“How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver”. ~Rumi
I discovered the power of nitrogen deep under the Monterey Bay. The ecstatic experiences below led me to the somewhat safer utilization of nitrous oxide in the comfort of my own bed. As a rescue diver I was familiar with mixed gas and oxygen use and took advantage of the protection of pure oxygen during extended sessions.
Before I describe the setting of this archetypical hero’s journey, a bit of personal background may be appropriate. I was raised to be very independent. In 1969 at the age of twelve I had the first of many psychedelic trips and was also introduced to Vedanta by my Unitarian minister. Several years prior, my grandmother had committed suicide; the war and political assassinations had a profound effect. The mysteries of Eastern philosophy and its view of life and death preoccupied my adolescence.
One pivotal day in 1994 while listening to the radio, I heard Bill Moyers interviewing Coleman Barks. When he read Rumi’s “Love Dogs” I was hooked. Another Rumi poem became my directive and set the stage for my experimentation with nitrous oxide.
“Leave the rind and descend into the pith, Fold within fold, the beloved drowns in its own being.”
Over a period of two years I consumed hundreds of pounds of nitrous oxide, always with the safeguard of pure oxygen augmentation. I built a regulator system that warmed the dangerously cold gas by running it through a hundred feet of copper tubing before going through a tilt valve (like those used to fill helium balloons) that had a 90-degree barbed irrigation drip system fitting and about seven feet of plastic tubing attached. All that was needed was a gentle tug to get the gas flowing for each inhalation.
The serious journey only began when I asked out loud the all-important question:
“Who am I?”
I immediately found myself clothed in beautiful silk robes with a similarly dressed woman in my arms falling through the void. A large oriental-looking woman’s face was beneficently smiling down upon our decent, her face like the sun shining down upon us. I was then standing in front of a huge bell in a Hokusai landscape in the body of a very old man.
I won’t go into all the trials and tribulations of navigating the unconscious; suffice it to say it took a long time to get past the many distractions. The key was a strong will to get to the source and avoiding any attachment whatsoever to the parade of phantasms. Eventually I noticed what looked like a receding star field like the old computer screen savers, and used it as a reference that I would focus on getting my attention behind, presumably to its source. After some time practicing this technique, I developed a strange baseball-bat-shaped rod of light rooted in my forehead. It was almost immediately covered by what I can only describe as coral-reef-like creatures glomming on to it. I remember swinging it around a bit and, being true to my detachment regime, compassionately allowing them to stay; I still wonder if that was wise. This rod of light — I thought of it at the time as my “cone of attention” — would play an important role later in another body.
At the beginning of a session I would usually find myself in what appeared to be a Hell-like dimension. I visited and relived many historic atrocities, sometime as an observer, at other times deep in the blood lust. Luckily, and definitely by Grace, I could usually extricate myself by remaining fearlessly detached; what I thought of as “buoyant ascension” would follow. The worlds above the Hell realms had their own temptations and tests. I remember spending hundreds of years as an arrow-straight gigantic cedar. Another memorable event, aside from the opulent Grecian temples, beautiful women, hurricane dances and the like, was a moment where a pleasant crowd surrounded me. I was lying on a table with a thin very tall giant looking down on me about to cut off my head. My only thought was to remember to smile!
As the ascension proceeded the beings I encountered became more and more odd. At one point I was a quasar; a motherly nearby star Goddess told me that rhythm was all there is and her partner told me above all to be beautiful. Later I found myself with the body of a Godzilla-like creature accompanied by a Nordic goddess. We were standing in front of a large pillar of blue light. I laughed uproariously and stepped into the column of light. I immediately found myself seated in a circle with eight other human-looking beings. The woman seated next to me had very long, flowing hair; she petted my head, telling me to calm down and relax. I didn’t stay but a moment before launching myself up into space.
I was then in the body of a Dragon zooming around enjoying the power of that body. I could see the circle of people far below. My body was a dragon but it had some strange features. I had a single large headlight like the search light on a train and my head was sort of fuzzy like a caterpillar. My consciousness was like the captain of a ship in that there were many subordinates aboard. I ordered an “Alignment” to the woe of the “crew” and swung the light, my “cone of attention” in and down the spine of the Dragon. What I saw looked like triangles of light coming together as the body straightened; it felt like fuel rods being pushed into a nuclear reactor. I recognized the triangles taking the form of the Sri Yantra as fire came shooting up from its center towards me. I yelled “abort” but it was too late. I woke the next morning with a splitting headache.
