support the functioning of the brain and the processes involved in contemplation. Each organ has its own natural work, and the same underlying energy is involved in sustaining those functions. The difference is in the particular work being performed, not necessarily in the existence of completely separate energies.

This gives a broader meaning to the experience. The energy that supports digestion does not have to be considered fundamentally different from the energy involved in breathing, movement, concentration, or contemplation. It may be understood as one life-energy expressing itself through different organs and functions according to their natural or destined work.

Two Routes, One Inner Movement

My present understanding, therefore, is that yoga, pranayama, shirshasana, and other bodily practices can help gather or redirect the system toward the head and central axis, sometimes producing head pressure and supporting deeper dhyana. But contemplation of Ekarnava, the infinite sky-ocean, can apparently produce a similar movement without the same physical manipulation. By expanding the sense of Self beyond local identification, contemplation itself seems capable of drawing the attention and subtle energy upward, with the same accompanying pressure and deepening of meditation.

This may explain why different yogic paths can arrive at similar states through very different methods. One begins more from the body and breath and moves toward consciousness; another begins directly with consciousness and allows the body and energy to follow. The first may make the process easier for some practitioners, while the second may be more direct but more difficult. For me, the most natural conclusion is not to choose one and reject the other, but to combine them: use yogic practices to prepare and balance the system, and use contemplation to directly expand consciousness and deepen dhyana.

The real discovery for me is that the same inner phenomenon can apparently be approached from two directions. The body can influence the movement of energy toward the head, and consciousness can influence the same movement through contemplation. The head pressure may appear in both cases, but the pressure itself is only a symptom. What matters is the deeper movement of energy, the freeing of the sushumna, the loosening of local identification, and the resulting deepening of dhyana.

Within the yogic framework, this makes the distinction between Hathyoga physical practice and Rajyoga less absolute than it first appears. They may simply be different ways of working with the same underlying relationship between body, breath, mind, prana, energy, and consciousness.

Spiritual Awakening and Self-Realisation: Mental Chaos, Nondual Meditation and Worldly Life

When Inner Calm Suddenly Meets Mental Rush

I have often wondered whether spiritual awakening and self-realisation can ever be accompanied by suicidal thoughts or deep depression. My own understanding became clearer when I looked back at something I experienced during my university days. I had become extremely calm and contained, and I was able to dissolve mental chaos quite easily. The inward movement was becoming natural to me. I was accustomed to silence, observation and the gradual disappearance of disturbing mental movements. Yet, near the end of that period, something unexpected happened. A sudden rush of recognition arose. Profession and family, which appeared to be ordinary parts of life, suddenly seemed to be creating chaos and opposing one another at the same time. It was not simply one particular problem; the whole structure of ordinary life seemed to reveal its contradictions together.
There were actually no clear-cut self-inflicting at that time. Rather, I had become somewhat reluctant about worldly growth. Perhaps this was partly an effect of my nondual philosophy and the way I was working with it. Desires were still there, but they were no longer experienced as cravings. Yet, as I could see in practical life, ordinary desires can be difficult to fulfil unless they become strong cravings in today’s materialistic world. People driven by intense cravings can easily move ahead of those whose desires remain moderate and intellectually restrained. From the outside, therefore, my condition could sometimes look like depression or a lack of ambition. From within, however, it did not necessarily feel like depression. I could feel that, in my own understanding, all was well.
There were also occasions when I realised how easily such a state could be misunderstood by others. Even a casual or playful remark about self-infliction, made perhaps as a kind of warning or expression of frustration, could backfire because people might understand it in a completely different sense from what was intended. That taught me an important practical lesson: never speak casually in such language, because others may attach a meaning to it that is entirely different from one’s own inner meaning. It is also possible that such a condition might have helped me in another way, by bringing more care or attention from people around me. Much depends on the society and the people one lives among. Some societies or individuals may treat a person who appears withdrawn, unsuccessful or vulnerable even more harshly, while others may recognise the difficulty and extend a helping hand. The same outward condition can therefore produce very different consequences depending on how people respond to it.
The experience nevertheless showed me something important. Even a person who has developed considerable inner calm, and perhaps has reached a profound state of awakening or self-realisation, can become temporarily destabilised when an unusually large movement of recognition and mental activity suddenly arises. Inner calm does not automatically mean that one has already learned how to integrate every possible contradiction of ordinary life. That integration may require another kind of training: learning to carry inner freedom into the full complexity of family, profession, desire, responsibility and the material world. Once a person has genuinely experienced and learned to navigate such complexity, it may leave a lasting resilience—perhaps even lifelong—so that the person can remain much less vulnerable to similar disturbances later, even if he eventually steps away from a demanding or struggle-filled life.

