Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Kundalini and Evolution of Consciousness
Tasting the Light
It arrived suddenly,
when you were unaware.
It issued no advance notice,
no acknowledgment required.
It came over you swiftly,
lightning flash across a large surface of stone.
After everything melted,
there was the taste
of honeyed fruit,
burnt cinnamon,
something blue and electric in the air.
copyright, Dorothy Walters
This transition to a new state is not easy--those refined energies appear to visit the "forerunners," in effect, the "volunteers"-- those who have (it would seem) in some mysterious and undefined way "agreed" to undergo this process as part of the saving transformation of the race. Each one becomes a way station, a base of energetic force helping to sustain the ongoing process, which no one comprehends in its fullness but each feels honored to serve. Each participant gives in the manner best suited to personal talent or capacity--perhaps the assignment is, as one friend put it, simply to "carry this vibration" until it can be established throughout the globe. The path is without familiar precedent or guidance. Together, this collective (whose members are most often not known to one another) prepare a field of consciousness, which makes each subsequent transfiguration less difficult for those who follow. (Rupert Sheldrake uses the term "morphogenetic field" to describe such phenomena.) In the Kundalini process the divine becomes dramatically aware of itself embodied in the human. Humanity is the device whereby the sacred reality establishes itself more firmly on earth in fullest manifestation.
Kundalini as such is not a stranger to earth. But our own age is the first in which Kundalini consciousness is coupled with the heightened "self-awareness" available to contemporary mind. The intuitive and the rational (right- left brain functions) now may be paired in a new way. The body is known in a fresh perspective. The self becomes a ground for experiment; the mind experiences novelty and then reflects on its own internal operations.
The rapture awakened in many Kundalini experiences is not to be confused with sexual arousal (though they are kin), nor are the reports of bliss to be dismissed as merely accounts of interesting internal somatic events. For the serious student, each such experience carries the sense of the infusion of the holy energies, a uniting with a force so beyond conceptualization that feeling itself is the only avenue of communication. Although we cannot know the divine reality in full, we can--in part--experience it in our bodies. Hence the conundrum--we remain convinced of the reality of that which we can neither see nor hear, which lacks substance and material presence, but which nonetheless is our daily companion.
Because we in modern society typically do not experience Kundalini under ideal conditions, we often must spend many years in the long balancing process. Some become so sensitive that they may no longer be able to function in the familiar world, and must go into a period of retreat. Others may become highly creative and discover talents they did not know they possessed. Virtually all, however, agree that this is an experience to be prized above all others, for it endows the recipient with an irrefutable sense of deep connection to that which is most meaningful in human experience. One feels that there is indeed a divine presence, and knows that one is in fact very much a part of that reality, however minute or humble one's role. This is unconditional love in its most compelling expression. It is the final proof, the assurance which goes beyond all doubts and questionings, the ultimate self-validating experience. It is the path to "planetary initiation," entry into a new mode of being.
(from Unmasking the Rose)
It arrived suddenly,
when you were unaware.
It issued no advance notice,
no acknowledgment required.
It came over you swiftly,
lightning flash across a large surface of stone.
After everything melted,
there was the taste
of honeyed fruit,
burnt cinnamon,
something blue and electric in the air.
copyright, Dorothy Walters
This transition to a new state is not easy--those refined energies appear to visit the "forerunners," in effect, the "volunteers"-- those who have (it would seem) in some mysterious and undefined way "agreed" to undergo this process as part of the saving transformation of the race. Each one becomes a way station, a base of energetic force helping to sustain the ongoing process, which no one comprehends in its fullness but each feels honored to serve. Each participant gives in the manner best suited to personal talent or capacity--perhaps the assignment is, as one friend put it, simply to "carry this vibration" until it can be established throughout the globe. The path is without familiar precedent or guidance. Together, this collective (whose members are most often not known to one another) prepare a field of consciousness, which makes each subsequent transfiguration less difficult for those who follow. (Rupert Sheldrake uses the term "morphogenetic field" to describe such phenomena.) In the Kundalini process the divine becomes dramatically aware of itself embodied in the human. Humanity is the device whereby the sacred reality establishes itself more firmly on earth in fullest manifestation.
Kundalini as such is not a stranger to earth. But our own age is the first in which Kundalini consciousness is coupled with the heightened "self-awareness" available to contemporary mind. The intuitive and the rational (right- left brain functions) now may be paired in a new way. The body is known in a fresh perspective. The self becomes a ground for experiment; the mind experiences novelty and then reflects on its own internal operations.
The rapture awakened in many Kundalini experiences is not to be confused with sexual arousal (though they are kin), nor are the reports of bliss to be dismissed as merely accounts of interesting internal somatic events. For the serious student, each such experience carries the sense of the infusion of the holy energies, a uniting with a force so beyond conceptualization that feeling itself is the only avenue of communication. Although we cannot know the divine reality in full, we can--in part--experience it in our bodies. Hence the conundrum--we remain convinced of the reality of that which we can neither see nor hear, which lacks substance and material presence, but which nonetheless is our daily companion.
Because we in modern society typically do not experience Kundalini under ideal conditions, we often must spend many years in the long balancing process. Some become so sensitive that they may no longer be able to function in the familiar world, and must go into a period of retreat. Others may become highly creative and discover talents they did not know they possessed. Virtually all, however, agree that this is an experience to be prized above all others, for it endows the recipient with an irrefutable sense of deep connection to that which is most meaningful in human experience. One feels that there is indeed a divine presence, and knows that one is in fact very much a part of that reality, however minute or humble one's role. This is unconditional love in its most compelling expression. It is the final proof, the assurance which goes beyond all doubts and questionings, the ultimate self-validating experience. It is the path to "planetary initiation," entry into a new mode of being.
(from Unmasking the Rose)
