Triggers For Awakening
Kundalini awakening appears to happen in conjunction with extreme concentration, and during moments when consciousness shifts away from its accustomed parameters of identification. This is why so many spiritual practices encourage one-pointed concentration, either of the mind, the breath, through repetitive movement like spinning, or even by holding the position of the body. Meditation, prayer, yoga, martial arts, stillness, presence, intense love, intense focus, the shock of a great beautiful moment, the shock of a horrific or violent moment, great despair, great devotion and other practices and events can shift awareness into the kind of concentration, or what I would term pure presence, that is receptive to kundalini arising.
Many people who have awakenings have done one or a variety of spiritual practices for years, and yet many more who do these practices never have an awakening. So there is an additional element, often called grace, that is indefinable, but apparently part of the cause. Whether this grace arises from an external source or an internal shift is hard to say.
Most of the people I have interviewed in this process reported having a longing and an openness to know what is true, to know God, or to understand what life is all about, as a dominant aspect of their life journey since childhood or young adulthood. They come from all religious backgrounds, or none at all, and have felt little ability to find answers to their most pressing concerns through their religious or cultural upbringing. Some were raised in families with spiritual orientations, some in spiritually indifferent families; some came from healthy and loving backgrounds, and others have abusive or destructive family histories. It doesn’t seem to matter in terms of one’s facility for awakening. Individuals of all ages, either sex, all lifestyles, all countries and all personality styles have had awakenings. People with years of spiritual training, or none at all, have spontaneous awakenings. As awakened spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, likes to tell his students, “God can do this any way it wants.”
The major ways that I have seen kundalini awaken, sometimes with positive and sometimes with very difficult reactions include:
-- As a response to deep commitment and intensity in meditation, or to great devotional love and prayer.
-- After a direct experience of Self-realization, which, in this case, precedes the awakening of kundalini, rather than following it.
-- After doing energy work such as QiGong, kundalini yoga, Reiki, tantric practices, rebirthing or therapeutic breathwork.
-- Following the step-be-step guidance of an awakened teacher, or receiving a transmission of energy from him or her.
-- Enduring a profound emotional event such as overwhelming love, grief or despair, or following traumatic event.
--In response to a powerful place that is approached with great openness, such as pyramids, volcanoes or sacred caves.
-- In response to concentrated esoteric practices used to activate psychic abilities or other paranormal experiences.
There is evidence that some ancient dance practices, including Hawaiian Huna, Native American rituals, African rituals, and Egyptian dances that follow the positions of certain temple carvings, may activate kundalini energy. Sexual tantric practices can also activate kundalini, and also sexual engagement with an awakened person.
In the following situations kundalini energy may arise, but is much more likely to be problematic, bringing confusion and more overwhelm into the system, because it happens out of context, so that the person may not be prepared adequately, or has a body that is especially vulnerable. It is not common for kundalini to arise in these situations, but it may occur:
-- Enduring a major trauma such as an accident, rape or a mugging.
-- A reaction to homeopathy treatments, childbirth or other medical interventions.
-- Under the influence of LSD, Ecstasy, marijuana or other mind-altering substances.
-- In a sexual relationship with a person who has active kundalini energy.
The Role of Kundalini in Mystical Experience
Many people associate spiritual awakening with mystical experiences. Mystical events include experiences of great light, visions of deities or sacred spaces, a sense of seeing beyond the world of form and into the energy and light that creates them, a sense of being infused with the love of God or the divine, or a sense of hearing sacred music or words from God or other beings. The awakening of kundalini energy may happen in conjunction with these events, and even during dreams related to these kinds of non-ordinary experiences. However many people have access to mystical experiences without the activation of kundalini. This is probably due to the stimulation of specific areas of the heart or brain, or a genetic tendency that makes them more open to altered states of consciousness.
When kundalini activation occurs before or during a mystical experience it appears that it has energized certain areas of the subtle body or brain, which then release imagery, lights, sounds and other phenomena in some people. (Not everyone experiences this.) A few people seem able to leave the body and experience other dimensions. This can be accompanied by intense bliss, love, or happiness. These events can seem to fulfill all the person’s longing to know there is indeed another world that is more beautiful and satisfying than the ordinary material world in which he or she lives. In some way these moments build faith in the expansive potential of consciousness, demonstrating a much broader range of possibilities, breaking down limitations of thought and conventionality.
When these experiences happen, the tendency is to believe they were the goal, and then to attempt to recreate or hold on to them. Many spiritual seekers have felt like failures when such events do not continually recur, or mistakenly believe the goal is to be in a permanent state of mystical ecstasy and drama. But in fact these events are a by-product of the kundalini activation as it moves through and opens up the body and mind, and no one has the capacity to live in them permanently, or produce them deliberately or consistently. Their tendency is to pass away, just as all other phenomena pass away. They may seem to be great gifts, or cause a great disappointment when they fade, but in the final stages of awakening, even these attachments must fall away, or a spiritual seeker can end up in a state of addiction to high experiences, and feel distress about their absence for the rest of his or her life, instead of becoming free. While these are some of the most enjoyable phenomena in this process, like all phenomena they pass, leaving one with simple presence, being the one who witnessed the phenomena. True freedom is moving beyond all clinging and attachments, whether mystical or mundane. It is not a moving beyond enjoyment of either, just releasing the tendency to make demands or have expectations regarding one’s experience.
