The Truth About Kundalini

For many years my work as a therapist  has specialized in people having challenges with an activation of kundalini energy, or the many shifts of consciousness that come with a spiritual awakening.  These events have a profound impact on what we experience and how we think about it, and cause changes in the body, brain and spiritual orientation, as well as the lifestyle.

Sometimes people write to me wanting to know how to awaken kundalini energy, believing it will help them in some way to overcome personal issues or improve their life.  While in the long run (over years) this may be true, the intensifying of your energy field is likely to intensify whatever is happening in your life, making it more difficult, before you experience the peace of spiritual awakening. There are many ways that kundalini can change things and not all of them feel wonderful.  Here are a few possibilities to consider before you opt into intense practices for awakening this energy.

The Honeymoon Period

A few people temporarily experience a great high when they begin taking kundalini yoga practices.  I was once in a kundalini yoga center in Hollywood where beautiful women floated around in white caftans looking disconnected but radiant, although their teacher was serious incapacitated by a stroke and could not walk nor talk coherently. (Kundalini does not mean you will never be ill). Kundalini energy causes your energy to sometimes feel high and more flowing, even blissful, and you may break old habits like using alcohol  or sugar, and make healthier choices.  You might feel more alive and limber, and disinterested in the problems of the world.  This is usually a “honeymoon” period before you enter what I have called the deconstruction state of transformation.  Just as when you remodel a house you first do a tearing down, as you move toward transformation you begin by experiencing the falling apart of old constructed or conditioned patterns.

The Deconstruction Phase

Many people who activate kundalini without any guidance, e.g. on the internet or with a teacher who does not have the whole picture, or spontaneously, seem to enter the tearing down faze immediately – their body shakes involuntarily, there may be rushes of heat, painful old memories arise spontaneously, their brains are foggy and their head aches so it is harder to concentrate on work that involves thought, they feel sudden shifts as if out of their body so the feel unstable in the world, their moods shift inexplicably, and family members may become alarmed and have them hospitalized. They may fear they are dying or going insane.

Kundalini awakening is not a panacea for a life that is not working well.  It amplifies whatever needs to be seen and corrected.  In a few cases it feels as if life is stripped of its stability, and its meaning.  If you are in toxic relationships you will likely  feel an imperative to leave them. If you have been living a life that is not aligned with your authentic needs and interests you will feel pressured to change it.

For all of these reasons it is good to be prepared before you enter a practice that might activate kundalini.  This energy is your own life force.  You already have energy, but when kundalini awakens and moves up from the base of the spine it strengthens the energy field throughout the body, vibrates through 72,000 lines of energy throughout the body grid and runs into blocks wherever a contraction is met.  All of us have many contractions from moments in life when we held back our response or expression or locked into a false belief.  This heightened energy is trying to make us more open, empty and flowing. It is breaking down our holding patterns.

Preparation

Here are some of the ways you can prepare yourself for the changes kundalini brings.

Clean up your diet and loosen up any holding in your body through yoga, Tai Chi or stretching.

Find the calm center within through meditation or deep relaxation practices.

If you know you have trauma in your history do some therapy to heal the impact of any beliefs you have acquired related to the abuse.

Question your beliefs and thoughts – they are not truth, only habits.

Have a stable income, basic security and work habits. You may change your work if it does not feel congruent with new values, but if you are homeless or impoverished you need to find a way to meet basic needs before plunging into physical changes that may disorient you.  There is no practical advantage to awakening kundalini – the point of it is to open you to a deep realization of your true nature, whatever the cost to your peace of mind.  How it will impact you along the way is an unknown, differing greatly from one person to another, and often chaotic for an extended period of time.

How to Awaken

The best way to allow kundalini to awaken is to forget kundalini and seek Truth through a simple and sincere meditation practice. Then, if your energy is going to change and open you to live from an awakened place, it will happen in a natural way, and you will have a stable interior place to rest while it does its work.

People with long-term meditation practices and stable lives have the best experiences when kundalini arises, even if it is strange and disconcerting.  They are able to establish a comfortable rapport with this life force and accept the challenges of the process, which  gradually helps them clear away the debris of past history, opening them to new possibilities in the way they live their lives. Kundalini is the energy aspect of spiritual awakening, which is a radical shift of how consciousness is known. It is the way we embody the knowing that we are not the separate self we thought ourselves to be.

For a more full description of how spiritual awakening evolves, and ways to cope with the phenomena it brings, look for my new book “When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening.”

Energies of Transformation

The energies  that come with spiritual awakening are a mystery to most people who do spiritual practices, and even for those who do energy practices like Tantra, Reiki, breath work, or martial arts, expecting only bliss and healing. Many practices and circumstances can ignite a range of more challenging phenomena as a clearing and transformative energy process begins.

             I was  interviewed yesterday about the kundalini experience by Ingrid in Germany who is setting up an internet forum on energy called the Kundalini Congress (kundalinikongress)  that should be available in a couple of months in the US and Germany.  We talked about my work with kundalini, and my understanding of ways to deal with the challenges it can bring.

            Once you begin to see the body as a molecular structure, an energy grid that carries thoughts,  emotions, and sensations from one point to another, and stores patterns and memories  within its structure, it becomes easier to understand the phenomena that arises when kundalini is activated.  All beings live with both conscious awareness and energy flow.  This energy flow is called prana in the yogic model, chi or qi in Chinese systems, and ki in Japan.  In the west a few have termed it “bioenergy” but it’s full potential is little understood.  Yogis say that it activates the body at conception, and after the development of the infant the residual is wrapped in a coil at the base of our spine and holds our field in stasis until we die.  Then it uncoils and leaves the body.

            Kundalini can begin to uncoil itself as a result of energy or meditation practices, in response to a trauma, or through a variety of other causes.  Initially it can feel overwhelming as it rushes through the body from the base of the spine, or it can unwind gradually like a snake, and then feel blocked or concentrated on one area of the body.   When this activation happens the entire energy field is amplified   Many phenomena may arise, depending on the lifestyle, history, proclivities and practices of the person so affected.  There can be shaking, vibration, heat, emotional upheavals, changes in perspective, odd physical symptoms, shifts in eating habits, difficulty sleeping , waves of bliss and clarity, waves of fear and discomfort, brain fog, psychic moments – many passing experiences.  This is because your entire structure is reorganizing itself and consciousness itself is changing, clearing itself of what is not necessary if you are going to live more present in the moment, more authentically here and now.

            Very few schools of meditation or energy or healing speak of all these changes directly and most schools of psychology or medicine have no paradigm with which to address these experiences.  Somatics programs are an exception as they include the body in their studies but often those who understand the need for energy release do not understand the spiritual implications.   We live in a culture based on Christian perspectives that for the most part deny the connection between spirit and body, probably because of the repression  by the early church founders of pagan practices , mystery schools and indigenous rituals that opened the body to allow altered states of consciousness.

            But we are clearly moved through the flow of energy, healed or transformed by the flow of energy, and only alive as spirit when energy is flowing. When spirit leaves it rides on the energy that leaves when we pass on.  Probably it is these energies that account for evolutionary adjustments in our species. Hopefully as we in the west begin talking  about this and more people encounter their own inner transformation we will discover the gifts of kundalini and learn more ways to support our spiritual awakening processes.

            If this is a topic impacting your life or work you may be interested in my website www.kundaliniguide.com or my books “The Kundalini Guide” and “The Awakening Guide.” I also do occasional workshops and webinars for people in this awakening process.