Kundalini and the Art of Being ... the outer world and myself dissolved, as I began to lose my defining
sense of who I was in relation to the world around me.
Within another twenty minutes or so, I found myself clenched in
intense fear and confusion, clutching my knees against my chest as
I sat on the floor, at the same time trying desperately to hide what I
was experiencing from Mary and her boyfriend. At that point, I had
pretty much lost all social skills, to the extent of barely being able to
talk. Since I felt unable to make a dignified exit, I just sat there on the
floor and watched the incessant drone of the TV— the messages of
which began to take on a meaning that I had never before allowed
myself to notice.
We were watching a cartoon show about a dysfunctional sub-
urban family, which I had seen before and thought pretty stupid,
though occasionally funny. But now I found myself reacting strongly
to things that I had never really acknowledged before—sexual in-
nuendoes between the family members, vague references to death,
shit, and other disagreeable subjects, acts of violence passed off as
humor, and the poor and shallow manner in which the people gener-
ally treated one another.
Since I was raised in the woods without television, I tend to be
more aware of its subconscious messages in general. But in my deep-
ly expanded awareness, the insensitive, manipulative energy that it
conveyed, particularly during the commercials, became magnified so
that it began to feel like a form of personal invasion. I found myself
horrified at the level of insensitivity, ignorance, disrespect, subtle and
blatant violence, manipulation and playing on fears it portrayed—all
as normal, acceptable human interactions. And this show was so-
called “wholesome family entertainment.”
The shallow level of awareness to which it spoke was like a stab
to my heart and soul, as I realized that it was speaking to the average
human being in our culture. I found myself becoming overwhelmed
with sorrow and grief that this lack of reverence for life to some
extent represented the basic level of consciousness encircling our
planet. Though I had always had a sense that something was terribly