Intense experiences post-Madhuban encounter

Dear all,

Having been on the forum nearly a year now, I've decided to finally share something which I've held in the background for four years now. There are several personal and shared topics on the forum linked to the Madhuban experience, who/what was that, nature of Baba, hypnotism vs meditation etc. However, I haven't yet come across anyone describing something quite like what I experienced.

To put things in context, I probably need to give a bit of background (apologies to those of you who've seen some of it before):

1. I was an "irregular" BK for a few years, attending Leicester, Loughborough, GRC, GCH and Reading centres.
2. My compliance with the marayadas was variable, at worst patchy.
3. After significant physical health problems, I'd just had to give up well-paid work which involved 6-7 hours commuting daily.
4. I'd separated from my first wife and was starting to have significant financial worries.
5. I was allowed to visit Madhuban one year after first receiving The Knowledge. Both the head of centre and Sr Jayanti took a calculated risk in allowing me to go and probably wouldn't have allowed it if I hadn't been going with my new other half.
6. This was my first visit to India and first encounter with my Indian lokik family. We visited them in Gujarat before travelling on to Mt Abu.
7. The Baba encounter and Mt Abu experience were very intense and are described elsewhere.

The new bit (at least to most of you) is what happened afterwards:

1. We travelled from Madhuban via Udaipur to relatives in Delhi and then directly on to Agra.
2. Along the journey I felt like I was "cracking up".
3. By the time we were at a hotel in Agra and then visting the Taj Mahal, I was getting intense visual experiences (up until then I described myself as not very visual) and increasingly paranoid about the lokik family's intentions.
4. With the benefit of hindsight, this was the start of a full-blown nervous breakdown which took some months (if not years) to build back up from.
5. But the most interesting part, which I'd like to share and see if anyone has experienced something similar, is that for several months I had full-colour, video quality images and dreams which I struggled to control/switch off.
6. Again with the benefit of hindsight, I've come to see this as having my Third Eye almost blasted open by the Baba encounter and then being unable to control its opening and closing. This left me being overwhelmed by the cacophony of visual, auditory and other sensory vibrations which India has to offer, leaving my conscious mind no choice but to shrink and withdraw from the encounter.
7. With time the effect faded and, as I recovered, I started to make some sense of it all. One of the BK sayings which had stuck in my mind was that "Baba always gives you as much as you can take when you come to visit him".

I don't regret the experience - it was a time of rapid spiritual development but involved going backwards and downwards before being able to move onwards and upwards to a new phase of life.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to read this far. I'd be interested to hear from anyone with any insights or similar experiences to offer.

Very best wishes,

This is the first time I hear of anything like that. Interesting!

Taken from another thread

I am rambling now, so I might as well add for the benefit of Pilatus who asked if any else had psychotic episodes associated with their BK experiences. cannot you see us, limping, hobbling over our crippled psyches?

I think reflecting frankly I had several near psychotic episodes during my BK life. In Madhuban there were numerous episodes of various people having some kind of mental strangeness, all a huge drama of coming to Baba, leaving Baba, coming back again. Some yoyo like that, as some lovers do, together and apart. I am surprised that a person that I introduced to the BKs (gave her the course) left, studied with a healer and then left him for Baba, again.

It is all a **** shoot. Yes, the BKs have their patter, all ills clearly stem from body consciousness. They also have an inordinate number of psyhotic episoides, to the extent that their practices involve with tinkering and rewiring a person's reward system. They teach that they practice equanimity in the face of positives and negatives. They have their special scales and their music. Many continue to dance to the music of his sermons.

One old BK I know barely eats and looks like a skeleton, a kind, gentle person, happy with Baba. Another of my contemporaries, still a follower, is withdrawn, barely sees people. Another, who went to an ivy league school in the US had some kinds of breakdown after joining, and now delivers newspapers.

Undertsand that the act of paying attention in a different way ("I am a soul, I am looking at you through these eyes" is typical BK focus) can easily bring a person into trancelike state open to a wider range of possibilities. For more on emotional episodes, I suggest searching the forum for 'psychotic' and 'breakdown'.

Have a psychicially healthy day.

Thanks for the input joel. I'd just like to clarify a couple of points:

1. I was trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to highlight the psychedelic (full-colour, high-quality video images) rather than the psychotic.
2. In my case, I wouldn't "blame" the BKs or Baba for my breakdown. There were many causes - the main one being that I'd been running my mind and body into the ground for at least the preceding two-four years.
3. In some ways, I'd say the BKs and/or Baba helped me into that crisis and then my partner, family and professionals helped me with the rebuilding.
4. However, I do know a number of cases/stories where people have had breakdowns while at Madhuban or shortly thereafter.

Very best wishes from one straightening/brightening psyche to another ...