An example of this is an experience I had while meditating one night when I felt compelled to fall on the floor and drifted out of my body into an absorption into light and space that could only be described as seeming as if I were part of the Milky Way. I was lost in this for several hours, as if the mind had melted into the flowing light, until the cold in the room suddenly woke up my body, but the phenomena left me in bliss for hours more.
A friend of mine fell into a quasi-dream state during a difficult time and a guru filled with light and love appeared who gave her specific advice on what she needed to do. This recurred for several weeks as she began to heal, and he gave her specific advice on how she should eat and told her to write a journal about her past history. A few months later she was better, and she saw a magazine with his picture and knew she needed to go to India to become his student.
Here is a man’s description of an out-of body experience with mystical features and/or a vision evidently triggered by an encounter with a guru.
One day as my guru was walking past me I asked him to initiate me into the Gayatri mantra and he said, “Already done.” A few days later I found myself safely tucked away in my bed at home chanting the Gayatri mantra till I started to nod off. The next thing I know I am consciously leaving my body and floating upward above my bed, the house, the city, the earth
, ever upward until I was flying freely through the universe in my perfected form (mind you, this is not a dream, I am fully aware that I am out of my body). When I say perfected form, it was the form I have now, only perfect in every way, dazzling with brilliant light and energizing sparks (I can remember it as if it were yesterday). After some time I started falling back to earth very, very quickly. I fell into a deep pit on the earth’s surface and kept descending until I hit a huge sleeping serpent or dragon of some kind. I was frightened as I intuitively felt this creature was very, very powerful. The serpent chased me up and out of the abyss and let out a mighty roar (I can’t explain it in words). Next thing I knew, I found myself back in bed with a racing heart and sweaty body. I continued to chant the Gayatri till the sandman took me over.
There are many descriptions of non-ordinary or mystical experience in the literature and spiritual biographies of every tradition. Christian saints have said they feel they were being made love to by the Divine. Yogis describe meetings with Gods, Goddesses and masters on other planes of existence. These moments can be wonderful but can also be deceptive if we believe they are the answer to self-realization. For some people they offer guidance and encouragement in their practice , and strengthen their trust in something greater than themselves. For others they include insight, open the heart or offer a new perception of human experience, or appear to reveal deeper conflicts and potentials of the psyche through image and sensation.
The following chapters provide more specific and comprehensive descriptions of phenomena that may occur following a kundalini awakening, and will explore the factors that help this awakening process move toward spiritual completion.
Chapter 2:
Phenomena in the
Kundalini Process
There are two basic starting points in the kundalini process, the first being a path that is chosen, because a person has a great yearning to find the truth, or has fallen into a practice that will lead them in that direction. The second path is an accident, triggered by some encounter or event in which the awakening occurred unexpectedly. The response to entering the kundalini process is often fear and resistance. It is like becoming disoriented in the woods, and having no idea which direction to take. Occasionally an awakening occurs for no obvious reason at all, a startling encounter with energy in the middle of the night, or during a walk across the lawn. In all of these circumstances, other more disarming events are likely to follow.
Here is a description of a phase in the process sent by a client in her 30’s who had trained in Thailand to do healing work, and had many years of spiritual practice. She describes many of the phenomena that may arise suddenly in someone with activated kundalini, including energy, undiagnosed pain, feeling vastness, heightened senses, visions, fear of dying and bliss.
A current of energy, previously unknown to me began to infiltrate the body. A lot of pain in the bones of my pelvis, lovely blissful sensations up my spine. Tons of energy, like I could light up a small city. I began ecstatically dancing every day. I heard bells and music. I could hear conversations three aisles away in the grocery store. I smelled roses and jasmine and citrus. Objects appeared as either completely thin and barely there or as crystal or diamonds. Also during this time, the image of Shakti began to appear during physical love-making. A loss of identity with my personality would occur and spontaneous chanting, or the body would begin moving into mudras and postures. None of this was usual to my experience. Also, Kali began to appear in visions, during love-making. Are they hallucinations? I don't know. Very real experience with Kali biting my head off or tearing my limbs, saying to me "you are mine". I previously knew nothing of Kali or any of this. I had been a vegetarian for 30 years and now began eating a lot of red meat because Kali required it. And my nervous system would shut down if I didn't eat meat. Life appeared as a miracle of Creation and I felt that my consciousness existed at the juncture between Creation and matter. It was a time of Fire. And in fact I did have one episode where I felt that I was facing immediate physical death. My bones were being reduced to ash, and I felt as if I was being cremated and would probably not survive. There were several other moments of harrowing physical experiences. I also had a strong feeling that I was losing my mind and would probably end up crazy. I kept telling my husband and close spiritual companions that I was not going to be fit for public life. I could be in yoga class and fall to the floor in a fit of ecstasy and babble just from going into warrior pose.
