Kundalini in a sense is the winding up of the coil of the cosmos.

The mysterious awe-inspiring thing is how the universe wakes itself up by giving birth to the new out of the bones of the old. Ones entire being and life prior to an awakening goes into the making and riding of the wave. The whole universe is a kundalini machine winding us up to ever increasing sentience. October full moon, kundalini is in the lungs and digestive system. This feels "really" blissful but makes a mess of ones digestion, then in November full moon it moves down into the pelvis. After winter solstice it will flip back up to a heart-brain connection, which is pure liquid honey fire.

Ones entire being and life prior to an awakening goes into the making and riding of the wave. We undergo the kundalini process to afford some growth and change to the brain after full myelination has taken place. One doesn't have to be special or be a rocket scientist to go thru kundalini. Those with sensitive nervous systems, high energy, trauma damaged nervous systems, highly stressed, and high psychic sensitivity are often susceptible.

Just like everything else in life kundalini cycles thru a specific flow of chemistry. The general periods for a full-on awakening are 2 years priming, 6 month apex, 3 years peak, 5 years recovery, but awakenings come in all shapes and sizes. The peak-apex of a mature awakening is usually around 6 months, the awakening itself is usually around 3 years, then the assimilation phase is perhaps around 5 years. These figures are almost impossible to contrive because everyone has an awakening specific to themselves.

The brain and body are one, the sensations and chemistry that is happening in the body is also reflected in the brain and vice versa.

It is unfortunate that a mere physical symptom of kundalini the double helix of energy up the spine, has been stigmatized as a serpent--this gets mixed up with the symbol of the biblical serpent; and kundalini is relegated to the mere physical realm. Kundalini expands and deepens everything the physical, emotional, mental, psychic and spiritual. It cannot be imprisoned in anyone domain because it inhabits all domains.

Spiritual awakening is damned inconvenient at the best of times.

The awakening of kundalini appears to be a major autonomic shock to the whole organism. The shock, panic, anxiety and depression can occur regardless of the conditions in one's life or the personal contents of one's mind, and despite whatever story or explanation we give ourselves as to what is happening to us. This is probably due to the penetration of the veil of conditioning, and also the hyper-activation of the adrenal glands, with massive changes in the nervous system.

The ego disappears in these extreme experiences because of the extreme energy going through the hindbrain, sensory-motor cortex and limbic brain. Especially in extreme fight-flight chemistry the prefrontal lobes are disengaged in order for the more instinctive parts of the brain to deal with the danger. During such a spiritual emergency however the sense danger is internally generated. Often the autonomic shock is many times greater than that which we could ever experience in the normal course of a human life.

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24

"When we deny the urge toward transformative death it can only manifest covertly through unconscious projection." Uniting Sex, Self and Spirit, by Genia Pauli Haddon.

"Whoever has studied the history of magic knows very well that in all epochs it has been said that all great initiates remain dead for three days and resurrect on the third day." gnosis-usa.com

As kundalini moves through the miasmas (repressed, damaged, latent) areas in the brain, we might feel the emotions connected with each developmental arrest. The miasmas were created in stress and in stress they are transmuted. For every up there is a down, so it is understandable that depression might result after the over-stimulation of the brain's pleasure centers and increase in endorphins, during the bliss of kundalini. For the endorphin system is the emotional anesthetization process which tries to soften the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The bliss and grace of metamorphic chemistry allow us to “touch” what we have repressed.

Depression could also result as we lose our left-brain adaptive functioning during the first few years of the major cycle. If we are not conscious of the process this loss of left-brain prefrontal lobe function could lead to paranoia, frustration, self-pity and other negative emotions. There tends to be a psychological let down when the tide turns down into the valley as the influx of spirit abates, and consciousness plunges deeply into matter. This feels like a loss of Grace after the heady heights of the influx, but the valleys are just as important as the mountain tops in the transformational process. The die-off's in particular should be regarded with awe and gratitude as very good news. They don't last long and we do not transform without them. The old must die for the new to be reborn. So the highs and lows of the kundalini cycle should be celebrated equally and given equal importance in attempting mastery and adaptation.

I love dark nights in all their forms for there is such a collapse of the ego-self that this gives us the bonus of a rare spot of relief from ourselves. In a die-off or dark night striving and hope cease. One could be in hell, but the relief of not having striving or hope is enormous. In this way death too must be the ultimate relief and release from regret and confusion. A dark night is like living through a death.

Personally I think there is grave danger in treating the symptoms of kundalini arousal with psychiatric drugs and other forms of suppression such as stodgy food. Since the metamorphic symptoms represent a dismantling, purification and strengthening at work, it is these functions that should be supported and encouraged. Thus our intent must be to go-into and work-with the process, rather than fight it in the effort to remain bound to the pupael bodymind. Understanding the psycho-biology of the transformation is vital to navigating the storms of this greatest of upheavals.

The hardest thing to handle is the bliss of our own emergence. Either we want to retreat from the "limitless space" of Bliss into the pain-body, or we want to turn the Bliss into some self-indulgent ego gratification. To leave the Bliss pure in its essence is almost impossible at the beginning of the transmutational process. Pain is the result of blockage of kundalini and bliss is the result of the flow of kundalini. As kundalini moves through parts of the body that were numb to us, we feel the extent of our contraction, but as Shakti does her work and we start to open up, what was once painful turns to bliss.

Factors that trigger both schizophrenic breaks and kundalini awakenings include circumstances of impossible dilemmas, double-binds, and avoidance/attraction etc... That is situations in which we cannot proceed in a logical-prefrontal manner, but which force us to spin our wheels and to experience angst, perplexity and frustration. Since energy is not utilized in a normal fashion it builds and leads to a psycho-energetic crisis—the energies of flight fight, having no resolution basically kick off either a psychotic breakdown or breakthrough—usually a bit of both. Koans, of course operate in a similar fashion to confound the normal rational thinking process leading to the overload of the nervous system and the sudden progress to a new level of awareness.

It is intriguing to think that the three S's Shadow, Subterfuge and Sacrifice, the three most difficult and confusing things in life, are related. In delving into the perplexing subject of shadow and neurosis, we find that they are coincident with stress and depression as well. Since kundalini seems to expand the range of levels in the mind and greatly amplify ones energy field, while the normal body-armor/defenses that we unconsciously embody are somehow blown away during kundalini, this leaves us vulnerable and attractive to needy, subversive and aggressive members of a population. Whatever "work" we have left to do regarding our childhood will arise and show up areas in which we are inadequately developed. Archetypes that might be attracted to us during kundalini include: The Wicked Witch, The Lost Child, The Wolf: Feral Men, The Mad Woman, The Woman in Distress, The Philistine, Religious Dogmatists, The Spiritually Correct and The Mythic Angel.

There is a difference between pop-flop and pop-fulfillment.

During kundalini awakenings we are at hormonal lifetime peak after which it will fall off comparatively. Spiritual evolution is driven by sex hormones--they propel one into a full-on awakening, then depending on our knowledge, skill and discipline we either ride the wave or get crashed under it. When we are maxing hormonally we are also maxing psychically and creatively--the muse is Godlike, we are "globally aware" and "globally sexually active"...that is we are responding sexually/psychically/spiritually to the entire globe or polar partners in particular.