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To understand what that experience was, what happened in there (by which I mean both
“in the meditation cave” and “in me”) brings up a topic rather esoteric and wild—namely, the
subject of kundalini shakti.
Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent
experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study
in order to personally encounter the divine. The interesting thing about these mystics is that,
when they describe their experiences, they all end up describing exactly the same occur-
rence. Generally, their union with God occurs in a meditative state, and is delivered through
an energy source that fills the entire body with euphoric, electric light. The Japanese call this
energy ki, the Chinese Buddhists call it chi, the Balinese call it taksu, the Christians call it The
Holy Spirit, the Kalahari Bushmen call it n/um (their holy men describe it as a snakelike power
that ascends the spine and blows a hole in the head through which the gods then enter). The
Islamic Sufi poets called that God-energy “The Beloved,” and wrote devotional poems to it.
The Australian aborigines describe a serpent in the sky that descends into the medicine man
and gives him intense, otherworldly powers. In the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah this union
with the divine is said to occur through stages of spiritual ascension, with energy that runs up
the spine along a series of invisible meridians.
Saint Teresa of Avila, that most mystical of Catholic figures, described her union with God
as a physical ascension of light through seven inner “mansions” of her being, after which she
burst into God’s presence. She used to go into meditative trances so deep that the other nuns
couldn’t feel her pulse anymore. She would beg her fellow nuns not to tell anyone what they
had witnessed, as it was “a most extraordinary thing and likely to arouse considerable talk.”
(Not to mention a possible interview with the Inquisitor.) The most difficult challenge, the saint
wrote in her memoirs, was to not stir up the intellect during meditation, for any thoughts of the
mind—even the most fervent prayers—will extinguish the fire of God. Once the troublesome
mind “begins to compose speeches and dream up arguments, especially if these are clever, it
will soon imagine it is doing important work.” But if you can surpass those thoughts, Teresa
explained, and ascend toward God, “it is a glorious bewilderment, a heavenly madness, in