A Journey Within The Self (A Diary of Yogic Experiences)

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The author takes us along on a gripping adventure of her vibrant inner awakening into the spiritual unknown visionary encounters with rishis yogis and deities moments of mystical enchantment the terror at entering nirvikalpa Samadhi the first time riding the roller coaster of spiritual excitement into the indescribable bliss and calm of atmadnyana self realization coming face to face with God entering one ness advita with Absolute Reality.

This diary of yogic revelation will be a beacon to the many seekers of answer to the eternal questions about man and God.

Deepa Kodikal the author is multi talented a graduate in science she has at various times taken training in glider flying sitar playing and Indian dance and music written and directors plays designed ceramic murals painted on canvas in oils besides an accomplished hostess known for her gourmet cooking.

The editor Raja V Kodikal a science graduate with a long career in industry is himself a keen student of mysticism. Appreciating the value of such a contemporary first person record of inner experience he has made this selection from the author’s copious notes.

This journal is a day to day account of the unfolding of a saga where the actor the action and the audience are one. In this oneness is contained all.

In this journal is contained the truth of and the reasons for our existence as was unfolded to me step by step.

I had not read any scriptures prior to my experience outlined here nor had I any yearning at all for knowledge of the Divine Life was perfect for me. I needed no change. Desire for this or hankering for that was unknown to me.

Then one day I began perceiving a new dimension to life stark and spread everywhere. I began to wonder how I had been blind to it when it was all-pervasive and so oblivious. How could I have been so insensitive to all this divine grandeur.

I began writing down every thought every feeling every event as it occurred to me as it was revealed to me. It was an urge I could not suppress. Impelled by an inner force. I put my pen to the paper. I have not striven for a literary style. I have not strained for any particular effect. I could not have possibly done so because the words would just pour out of me and the hand would rush across the page.

In communicating one makes use of the language one is familiar with. I too have done the same. Even at the cost of being unoriginal in style. I did not want to break the stream of knowledge that was pouring out merely to be original.

When the stuff is one own one has the leisure to coin clever phrases and new words but when one is conjoined to a hidden source of knowledge and does not want to either miss or hinder the flow explaining with the familiar words and phrases is the wiser thing to do.

Words which had no meaning to me profundities which I had not grasped before presented themselves with a clarity that only an inner experience can give. All that I experienced all that I perceived all that I gathered I wrote down daily even at the risk of being repetitive. It is not that I underestimate the intelligence or the grasp of the reader. But this is a faithful chronicle of my state and my feelings at various times. Besides I feel that the repetition wherever it occurs has come in the right context and makes a point complete and clear. In any case the subject being profound repetition will in my opinion make certain points all the more sink deeply in which will be all to the good. The unfolding of the knowledge led me from discovery to discovery and held me fascinated constantly and the same points were shown in different lights and connected to various others so precisely that a pattern emerged through this every repetition.

This fascinated and this grand pattern I would like to share with my readers and hope that they too surge forward in their own discoveries and investigations. A lot of people will find that they too have experienced similar things perhaps without fathoming their importance.

There is neither anything new nor mine own in this journal: everything is these pages is purely that which was revealed to me. I have only been an instrument to joy them down.

The diary covers a period of my life starting when I was forty three years of age. Educated in the best of schools and colleges in New Delhi, I have been in Bombay since my marriage at twenty one. Groomed in a life of relatively easy accomplishments in education and other activities such as glider flying dance, drama, painting, I was after marriage deeply involved in being the wife of successful executive (later turned into an industrialist). My husband Raja and our three growing daughters Nandita, Aqeela and Akshata, with our friends and relatives formed my charmed circle. Then along came our fourth child Tejaswi the Shining One. She was less then three years old when the narrative commences.

Since childhood I had been experiencing things differently to what others normally do. Of course at the time I was not aware of the exclusive nature of my experience. I took them for granted imagining them to be natural and common enough. I was also naturally not knowing that these were perhaps the fore runners of such experiences as are narrated in these pages. It is only now on checking with a cross section of people that I have found that every few had similar experiences at least nor as consistently and over such a long period as myself.

Early in life when I was eight or ten I realized that I could direct my dreams. Ordinary dreams or nice dreams were of course a pleasure to have but during nightmares of which I had a generous quota this gift of directed propulsion acted like invincible armour against any fear. I was a timid child and was always petrified at night. In my nightmares I would be perpetually followed by a brand of gypsies or find a big feline stalking me or trying to enter the house or I would have encounters with ghosts. Haunted thus repeatedly one day I mentioned to my mothers that I was scared at nights. An of hand remark by her to make light of my fright and to reassure me, changed my life altogether. She said there is nothing to be scared of. It is your dream. Only you can see those creatures. They can’t see you.

I was stunned how true I thought. If the creatures peopling my dreams cannot see me then if I were to stand still where I was they would bypass me. I would be safe with a nightmare that followed. I was being followed by the same band of gypsies. With all the courage I could gather I stood my ground and did not flee as I normally did. And to my utter disbelief of me I was invisible to them. They could not see me they could not there I stood trembling in the middle of the road a long while digesting this incredible occurrence.

The marvel of this discovery never really left me. A new vista of what is possible had opened before me.

Now I was own master. Fully armed thus nightmare thereafter became after the initial fright and a slight uncertainty a challenge form which I would come out unscathed.

From hereon it was only a matter of time before I concluded that I could do all sorts of impossible things in a dream. So when the gypsies arrived next instead of willing myself invisible I jumped like a blob of flubber and landed on a branch high up a tree. Now nightmares were fun. Anytime the gypsies or the tiger or the lion appeared I would become invisible or become pieces of flubber or would just take off on a sortie. Now dreams became flights of fantasy.

Pleasant dreams I would let me to see what they had to offer me. Besides it took tremendous effort at least in the beginning to will myself to do such bizarre things. Of course I need not have gone to all this trouble as the gypsies could not see me in any case. All the same I learnt a thing or two about flying and that was worth it.

Soon I founded out that I was conscious in my dreams of the fact that I was dreaming and that it was not a reality. One day I dreamt of a whole lot of skeins of wool in brilliant colors stacked in shelves as in a shop. I was all a flutter because I could not choose any color for myself as each color was so vibrant. I was greedily looking at the colors and wishing I could make up my mind when my sister seemed to say what are you getting so excited about? This is only a dream. You won’t find all this in the morning.

I realized that what she said was true. No point in choosing non-existing things. But nevertheless I chose a color reasoning that if I were ready with my choice I could avoid a similar frenzy of uncertainty the next day when we were actually going to the market to buy wool. Right enough the next day I made a quick by of the same color and came home happy and excited.