In a nutshell, self-inflictive, depressed, frustrated or hopeless moods may arise from unresolved emotions. Awakening and spirituality can help greatly in recognising, processing and resolving these emotions, but they also have their limits. When unresolved emotions accumulate faster than one’s capacity to clear them, the mind can become increasingly burdened and depression may arise. These unresolved emotions leave imprints, or what may be experienced as a kind of darkness over the self, creating a feeling of inner heaviness and even suffocation. In this sense, spiritual practice can help clear the darkness, but when the emotional load becomes greater than the person’s present capacity to process it, even a spiritually inclined person may become temporarily overwhelmed.

I have also observed another tendency in worldly life: a person who carries less mental or emotional baggage may sometimes appear more capable of carrying additional burdens. Others may therefore unconsciously shift some of their own burden onto him, seeking relief for themselves and creating an apparent balance of burdens. But in this process of taking and giving, the extra burden may sometimes become concentrated on the person who was already relatively free. What appears to distribute the burden equally can therefore have the opposite effect, leaving the awakened or inwardly developed person with a load that becomes unexpectedly difficult to lift.

Awakening Does Not Mean That Mental Turbulence Will Never Return

This also changed the way I look at what is sometimes called spiritual purification. Daily cleaning of the mind does not necessarily mean that the mind will become progressively quiet without interruption. Sometimes suppressed thoughts, emotions, memories and contradictions may come into awareness together, often triggered by external conditions. After several calm days, a person may suddenly experience a great rush of thoughts and wonder why everything has become chaotic again. The contrast itself can produce exhaustion, hopelessness, anxiety or even depression-like feelings. But such a phase does not automatically mean that spiritual practice has failed. It can mean that the person has encountered more psychological material than he is presently able to process comfortably.

There is also an important difference between seeing thoughts and being overwhelmed by them. In a stable contemplative process, thoughts may arise without having the same authority over the person. During an overwhelming phase, however, thoughts can become repetitive, emotionally charged and convincing. In such a situation, trying to meditate harder or forcing the mind to become empty may not always help. A Sometimes the better direction is to reduce the intensity of inward practice, return to ordinary activity, maintain sleep and food, walk, remain connected with other people and allow the nervous system to settle. Spiritual practice should not becoms another form of struggle against the mind. For me, a nondual practice such as Sharirvigyan Darshan or Quantum Darshan, applied in practical life, may be one of the easiest and least stressful forms of meditation during such periods. Instead of demanding prolonged inward concentration or withdrawal from ordinary activity, it allows awareness to continue while one is living, working, dealing with family, fulfilling responsibilities and facing the ordinary chaos of life. In this way, meditation becomes less a separate exercise and more a natural way of living.

The Difference Between Spiritual Crisis and Self-Realisation

I do not think suicidal thinking should be regarded as a necessary stage of awakening. A profound spiritual experience can coincide with suicidal thoughts, but that does not make those thoughts a higher spiritual attainment. A person may be undergoing what is sometimes described as a spiritual emergency, where identity, meaning and perception change so rapidly that the psychological system becomes overwhelmed. At the same time, similar experiences can occur with depression, dissociation, mania, psychosis, sleep deprivation or other psychological conditions. Therefore, an extraordinary inner experience should not automatically be interpreted as purely spiritual.

For me, an important point is that realising that the ego is not the ultimate reality does not mean that the body or life should be neglected. Self-realisation is not about destroying ordinary life; it is about changing the way we identify with it. In fact, spirituality can make life more meaningful and stable by giving a person hope, connection and a deeper reason to live. But if spiritual struggle makes a person feel that life has lost all meaning, or that he cannot reconcile his inner experience with ordinary life, it can have the opposite effect. It is also practically clear that spiritual life cannot easily advance without some worldly support. The body needs food, shelter, health, rest and social security, while the mind also needs a reasonably stable environment. Spiritual practice therefore does not exist completely apart from worldly life. Some basic worldly support gives a person the foundation from which deeper spiritual work can continue.

