Sunday, July 09, 2006
Kundalini, Language, and Vibration
Recently, I came across a website by a dedicated linguist, who has analyzed in great detail the various sounds and syllables of language, to determine what their impact might be on the listener. She has in fact compiled whole dictionaries and glossaries of infinite numbers of sound produced by language. I wrote her this letter, thinking she might be interested to know what the impact of language, especially sacred language, might be for someone with awakened kundalini. (Those of you who already know my story will find repetition here; others may find it helpful)
I found your site through Patricia Bralley's blog, and thought I would send you a brief response. I am a retired English and women's studies professor. I went into English lit because I loved narration and poetry, and taught, in all, about 40 years. For the most part, I was drawn to the story line itself and all its implications for human experience and to poetry as a wondrous and evocative mode. I thought I knew a bit about literature and its possible effects. I was not a linguist as such, and was more interested in the level of archetype and symbol and theme and meaning, rather than detailed analysis of the linguistic/semantic level.
In 1981 I experienced dramatic kundalini awakening. I don't know if you have any familiarity with this process, but for me it served (among other things) to make me infinitely more sensitive to everything without and within. Colors became deeper, music more sensuous, and inner awareness much richer. I went into what I can only call "ecstatic states" (deep rapture akin to sexual feelings, but yet different.) Bliss became a daily occurrence (a sense of sweet energies located in special places or else flowing throughout the body.) My chakras opened suddenly--my crown opened and ecstatic energy seemed to flow into my very cranium--the ancients of India describe the experience as resembling "a thousand petals opening. It was a very new and radically transformed universe for an English teacher.
Now all of the above is preliminary to what I am going to say now. Music became a very important stimulus for awakening the inner rapture--it was as if my "subtle body"(or energy body, that which works through but yet is not the same as the physical body) was itself a vehicle for deep, sensuous arousal (again, more a general feeling than sexual arousal as such.) Along the way, I was persuaded to take lessons in Transcendental Meditation, a technique based on awakening "higher" states of consciousness in which awareness itself is paramount. No energetic work was involved or acknowledged as significant. Bliss was not mentioned. I was given a "mantra" which I disliked intensely, and soon became ill. I quit T. M. and tried to go back to my former (inner directed ) practice, but it took some time to recover my lost ground. Later my "inner teacher" gave me a mantra, quite different from the other, and this I dearly loved. I resonated in bliss as I recited these simple syllables, though at first I had no idea of their meaning.
I then took a class from Andrew Harvey, who taught me to listen to poetry in a new way. Andrew has a deeply resonant, beautiful voice, and as he read, I felt the "inner centers" vibrate with joy. Then, just reading sacred verse (Rumi) "turned me on" in this quasi-physical way.
Then I visited an ashram for the first time ever. This group did Sanskrit chanting. When I heard these sounds, I thought I was going to faint with delight. It was as though a thousand tiny musicians were playing my "inner keyboard," as if my body had become a sounding board resonating in total rapture. I could not get enough.
Now Sanskrit, like Hebrew, is said to be a sacred language. It presumably is intended to "resonate the inner centers," open the chakras, and thus (in my view) allow for an inpouring of divine love. At least that was my experience of it on this first mystical encounter. After that, every time I heard Sanskrit I again fell into near rapture. For some time my spiritual practice consisted of listening to recordings such as Vyaas Houston (a Sanskrit scholar and chanter) reciting the Gayatri Mantra, a short verse which is recited daily in India by hundreds of thousands of worshippers Now I had no idea what these words meant. I only knew that they afforded me infinite bliss.
The same was true for a marvelous recording of kirtan (call and response form of sacred musical chant) by Jai Uttal with Ram Das reading sacred poetry (the latter in translation,but still very powerful.) I assumed the power resided in the sound itself, that Sanskrit (as sounded in the kirtan) under all conditions could evoke this effect. Of course I later discovered this was not the case, that those who are prepared in a certain way (through kundalini awakening, mostly) will respond in such a manner. Likewise, I discovered, much to my disappointment, that not all renditions of spoken Sanskrit will have this effect--it seems to depend on the speaker or singer as well as the mood of the listener and the nature of the setting and who knows what else.
I also found that when I heard other forms of chanting (such as Hebrew), I had a similar somatic response. Sometimes I think part of my reaction had to do in part with a heightened awareness brought on by sensing the combined energies of a spiritual congregation acting in harmony (coherent energy pattern.) So--after all those earlier years of dealing with language in ways that I loved, I discovered (after this "awakening") the true nature of language as sacred experience, how it can convey deep feelings (sensuous and powerful) as well as meanings, how those feelings can be aroused quite independent of any awareness other than that of the feelings themselves. In this state, there is no separate subject, object, process--these are all one.
Your work is deeply impressive. As for me, I took the experiential as opposed to the analytic approach. I simply jumped in the river and found I was all but drowning in bliss. I have no real idea what is going on with words and sound (and movement and music and images and power places and other things as well--they too can awaken bliss). But I do feel I have been quite blessed to have had such experiences. They have made my life a real adventure, one I would never have anticipated taking--I have entered a world I did not know existed.
