"Following the way of Yoga a man must reach the state of Samadhi,
that is, of ecstasy or enlightenment, in which alone truth can be
understood." 249, P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, Dover, 1997
Our modern cultural conditions such as sedentary
lifestyle, removal from nature and cooked-clogging diets are not
conducive to kundalini flow or awakening. This means when we do pop it
tends to be explosive rather than an ongoing thread of alchemy
throughout our lifetime. Still I don't think it should be the aim of
spiritual practices like yoga and meditation to have a nice smooth calm
awakening. Safe growth is translation not transformation. It is the
machination of the ego to want to control the process of evolution,
either through balance or through exaggeration of the extremes.
Spiritual practices however can tend to tame the ego's resistance to
the process so that less friction and damage to the organism occurs,
thereby making the metamorphic process more thorough and enduring. If
one wants to establish a kundalini practice then I personally think
that fasting, a raw diet, overt-generosity, compassionate action and
adventure to be a better method of popping than preoccupation with
yogic practices.
Funny thing was in 2000 on arriving in Boulder, I was heading for the
major blast and I was spontaneously doing a kundalini practice and I
didn't know it at the time. Some of the things I was doing daily were
meditation on iron rocks at sunset, alternatively jumping in a cold
stream then putting hot rocks on my body, juicing, running in the
hills, and hanging. If I didn't do these things chances are I would not
have popped so richly. We have to prepare ourselves to meet the
Beloved. This is the essential work of elevating the vehicle to receive
the Self.
It is the unusual nature and intensity of metamorphosis which
forces respect, awareness, awe and faith. Fear is unavoidable with the
hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system and the unknown
quality of what is happening and where it's going. But in the end
passing through this fear leaves one with such an altered perspective
and physiology that one essentially transcends the collective fear.
Only then do we have any power to dispel consensus fear and increase
love in the world. We become karma eating machines, offering cellular
forgiveness.
Whether rocky or calm one always has the awakening specifically
designed for one's own needs. Each individual is different. Some nuts
are harder to crack than others and so take more force or unusual
mechanisms to open. Kundalini herself will guide the way if we listen
intently to be informed from within and hold lightly to our "shoulds"
and known concepts.
During Gobi Krishna's major cycle he was having severe problems with
extreme energy, aberrant mental states, heat, fear and pain. Although
there was very little help available for him (even in India at the
time), someone did tell him that if the energy goes up the right
sympathetic trunk (pingala) that his could result in the symptoms he
was experiencing, and possibly end in death. During the height of his
suffering he had the intuition to concentrate on directing the current
up the central channel of the spine. After success at doing this, his
torturous symptoms abated and he entered a more gentle, blissful and
illuminated awakening, which lasted the rest of his life.
Those who have had a childhood of abuse, neglect of dysfunction,
tend to have more catastrophic awakenings because their systems are
built for repression and dissociation. This is not always the case but
it is a pattern. One can imagine that the more loving-touch and
self-validation, the child receives the more efficiently wired their
nervous system will be, and the fewer psycho-somatic and emotional
blocks they will have. But consciousness will out no matter what the
formative structure.
The nature of one's individual awakening not only depends on one's
past history it is also determined by one's future history. That is,
what one is to become and experience is already at play in one's
present. In-forming us trans-temporally in ways the rational mind
cannot perceive. The tree is already inherent in the seed. The future
magnetically draws us toward it. One could call this, the karma of the
future.
It seems like the more open, surrendered and evolved one is, then
the more challenge one is faced with in incarnating one's soul. So
here's the rub...the more spiritual preparation one does, the larger
the flow of kundalini coursing through one. But if we don't have some
form of yoga and meditation, then we are upstream without a paddle and
are battered about on the rapids with no sense of control over our
boat. Traditional spiritual practices were developed to both bring on
an awakening, give one the strength and skills for navigating the
awakening and to substantiate the awakening in the life of the
individual and his/her relationship to the world.
Pranotthana is Sanskrit for intensified, uplifted
life-energy. I find it endlessly ironic that the hardest thing we will
ever have to face in life is the pranotthana of our Self. Fortunately
now with modern science we can largely understand the unusual and
disturbing symptoms, raise our homeostatic coping ability and avoid a
lot of the dangers posed by radically increased life-force. Although
they had traditional medicines and intuitive wisdom, the amazing
Realizers of the past did not have the comfort of scientific
rationality by which to understand and accept what was happening to
them.
Ramakrishna told his disciples that after several samadhis, he
actually feared that he would no longer be able to look after himself.
Because the old has to die before the new emerges, there will always be
this feeling of being completely "out of our depth" during some leg of
the journey. However through rational understanding, self-inquiry and
reassurance from the experience of others, we can greatly reduce
secondary stress, resistance and negative coping mechanisms, such that
we can learn to flow with the evolutionary force, rather than fight
against it.
