Constituted as I was by nature no manifestation of the ordinary kind, whether in the form of entrancement accompanied by visions and ecstasy or in the shape of suddenly awakened psychic powers, could have brought absolute conviction to me, silencing the low, insistent voices of innumerable doubts that have to be satisfied now in the light of modern knowledge before the existence of the spiritual world and the possibility of development of a higher state of consciousness in a normal man can become acceptable to a strictly rational mind.

Such an explanation must appear as convincing to the anthropologist as to the man of God and as reasonable to the psychologist as to the student of history. The answer that ultimately came to me, after about half a century of waiting and watching and but a little less than a quarter century of suffering, with a startling thoroughness, which is characteristic of all universal laws, at last succeeded in stilling the stubborn doubts one by one with a workable solution of the greatest problem of all facing man.

It needs now but the labour and sacrifice of other able men from this and the coming generations to make it the principle of the exact science, that will have to come to it for inspiration and guidance, for the first time made aware of the purpose and goal of human existence towards which as one they will have to strive.

From my own experience, extending to a quarter of a century, I am irresistably led to the conclusion that the human organism is evolving in the direction indicated by mystics and prophets and by men of genius, by the action of this wonderful mechanism, located at the base of the spine, depending for its activity mainly on the energy supplied by the reproductive organs. Though not in its general application as the evolutionary organ in man, but in the individual sphere as the means to develop spirituality, super-normal faculties and psychic powers, the mechanism has been known and manipulated from very ancient times.

When manipulated and roused to intense activity by men already advanced on the path of progress and subject to numerous factors, especially favourable heredity, constitution, mode of conduct, occupation and diet, it can lead to most remarkable and extremely useful results, developing the organism by general stages from its native condition to a state of extraordinary mental efficiency, conducting it ultimately to the zenith of cosmic consciousness and genius combined.

Studied in the light of the facts mentioned in this volume they will all be found to have common characteristics. The motive and guiding power behind them in all cases without exception is Kundalini. Studied critically from this angle, the ancient religious literature of India, the esoteric doctrines of China, the sacred lore of other countries and faiths, the monuments and relics of prehistoric culture, with variations owing to the level of development, environment, and the habits and customs of the people, will all be seen pointing unmistakably in the same direction.

Extensively in India, to a lesser degree in China, and to some extent in the Middle East and Greece as well as Egypt, the methods to activate the mechanism in order to develop supernormal mental faculties and spiritual powers were known and practised centuries before the Christian era. In India its ability to confer genius was recognized and consciously availed of for its pragmatic value. There is sufficient material available in the sacred books of my country to corroborate these assertions in almost every respect. The doctrine of Yoga, one of the greatest products of sustained human endeavour extending to thousands of years, owes its origin to the possibility existing in the human organism of remoulding itself at the initiation and with the co-operation of the surface consciousness to a higher state of functional and organic efficiency, tending to bring it closer and closer to the primordial substance responsible for its existence.

This possibility cannot be accidental, present in some and not in others, nor can it be merely an artificial product of human effort entirely divorced from nature. It must exist as a potentiality, naturally present in the human body, dependent for its effective materialization on laws and factors not yet properly known or understood.

Extract from Kundalini: the Evolutionary Energy in Man (Shambhala, 1970. Gopi Krishna)