Biology of Kundalini: Tantric Union

There is tendency to go unconscious and into the body and pleasure during sex, this is why Tantra is so useful as a gate to remain in higher states. If you can remain conscious during sex, then this helps us to maintain wakefulness/mindfulness generally in ones life.

In the book "The Jewel in the Lotus: The Tantric Path to Higher Consciousness" by Sunyata Saraswati and Bodhi Avinasha, they say that Tantric Kriya Yoga greatly accelerates spiritual alchemy such that it is possible to experience illumination in one tantric ritual. "If you and your partner make love twice a day, doing the Cosmic Cobra Breath, you can have the experience of Ultimate Universal Unity in a week." 29. At this website you can find out more about Tantric Kriya Yoga. This might be the best resource for learning the technique of entering joint Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the state of oneness with Atman (the Self or soul) and is traditionally achieved through the advanced and prolonged practice. The concept of arising at nirvikalpa through physical sexual union with another human being is very interesting.

Once we have learnt to cope with kundalini on the survival level, we then need to cultivate it and use it in the higher sphere of life to prevent the energy turning on us in self-implosive decay. Although I have not experienced joint Samadhi through tantra, I would like to mention it as an example of the higher dimensions in which kundalini may be followed and cultivated. The last third of "Kundalini, Energy of the Depths," by Lilian Silburn, gives an account of a tantric practice drawn from Kashmir Shaivism scriptures.

"The sexual practice mentioned here is not a lewd activity, a craving for enjoyment; it does not aim at pleasure or procreation, but appears as a yoga, a discipline, a sacred act having for its goal the realization of the essence of the Self, the identification with Siva; as such it is essentially ascribable to heroic behavior." ~ Silburn

The term sacrifice is used a lot in this book and this refers to the loss of fear, or the complete surrender to love, such that the Heart supercedes all else. Apparently for two people to enter turyatita (beyond all states) there must be a sacrifice of ego such that there is no fear, doubt or wavering; and the two are able to completely identify with the energy of the other, thereby producing boldness and power. In other words there must be no holding back, holding back being antithetical to the sacrifice.

Sacrifice, as we normally understand it, is not the best word to use here. More precisely in this context sacrifice means the evolutionary force of the universe that transcends and includes, i.e.: Spiritual Eros. So in sacrifice we have "gone beyond" the preceding condition of being--we have "let go." Sacrifice means you no longer identify "merely" with the ego-complex which contains the somatic-mental-emotional defenses and attachments.

Then through such sacrifice there is satisfaction leading to the cessation of desire. But we do not transcend desire through negation or denial of desire; we transcend desire through the most spiritualized satiety of that desire. By elevating desire to an artform. The satisfaction being essentially the blooming out of consciousness leading to the mutual satiation of the other chakras so that there is a mutual ignition of the heart charkas of the individuals. So now we are talking about two hearts entrained as one. The inertia generated by hunger of the senses and the inability to transcend one's self-system means that this atomic transducer of unified hearts is not constructed, then it's just normal sex of two separate individuals getting it off.

So it's by satisfaction or the satiation of the physical senses and the consequent cessation of desire through which this miracle of soul-union can happen. Obviously there needs to be a lot of courage to engage in such practice, along with unwavering fortitude, implacability, faith beyond doubt and undividedness. The couple must have transcended the normal courting, winning over, fear and material bargaining that normally constitute relationship. We are talking about something very rare indeed.

I know I said we engage in such practice to "enter" turyatita, and that one cannot really "enter" the condition beyond all states. Rather I mean that "everything else drops away" leaving the underlying absolute unity of it all. This is why perhaps the term sacrifice is so appropriate. In order to achieve turyatita the two have to go beyond their own minds in a trans-egoic and not a pre-egoic fashion. So we are talking about one of those transrational things that can't really be explained with words.

We can assume that there is an inborn intuition toward this supreme union if the love is great enough and the couple is competent in navigating their spiritual bodies. Ultimately the "third thing" takes the couple over. The third thing being the supra-consciousness that resides in the two hearts made one. So there is the need to accept oneself as completely unknown and willing to be in-formed via this new force. Hence "sacrifice."

Generally nirvikalpa is achieved when awareness is withdrawn step by step from physical body, astral body, causal body until self realization or oneness with God is achieved. I would rather see this as a journey the Witness takes from the physical body, to the astral body, and the causal body to the discovery of one's Self as Source. In Silburn's book she points to the activated chakras being directed toward the heart chakra. I see it more of an allowing of the Heart to predominate and entrain the rest of us in its amplified/spiritual field. So in a sense it is when attention is drawn from parts, activities and phenomena and there is a singular merging of the hearts.

