My name is Rich and I'm a white male, 29 years old, and work for a
software company in Redmond, WA. I grew up a Jehovah's Witness, a very
strict and conservative branch of Christianity. About 10 years ago I stopped attending church services altogether, and pretty much avoided religion altogether as well. Since I viewed my experience as a JW in a negative light, I pretty much gave up on all things spiritual.

About 4 years ago I began looking for ways to improve myself and my
life. I read self-help books and even got some counseling. My youth was a very difficult time for me. My experiences as a JW combined with family problems was making my young-adult life difficult. This led me to want and try meditation, in order to help deal with those issues. So I did. Before going to bed a night, I would do nothing more than just sit with my eyes closed and relax. I didn't know anything about Buddhism or Hinduism, nor did I want to. In the back of my mind, I still considered those things evil. My conditioning made accepting those beliefs impossible, even though i was trying to break through it by meditating. So I just sat there, or lied down and tried not to think of anything.

I would meditate and for the longest time, and nothing would happen. It
did relax me, so I would continue to do it. Then all the sudden, I started to feel things. At first, it was little vibrations. I noticed a lot of pressure between my eyes and i would notice my eyes would start darting around in there sockets, like they do during deep REM sleep. I would feel washes of energy sweeping through my body. And the vibrations, I could feel them going through my body like little tremors. I thought this was interesting, but didn't know what it meant. Also, I was too busy to really investigate, and I didn't know who to ask or what to ask. So I forgot about it. And because of life's challenges, I stopped practicing meditation all together.

Then, about 4 months or so ago, I tried diving into it again. I would go to sleep at night and just try to relax deeply to the point of almost falling asleep, but not quite. Things began happening again. The vibrations - the washes of energy flowing through my body. But then really weird things started happening, not like anything that had happened before.

One night, I woke up and noticed my girlfriend lying next to me with her
eyes wide open. She asked me what I was doing. I said I wasn't doing
anything. She then said I had been doing yoga. I was like "what are you
talking about". She said my hands had been making weird gestures, and that my breathing was very weird. She said that whatever it was, it was almost ritualistic in nature.

So the next night, i tried again. This time, before falling asleep I noticed my arms moving by themselves. I just let them do it. Then, I saw the weird hand gestures my girlfriend was telling me about. It looked like some kind of sign-language. I was pretty afraid, but blown away at the same time. "I" was not doing this, yet I was.

I went to a bookstore the next day. I tried finding examples of the hand
movements I was doing. I found some books on Mudras, and sure enough,
some of the stuff I was doing corresponded to what the books were showing. I was even more intrigued. How could I be doing this stuff?

The next day, instead of waiting till nighttime i came home early from work, just to try during the daytime when i was more awake and less likely to fall asleep. As I began, the hand movements began happening again, this time more easily than before. THEN, my whole body started moving. I found myself doing strange poses, yoga poses from what i could tell at the time. I would move around on the floor; my hands forming mudras, my body doing what I now know to be asanas. Then, i found myself gagging. It felt as if I was going to throw up something. Then, the craziest thing happened. I began speaking. I said:

Si Sam Sauh Su

I said it 4 times. It was very powerful, speaking those words. I could tell that i had crossed over into something much more powerful than hand gestures and asanas.

Later that night, I went to a show, on the way home, i began feeling sick. I closed my eyes, and in the car i began chanting

Sah-om or Sah man

My girlfriend told me to stop, that it was freaking her out. We got home and I tried going to bed, but something was happening to me. I couldn't
concentrate, I was shaking violently and I kept wanting to say things I didn't want to say. I was in fear for my life, thinking i was possessed by a demon, that the meditation I had been doing opened me up to some paranormal influence. The thing I hated the most was that at that point, i didn't care about religion or spirituality, and I would've gladly stopped meditating had I known this was going to happen.

My girlfriend started doing internet searches and the stuff I was saying came up as Sanskrit words. That's what did me in. As soon as she did that, I began chanting "AHH" and "OM" and god knows what else. I couldn't fight it anymore and I involuntarily started doing asanas and mudras. I also began crying profusely. We were both so scared. We didn't know who to call, a regular hospital or a priest. I tried calling one friend of mine who helped me a little, but if it wasn't late at night, I would've ran down to the catholic church and immediately asked for an exorcist. I was that freaked out. I even went to the Jehovah's Witness web site, only one phone call away from talking to them.

That night, I fought hard to keep things under control. I kept crying profusely. In the morning, I was still in bad shape. My girlfriend (who is Vietnamese) recommended seeing a Buddhist priest.

We went to a Buddhist temple, and as soon as they put me in the alter room, i began doing more crazy asanas mudras and Sanskrit chanting. I was really falling apart at this point. I had no idea what was going on. To make things worse, either did the Buddhist priest there. "It is not our practice" they said. I was really running out of answers. I thought my life was over.

Since the Buddhist couldn't figure things out, I went to the ER room at
Virginia Mason hospital. They told me i wasn't crazy, but rather I was
suffering from sort of depression. I was afraid of becoming a schizophrenic, so that was good news to hear I was only "depressed" in their view. I told them about some of the strange experiences that had happened, and they recommended me to a psychotherapist with a background in yoga. I was given no medication and released.

Needless to say, I took a week off of work and slowly, the symptoms died
down. I didn't do any meditation from then on, i was deeply afraid of it
all happening again. After talking to my therapist, I began looking for answers. I ran across some info on Kundalini, and once I began reading
about similar experiences happening to other people, I realized the same thing was happening to me. I then found Ganga through a Google search, and discovered that she lived only a few miles from me! That was quite a blessing.

Since then, I've been going to Ganga regularly. She helps me deal with my
symptoms through the practice of zen meditation. What has happened is I
don't have any more involuntary outburst of kundalini phenomena. It happens still when I meditate, but never out in public or involuntarily. This of course, means I can still work and do things without having to worry about freaking people out.

So I continue down this path, not sure of where it leads but accepting of it's destination and wanting it to fulfill it's course. I don't have much choice in the matter, so why fight it? If the end result is liberation, then what is there to fight. I am still scared at times, not sure of what changes it will bring but confident it will all be for the best. All I can say is the Kundalini is the most powerful thing I have ever encountered in my life. It's bringing about an amazing transformation that "I" have little or no say in. For whatever it's
reasons are, I sit in awe of it's power, hoping only (at first) to survive it and now hoping to be a proper vehicle for it to realize it's course.

Many thanks to Ganga, who if not for her I would really be up sh*t creek, if you know what I mean. 5 months ago I wouldn't know a Hindu deity from a Buddhist one, but there'll all starting to make sense now.

--Rich

Love and Blessings Sat*Chit*Anand shanti-shanti-shanti Om

swamiji@kundalinisupport.com