Searching for a Magical System

When I first met Punditt Maharaj, all I wanted him to do was fix a relationship that had gone wrong. He indulged me in this for about a year, before finally telling me that it was never going to work. Looking back it is perfectly clear why this should be so, but at the time, as you can imagine, I was not very happy. In the meantime, the limit of ambition for me was to be his secretary, and promoting him. If learnt new spiritual insights, that was good as well. For a number of years I expected him to do everything for me spiritually - I was like a baby. Punditt dropped hints that there might be more, but he was not specific. I, of course, was hoping there would be more. Of all my friends who visited him, I was always his favourite. Then, over a short period of time he tricked me into doing palmistry readings in his office. Never a million years would I ever consider being a fortune teller, and yet, here I was, sitting in his office for an hour or two each day before he turned up. I very quickly added Tarot to my repertoire. After a year of doing readings, I said to Punditt that I never thought I could do Tarot and Palmistry, and he said he didn’t think I could do it either!

During this time the spiritual problems he said I had started to manifest, and the cycle of pain was making itself felt. I was totally reliant on his help. Punditt would say he was going to do something that night, but he never said what it was. I quickly learnt that asking him what he was doing, and how he did it was generally met with silence. Then, he started saying that it was possible that I could become a Punditt too! It took many years of hard work on his part, and consultation with his colleagues before he could really make his mind up.

Silent Spiritual teaching

Now, you might think that when he said I could be a Punditt, he would open up more. Not a bit of it! In fact, right up to day, he has rarely said anything about what he does. So, how do you learn from a teacher who says nothing? Of course, I was being taught, via Spirits. Anyone who has gone through this experience will find out that the spirits do speak, but it can be hit or miss if you hear the spirits. Actually, the messages are received, at a very deep level of consciousness, and it can take time before the knowledge manifests at a conscious level.

So, how do you learn from a situation like this? Resourcefulness is the key. You have to systematically analyse and study what you already know, to see what parts are relevant, and you have to push out your knowledge to systems you have never considered before.

For myself, I had spent nearly 10 years in the Transcendental Movement, doing TM and the TM-Sidhi programs, and listening to tapes of Maharishi. This was really useful, and gave me clues, particularly on how to treat Punditt with the respect he deserved, but I quickly came up to the limits of Maharishi’s system. I also began to realise that I had to prefer my experiences over what is published in books - maybe the books are wrong in some respect.

I had studied Vedanta, the Rig Veda, the Bhagavad Gita, but there was more… Maharishi had started to expound upon Jyotish, Indian Astrology, and there were a few books available, so I devoured them. I knew Punditt did Jyotish, but it was evidently not what the books said. Maharishi had made some of his Jyotish Pundits for hire, and I got first hand experience of their work, because a meditator had hired one or two of them, at great expense to deal with me. They turned out easy to deal with, because of their predictability - they would always attack me on a saturday with a dark, waning moon. I got used to dealing with situations like this, and I had a clue as to how I was going to be trained… dealing with black magic. I have suffered innumerable spiritual assaults down the years, and it still goes on, but every time an attack happens I learn something new, and I add the knowledge to my arsenal.

The Restless Spiritual Searching

My search for spiritual knowledge in books expanded as my intellect scrambled to catch up with my spiritual experiences. Within six months I had left behind my Sidha friends in terms of experiences and knowledge. I had looked at Jyotish, and once Punditt had introduced me to Qawali, Sufism was in my sights. Again, books on Sufism helped, but only so far.

There seemed to be several strands to learning. I had to expand on what I already knew. I had to expand my search to systems however implausible. I had to learn to rely on my own experiences, and realise that they were often right, so that I began to see that books were often wrong. In short, I had to go from the Known to the Unknown. Furthermore, I had to be resilient, tough, and be a spiritual streetfighter, dealing with spiritual and magical attacks. Spotting these attacks is not easy as they can be very subtle.

Looking back, Punditt’s continuing silence on his activities was the best teaching I could ever receive, despite its frustrations. For a start, I had to learn to think for myself, and find my own solutions. Finding any kind of solution for a problem was such a moment for rejoicing! However, the problem was that solution only seemed to work satisfactorily for one or two times, then nothing would improve. It eventually dawned on me that I would have to engage a continuous research and development program.