Our attitude toward being "out of our depth," and toward the death
of the old and how well we can accept the Great Unknown, will largely
determine how well we weather our kundalini journey. If we fight with
kundalini it will harm us, but if we learn the cosmic ways of
metamorphosis and fall into sublime relationship with it, trusting the
very force of the power itself, it will transform our frog-self into
our Royal being.
The yogic traditions that were developed in response to the evolutionary urge include:
Raja Yoga--The development of consciousness
Jnana Yoga--The refinement of knowledge
Karma Yoga--The science of right actions
Hatha Yoga--Power over the body
Bhakti Yoga-- Right spiritual action, devotion, surrender.
All of us need to develop and integrate these
various sides of ourselves to support a positive awakening, however we
will likely be drawn more toward one or another at various times of our
lives. Of course this rounded development is none other than taking
care of the three domains of Being: I, We and It, which is outlined
throughout Ken Wilber's work. He gives Integral Practice suggestions in
Integral Psychology on page 544; and One Taste page 130; and also in The Essential Ken Wilber on page 105. The Integral Institute has put together a Integral Life Practice Starter Kit to help with establishing ones own integral spiritual practice. Integral Spirituality: The Role of Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World by Ken Wilber, Aug 8, 2006. For a porthole into the Wilber World go to: Integral Institute
Integral lifestyle is essential to balance body, brain function,
emotions, intellect and spirit. If we do not apply ourselves to
developing our lives integrally then we tend to narrow our focus and
become habitually lopsided real fast. Then any self-realization our
awakening has given us is undermined by the lack of balanced foundation
to our lives. The amplified energies and awareness of awakening will
tend to exaggerate the insufficiencies in our lifestyle and being,
making it easier to see where we need to apply ourselves.
During a kundalini awakening we are at a lifetime peak in pituitary
potency, this raises our center of being to the psychic level, through
which we have access to a vastly higher vision and taste of reality.
While at that level we cannot fit our larger being down into the
consensus flatland "reality," thus when in this higher operational mode
we become acquainted with our essential aloneness.
As well as the endocrine glands, the spleen, liver and
stomach-brain, heart-brain are radically important to the metamorphic
process. We can assume that the reserves in liver and spleen are being
used up during the peak, and this along with exhaustion of
neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes etc... causes the classic burnout
effects. After the 3 year peak is over the pituitary hormones drop off
and we can fall into a slump, losing our psychic abilities,
inner-navigation, motivation, attractiveness and attraction to others,
purpose, meaning, drive, zest etc... From the heights of Everest we may
drop back down to crowd consciousness and forget the power of our
visions.
One thing we must be aware of while at the height of our psychic
function is that as the awakening leaves us, and as we go into the
exhaustion phase we might become "less" psychic than we were prior to
the awakening. As a culture when we learn to manage kundalini without
excessive organic damage, we should be able to grow in a fashion that
prevents horrendous slumps in our functioning. But we should anticipate
and be "prepared" for a loss of physic ability so that we do not become
soul-sick from our apparent loss of depth.
Integral practice prior to awakening will deepen the integration and
integrity of our hormonal base so that when an awakening occurs we can
use the peaking energies and hormones to productive effect, rather than
have them wasted in resistance, dysfunction and coping mechanisms.
Integral practice will permanently up our baseline pituitary hormone
levels so that we do not fall quite as low after an awakening.
To illustrate the need for preparation I will quote a very important passage from Ouspensky's A New Model of the Universe.
"Hatha yoga prepares the physical body of man to bear all the
hardship connected with the functioning in him of the higher psychic
forces; higher consciousness, will, intense emotions etc... These
forces do not function in ordinary man. Their awakening and development
produce a terrific strain and pressure on the physical body. And if the
body is not trained and prepared by special exercises, if it is in its
usual sickly condition, it is unable to withstand this pressure and
cannot keep up with the unusually intensive work of the organs of
perception and consciousness, which is inevitably connected with the
development of the higher forces and possibilities of man. In order to
enable the heart, brain and nervous system (and also the other organs
the role of which in the psychic life of man is little, if at all,
known to Western science) to bear the pressure of new functions the
whole body must be well balanced, harmonized, purified, put in order
and prepared for the new and tremendously hard work that awaits it." 249
What is the motive of the need to kindle kundalini? I question the
soundness of trying to initiate kundalini via yoga practices. I think
just to have a yoga/meditation practice for its own sake is the correct
way to go about it. In my experience kundalini sparks up spontaneously
in the course of one's life through the interplay of stress/release,
pain/pleasure, trauma/achievement. Going after kundalini is like going
after orgasm for its own sake, it's masturbation. Saying that however,
I think that only the raising of kundalini (or various extreme life
experiences that facilitate neuronal dissolution and regrowth), can
free us from the pain-body, neurosis, trauma and the miasmas of past
history that we have recorded in our tissues.
