When the Impossible Happens

by Grof, Stanislav

  She enjoyed very much the theoretical lectures presented at the monthlong, but became particularly fascinated by the Holotropic Breathwork sessions, which were a standard and important part of the program. She had several additional opportunities to experience the breathwork, both personally and as a “sitter” for others, when I invited her to the workshops that I conducted in Scandinavia and in Switzerland. I knew that she loved this work but, at the time, I did not have the slightest idea where this interest would take her.

  When my mother was back in Prague, we regularly exchanged letters. After my father’s death, her letters became increasingly sad and pessimistic. She wrote about the relentlessly shrinking circle of her friends, something that is bound to happen to a person who approaches eighty years of age. There were reports about diseases and operations of relatives and acquaintances—strokes, heart at tacks, cancer, arthritis, and back surgeries. Once in a while, my mother’s letters included an obituary announcing the death of yet another neighbor.

  But then the tone of the letters suddenly changed. My mother wrote to me that she had decided to try out the Holotropic Breathwork with several friends and acquaintances, including a couple of my former patients. Encouraged by the results of her pioneering venture, she decided to continue. The news about the Holotropic Breathwork sessions spread by word of mouth, and the growing circle of my mother’s clients soon included young psychiatrists and psychologists eager to experience and learn the new technique.

  The references to aging, diseases, and death all but disappeared from my mother’s letters and were replaced by reports about experiences she had witnessed in holotropic sessions. She kept asking me for new selections of music for the sessions because it was too monotonous and boring to play the same pieces all the time. She also used her letters as a means for technical consultation about specific situations that came up during Holotropic Breathwork. At one point, she shared with me proudly that the number of (mostly young) people attending her group had reached forty. It was clear that her way of being in the world was radically transformed, as if she had a new lease on life. She suddenly had a new strong sense of raison d’être, êlan vital, and extraordinary zest for life.

  By the time of my mother’s eighty-fifth birthday, the situation in Czechoslovakia had changed to such an extent that I was able to go to Prague and participate in the celebration of this auspicious anniversary. On this occasion, I was invited to give a lecture and conduct a Holotropic Breathwork seminar at the Psychiatric Department of the Charles University School of Medicine, my old alma mater. Two of the psychiatrists participating in the seminars came all the way from Slovakia. They told me that they had attended several weeks earlier a similar event in Slovakia led by my mother. It was a Holotropic Breathwork seminar for Slovak psychiatrists and psychologists followed by a theoretical discussion.

  I could not believe what I was hearing. Before she had met my father and gotten married, my mother was an accomplished and successful concert pianist. But in spite of her great talent and technical skill, public performances made her uncomfortable, and she suffered from stage fright. The idea that she would lead a seminar for psychiatrists and psychologists in an area in which she had no training was too fantastic to be true. But my Slovak colleagues assured me that the experiential workshop was a great success and that during the discussion my mother answered all the theoretical and technical questions to everybody’s satisfaction.

  I was puzzled, and that very same evening I brought up the subject of the Slovak seminar in an after—dinner discussion with my mother. “I understand you recently conducted a breathwork workshop for Slovak psychiatrists and psychologists. How did it go?” I asked as soon as we finished dinner.

  “It was fine,” my mother answered somewhat sheepishly, probably because she knew that we allowed only fully trained and certified facilitators to conduct public workshops. “They seemed to enjoy it.”

  “The Slovak colleagues who attended my workshop at the psychiatric clinic told me that there also was a discussion following the breathwork, during which you answered questions. How was that for you? Were some of the questions technical and difficult to answer?” I probed further.

  “It was okay,” my mother answered and then went into a long silence. It was clear that she wanted to add something and was looking for the right words to do it. I sat in the armchair without saying anything, awaiting patiently what was about to come. “It is not quite true,” she said finally with a guilty expression in her face. “Actually, half of the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. But then the answer suddenly came. But, to be honest, I don’t think I did it.”

  “You don’t think you were giving the answers?” I asked in utter astonishment. “If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “He did,” my mother said in a tone of voice that did not leave any space for doubt. “Sai Baba!”

  She then proceeded to tell me that since the time Sai Baba had appeared to her in Big Sur, she often felt his presence in everyday life, particularly in situations related to Holotropic Breathwork. The seminar in Slovakia was just one of many similar occasions. The same happened regularly during the bodywork in the breathwork sessions. When the participants needed some physical intervention to reach a better completion of their experiences, all my mother had to do was to wait several seconds and then guidance came from levels that she ordinarily was not in touch with. She then conducted the bodywork without any hesitation and usually successfully, to the great satisfaction of the group members.

  Her interventions were often extraordinary and surprised those who were observing them. My brother, Paul, had an opportunity to witness the efficacy of our mother as facilitator in 1992, when we were conducting a Holotropic Breathwork workshop before the meeting of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA) in Prague. It was one of the largest groups we have ever done, with 330 participants from 36 different countries of the world and 35 facilitators, including Paul and our mother.

