My attempt is to write a comparative study of Kirpal Singh’s yoga with psychoanalysis. However, I am going to continue to reach far into the West. Would this still be justified? I do think so, because I have kept an open ear to the East and to India for so many years.

From the lips of Kirpal Singh I’ve heard talk of the different forms of Karma. I’ve heard of different ‘spiritual’ levels, starting with Pind, a pure physical level, through Trikuti (Sahansdal Kanwal), a level in the so-called ‘eye focus point’ (a region just behind the eyes, where the nerves of the eye cross, and upon which you are to concentrate while meditating), and then, to Daswan Dwar, then to Bhanwar Gupha and finally to Sach Kand, the highest of all levels, and ‘home of the Great Saints’.1 I have studied, meditated and internalized for many years that I feel authorized to offer my say in the form of a biographic study (held more intellectually and in benign memory).

As mentioned, I met Kirpal Singh in person in October 1972. I had a brief conversation with him, also on psychoanalysis. He told me that he wouldn’t understand anything about it. I wanted to reply that he had quoted C.G. Jung just the same, but a few further remarks made it clear, that understanding how yoga and psychoanalysis are connected was up to me.

And, if psychoanalysis were my profession, then it would be necessary to publicize something on the subject. In contrast to that, I received serious warnings at the psychoanalytic institute in concern to engaging in meditation, whether during or after my studies. It was said to be dangerous. How right all these voices were! Those thirty odd years were dangerous, and some of them were partially very unpleasant. East and West didn’t want to come together and caused me great problems.