Baha'u'llah in the dungeon

[Mystic Cloud]

Do anyone of you know if he has written about this in
specific detail? What I would like to read about is the symptoms
he got when being in the pitch-black darkness.
Thank you in beforehand

[Mystic Cloud]

Found the following:

"During the days I lay in the prison of Tihrán, though the galling weight of the chains and the stench-filled air allowed Me but little sleep, still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if something flowed from the crown of My head over My breast, even as a mighty torrent that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of a lofty mountain. Every limb of My body would, as a result, be set afire. At such moments My tongue recited what no man could bear to hear."

- Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p.22

Is there any more descriptions?
I would be VERY interested to get more information about this, because
this all looks like a powerful Kundalini awakening to me. Which can
awaken when staying in pitch-black darkness for long enough

[Pilosofia]

Interesting question. In my opinion I see a very important
difference between Baha'u'llah's experience while in the prison and the Kundalini experience. In many cases Kundalini awareness takes place
without the person knowing it, while in Baha'u'llah's experience he was
aware of this occurence and even used the me as "Me" something
more then just an experience. However this is only my opinion.

[brettz9]

I agree with Pilosofia...Our Writings make a distinction between those visions with which the Prophets are inspired and those which are the imaginations of the individual:

There is a fundamental difference between Divine Revelation as vouchsafed by God to His Prophets, and the spiritual experiences and visions which individuals may have. The latter should, under no circumstances, be construed as constituting an infallible source of guidance, even for the person experiencing them.

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi dated November 1, 1940, to an individual believer, Lights of Guidance, no. 1741)

As far as additional sources of this experience, Ruhi book 4 on "The Twin Manifestations" describes this in sections 12 and 14 (quotations here)

This episode is also narrated in Chapter 2 of the Bahá'í International Community's statement on Bahá'u'lláh (but without further quotiatons than those in Epistle to the Son of the Wolf).

Brett

[Mystic Cloud]

Interesting question. In my opinion I see a very important
difference between Baha'u'llah's experience while in the prison and the Kundalini experience. In many cases Kundalini awareness takes place
without the person knowing it, while in Baha'u'llah's experience he was
aware of this occurence and even used the me as "Me" something
more then just an experience. However this is only my opinion.

Actually a full blown sudden Kundalini experience will not
go unnoticed because of the shift from one energy level to another.
Most could go insane just because of this.

While the spiritual texts share the 'same' content the way they are told
are tailored to the time and culture present at that time. Which means
that they should not be fanatisized and read as something completely solid and unchanging. They should be read with an open mind and heart instead
of practicing an unevolving dogma based on assumptions made by a text
that is understood differently by each individual that reads it.

To brett:

While I agree with you very much that there is indeed a difference between the Prophets that were destined by the Divine and the
individuals living the life, we still live in the human body, made by
the same elements, and the same atoms, which make us all human.

Thank you VERY much for those references, I'll dig into them!

[Pilosofia]

I hear what you are saying, but I must disagree on your conception
of the kundalini experience. The post was on Baha'u'llah in prison
and it is not my wish to go onto another subject here.
Have a nice day.

[mystic68749]

What is Kundalini? What is Kundalini awakening stages? Right now I am writing. This is Kundalini. You are alert and reading. If you are alert and reading that is KUNDALINI. The flowers blossoming that is Kundalini. A dog is barking that is also Kundalini or in other words the fundamental life force in the existence we call it Kundalini.

Now within the human system. If you look at this as a kind of a life package. It’s a piece of life this piece of life is packed in a certain way with layers of this energy. One dimensional energy comes alive immediately because that is necessary for your survival process.

The other dimensions of energy will not come alive unless you do something about it, unless you are aware of it and activate it in a certain way. They do not come into existence. They remain dormant the dormant. Energy is way bigger than the energy that is in use right now.

The mind of a worldly man generally moves among the three lower centers; those at the navel, at the sexual organ, and at the organ of evacuation. In that state, the mind loses all its higher visions-it broods only on ‘lust and wealth’. Yoga is not possible if the mind dwells on “Lust and wealth”. After the greater effort and spiritual practice, the Kundalini is awakened. According to the Yogis, there are three nerves in the spinal column: Ida, Pingala, and And Sushumna.

Kundalini is the Primordial Energy said to be located at the base of the spine. Different spiritual traditions teach methods of awakening the kundalini for the purpose of reaching enlightenment or self-realization.

Along the Sushumna are six lotuses, or centers, the lower being known as the Muladhara. Then come successively Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Visuddha, And Ajna. These are the six centers. The Kundalini lies in the lotus of the Muladhara (at the root of the spinal column). That lotus has four petals. The Primordial Energy resides in all bodies as the Kundalini.

She is looking like a sleeping snake coiled up -of the form of a sleeping snake, having the Muladhara for Her abode. The Kundalini is speedily awakened if one follows the path of Bhakti Yoga( Devotion).