  At one point Paul, a strong man and trained psychiatrist, had great difficulty containing the process of one of the participants, a young Russian obstetrician, and keeping her safe. She was extremely physically active, spastically arching her body high up from the floor and sending strong kicks in all directions. She did not respond to Paul’s suggestions, given in fluent Russian, and he could not control her with the full weight of his body. When mother, who was at the time eighty-five years old, saw the scene, she came to them and quieted the young woman with one hand and a few words in Czech, which the Russian doctor did not understand.

  The members of the group that my mother created in Prague all loved her and related to her as a mother figure, or even an archetypal Wise Old Woman. Eventually, after the fall of the Communist regime, twelve of the members of her group were able to complete full training with us in the United States and in Europe and became certified breathwork facilitators. My mother died suddenly several days after conducting her last breathwork session and about an hour after inviting two of her friends, a physicist and his wife, for coffee and a special dessert that she had herself prepared. She has remained for me a great model of graceful aging and of a life dedicated to service.

  WHEN ALL IS ONE, THERE IS NO PROBLEM: Feats of the Korean Sword Master

  Our Esalen six-week workshop entitled Buddhism and Western Psychology had a stellar cast and remarkable program. Coleader of the workshop was Jack Kornfield, dear friend, psychologist, Vipassana teacher, and Buddhist monk, who taught participants the principles of insight meditation, gave lectures on Buddhism, offered personal darshans, and lead the nine-day sesshin, or period of intense meditation, that was an integral part of the six-week experience. The program featured Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teachers Chögyam Trungpa, Tarthang Tulku, and Sogyal Rinpoche. Lama Govinda was in residence with his wife, Li, for two of the six weeks, and during this time, he gave a one-hour lecture on Tibetan Buddhism every day. Religious scholar and philosopher Huston Smith gave lectures on Buddhism, and Jos
eph Campbell introduced the group to Buddhist mythology in a series of illustrated presentations.

  Zen Buddhism was represented by the abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, Reb Anderson; Korean Zen master Seung Sahn Nim; and Kobun Chino, who performed Zen archery. Taoist teacher Chungliang Al Huang introduced participants to Tai Chi Chuan and to Chinese calligraphy. However, of all the visiting faculty, it was Kwan Ja Nim, a Korean martial artist and master swordsman, who attracted most of the attention of our group and the rest of the Esalen community. He came to Esalen with Seung Sahn Nim, accompanied by two of his disciples. We had heard about his amazing abilities, and his performance promised to be so extraordinary that we decided not to limit it to our group but to make it public. It took place on the large, oval lawn in front of the Esalen office.

  Kwan Ja Nim began his presentation with an exhibition, during which he and his two students staged a combat with swords and then with long poles. Following this performance, one of the students, a lanky young man from Poland, took off his shirt and lay down on the lawn. The other student then brought a large sword beautifully decorated with etchings. Kwan Ja Nim demonstrated to the group the sharpness of his sword by cutting a hair, which he held between the thumb and index finger of his left hand. Then he put an apple on a napkin on his Polish student’s belly and cut it with a brisk swing of his sword. The two halves of the apple fell apart and the sword left a little indentation on the napkin.

  The crowd cheered, impressed by the degree of control the sword master commanded over his formidable weapon. Kwan Ja Nim calmed the group’s enthusiasm: “Just a warm-up ... don’t get excited ... wait!” Now the smaller student brought to the lawn two stools, three large watermelons, and a bag made of thick black velvet. He placed one stool with a watermelon by the head of his Polish colleague and did the same at his feet. Following this, he put the third watermelon on a napkin on the Polish guy’s belly.

  In the meantime, Kwan Ja Nim walked by the row of people lining the oval lawn, carrying a bag made of black velvet and letting everybody see it and touch it. There was absolutely no doubt that the thick double layer of black velvet effectively blocked any attempt to see through it. Kwan Ja Nim then chopped off the ends of the two watermelons on the stools and stabilized them in a vertical position. After this preparation, he walked about fifteen feet from the spot where his Polish disciple lay on the grass, put the black velvet bag over his own head, and tightened its open end around his neck, using a string sewn into its edge. He then assumed a formal warrior posture, grasping his sword in his right hand and holding it erect in a vertical position.

  He stood like this for several minutes motionless and in absolute silence. People in the circle around him watched him intently, barely breathing. Suddenly, at exactly the same time, all the Esalen dogs started to howl. Kwan Ja Nim let out an ungodly warrior scream that merged with the wailing ca nine choir into an alarming cacophony. Holding the sword in his right hand close to his body, he used his left hand as a pivot and cartwheeled toward his Polish student. He grabbed the hilt of the sword in both of his hands and, still blindfolded, he chopped in two halves each of the watermelons on the stools flanking his student’s body. With a powerful swing, he then chopped apart the third watermelon, lying on the belly of his trusting student.