Why an Inward Life Can Become Vulnerable to Sudden Chaos

Looking back, I think there is another important reason why such destabilisation can happen. A person who has become habitual of a very inward and calm life may become highly trained in dealing with mental movements that arise within that controlled environment, but may not be equally trained in living amid external chaos. He may know how to sit quietly, observe thoughts and dissolve inner disturbances, yet have comparatively little experience of simultaneously handling family demands, professional responsibility, friendly chaos, interpersonal conflict, uncertainty and other pressures of ordinary life.

Then, when an extraordinary amount of chaos suddenly arises, the person may be disturbed not because his inner practice was false, but because he had not yet developed enough experience of carrying that inner stability into difficult circumstances. Calmness in the absence of disturbance and stability in the presence of disturbance are related, but they are not exactly the same accomplishment.

Sharirvigyan Darshan as a Bridge Between Inner Life and Ordinary Life

This is where my experience with Sharirvigyan Darshan became important. Instead of trying to escape profession, family, body and ordinary responsibilities, I began living and working according to the principles of Sharirvigyan Darshan. For me, this worked wonderfully. It stabilised me and, surprisingly, did not slow spiritual progress. I felt that the pace of spiritual development became even faster than before, but I also realised that this way of living has its limits. As long as the body has enough energy, one can deploy that energy in both the worldly and spiritual realms together. With advancing age, however, a person naturally has to move more in one direction or the other. Therefore, the spiritual way may gradually become more suitable, although some worldly engagement is still necessary for life. Even then, whatever worldly activity remains can be combined with nondual contemplation, so that the two do not become completely separate.

I think the reason was that ordinary life itself became part of the training. Family, profession, relationships, bodily experiences, desires, responsibilities and social situations were no longer separate from spiritual work. They became the actual environment in which awareness had to function. Instead of learning only how to dissolve mental chaos in a quiet inward state, I was repeatedly exposed to the chaos of life and could use the same understanding to process it.

This creates a kind of training through repeated experience. A person first learns calmness in a quiet environment. Then he learns to retain that calmness while ordinary disturbances occur. With continued experience, he develops confidence that even when something extraordinary happens, mental chaos can arise without necessarily controlling or destroying him. The disturbance becomes familiar rather than frightening.

From Escaping Chaos to Learning How to Dissolve It

This, to me, is perhaps the deeper lesson. The goal is not to create a life in which chaos never appears. Such a life may provide calmness, but it does not necessarily prepare one for the unpredictable intensity of existence. The stronger stability comes when one can remain inwardly centred while life continues to move around him.

Sharirvigyan Darshan, as I experienced it, provided precisely this integration. Instead of separating spiritual life from worldly life, it allowed the two to operate together. I have seen many people leave the material realm in order to become more spiritual, but my approach was almost the opposite: I continued to engage with the material realm while carrying the spiritual realm along with it. I did not see family, profession and worldly responsibilities as obstacles that had to be abandoned. Rather, I tried to bring spiritual understanding into them.

I have seen, for example, a doctor leave his job to become a writer, filmmaker and director around a spiritual figure. My own path was different. I continued with my job while becoming a writer and even got awakening like a spiritual figure. I did not have to leave my professional life for spirituality instead it further grew with this unique nondual philosophy. To me, these things did not appear contradictory. I am not presenting this as an exaggeration or as an achievement to be compared with others; it is simply how I experienced what happened in my own life through this practical philosophy. It may also be that my profession did not carry the same level of responsibility as that of a doctor, whose decisions can sometimes directly affect whether a person lives or dies. Human life is more precious than animal life, and the emotional and moral weight of such responsibility can therefore be much greater. However, I feel that spirituality properly integrated into a physician’s profession should not itself do any harm. If anything, it can strengthen the value placed on human life and make the work more meaningful than when it is approached through purely worldly considerations. If difficulties still arise, they may be due to other factors working together rather than spirituality itself.

Of course, no philosophy or spiritual discipline can make a person completely incapable of being disturbed. Even a highly experienced practitioner can become overwhelmed by sufficiently extreme circumstances. The real achievement is different: disturbance becomes less frightening, less sticky and less capable of reorganising the whole personality around itself.

