The Life of an Initiate

My teacher, RN was becoming a hermit in suburbia. The intensity of his spiritual work was such that he rarely went out of the house, because of extraneous negative elemental influences would weigh heavy on him. These negative influences are alive. They are the denizens of the Shadows, whose main objective is to attack advanced yogis, steal their shakti, and stop them in their tracks. Humanity in general, has no idea of the reality of these powerful animated forces except through myths and fantasy fiction. These denizens of the Shadows work together as a force, its never just one, but a group or even an army, creating a flood of powerful forces aimed a drowning, devitalizing, the would-be yogi to the advanced inner mysteries. Even the sincere aspirant to the mysteries, have little knowledge of these ordeals that the advanced yogis have to face, sometimes on a daily basis, to make great progress.” To me, the afflictions and obstructions caused by demons are the glories of a yogi’s mind. The greater such afflictions, the more I gain in the Path of Bodhi.” (pg.14 100K songs) Many aspirants see the spiritual path through rose colored glasses, everything is beautiful, and so often chant the mantra, “we are all one”. Holding to such ideas, and relying on positive platitudes, helps countless beginners on the spiritual path, stay the course, adjusting their efforts as different personality difficulties are understood and faced.

For the advanced disciple, the path is very different. Thus, RN’s home, out of necessity, had become a hermitage with a meditation room, a dharma room, and even, in the kitchen, a small altar had incense burning. All this added some protection and afforded RN some time to rest. As soon as he went outside, his only protection was his inner chanting of various mantras aligned to different deities. RN’s chanting was not done for enjoyment or to feel good. For him, chanting was a means of invoking higher powers, higher intelligences, to help him in these battles. Many deities are pictured with various weapons (astras), this is done with a very esoteric purpose in mind. Thus, his chanting was very vigorous, focussed, with a definite resolution to overcome these forces. The advanced yogi, when chanting is focused in their center of awareness, the Essential Nature, not in their personality. They have achieved the state of ‘dharana’, deep one-pointed concentration, and can thus stay focus for longer periods in order develop an inner power to overcome any negative forces. The personality cannot do this. The personality must be purified, and become passive, allowing the true inner Spiritual Man, to act. When the inner Spiritual Man is crystalized, the disciple passes the third initiation.

One particular incident, my wife Susie and I experienced a few years after RN’s passing, gave me further insight into RN’s constant battle with these opposing psychic forces. This experience occurred in an historic area of San Diego. Just after sundown, in December of2014. we had just finished dinner at a festive Mexican restaurant with a comfortable ambiance, and authentic Mexican feeling. Leaving the restaurant, the air was cool, and the night was very dark. Immediately, we both felt as if the sky was heavy, and actually pushing down on us from all sides; add to this, an oppressive dark, dangerous, even threatening feeling surrounded us, making even breathing uncomfortable. I recognized that some dark elemental forces were causing this and I was ready to battle them, but Susie was having too much difficulty, and thought it was too great a force for me to handle, and thought it best that we just get out of this area. This dark force pulsing all around us felt alive. We literally ran to the car, and drove quickly out to the area, escaping this living darkness. Very soon we felt this negative force and heaviness that was pressing on us, lift. This is the tip of the iceberg of what RN faced day and night.

We learnt later, that many executions had been carried out in this area, and the residue of terror experienced there, the negative forces, and astral elementals, still remained present, even after a couple of hundred years. When a person dies violently, their life force can get trapped on the astral plane due to the fear awakened prior to the execution. Then, once they have been killed, they can inhabit their astral body for long durations of time. Even when they finally achieve the second death on the astral plane, and their life force is withdrawn to the higher plane, lower astral being can inhabit what remains of there astral shell. This creates what is commonly known as a ‘spook’. Where there are mass executions, then many astral shells become occupied creating a very negative psychic atmosphere. Unlike a grave yard which is enclosed by a fence creating a ring-pass-not, this was an open area, there was nothing to hold back these forces. We were both intensely perceptive of this phenomenon. RN, on the other hand, had to deal with such forces all the time. From this experience I realized that this explains why advanced yogis became hermits in the mountains or jungles of India; they needed to be away from society during their transformation to escape the heavy astral vibrations/forces that would be pressing on their psychic sensitivities. Even a very advanced initiate could only transform so much of this astral garbage. General humanity is concerned about pollution, but does not have the slightest awareness of the toxicity of the astral pollution in our big cities or around each individual.