A few months later I went to bed with what I believed at the time was a toothache in my lower left molar. As the day progressed the amperage running through the left side of my head became severely intense. I still believed I had a toothache, so I made a dentist appointment. Long story short, I spent a month in literal hell with terrible undiagnosed pain in the left side of my head. I tried narcotics and alcohol and marijuana and B vitamins and heat and ice and valerian and arnica and ...and.....and...I was like a wolf in a trap. It did not feel bearable to me. My consciousness shrunk down to nothing but the perception of agonizing physical pain. After about a month of agony, I slowly began to try and crawl my way out of the pain. Acupuncture afforded some relief, and I began doing some research of my own. I found a cranial-sacral healer that I thought might be able to help. During our first session, we were able to calm my nervous system down to what he called a "still point" and it felt like bliss. My mind stopped and I could rest in peace. At this session he told me that I was experiencing kundalini and suggested a few web sites for me to explore.
Seven Categories of Phenomena
In my research with over two thousand people who have had the initiating event of kundalini awakening, I have found seven categories of phenomena that might subsequently occur. I have identified them as pranic activity, involuntary yogic activity, physiological problems, psychological or emotional upheavals, extrasensory experiences, parapsychological experiences and samadhi or satori experiences. Usually everyone does not experience all of these phenomena, but most will experience several of them over a period of months or years.
Pranic Activity or Kriyas
Kriyas are involuntary body movements, shaking, vibrations, jerking, and the sensation of electricity, tingling, or rushes of energy flooding the body. Kriya is a Sanscrit word meaning action, and many kriyas mimic the postures taught in hatha yoga called asanas, or hand movements called mudras.
Sometimes people wake up in the middle of the night and their body spontaneously moves into a yoga posture, or performs a gesture with their hands that is used in yoga to bring peace or focus. Most often it is the shaking, internal quivering, or jerks of the body that cause people alarm. These movements are unfamiliar, and so they are interpreted as a sign of illness, even though their true function is simply a restructuring of the subtle field that may ultimately strengthen the flexibility of the body.
Sometimes kriyas are gentle, even blissful, and at other times they feel sharp and uncomfortable. Generally they are not painful, even though the body may appear to be writhing or having a spasm. Sometimes they seem concentrated on an area where there is a contraction or blockage, for example in the belly with someone who has power and control issues, or at the throat when true expression has been repressed for many years, or a person is afraid to say what he or she believes. They may seem to be working in areas where there is a physical weakness as if to rewire it, or to be releasing the stress of emotion or tension carried through the body after a hard days work. Their function is release, not only of the day’s stressors, but those of this life, and possibly genetic or previous life patterns held in the subtle energy body. Sometimes people experience kriyas who have not had an awakening of kundalini, but instead the cells are releasing some contracted energy or life experience, usually following a therapy or bodywork or yoga session, or during an intense emotional or sexual experience. They are one way a body can release stress or blockages.
Other Involuntary Energy Phenomena
In addition to the kriya activity that looks l
ike yogic postures or hand movements, symbolic images or geometric patterns may appear during a kundalini process. Sometimes the mind produces a series of images of other worlds, or scenes that cannot be related to the current life. There may also arise the sound of chanting, Sanscrit words and tones, or a variety of specific sounds such as bees buzzing, or kettle drums beating. One client of mine heard many Sanscrit chants and had no idea what they were, or what language it was, until a friend invited her to an Indian kirtan, which is the singing of sacred music and chants, and she recognized the songs.
Some people spontaneously create and enter into a ritual. They may think of this as spiritual or just symbolic of something moving inside of them. One woman I interviewed felt compelled to bathe in salt-water, and would dump boxes of it into the bathtub. Another person felt compelled to sort out all the silverware and other kitchen objects into male and female categories. Some people feel a need to purify their home, thoroughly cleaning everything. One woman moved into an Indian tepee on her property and lived in it for nearly a year. Others go on a pilgrimage. While there is a part of the mind that is watching, feeling alarmed by these impulses, and able to stop if the situation requires it, there is a felt sense of urgency, as if an inner dictate wants to work something out on a physical level. Such activity usually occurs only once or twice and does not become compulsive.
Physiological Problems
Kundalini works mysteriously with physical issues, sometimes curing an illness, and at other times bringing something that is latent to the surface. One man wrote to me that kundalini had mysteriously cured him of diabetes. Another reported he no longer had a heart irregularity that had shown up on two previous EKG’s.
The Kundalini Guide: A Companion For the Inward Journey (Companions For the Inward Journey Book 1) Page 3