Thus my earlier experience and my later understanding fit together. I once learned to dissolve mental chaos mainly through inward calmness. Later, by living fully in ordinary life through Sharirvigyan Darshan, I learned something broader: one does not become truly stable by escaping chaos; one becomes stable by becoming experienced in remaining oneself while chaos moves through oneself. Later on, I again shifted from the struggle of active worldly life toward calmer meditation, but now with much better understanding and control. I had already experienced worldly life and its chaos closely, so the inward movement was no longer the same as before. It became a more informed and balanced return to calmness. This may be an important part of the two-way movement between mental purification and worldly engagement, where each strengthens the other and gradually leads toward genuine integration and self-realisation.

Quantum Verse and Nondual Living: Why Humanity Is Religion, Work Is Worship, Problems Are Teachers, and Household Life Is Sadhana

The Deeper Meaning of My Quantum Verse

In my Quantum Verse, I had written four simple thoughts: no religion is better than humanity, no worship is better than work, no problem is better than a teacher, and no hermit is better than householdship. Earlier, I saw these mainly as principles of life. Recently, through my own experience of working, learning and moving towards awakening and samadhi, I understood a deeper connection between all four. They are not really four unrelated statements. They can be understood as four practical expressions of a nondual way of living, especially when viewed through what I call Sharirvigyan Darshan and Quantum Darshan. Amazingly, I had made it as a spiritual fun for a magazine, but it turned a topmost lesson of my life later on.

No Religion Is Better Than Humanity

For me, humanity is greater than religion because humanity keeps spiritual knowledge connected with actual life. A belief, doctrine or religious practice can remain limited to thought or ritual, but humanity tests what we really understand by how we live and work with other beings. In that sense, humanity itself can become the most practical religion. It also has another important role: it prevents wrong working. When work is done without sensitivity to life and without a nondual understanding, knowledge can become mechanical, ego-driven or harmful. Humanity keeps the action grounded.

No Worship Is Better Than Work

The second statement became much clearer through my own experience. I did not discover that work is automatically worship. Work becomes worship only when it is done with a nondual mindset. Otherwise work can create bad habits, strengthen conditioning and make a person dependent on methods that may not suit the actual structure of the body and mind. This was important in my own journey. I did not stop learning from other people because I disliked teachers or believed that others had nothing to offer. Rather, I found that the people and methods available to me often did not work in the knowledgeable way that I considered necessary according to Sharirvigyan Darshan and Quantum Darshan. If I continued working through unsuitable methods, I could develop wrong habits through the very process of learning. So I felt it was better to learn and work largely by myself. It proved as a boon for me and I could grow as per my own will.

Self-Learning Does Not Mean Rejecting Teachers

My approach was not complete isolation. I took help whenever it was genuinely needed, but I kept it to the minimum necessary. The important point was that I did not want to become dependent on others. I wanted to understand the work directly and discover how it actually functioned through my own observation and experience. This distinction matters to me now: self-learning is not anti-teacher. It means refusing to make the teacher a substitute for one’s own seeing. A teacher can point, explain or correct, but the actual understanding still has to become one’s own.

No Problem Is Better Than a Teacher

This also changes the meaning of the third line. A problem can become a teacher when we do not merely ask someone else to remove it but investigate why it exists, what it is showing and what it requires us to understand. In that sense, the problem itself can expose weaknesses in our knowledge and working. It can teach us more directly than an external explanation because we have to encounter the principle in actual life. This is why I now see the statement not simply as praise of teachers, but as a reminder that learning can come through the very difficulty we are trying to solve.

Nature as the Greatest Teacher

This experience also led to another meaning that arose naturally for me. If nonduality is maintained, nature itself can become the best teacher. Nature does not teach through dependence. It shows processes directly through the body, mind, environment and the relationships between them. When one observes without separating oneself completely from what is being observed, learning becomes more direct. A teacher may explain a principle, but nature continuously demonstrates it. Therefore, the highest form of learning may not always be learning from a person; it may be learning to see what is already happening. Together, nature is nondual and it likes a nondual person, bhola or innocent like shiva.

No Hermit Is Better Than Householdship

The fourth line also becomes deeper in this framework. Household life is not necessarily opposed to spiritual development. It keeps knowledge in contact with work, relationships, responsibility and ordinary human situations. A hermit may reduce external distractions, but household life can test whether nondual understanding actually works in the middle of life. If a truth is valid only in isolation, its practical value remains limited. Householdship therefore becomes a kind of living laboratory where knowledge has to function through action rather than remain an idea.

