Eat, Pray, Love

is called “the blue pearl,” and it is the goal of every seeker to find it. Sure enough, this Tibetan
monk, monitored during meditation, was able to quiet his mind so completely that no red or
yellow flashes could be seen. In fact, all the neurological energy of this gentleman pooled and
collected at last into the center of his brain—you could see it happening right there on the
monitor—into a small, cool, blue pearl of light. Just like the Yogis have always described.
This is the destination of the kundalini shakti.
In mystical India, as in many shamanistic traditions, kundalini shakti is considered a dan-
gerous force to play around with if you are unsupervised; the inexperienced Yogi could quite
literally blow his mind with it. You need a teacher—a Guru—to guide you on this path, and
ideally a safe place—an Ashram—from which to practice. It is said to be the Guru’s touch
(either literally in person, or through a more supernatural encounter, like a dream) which re-
leases the bound kundalini energy from its coil at the base of the spine and allows it to begin
journeying upward toward God. This moment of release is called shaktipat, divine initiation,
and it is the greatest gift of an enlightened master. After that touch, the student might still
labor for years toward enlightenment, but the journey has at least begun. The energy has
been freed.
I received shaktipat initiation two years ago, when I met my Guru for the first time, back in
New York. It was during a weekend retreat at her Ashram in the Catskills. To be honest, I felt
nothing special afterward. I was kind of hoping for a dazzling encounter with God, maybe
some blue lightning or a prophetic vision, but I searched my body for special effects and felt
only vaguely hungry, as usual. I remember thinking that I probably didn’t have enough faith to
ever experience anything really wild like unleashed kundalini shakti. I remember thinking that I
was too brainy, not intuitive enough, and that my devotional path was probably going to be
more intellectual than esoteric. I would pray, I would read books, I would think interesting
thoughts, but I would probably never ascend into the kind of divine meditative bliss Saint
Teresa describes. But that was OK. I still loved devotional practice. It’s just that kundalini
shakti wasn’t for me.
The next day, though, something interesting did happen. We were all gathered with the
Guru once more. She led us into meditation, and in the middle of it all, I fell asleep (or
whatever the state was) and had a dream. In this dream, I was on a beach, at the ocean. The
waves were massive and terrifying and they were building fast. Suddenly, a man appeared
beside me. It was my Guru’s own master—a great charismatic Yogi I will refer to here only as
“Swamiji” (which is Sanskrit for “beloved monk”). Swamiji had died in 1982. I knew him only
from photographs around the Ashram. Even through these photographs—I must admit—I’d
always found the guy to be a little too scary, a little too powerful, a little too much on fire for
my taste. I’d been dodging the idea of him for a long time, and generally avoiding his gaze as