As miraculous as all that sounds it is at least within the bounds of the symbolic known. Obviously it was a Kundalini awaking of sorts. What occurred several times after that initiation was truly startling. After a short hiatus, and having healed from the ensuing Bell’s palsy, I started into a fresh session. Before getting very deep, between inhalations, a golden triangle appeared floating in the air before me in my bedroom. From the triangle a thin beam of multicolored light was shining on my forehead. It was only about a millimeter thick, the color was odd in that it looked like flecks of all the colors of the rainbow. It had a tight beam and speckle like a laser. I slowly turned my head to look up the beam with my left eye. What I saw looked like a giant opal, the most beautiful living opal you can imagine. And then it was gone.
I spent a few more very trippy nights swimming through the sun and sticking my head into bubbles to find people inside acting out various dramas on earth. I found myself in a huge room sitting in a chair floating in the center of what looked like millions of television tubes again linked to a myriad of people’s perspectives. Then deep one night an embryonic figure appeared floating before me with the same multi-colored laser linking our foreheads. He was speaking to me, I could see his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear anything. I said “I can’t hear you,” and a moment later the light went horizontal and the rainbow became distinct. Then he disappeared. I had the feeling I had been scaned and downloaded somehow.
A few days later, before my first sip of the gas, for some reason I decided to see if I could call up the little fellow. I concentrated on the space before me and slowly a rainbowed cloud appeared and suddenly a beam lit up. There was no one at the other end as far as I could tell. I yelled to my new girlfriend to come see but the effort dissipated the beam. That night I found myself in a sort of graduation celebration. I was in a beautiful chorus linked with other beings in a formation like that of a head of wheat. Close by was a dais of sorts with bridges at either end. There was a being sitting on a throne in the center and a dozen or so others standing on the bridges. I remember we all held our breath as a baby being held by one of the consorts let out a cry. Then to our relief the throned figure took the baby and held it high and we all broke into ecstatic song. I was offered a new role as an androgynous being. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but I declined the offer because I had just fallen in love and felt she would suffer with my passage. There was a woman advocating for me with the authority to keep some kind of channel open for me but it was apparently denied and a vegetative web grew quickly to obscure my vision. Next I was flying through space with a cute cherub who guided me to a flower in which I plunged to find myself lying in bed.
At this point I knew the journey was complete and there was no point in returning. I dabbled a few more times but I was never to reach the same heights. I married the love of my life and vowed to live the life of the responsible householder. I did however take a keen interest in lasers and studied lasers and optics John DeLeon. He stunned me one night when he said Nitrogen lasers were the “whores” of lasers; they would lase at the drop of a hat, had many transition states, and didn’t even need a resonant chamber. I have experienced the human body’s capacity to become a laser. We are swimming in a sea of nitrogen. The spinal cord and brain have a central area filled with light transmitting liquid, the cerebrospinal fluid. The fluid is surrounded by a powerful electrodic system apparently capable of stimulating emission. The “Cone of Attention” I would later learn is much like the “cone of acceptance” in fiber-optic lingo. Prior to the early sixties no one could have possibly referred to lasers with respect to the Kundalini phenomenon. All I am saying is that Kundalini is a feedback phenomenon related to self-reflection. For an arcane description of the known mechanics see UC Berkley professor Kurt Keutzer’s “Kundalini FAQs”
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~
Also the work of Philip Nicholson:
http://www.philipnicholson.com
My journey’s crescendo occurred during the passage of The Great Comet of 1996, Hyutake, known as the “Hurry Up” comet. I decided to share this because I had a close encounter w/ Death and felt this story should be part of the social record and to possibly muster support for some independent research I have in mind involving hyperbaric chambers. I haven’t got any positive results yet from the Science community, probably due to the fantastic nature of the story and its roots in what appears to be pure debauchery. I would contend that it was an exercise in Yoga; after all my aim was Divine Union. Following this experience I stopped all meditation practice and augmentations but experienced quite a bit of clairvoyance for several years. I hope you view this with some objectivity and will find the time to write back to me; I will respond in kind.