My Experience of Work and Awakening

My own path gave these statements their present meaning. I began working in my own style because I did not want to acquire unsuitable habits from working methods that did not fit the understanding I had developed through Sharirvigyan Darshan and Quantum Darshan. I still accepted help when necessary, but kept dependence low. I continued this self-directed way of working, and according to my experience it worked: I experienced awakening and movement towards samadhi. That experience made me see that work can truly become worship, but only when the work is performed from nondual understanding. Without that foundation, simply working hard does not make work spiritual.

The Four Statements as One Principle

I now see the four lines as different expressions of one principle. Humanity gives the right relationship with life. Work gives the right relationship with action. Problems give the right relationship with learning. Householdship gives the right relationship with ordinary existence. But all four require the same foundation: nondual understanding. Without that foundation, religion can become dogma, work can become conditioning, teachers can become objects of dependence, and renunciation can become escape. With it, humanity becomes religion, work becomes worship, problems become teachers, nature becomes a source of direct learning, and household life itself can become a field of spiritual practice. This is the deeper meaning that my own experience has recently added to my Quantum Verse.

Hanuman as Monkey God: The Deeper Meaning of “Tumharo Bhajan Ram Ko Paave”

Hanuman as the Symbolic Union of Monkey and Human

The line of the Hanuman Chalisa, “Tumharo bhajan Ram ko paave,” has always appeared to me as one of its most amazing and insightful statements. Its simple meaning is that through devotion to Hanuman, one attains Ram. But when I look at Hanuman not only as a religious figure but also as a symbol, the line opens into a much deeper meaning. Hanuman is a monkey god, and I see this expression literally as a blend of the characteristics of the monkey and the human. Neither the monkey alone becomes this god nor the human alone. The combination becomes Hanuman.

The monkey side of Hanuman represents a peculiar set of characteristics. A monkey is highly active and does not seem comfortable remaining idle for long. Even when it has no obvious work, it may begin moving, climbing, shaking a branch, looking around, or changing its position. It lives high on trees and naturally moves through open space. Its food can be seen, symbolically, as simple and sattvic: fruits, leaves, sprouts and other natural things. It is also constantly moving its attention. It does not usually fix its gaze or mind on one thing for a long time. It looks here, there and everywhere, changes position, wanders from one place to another and does not remain psychologically fixed in one object. This gives an impression of great activity combined with detachment.

I am using these qualities as spiritual symbolism rather than making a scientific claim that monkeys literally have no rajas or tamas. The point is what these visible characteristics can represent when a human being consciously embodies them. A monkey appears light-bodied, mobile, active and relatively free from the heavy kind of attachment through which human beings become fixed in possessions, places and objects. It may quarrel at times, of course, but symbolically it suggests an existence based much more on movement and immediate action than on prolonged fixation.

When Monkey Characteristics Enter a Developed Human Mind

This becomes especially interesting when the same characteristics are embodied by a human being. Human consciousness has the further capacity for sustained meditation, self-observation, discrimination and inner transformation. My understanding is that constant activity, detachment and sattvic living free a large amount of mental energy that otherwise remains occupied in attachment, possession, unnecessary thought and psychological fixation. That energy becomes available for meditation.

Then something remarkable can happen: the meditation image can become continuously present in the mind. It is no longer necessary to make a great effort every time to bring it back. It begins to express itself and shine almost constantly. After awakening, that established meditation becomes the basis for resting in samadhi. In this sense, the mind that was once continuously moving can finally arrive at a state of perfect rest.

This is where I connect Hanuman with Ram. I understand Ram not merely as a historical person or external deity, but also as a state of being, a state of rest. The word itself can be associated with resting or delight, and the historical Rama can then be understood as the godly person who perfectly embodied that state. Thus the symbolism becomes very beautiful: Hanuman represents dynamic activity without attachment, while Rama represents perfect rest.

Why “Tumharo Bhajan Ram Ko Paave” Is So Deep

Seen in this way, “Tumharo bhajan Ram ko paave” means devotion to you makes get Rama, becomes much more than a simple devotional promise. Hanuman is not the final destination who keeps the devotee attached to himself. He is the bridge to Ram. The devotee begins with Hanuman, with his strength, activity, devotion, purity and freedom from attachment, and through that devotion consciousness gradually moves toward Ram, the state of inner rest.