Once I realised I had to do things my way, and not rely on Punditt to fix everything for me, progress really speeded up. Punditt said he would fix any mistakes I made, and you can be sure I made many mistakes!

No Rules, No Rituals for Healing

Eventually it dawned on my why Punditt maintained silence on his activities - if I was any good I would figure them out, and I would be worthy of being a Punditt. Furthermore, there are NO fixed formulas. Every situation is different, every situation requires a slightly different way of being dealt with. Every time a solution is found and used, more knowledge is received that often casts light on other situations.

If you do the same thing all the time, you get the same answer. This is such a tough lesson to learn. You have no idea how difficult it is to learn with a Punditt, and whenever you learn a new technique, you know that once this technique has been used, it will have to be modified, or a another method found, because it does not work. Here is one of the clues to why Punditt keeps silence, for this continuous evolution of spiritual and magical techniques made telling me entirely useless, particularly since I was always well below his spiritual levels, so even if he told me, I would not be able to comprehend or make use of the knowledge. Students of Gurus try to copy their Guru in everything he does - I was no different in this respect, except of course I never knew what he was doing! I am so grateful for being given the privilege of learning this way, since I never have to think “What would Punditt do?”

Occasionally, I would get glimpses into his techniques, but these were invariably for the purposes of confirming something I already knew. Continuous assessment is familiar to students all around the world, but Punditt extended the method to levels that I doubt will be ever topped. Quite simply, I was expected to learn any time of the day, 24 hours, waking, dreaming or sleeping, when I was eating, walking, sitting in the pub with a pint, and so on. Furthermore, I was tested 24 hours a day, in any situation, and it was rare for me to even know when the knowledge appeared, what the test was, and when I passed.

Overcoming all the Spiritual Tests and Obstacles

Punditt was testing me right from the moment I first met him. He didn’t have to be present for me to be tested either. I was tested in practical day to day situations. I was put in impossible situations. I am sure you remember when St Peter was tested in the Bible, when Jesus said he would deny him. Sure enough the cock crowed, and Peter was found wanting. We had an office for many years by Brighton seafront, and there were demonstrations against the business of the landlords (not us, I hasten to add). There was a fire sale - the landlords were desperate to sell, and this company were desperate to buy, and the deal went through, and we were told we had to vacate our office immediately. By now, I am sure you can see that Punditt was a real fighter, but he expected me to deal with this one. I was very poor at this moment, and I could not afford legal representation, but something had to be done. As it turned out, our contract required a minimum of six months notice, so we were not going to go easily. Punditt was returning to India for the winter, and he told me in no uncertain terms that if were to leave we wanted compensation, £15,000. He really had a go at me on this point. While he was away, I had to go to the landlords and demand compensation, and they of course laughed in my face. Well, the months went past, we still had the office, and Punditt returned. The first thing he asked was if I had demanded compensation for £15,000, and I said yes, but naturally he didn’t believe me. Another meeting with the landlords was arranged, with Punditt, myself and his cousin. I was getting so much grief at this point. The landlords tried the classic divide and rule routine, and started by saying that I had met them while he was away, and I had asked for £15,000. I was so relieved! My enemies had provided proof to Punditt that I had done what he has asked. We never did get any compensation but we stayed anyway. The landlords could do nothing to us since they had sold the lease, and we had no contract with the new owners, so they could not do anything either! There were so many bizarre situations like this.

My search for Punditt’s knowledge took me beyond the Eastern systems of Vedanta, Jyotish, and Tantra. Punditt was a Sufi - he had told me this much, but that still did not give me the answers. I turned towards Western magical systems, and I came across the Golden Dawn system of magic. Now, the GD relies heavily on ritual, which I was not particularly interested, and as far as I could tell, Punditt did not do ritual either, but, when needs must, you learn where you can. The GD of course took me deeper into the Tarot, Kabbalism and the Tree of Life, and Enochian. All of which helped to some extent, and in my relentless pursuit of knowledge became an expert in all of them. I included shamanism too - was Punditt a shaman? He seemed to be in some respects, but again, I found myself doing more than shamans seemed to be able to do. Wherever I turned magically and spiritually, I was taken into a new system via an experience I had, but eventually I had to go beyond, realise the limitations of the system, and go by my own experiences. Transcending the Tree of Life took longer than almost any other system, but when I was finally able to go beyond the Tree and leap into the Great Unknown, my real studies began, nearly twenty years after meeting Punditt.