I think that one would have to be already acclimatized to kundalini and ready to work with it, this means that ego must be already somewhat compliant and obviously positive. Thing is when you are talking about Grace things don't have to be perfectly aligned, the alignment descends from on high, but we have to be able to let the lesser attributes and states drop away.

Perhaps the ultimate in rationality is the willingness to suspend rationality, or to go-beyond it that is. Through this union we are using the bodymind to transcend the bodymind. Kundalini, being the speed of spirit, makes it feel like we are growing at great speed as a couple, but if the two are not similarly activated the relationship will dissolve under the differential speeds. The individual that is not in an awakening will strongly seek to revert to their habitual speed. While the more activated partner will long for someone similarly lit and open. Thus to prevent disaster we have to find a partner that is not too low down the scale nor too high up the scale, but capable of matching our own expansiveness.

One could look at higher consciousness as being the stabilization of love and care. Success in relationship is the stabilization of love. Unless we come from such a stabilized family chances are we will have to learn how to love. I think the instincts of how to love are always there, but there is also an equal resistance in protecting coping patterns. So love in all forms is a sacrifice of this secondary layer of protection.

Inspired action, the spiritual drive of Eros is our own deepest Self, source and condition. The unquestioned response to Spiritual Eros is freedom, whether it be to produce a child, paint a painting, write a sonata, create an institute or fast. In order for reception and abeyance of Eros however, the inner man must be alive and not subdued by decades of unprocessed pain. What we normally assume as freedom, "the ability to choose," is not freedom at all. Freedom is the choiceless response to Eros whereby all our holons sing in unison.

The texts say that those who engage in the joint nirvikalpa practice will experience hell unless they have a teacher (someone who has been there before), have a pure heart and are heroic. Perhaps work on the shadow in relationship requires these three allies also. Hell could be seen as the inability to live one's authentic Self.

The individuals have to stand on their own two feet spiritually speaking. Sovereignty is the ticket to nirvikalpa, for one has to be sovereign in order to sacrifice. Sovereignty could indeed BE sacrifice: an ongoing daily stripping away of the lesser self. So in this sense sovereignty is synonymous with bravery. This is perhaps why the individuation journey is called the Hero's journey. Love is not for the faint of heart! Sovereignty is none other than the realization of the Self or Soul. Why should this take heroism? Because it requires "transcendence," it requires faith and the ability to trust in the unknown and the unseen.

Because it's the most differentiated (has the greatest depth and the least span) the spiritual level is the hardest for a couple to meet in. The ability to relate on the spiritual level is part faith, part grace, part piety and part courage. The homing beacon for truth has to be stronger than the one for security. Or rather security is sort in spirit not mind or matter. Consider the ego also automatically resists and opposes, so if one's partner is going in one direction, we may react and go in the opposite. Spiritual relationship transcends confusion, resistance, contrariness, defense, denial, and the 7 deadlies. One would assume that in order to enter joint nirvikalpa both individuals would have to have dealt with the challenges of the various charkas: 1. Fear, 2. Guilt, 3. Shame, 4. Grief, 5. Lies, 6. Illusion, 7. Attachment. Thus we can see why joint nirvikalpa is such a rare event.

Accepting that we all have dark sides is a major spiritual milestone. Perhaps idolatry stops the moment we marry our shadow, and hence forgive the world. When this projection ceases perhaps we can truly love as an adult instead of a child. Once we collectively get over the cup being half full, and over original sin, and grok that nothing is broken, perhaps then we will give up the doubt, greed, lust and fear that dissipate our energy and prevent Samadhi.

If spiritual realization is "the stabilization of love and care," such that there is more energy and consciousness contained in the bodymind. Such complexity I would hope is intrinsically stronger, differentiated and more capable of maintaining its syntropic power without falling apart. Evolution itself is I think this ability to stabilize and build greater energy and consciousness that is "heroic" or impervious to the forces of entropy and decay.

My feeling is that we have a natural intuition for this but that it is most often blocked by attachment to sense gratification, fear, doubt, worry, self-ishness, thus the energy cannot build. That is why it's called a sacrifice because all this lesser personality stuff must be let go. The main thing with maintaining or abiding in the alchemy is to remain without "doubt." That is undivided in one's projection/appreciation of the other as Divine, thereby maintaining one's own divine "I".

Since we are talking about being Spirit illuminated, we cannot revert to our mortal mind without losing the connection. In the Sex with Eros experience I was The Divine, the energy was such that I was Divine without doubt, there was no me there other than this divinity. So the joint nirvikalpa experience would be similar although perhaps harder to remain in state, because of the usual self-conscious and archetypical mechanics that arise within relationship. But if the couple can realize that there is no separation between each other then this lesser psychological stuff is let go. Once doubt enters the picture energy is divided and is not available for lasering in the syncotron of being.

