Before I carry on with my story I should like to reca­pitulate some of the main events in my spiritual career be­cause they illustrate, in a general way, how the process of realisation comes about. Firstly, there must be a desire for God, a love for Him, or a desire for liberation. Without that, nothing is possible. In my own case, the experience I had had when I was eight awakened such a great desire for God within me that I spent a quarter of a century in an obsessive search for Him. This desire for God or realisation is like an inner flame. One must kindle it and then fan it until it becomes a raging fire which consumes all one’s other desires and interests. A single thought or a desire other than the thought ‘I want God’ or ‘I want Self­realisation’ is enough to prevent that realisation from tak­ing place. If these thoughts arise, it means that the fire is not burning intensely enough.

In the years I was an ecstatic Krishna bhakta I was fanning the flames of my desire for God, and in the process burning up all my other desires. If this inner fire rages for long enough, with sufficient inten­sity, it will finally consume that one, central, overwhelming desire for God or the Self. This is essential because realisa­tion will not take place until even this last desire has gone. After this final desire disappears, there will be the silence of no thoughts. This is not the end, it is just a mental state in which thoughts and desires no longer arise. That is what happened to me in Madras after Rama appeared before me. All my thoughts and desires left me, so much so, I couldn’t take up any of my practices again.

Many people have had temporary glimpses of the Self. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, and it is not uncom­mon for it to happen in the presence of a realised Master.

After these temporary glimpses, the experience goes away because there are still thoughts and latent desires which have not been extinguished. The Self will only accept, con­sume and totally destroy a mind that is completely free of vasanas. That was the state of my mind for the few days I was in Madras. But realisation did not happen in those few days because the final ingredient was not present. I needed the grace of my Master; I needed to sit before him; I needed to have him tell me, ‘You have arrived,’ and I needed to be­lieve him; and I needed to have him transmit his power and grace via his divine look. When the Maharshi’s gaze met my vasana-free mind, the Self reached out and de­stroyed it in such a way that it could never rise or function again. Only Self remained.

I mentioned earlier that it was my mother who turned me into a Krishna bhakta. I discovered after my realisation that she had merely been the instrumental cause, for the roots of that particular passion for Krishna could be traced back to my previous life as a yogi in South India. When knowledge of this previous life came to me, it went a long way to explaining the pattern of my current life.

In my last life I was a great Krishna bhakta who had disciples of his own and who had built a temple dedicated to Krishna in which was installed a large, white, stone statue of the deity. During that particular life I had frequently reached the state of nirvikalpa samadhi, but I had not managed to realise the Self. One of my impediments then was that I still had a sexual desire for one of the workers in my ashram. She was a low-caste woman who used to do odd jobs there. I never made any advances to her and I tried hard to control my desire, but it never completely left me. When I was reborn as H.W.L. Poonja, this was the woman I ended up marry­ing. That one vasana had been enough to bring about a re­birth in which I had to marry her and raise a family with her. Such are the workings of karma.

My life as a Krishna yogi ended in an unusual and somewhat gruesome way. I had entered a state of nirvikalpa samadhi and remained in it for twenty days. My devotees thought that I had died because they could detect no signs of breathing or blood circulation. One man from a local vil­lage, who was supposed to be an expert in these matters, was brought in to see if the prana had left the body. He scrutinised my fontanelle before announcing that he was going to drill a hole there to see if there was any life still in the body. He borrowed a tool which was used to scrape out coconuts and gouged a hole in the top of my skull with it. Then he peered into the hole and pronounced me dead. My devotees accepted the verdict and buried me in a samadhi pit which was dug near the temple. I then died from being buried alive. I had been fully aware of the ac­tivities of the man who had drilled the hole and of the devotees who had finally buried me, but I was not able to respond in any way because I was so deeply immersed in nirvikalpa samadhi. It was uncannily like the experiences I had had as a boy in my current life, those experiences in which I had been immersed in peace and happiness, aware of what was going on around me, but unable to make any response.

Many years ago, when I was in the South, I went to have a look at this temple. I remembered enough of the route from my last life to direct the driver of the taxi from the local station, even though it was a long way from town with a lot of turnings at various junctions along the way. It was just as I had remembered it. The white Krishna statue I had installed was still there. I went off to look at my old samadhi, but it had gone. The local river had changed its course slightly and washed it away.

The Maharshi had taught me that I should not run after the forms of gods such as Krishna because they are ephemeral. Though I have followed his advice since he showed me who I am, nonetheless, images of gods still continue to appear to me. Even now, decades after my spiritual search ended, Krishna still regularly appears to me. I still feel a great love for Him whenever He appears, but He no longer has the power to make me look for any­thing outside my own Self.

Let me explain. When I was a young boy I thought that the body of Krishna was real because I could touch it. I now know that this is not the true criterion of reality. Real­ity is that which always exists and never changes, and only the formless Self meets that definition. With hindsight I can therefore say that, when I was a boy, the appearance of Krishna in my bedroom was a transient, unreal phenom­enon which arose in consciousness, the one reality. All the other appearances of Krishna in my life can be classified in the same way. Now, abiding as the Self, I cannot be tricked or deluded by the majesty of the Gods, even the ones that manifest right in front of me, because I know that whatever power or beauty they may appear to have is illusory. All power and beauty are within me as my own Self, so I no longer need to look for them anywhere else.