We can never know what kundalini is like until it sparks up and in
our unbalanced western bodies the fire is going to pretty much
dismantle our existing life. You have to be spiritually advanced or
supported in order to keep up productivity and function during the
height of the flame. Everyone is going to get some downtime, some
crisis, some death--this is unavoidable during a full-on awakening. Yet
to be afraid of kundalini only amplifies the dangers, for it is like
being afraid of one's own soul. Realizing that kundalini is the very
process of incarnation itself, we can devote the very best of ourselves
to learning all we can, and respecting the process with the same
devotion we would apply to God. A triumphant, successful kundalini
awakening is reliant on our potential to surrender to illumination,
ourSelf and love.
The adventure of Self discovery takes us to our edge, puts us
in various life and death situations that quicken our spiritual
metabolism. Through adventure we evolve by facing challenge and so real
life skills are learnt. We grow by living out our hero's journey. We
discover the various characters, heroes and antiheros within.
How does spiritual practice fit into the Hero's journey in the
making of soul? Spiritual practice won't make a soul, only the Hero's
journey will. However, practice will prepare us and give us resources
for the journey. At times a left-brain methodical approach might be
what is needed to build strength, energy and hope. Kind of like, build
ones inner resources and the journey will come! Spiritual practice
helps us maintain our core and ballast as we are going on our
adventure, but it's not the adventure itself. Our adventure is nothing
other than following our Muse.
Of course it's helpful to have a guide or friends on the path, but
if one wants to be an independent researcher one needs to do it alone,
for the amount of misinformation and distraction out there is infinite.
Also, through having to guide oneself, one finds the inner guide whom
is infinitely intelligent. If we feel the need to rely on outside
sources, we may remain dependent instead of discovering the source
within. The progression of maturity goes:
dependent--self-survival--self-actualization. The more we fail and have
to pull "ourselves" up, the further we get in the process of
self-actualization. The beauty of having a teacher or master is that
through state-resonance we can stabilize ourselves faster, and have
less secondary symptoms and fear. But for an investigator such as
myself, I have to go it alone, it's my duty in consciousness, for only
then can I bring "new" riches into the world.
Meditation leads to a balancing of the neuronal activity of
left/right hemispheres, overall brain syncopation, balances the
sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems, and reduces the stress
hormones cortisol and adrenaline to provide a deeper rest, relaxation
and recovery period. The inhibiting neurotransmitter GABA increases in
the blood during meditation. Regular meditation will permanently reduce
the baseline activation of the Hypthalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis.
Some of the factors that play into meditations benefital effects are
perhaps magnetization of blood and economy of enzyme use. It probably
leads to growth of neurons, increased dentrite connections,
regeneration of receptor sites, conservation of neurotransmitters,
plasticity of brain function, hence enhancing learning and memory. Not
to mention the "potentization" of the hormonal system through
maximizing the health of the pituitary gland. Also with increased
ionization of the cerebral spinal fluid, the action potentials of the
nerves are stronger. Thus the body is able to substantiate the
structure of the Higher Self, essentially incarnating a deeper more
profound human experience. So this is like amplifying ones neurology
such that the governing "host" has more conscious control over the
bodymind. Only that which is made conscious can be "dropped."
The way I see it is that meditation reduces friction, strengthens,
detoxifies and regenerates. With the balancing of the autonomic nervous
system there is a removal of excess energy from reptilian defense
system, thus allowing brain function to become more contemporary rather
than ruled by past trauma and reptilian mechanisms. This obviously
gives us more prefrontal control over our amygdala (fear center) and
limbic brain, and this could be described as a maturing or
enlightenment of the mind. Thus new energy and consciousness is made
available for higher human capacities rather than being wasted away in
reactive animistic responses to our environment and autonomic coping
mechanisms to the stresses and traumas of life. The orbitofrontal
regulation that our mother originally "provided" (to the degree that
she engaged in primal mothering) is now taken over by mediation and
spiritual practices in the individuating aspirant.
Only that which is made conscious can be "let go."
Is kundalini a Divine or God Energy? Basically it is love. That is the
easiest way to describe it...what Joseph Chilton Pearce calls the
Intelligence of the Heart and Teilhard de Chardin sees as the next
revolution in harnessing the forces of the Universe. It is the
intelligence within the atom, cell, organ, brain, organism lit up,
integrated and resonant with Love energy. It has the bliss component
that anaethetizes former structures so the larger order can transform
the being. It is what we mythic humans have tended to call God, and all
the various names of God. You could say that it is the butterfly self
emerging from the cocoon of the conditioned self...a socialized being
into a Universal Being...born unto himself. This miraculous force is
truly the most phenomenal process.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to “receive” our higher self. It
is Nature that calls us toward awakening. It is Nature that initiates
us. It is Nature that eases the burden of awakening. It is Nature that
allows our awakening to be successful. And it is Nature that gives us
the power to extend our awakening out into the world. It takes an
enormous amount of oxygen to birth ourselves, so exercise and breathe
in Nature every day. The more you do so, the more Nature will be your
ally. We want Nature to work for us, not against us, thus we must
comply with Nature’s dictates.
©2006
Biology of Kundalini by Jana Dixon