Bhajan here also need not mean only singing devotional songs. It can mean remembrance, contemplation, love, surrender and living in the consciousness represented by Hanuman. The highest quality of the true guru is similar: he does not keep the disciple dependent upon himself; he leads the disciple beyond himself to the ultimate.

This makes the progression almost experiential: Hanuman, devotion, transformation of consciousness, and finally Ram. The servant becomes the doorway to the Master.

The Monkey Can Express the Outer Characteristics, but the Human Can Realize Their Inner Effect

There is also an important difference between an actual monkey and a human being who embodies monkey-like qualities. A monkey can naturally express movement, activity, non-fixation, simplicity and detachment through its behavior, but its brain does not have the same developed human capacity for abstract meditation and deliberate spiritual self-transformation. The monkey therefore expresses the outer characteristics, but little, if any, of their deeper inner effect.

A human being can take these same qualities and turn them inward. Activity combined with detachment can reduce psychological entanglement. Sattvic living can simplify the mind. Non-fixation can reduce possessiveness. All this can release mental energy for dhyana. When meditation becomes stable, the meditation image can become spontaneous, and that spontaneous dhyana can mature into awakening and samadhi.

This is why, for me, Hanuman is not merely a theory or philosophy. It resembles something I have directly experienced in life.

My Own Experience of Becoming Like Hanuman Through Association

These characteristics were strongly present in my Dadaguru. He was, in my experience, almost like Hanuman himself: extraordinarily active, detached, simple, meditative and inwardly free. I did not consciously decide to imitate him. I simply lived in his company and absorbed the atmosphere and way of living for years.

I found these same characteristics gradually appearing in myself. The result was awakening and dhyana. In this sense, the symbolism became a living experience. What I am describing is therefore not simply an intellectual theory about monkeys, humans and gods. It is my attempt to understand something that actually happened in my life.

Later, karma-yoga and the non-dual philosophy of Sharirvigyan Darshan became a kind of medium for amplifying tendencies that were already present in small form. The philosophy strengthened activity, detachment, non-duality, sattvikata and meditation, and these in turn strengthened spiritual development.

The Monkey as a Natural Symbol of Non-Duality and Detachment

Some very simple monkey behaviors also become meaningful in this symbolic reading. A monkey does not necessarily make the elaborate distinctions that human beings make. It can take both raw and ripe fruit as food without building a philosophy around the difference. It can use an ornament and then throw it away. The famous image of a monkey being given a golden necklace captures this beautifully: it may know how to wear an ornament and use things with its human-like hands and arms, yet it can soon drop the object as though it has no lasting interest in it.

That is why I find the monkey an unexpectedly powerful symbol of detachment and even non-duality. It can use the world without becoming permanently fixed in it. It can move constantly without needing to possess every place it visits. It can handle objects without making them the center of its identity.

When such qualities become conscious in a developed human being, however, they can do something the monkey cannot do by itself: they can produce sustained meditation, awakening and samadhi. Then the monkey-like activity reaches its opposite end in Rama-like rest.

For me, this is the deeper meaning hidden in “Tumharo bhajan Ram ko paave.” Hanuman is the embodiment of activity, purity, devotion and detachment; Ram is the state in which consciousness finally rests. The monkey gives the outer symbolism, the human gives it conscious direction, and the awakened state gives it its final meaning. In that sense, Hanuman truly becomes the bridge from restless movement to perfect rest, from worldly activity to dhyana, and from dhyana to Ram.

Black Hole and the Human Self: Imprints, Detachment, Yoga and Liberation

The idea began with a simple question about black holes: is there any evidence that a black hole disappears more quickly than expected? The answer is that there is still no direct observational proof that an ordinary astrophysical black hole is actually evaporating and dying through Hawking radiation. Hawking evaporation is a theoretical prediction, not yet a practically demonstrated fact for real astronomical black holes. Small black holes are theoretically expected to evaporate much faster as they become smaller and hotter, while large black holes should lose mass so slowly that their lifetimes are enormously longer than the present age of the universe. This distinction between theoretical prediction and practical proof became important for my own intuition. I feel that a black hole should also ultimately die rather than remain forever. Yet I do not mean only the physical black hole. I began to see the black hole as a possible metaphor for something much closer to human existence: the self.