  The watermelon fell apart, the two halves landing on each side of the student’s body. As earlier, during the apple stunt, the napkin showed just a slight, barely noticeable indentation. The crowd went crazy and cheered. We had all seen earlier what a formidable weapon Kwan Ja Nim’s sword was and what it could do. A small error, a miniscule deviation during the fifteen-foot trajectory that Kwan Ja Nim negotiated without any visual control, could have resulted in fatal injury. The extraordinary feat we had just seen seemed to border on a miracle!

  Kwan Ja Nim took off his hood and offered to answer any questions people had. Everybody wanted to know how he could have achieved what he did. “Were you able to see the environment without using your eyes, by some form of ESP?” “Was your consciousness out of your body, and was it watching everything from above?” “Did you imprint in your memory a three-dimensional image of the whole scene and keep it vivid the entire time?” People bombarded him with questions. Kwan Ja Nim responded with a healthy belly laugh. “No,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “You just meditate and wait, until all is one—the sword master, the sword, the melon, and the disciple—and then, there is no problem.”

  According to Eastern spiritual literature, advanced yogis, particularly the Siddhas—masters of Tantra—can develop supernatural powers called siddhis. The extraordinary feats that these individuals can perform indicate the possibility of hegemony of mind over matter. The precision and certainty with which the blindfolded Kwan Ja Nim wielded his formidable sword in a situation where an extension of the trajectory of two or three inches could have resulted in death or severe injuries of his disciple certainly put his feat into this category. Those of us who witnessed Kwan Ja Nim’s performance at Esalen felt strongly that what we had seen could not possibly be achieved by ordinary practice, no matter how long and arduous.

  STRANGE LEGACY OF THE ANCIENT MAYA: Mystery of the Crystal Skull

  The shamanic lore, religious traditions, anthropological literature, and world mythology contain numerous references to various human-made and natural magic objects endowed with extraordinary powers—fetishes, ritual implements, amulets, rings, weapons, crystals or other kinds of stones, and plants. For example, in the Hindu tradition special properties have been attributed to the salagrams, stones or fossils found in nature that have the form of important Tantric symbols or carry their images. Many Muslims believe that the Black Stone used as cornerstone in the Kaaba, Islam’s most sacred sanctuary and pilgrimage shrine, has the power to cleanse worshippers of their sins by absorbing them into itself. They say that the Black Stone once had a pure and dazzling white color; it has turned black because of the sins it has absorbed over the years.

  In Christianity, the relics of the saints, the weeping or bleeding statues of the Virgin Mary, and the shroud of Turin, a centuries-old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man, are seen as objects with miraculous properties. The tombs of the martyrs are said to be places where allegedly “the blind and cripples are restored to health, the dead recalled to life, and devils expelled from the bodies of men.” According to legend, the “Spear of Destiny,” the weapon that Gaius Cassius Longinus allegedly used to pierce the body of the crucified Jesus, brought its owner the power to conquer the world, but its loss would cause immediate death. Mythological examples of objects with supernatural powers are King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail.

  The Aztecs and Mayans ascribed great symbolic significance to the human skull, which made it a very popular motif in the pre-Hispanic art of Central America. Archeologists have excavated a number of effigies of human skulls, many of them dating from prehistoric times. They range widely in size and are executed in different materials—silver, gold, bronze, obsidian, onyx, malachite, lapis, turquoise, ruby, sapphire, topaz, and quartz crystal. Among these artifacts, the rare life-size replicas of the human skull made of quartz crystal have attracted special attention. They have become the subject of many books and papers, describing their unparalleled craftsmanship and the extraordinary effects they can have on people.

  In the early 1970s, while conducting a workshop at the Esalen Institute, I heard about the Mitchell-Hedges skull, an extraordinary Mayan artifact named after the British lord F.A. Mitchell-Hedges and his adopted daughter Anna. It was a perfectly crafted life-size replica of a human skull, carved from one piece of natural quartz crystal. Many individuals who spent some time in the presence of this mysterious object allegedly experienced as a result of this exposure powerful non-ordinary states of consciousness. Those who observed the skull for a period of time and focused on the opaque veils, slightly clouded areas, and other impurities in the inner structure went into a state of trance and catalepsy or, conver
sely, agitation.

  They saw visions of complex scenes from history or experienced en counters with various mythological beings. This was usually accompanied by powerful emotions that ranged from ecstatic rapture to terror. Among the reported effects were instances of Kundalini awakening associated with kriyas—waves of unmotivated emotions, involuntary sounds, and experiences of powerful energies, vibrations, and contortions. Other effects ranged from mystical raptures, visionary states, and psychic phenomena to psychotic episodes. A few of these individuals actually ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

  The skull also had some extraordinary optical properties. The zygomatic arches of the face acted as “light pipes,” not unlike modern optic fibers. They channeled light from the base to the excavated eye sockets, where they ended in two miniature lenses. The two protuberances at the base of the skull that rest on the atlas vertebra had the shape of little pyramids, which concentrated light into the interior. With proper lighting, the entire skull glowed in light-green color and its sockets were bright red. On a few occasions, the skull supposedly radiated an incandescent aura, which extended far beyond its surface, and even moved and changed its size. People who were scared by the strange effects associated with this object called it the “Skull of Doom.”