by Velu Sembugamoorthy

Velu Sembugamoorthy was a researcher at Bellcore (Bell Communications Research) in Piscataway, New Jersey when he posted this account to soc.religion.eastern in May 1991. Born in South India, he had come to the United States to work in technology, carrying with him the memory of an extraordinary spontaneous mystical experience that had occurred in 1976 — before, as he emphasizes, he had read any religious or philosophical texts. What follows is one of the rarer categories of Usenet spiritual writing: not a summary of doctrine, not a recommendation of a teacher, but a first-person account of direct experience, shared in the hope that someone in the community might recognize what he had seen.

The post describes three encounters with mystical light, separated by years of ordinary life. In the first, after listening to bhajan songs, Sembugamoorthy saw his own outline in golden light, felt that light washing through every cell of his body, and watched what he understood to be his own mind — "a black leaflike stuff" — shrink to a point and vanish. A joy that lasted three weeks followed. The second cluster of experiences came after January 1986 in Austin, Texas. The third, in 1989, brought a vision of two aspects of himself converging into a golden ball of love, from which he then found himself seeing other people as if held within that same light.

Sembugamoorthy frames his account with characteristic tentativeness, uncertain whether anyone will want to read it, hoping someone might point him toward a scripture or teaching that explains what he experienced. He had read Krishnamurti and found a partial confirmation. He was still searching.

I do not know whether you would like to read the kind of experiences that I am reporting here. If so, I will report more later. The reason why I am reporting here is to find out whether any scripture or master has talked about similar stuff.

Before this experience I had not read any of the religious/philosophical system. I have not performed any yogic experience for any religious reasons. I did occasionally on my own by looking at some book in order to be healthier. From 1970 to 75 I went tremendous frustration because I could not fit myself into the working environment in a famous research institute in India. In 76, I developed the habit of listening to Bhajan songs (songs mostly in Hindi and Sansckrit that praise Indian Gods) whose meaning I did not fully understand. After hearing this for about 30 mnts or so, I used to sit silently for a while and get up. One day when I was sitting silently in my room after hearing the songs, suddenly I heard a strange breathing sound behind my back. Hearing this I felt as if something at the topmost part of my head started rotating. Suddenly I "saw" (with eyes fully closed) an outline of me sitting. There was only outline there. I clearly felt that is me. The outline was of golden colour. Next moment I felt a golden colour light entering through the whole of my body and washing each and every cell of my body. I could feel and "see" (eyes closed again) it happening. At that time I experienced tremendous joy in me, the like of which I never experienced in my life before. This joy persisted for about three weeks after the experience. At the next moment, the golden light completely filled me (just me without any body consciousness) and overflowed. At that time I "saw" (eyes closed) the golden light everywhere before me. The "me" here had no body consciousness. It is just me. Rooted at the golden light, I saw a black leaflike stuff oscilating. There was a voice saying that it is your mind and a small part of it is left. Then the black leaf started shrinking and finally only a dot of the black leaflike stuff i.e., the point which was connected to the golden light remained. At that time I felt that the dot to be same place as my top of my head. Then the dot also vanished and I was not aware of what happened afterwards. After sometime, I do not know how long it was, I became aware of the black colour before me. Soon after I regained my physical conciousness. As I said before, the tremendous uncomparable joy remained with me for about three weeks. I tried to understand the experience by talking to some people and reading some books. I did not succeed. Slowly I forgot about this experience.

But very soon I came across Krishnamurti's book "commentaries on living", liked it but could not understand very much. Nevertheless I kept reading. Nothing happened till January 1986 at Austin, Texas. After that date I went through many experiences. I would like to describe the one in 1989 because it was related very much to the first one.

One day I was sitting and hearing some Bhajan songs, eyes closed. Then suddenly I saw a yellow, golden like rectangular strip of light at the back of my head from my neck to top of my head. Then I "saw" a kind of rose light spread everywhere behind me except at the golden strip. The rose light was closing on the golden strip. All this time I was experiencing all these as well as "seeing" it. I felt that I was two, the one experiencing these light behind and the other who is seeing the whole thing. Then suddenly the rose light succeeded in closing onto the golden strip. When it happened, I fully became the me who was watching the whole experience. The rose and golden light converged at some point in me (remember I had no boundary of me and no physical body) and I "saw" a golden ball of light with some traces of rose light at that point at which the light converged in me. I felt tremendous love at that point of me, the love which I have never experienced before in my life. When I came out of this experience I started feeling and "seeing" other people in that golden ball of light.

I think I will stop at this point. I still read Krishnamurti. I understand him much better now. I understand what he means when he says that your mind cannot force itself to be in the present; only Love can do it; you cannot go after it. I will talk about other experiences related to Krishnamurti later if there is any interest. I understand now how experiencing becomes an experience and the experiencer; and the experiencer gets caught in trying to understand the experience. Sometime this desire to understand the experience vanishes in me. Some other time there is a desire to interpret this in terms of what has been known already in the scriptures and books. Today is one such day. Hence this message. I hope I have not bored you. Please let me know if anybody had similar experience or any book which talks about this experience. (Lately I read Muktananda's "Play of consciousness". He does not describe the kind of experience that I went through.)

Colophon

Written by Velu Sembugamoorthy ([address removed]) at Bellcore, Piscataway, New Jersey, and posted to soc.religion.eastern on 10 May 1991. Sembugamoorthy was a researcher in telecommunications technology who had emigrated from South India. His experiences span from 1976, when he was still in India, through 1989 in the United States. He describes no formal religious training prior to the first experience.

Preserved from the UTZOO Usenet Archive (University of Toronto, shiftleft.com mirror) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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