The Human Self as a Structure of Imprints

My intuition is that the human self is not necessarily an independent physical substance. It can be understood as a structure formed from worldly experience, memory, identification, conditioning and repeated psychological impressions. In this sense, the self is built from what it has experienced and retained. It imitates the experienced world through accumulated imprints. The more deeply these experiences are identified with and stored, the more stable and substantial the self appears to become. When the self is strongly imprinted by the gross physical world, the black hole becomes an interesting symbolic comparison: both can be imagined as structures that accumulate and concentrate what enters them. I do not mean that a physical black hole is literally a human self or that modern physics has established a connection between black holes and consciousness. The comparison is philosophical rather than scientific. What interests me is the similarity between accumulation and dissolution.

Imprint Formation and Imprint Dissolution

The self can then be viewed through two opposing processes: the formation of new imprints and the dissolution of previous ones. If imprint formation is greater than imprint dissolution, the accumulated structure of self remains stable or becomes stronger. If both processes are roughly equal, the self remains comparatively stable without major transformation. But when imprint dissolution exceeds imprint formation, the accumulated structure gradually becomes lighter and weaker. This gives a simple way of understanding the movement toward liberation. Liberation, in this framework, is not merely having fewer experiences. It is the reduction of the total accumulation of psychological impressions.

This distinction is important because preventing new impressions and dissolving old impressions are not the same thing. A person may isolate themselves from the world and thereby reduce new imprint formation. Fewer worldly contacts mean fewer opportunities for fresh conditioning. But if previously accumulated impressions are not being dissolved, those old impressions simply remain. Isolation may produce quietness, but quietness by itself is not necessarily liberation. When the person returns to ordinary life, old conditioning may still reactivate. The storehouse has not disappeared merely because nothing new has been added to it.

Detachment as Prevention of New Imprints

There is another way to prevent new imprint formation: remaining in the world while becoming detached from identification. Instead of withdrawing from experience, one continues to live, work, relate and encounter pleasure and pain, but does not allow every experience to become another layer of psychological identity. Pleasure need not become an insistence that it must be repeated. Insult need not become a permanent story of “I was insulted.” Success need not become a definition of “who I am.” Experience can arise and pass without being appropriated. In this sense, isolation reduces the input, whereas detachment reduces the imprinting mechanism itself. The world continues to provide experience, but experience increasingly fails to become new conditioning.

This seems more radical because the world itself becomes the field of practice. One does not need to escape life in order to prevent new imprints; one learns to experience without accumulating identity. Eventually, even deliberate detachment may become unnecessary if witnessing becomes sufficiently established. Experience can simply arise, be known and pass without leaving a strong psychological residue.

Yoga, Samadhi and the Dissolution of Old Imprints

Yet even perfect detachment would not by itself complete the process. If no new impressions are formed while old ones remain untouched, the old structure persists. Therefore something more is required: the dissolution of previously accumulated imprints. This is where practices such as yoga, deep meditation, witnessing and samadhi become important within this model. Existing conditioning is brought into awareness without identification, and through repeated non-attachment its psychological force can gradually diminish. Thus there are really two complementary movements: detachment prevents the creation of new conditioning, while deep yogic practice dissolves conditioning that has already accumulated.

The relationship can be expressed very simply. If imprint formation is greater than dissolution, the self becomes more conditioned. If formation and dissolution balance each other, the self remains relatively stable. If dissolution becomes greater than formation, the total conditioning steadily decreases. The ideal direction is therefore not merely to stop adding new impressions but to allow the old ones to disappear as well. Liberation requires both processes working together: less new imprinting and greater dissolution of existing imprints.

The Self as a Black-Hole Analogy

This is where the black-hole analogy becomes meaningful for me. A black hole can gain mass when matter and energy enter it. It can theoretically lose mass through Hawking radiation. If the inflow is greater than the outflow, the black hole grows. If the outflow eventually becomes greater than the inflow, its mass decreases and it moves toward evaporation. The same pattern can be used metaphorically for the self. New experience identified with becomes new psychological imprint, just as incoming matter adds to a black hole. Witnessing, detachment and deep yogic dissolution act like the opposite movement. If new imprint formation is greater than dissolution, the self grows in psychological density. If dissolution exceeds new imprint formation, the accumulated self becomes progressively lighter.