The Kundalini, when awakened, passes through the lower centers and involves the Anahata, which is at the heart. It stays there. At that point, the mind of the aspirant is withdrawn from the three lower centers. When the mind dwells there, one has the first glimpse of spiritual consciousness. One sees light all around. Such a man, perceiving the divine light, becomes speechless with wonder and says: “Ah! What is this? What is this?” His mind does not go downward to the objects of the world.

According to the Vedas, these centers are called ‘Bhumi’, ‘Planes’. There are seven such planes. The center at the heart corresponds to the fourth plane of the Vedas. According to the Tantra there is in this this center a lotus called Anahata, with twelve petals.

Do you want to kundalini awakening stages:
https://truecosmic.com/what-is-kundalin ... ng-stages/

[Chad]

I agree with mystic. I was raised in a Baha'i family and have been meditating since the age of five. I've been centered on Baha'i-based meditations for the last two years, as my understanding has made me realize the purity of the channel of the Most Great Name. The ultimate understanding, we are told, is to go beyond Names, and realize God beyond attributes. Since we cannot understand God at all, then, to me, it is realizing the Manifestation without attributes. A Christian or Muslim could realize this too, that what is coursing through our veins is not a Name, but a Spirit, as God is beyond all words and letters. Moreover, if this understanding of Spirit that lives in all of us is universal, one without the Baha'i Faith could see that this Spirit is the animating and controlling quality of all governments and powers, however, what a Baha'i has as unique is the Name that is behind the Spirit of this age - the Greatest Name, the Most Sublime Word.

Thus, only by meditating, as Shoghi Effendi states, wisely (on the Most Sublime Word) did I realize that, as mystic stated, all Kundalini is not only all life, but all Life. It is because more people meditate on other things that Baha'is have adopted this view that meditations of other paths somehow don't correlate to the Power and omniscience of Baha'u'llah - in fact it is all animated by the Most Great Spirit, which only spoke through Him. True, too, that my experiences meditating inspire my own imagination and inventions, and that the experience of the Manifestations and Chosen Ones are on a different level. Muhammad, pbuh, stated that if you took all of a man's opinions and dreams, a Prophet has 40 times this power. He, pbuh, also stated that the Prophets have seven times the virility of a regular man. In view of Muhammad, pbuh, it is not even that these experiences are not imagination in the Manifestations or that they are not real in regular humanity, but that they are of different levels of experience where 'Abdu'l-Baha could rightly regard a regular person's spiritual insights and visions as imagination compared to the Might of a Manifestation's experiences. Moreover, the spiritual experiences of Manifestations are preordained by God, whereas all my meditation experiences arise from my own labor.

Interesting topic that Baha'is must grapple with. Thanks for bringing it to the forum mystic.

[Chad]

I think that 'Abdu'l-Baha made it clear that mankind's spiritual experiences are subject to imagination and Manifestations are not because Manifestations always have God's Word to guide the people for any instance, but mankind can go off on tangents that don't help or guide others. This quote from Kant explains this, and I realize that reason is not the final frontier of humanity:

The calling of our assistance of works of grace is one of these aberrations and cannot be adopted into the maxims of reason, if she is to remain within her limits; as indeed can nothing of the supernatural, simply because in this realm all use of reason ceases. For it is impossible to find a way to define these things theoretically ([showing] that they are works of grace and not inner natural effects) because our use of the concept of cause and effect cannot be extended beyond matters of experience, and hence beyond nature. Moreover, even the hypothesis of a practical application of this idea is wholly self-contradictory. For the employment of this idea would presuppose a rule concerning the good which (for a particular end) we ourselves must do in order to accomplish something, whereas to await a work of grace means exactly the opposite, namely, that the good (the morally good) is not our deed but the deed of another being, and that we therefore can achieve it only by doing nothing, which contradicts itself. Hence we can admit a work of grace as something incomprehensible, but we cannot adopt it into our maxims either for theoretical or for practical use.

Baha'is are told to meditate every day, prayerfully, on the Baha'i Writings. By doing so, we become a better vehicle for "works of grace" just as prayer does to us, and work, study, etc. It's not wrong that you say Kundalini is everything, everywhere, because Kundalini is energy. So I could simply change the word. For instance, I could change it to "God" and would be within the Baha'i Writings' repertoire. But I think that Mystic Cloud was really trying to tell us that being isolated (which Baha'u'llah was not, He was surrounded by other Babis in a room, while criminals were in another connected room) in a dark place can bring about "incomprehensible" experiences.

Also, since we are told to meditate everyday, Baha'is do in a sense believe that we can achieve something by doing nothing, because sometimes the best way to connect to Baha'u'llah is silence (check the Bible quote of silence, something like "be still and know that I am God") and hence sitting, kneeling ('Abdu'l-Baha's way for prayer), lying down, or standing (which we are told by media are ways to meditate) while doing nothing, is a way to better understand the Baha'i Writings, especially Baha'u'llah's mystical Writings.