It's probably a very high art not to get dragged down into sense gratification and remain in the Witness during this tantric act. Considering all that the ego normally has invested in sex. And this is why the joint nirvikalpa is such an expedient spiritual practice; simply because it is the final challenge and breakthrough of the attachment to our ego-personality and its objects of desire and aversion. With this fusion of souls the normal self-centeredness is penetrated and the underlying unity of all things is grokked.

As I said before relationship boils down to personal response-ability. Unmet needs turn to thanatos...what is not proactively made manifest in Eros gets twisted and degenerates into a sick version on the original healthy impulse. Men only become pathological in their sexuality and resort to abusing children because their bodyminds have not been developed psycho-socio-sexually. And women only become pathological in their need for "security" and infringe on the rights of others, when they have not developed their own agency and sovereignty.

There is a point where there is a choice to be unconscious or conscious. To be lost in the bodies responses or to be fully illuminated and autonomous as spirit. If we choose unconsciousness it leaves us feeling both inadequate, a failure and guilty. The beauty of tantric therapy however is in making a sincere choice toward remaining "aware," which may have to be agreed on by both parties prior to the act of sex itself.

I want to point out that you don't need to actually engage in physical sex or relationship for supra-sex to occur. Alchemy between the sexes is one of the most effective and expedient ways of reaching higher states, because the chemistry runs of its own accord beyond any mental cognitive interference. Also such alchemy between the sexes is transtemporal and trans-spacial--meaning that the chemistry can unfold even if the couple are separated by half a globe. Plus both individuals do not need to be affected by the alchemy equally. Because it operates at the level of subatomics, well beyond personality and individual egos, one of the party can have a full-on awakening from supra-sexual alchemy while the other might be totally unaffected.

So we can have a kundalini awakening through transpersonal enlightened-contact, but when it comes to personal relationship one needs to actually BE in relationship in order to develop in that medium, otherwise it is all theory and mentation. You will probably find that if a relationship is based on healing and processing it just becomes a chore, however, at the same time a transformative relationship will allow the psychological mirroring for mental-social development and it will heal. Romantic relationship is the fastest way to grow because everything comes up, especially during the pressure cooker of active kundalini. Perhaps as a single person we are not even a whole person, and we only find our wholeness in relationship--since we really are a human "being."

The universe, and our Being are made Whole through the Heart. Though there are entropic relationships that make us less than we are, through not living up to heart and Soul...relationship between man and women has the potential to be the ground of health and the basis to the evolution of consciousness. This is so because the alchemy that can be produced as a couple is far greater and deeper than what can be achieved as single individuals...if the relationship is synergistic rather than cacophonous that is. The consciousness that can be achieved as a couple is far greater and deeper than that of single individuals. That is cosmic genius comes in pairs of opposite poles. And one can look at the fundamental design of the universe to figure out why that is.

This alchemy between the sexes is not mere projection, because the body-soul is intrinsically one with the union-link, even when the conscious mind is unawares. Thus there can be coordinated time and place arranged for the alchemical work by the Universe itself without conscious egoic intent. This syzergy can be known to us precognitively however through reverberations in the sense of our own time-line. We could say that Limbic Attractors operate at the subatomic, quantum and telepathic level revealing the Unified Field that we all exist in--a Unified Field that is indeed US. When we are talking of the Unified Field which is prior to matter itself, the couple do not vibe in sync with the entire Kosmos, they in fact vibe AS the entire Kosmos. ie: Unity Consciousness.

For a tantric relationship with high level kama sutra both individuals need to be both engaged and distanced�through heightened alertness and calm focus, which encourages a state of �allowing-readiness-receptivity,� by reaching a state of emptiness, of immersion in the moment. It helps to have gone through radical kundalini awakening in order to pass beyond the mythic and personal interpretations, and all the gender programs and ego-needs. What the couple is reaching for, or bringing into manifestation doesn't have a lot to do with the world as is, and kosmic-sex is a dissolution of who we have known ourselves to be which few can tolerate. As I say I have had solo kosmic level sex in the Sex with Eros event, which is an innerconjunction up the spine along with mega-amplified sexual sensations and full body orgasm. I have no idea what a joint catastrophic conjunction event between a couple would be like. I am curious about this since when one goes through the extreme events by oneself, there is paralysis and trance for the 1/2 hour or so that the event is taking place. Also such ultra tantra would need to occur in "free persons timetable"...ie: not having to rush off to obligations etc...to break up the chemistry and recovery period for the support and reformation of the cells that needs to occur, Plus the couple would need to be regenerated in nature, plus supported by superfoods, and there would need to be some serious green-food and water intake after a cosmic joint even to help recover the neurology. Thus when reaching for the Gods, you have to be fully supported by Gaia.