It has now been some 26 years since my experience began. It still continues, though in a much gentler, more subtle form. It's been quite a journey
I found your site through Patricia Bralley's blog, and thought I would send you a brief response. I am a retired English and women's studies professor. I went into English lit because I loved narration and poetry, and taught, in all, about 40 years. For the most part, I was drawn to the story line itself and all its implications for human experience and to poetry as a wondrous and evocative mode. I thought I knew a bit about literature and its possible effects. I was not a linguist as such, and was more interested in the level of archetype and symbol and theme and meaning, rather than detailed analysis of the linguistic/semantic level.
In 1981 I experienced dramatic kundalini awakening. I don't know if you have any familiarity with this process, but for me it served (among other things) to make me infinitely more sensitive to everything without and within. Colors became deeper, music more sensuous, and inner awareness much richer. I went into what I can only call "ecstatic states" (deep rapture akin to sexual feelings, but yet different.) Bliss became a daily occurrence (a sense of sweet energies located in special places or else flowing throughout the body.) My chakras opened suddenly--my crown opened and ecstatic energy seemed to flow into my very cranium--the ancients of India describe the experience as resembling "a thousand petals opening. It was a very new and radically transformed universe for an English teacher.
Now all of the above is preliminary to what I am going to say now. Music became a very important stimulus for awakening the inner rapture--it was as if my "subtle body"(or energy body, that which works through but yet is not the same as the physical body) was itself a vehicle for deep, sensuous arousal (again, more a general feeling than sexual arousal as such.) Along the way, I was persuaded to take lessons in Transcendental Meditation, a technique based on awakening "higher" states of consciousness in which awareness itself is paramount. No energetic work was involved or acknowledged as significant. Bliss was not mentioned. I was given a "mantra" which I disliked intensely, and soon became ill. I quit T. M. and tried to go back to my former (inner directed ) practice, but it took some time to recover my lost ground. Later my "inner teacher" gave me a mantra, quite different from the other, and this I dearly loved. I resonated in bliss as I recited these simple syllables, though at first I had no idea of their meaning.
I then took a class from Andrew Harvey, who taught me to listen to poetry in a new way. Andrew has a deeply resonant, beautiful voice, and as he read, I felt the "inner centers" vibrate with joy. Then, just reading sacred verse (Rumi) "turned me on" in this quasi-physical way.
Then I visited an ashram for the first time ever. This group did Sanskrit chanting. When I heard these sounds, I thought I was going to faint with delight. It was as though a thousand tiny musicians were playing my "inner keyboard," as if my body had become a sounding board resonating in total rapture. I could not get enough.
Now Sanskrit, like Hebrew, is said to be a sacred language. It presumably is intended to "resonate the inner centers," open the chakras, and thus (in my view) allow for an inpouring of divine love. At least that was my experience of it on this first mystical encounter. After that, every time I heard Sanskrit I again fell into near rapture. For some time my spiritual practice consisted of listening to recordings such as Vyaas Houston (a Sanskrit scholar and chanter) reciting the Gayatri Mantra, a short verse which is recited daily in India by hundreds of thousands of worshippers Now I had no idea what these words meant. I only knew that they afforded me infinite bliss.
The same was true for a marvelous recording of kirtan (call and response form of sacred musical chant) by Jai Uttal with Ram Das reading sacred poetry (the latter in translation,but still very powerful.) I assumed the power resided in the sound itself, that Sanskrit (as sounded in the kirtan) under all conditions could evoke this effect. Of course I later discovered this was not the case, that those who are prepared in a certain way (through kundalini awakening, mostly) will respond in such a manner. Likewise, I discovered, much to my disappointment, that not all renditions of spoken Sanskrit will have this effect--it seems to depend on the speaker or singer as well as the mood of the listener and the nature of the setting and who knows what else.
I also found that when I heard other forms of chanting (such as Hebrew), I had a similar somatic response. Sometimes I think part of my reaction had to do in part with a heightened awareness brought on by sensing the combined energies of a spiritual congregation acting in harmony (coherent energy pattern.) So--after all those earlier years of dealing with language in ways that I loved, I discovered (after this "awakening") the true nature of language as sacred experience, how it can convey deep feelings (sensuous and powerful) as well as meanings, how those feelings can be aroused quite independent of any awareness other than that of the feelings themselves. In this state, there is no separate subject, object, process--these are all one.
Your work is deeply impressive. As for me, I took the experiential as opposed to the analytic approach. I simply jumped in the river and found I was all but drowning in bliss. I have no real idea what is going on with words and sound (and movement and music and images and power places and other things as well--they too can awaken bliss). But I do feel I have been quite blessed to have had such experiences. They have made my life a real adventure, one I would never have anticipated taking--I have entered a world I did not know existed.
It has now been some 26 years since my experience began. It still continues, though in a much gentler, more subtle form. It's been quite a journey