This also clarifies why simply avoiding the world is insufficient. If matter stops entering a black hole but nothing causes its existing mass to leave, the black hole does not disappear merely because inflow has stopped. Likewise, if new impressions are prevented but old impressions are never dissolved, the self remains. Existing conditioning has to be released. Therefore preventing imprint formation and dissolving previous imprints are not competing methods but complementary necessities within this model.

From Conditioned Self to Unimprinted Awareness

The final possibility is what I would call the unimprinted self. As new imprint formation approaches zero and the existing accumulation continues to dissolve, the self becomes progressively less conditioned. The world may still be experienced, but experiences no longer become deeply embedded as identity. The process can therefore be understood as a gradual movement from a heavily conditioned self toward an increasingly pure and unimprinted state.

There is, however, a deeper question at the end of this process. If all accumulated identification finally dissolves, is what remains really a purified self, or is it awareness without the separate structure that previously called itself “me”? Perhaps the stages are better understood as conditioned self, purified self, and finally the disappearance of the separate self-structure. In that sense, the death of the self is not necessarily the destruction of consciousness. It may mean the dissolution of the structure that had identified consciousness with a personal accumulation of experience.

This gives a simple definition of liberation: not freedom from the world itself, but freedom from the world continually becoming psychological imprint and from those imprints continually becoming self. Experience can continue, but it no longer has to become identity. New accumulation declines while old accumulation dissolves. The self becomes less dense, less reactive and less dependent on what it has stored. Like the black hole in the metaphor, what matters is not merely that something stops entering, but that what has already accumulated is progressively released. In this sense, liberation is the point at which dissolution consistently exceeds accumulation, until the constructed, imprinted self approaches its own disappearance.

Smaller Imprints, Faster Liberation: Why Meditation in Childhood May Matter

There is an interesting parallel between black-hole evaporation and the gradual dissolution of psychological imprints through meditation. A smaller black hole is theoretically expected to evaporate faster as its mass decreases, because its temperature rises and its rate of mass loss increases. In a similar way, it may be possible to think of a meditator as progressing faster toward liberation once the accumulated structure of worldly imprint has already become smaller. This is a philosophical analogy, not an established scientific equivalence, but the parallel is striking.
It may also help explain why meditation is traditionally encouraged from childhood. A child has had less time to accumulate deep worldly conditioning and identification. If meditation, spiritual companionship and a supportive environment begin early, the formation of new impressions may be reduced while existing impressions are comparatively few. In that sense, the inner “mass” that has to be dissolved is smaller from the beginning.
My own experience gives me a personal example of this possibility. Meditation began in my childhood through close association with a spiritual guru and through the environment at home. This early foundation continued to influence me and was followed by an awakening experience during adolescence. Yet complete dissolution did not occur at that stage. The needs and attractions of worldly life continued to create new impressions and prevented the process from reaching its full conclusion.
Traditional accounts sometimes describe exceptionally early liberation. Shukadeva, for example, is portrayed in Indian spiritual tradition as being liberated while still very young. Whether such accounts are taken historically, spiritually or symbolically, they fit naturally into the idea that a person who begins with fewer accumulated worldly impressions may reach deep realization more quickly.
There may also be another important similarity. In black-hole physics, the evaporation rate becomes greater as the black hole becomes smaller. In meditation, once a practitioner has become sufficiently familiar with meditation and a significant portion of accumulated conditioning has already dissolved, progress may also become easier and faster. Earlier experiences of inner clarity can strengthen confidence, reduce fear of the unknown and make deeper meditation more natural. The meditator no longer approaches the process as something completely unfamiliar; familiarity itself becomes a support for further dissolution.
Thus the process may have an accelerating character: less accumulated imprint → easier meditation → greater dissolution → greater confidence → deeper meditation → still less imprint. In this sense, childhood meditation may provide an especially favorable beginning because the psychological structure that has to be dissolved is still comparatively small. The analogy with an evaporating black hole therefore suggests an interesting possibility: as the accumulated imprint becomes smaller, the movement toward complete freedom may itself become progressively faster.

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The Human Self as a Structure of Imprints

Imprint Formation and Imprint Dissolution

Detachment as Prevention of New Imprints

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