I think that we as a species underplay and "make petty" the game of sexual relationship, whereas it's really an awesome cosmic dance and the basis of conscious evolution itself. Just because there is a chemical and energetic component to "romantic love" doesn't mean to say that it is ONLY narcotic delusion. Just because people tend to spin stories around romantic love, doesn't mean to say that it is only a myth. Just because commerce uses sex for sales, doesn't mean that romantic love is some cheap sales scam. The Neuromantic Movement aims to remove the stale and dried up cynicism of the modern age, and return the Heart to its true abode, in the Inner Heaven. Perhaps we have not yet seen what it is to be human, and in love. True Love is something that must be fought for with every breath one breathes. It must be the ground of faith, and not be tainted with self-pity, doubt, regret, insincerity, and self-contraction. One could say that the measure of ones capacity for romantic love, is the same as ones capacity for God.

Courtly love came into being when people started to understand the enormous power of romantic love to quicken and evolve our biology and character. There is no greater force of evolution on earth than the alchemy between the sexes. We should not be getting "down" on romantic love, but looking into this awesome power that lies at the heart of it and us. Not so we can harness this power for profit and gain, or so we can dismiss it as only this or only that. But so we can LIVE IT and so become more ourSelves.

To reveal and sustain the potential for growth in relationships a guided group program of some kind for couples doing this very deep work would be good, incorporating the kundalini and tantric skills, voice dialogue, gestalt, holotropic breathing and David Deida's relationship work...Wow.

I must recommend the book Love, The Inner Connection by Carol Anthony as a true postconventional approach to relationship based on the I Ching. The best material on taking love and sex into the spiritual realm (especially for women) I have found is Diana Richardson's books "The Heart of Tantric Sex," and "Tantric Orgasm for Women."

TANTRIC UNION AND THE SUBBOUNDARIED

Those who were not given adequate boundary development in childhood or had their boundaries dissolved by physical, emotional or sexual abuse may need to develop adequate boundaries first before the union of join Samadhi is possible. For the subboundaried individual is more likely to enter into �fusion� rather than �union.� Then in response to this �loss� of self-boundaries rather than the �expansion� of self-boundaries the individual(s) will flip into withdrawal-rejection immediately after the massive endorphin flush of the joint-samadhi has subsided.

We must also be aware that if we have had inadequate social wiring of the primary matrix in 0-3 years, we will feel this internal disconnection as rejection by our love object. Perhaps you cannot get ultimately-close to someone who has suffered incest or abandonment because the final crossing (structures for communion) is either "not there" or is "totally barred off." A similar condition probably exists with PTSD as well. Yet our healing calls us like a Great Attractor right to that edge to experience that gulf and that wall. The division between separate-selves is that same force that drives us into wanting to experience union...therefore Desire steams from separation coupled with the intuition for unity. No wonder the truly realized Gurus are no longer interested in sex for they are already in union.

"She" could not meet you in samadhi because her strength comes from her separation from people...she learnt people can't be trusted, they are fundamentally abusers...so she had to act with contempt at that point to reinstate her boundaries. She might give voice to that with "Union is weak, it means that I am not really here, and I have to be here in order to protect myself, in order to be here."

�Boundaries are better formed within a mature loving partnership or friendship(s). The boundaries formed by means of mistrust and contempt are fatally flawed as far as creating any kind of workable real happiness and fulfillment. Boundaries created by means of loving partnership can be the healthy workable flexible kind. To seek or crave and temporarily find "Ultimate Union" before stabilizing (really living) a personal love relationship is not really workable. The crash is inevitable. It is indeed the great attractor, and is the source of the Sacred within a personal love relationship.� Michael Duois

Those who have experienced sexual abuse may actually need to cultivate a tantric sex practice, to prevent part of them remaining suspended at the developmental level at which they where abused. I know it sounds funny�cultivating a tantric practice and "trying" to remain awake during sex, but there is no better way to get at the parts of our body, mind and soul that were cut off and numbed out by the abuse. By becoming conscious of the �point where we flip into unconsciousness� during sex, we learn to witness the energy shift it takes to coach oneself to be present. This loosens the neurological armoring around the original trauma allowing sexuality to be reintegrated into adult maturity, and in this way allowing adult relationship to occur. PTSD and tantric sex...could be a whole new avenue of human investigation. Elevating sex from the shadow realm of a clandestine poke in the dark to a sacred act, or the sacred in action, means that we can heal deepest parts of ourselves and awaken to levels that we may never have dreamed of.

Healing the numbness of the abandoned/betrayed child requires actually touching the pain that brought on that numbness and then filling that void with life, blood, love and spirit that we never received.

The Ecstatic Wave is the flow between dissolution and structure.

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