Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Kundalini and Its Woes
Textbook entries on kundalini generally stress the benefits--ranging from total health to the solution of all life's problems. And indeed, at the beginning of the awakening process, it is common for aspirants to experience a sense of total well being, even bliss or ecstasy. Some report improved health, including weight loss, lowered blood pressure, and the like. The plaguing issues of the psyche seem at last to be resolved, the old nagging bodily aches and pains vanished at last. One many feel (as if for the first time), whole, healed, a completed being.
Oftentimes, this early euphoria does not last. It may continue for weeks or months or perhaps even longer, but frequently stresses again arise to plague the body and mind, creating symptoms of illness or psychological difficulties.
However, now there is a difference. The difference is that the body/mind (which may have been unduly sensitive to begin with) is now even more highly sensitized. The least little interruption or disturbance, the slightest irritation or difficulty in personal relations, may produce symptoms even more acute than those experienced previously. Indeed, some become so sensitive that it is difficult for them to remain in this world, with its many buffetings and challenges.
Most of the people I know who have undergone deep kundalini, perhaps with great initial bliss, have, later, encountered serious psychological or physical difficulties. Perhaps if we were able to retreat into monasteries or caves, where life was less stressful, we might fare better. But positioned as we are in the world at large (and many of us feel that here is where we belong if want to improve the state of the planet)--we are vulnerable, and must, along with the rest of society, experience our share of pain and suffering.
The textbook descriptions are based on an ideal model, a perfect awakening into a perfect state of being. The truth is that very few (if any) attain this state permanently. Even the gurus and masters who are in continuous ecstasy are often susceptible to the usual human complaints, and many die young.
I cling to the notion that kundalini awakening, now becoming ever more widespread, is part of the evolutionary process, and that those of us undergoing both its rewards and its stresses at this time in history are, in fact, the early models, the trial efforts. We are in fact helping to create Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field," which (for us) is a universe of higher vibrations, one less material, more spiritual in a literal sense. Only later will those appear who will not have to undergo such difficulties of adjustment. They will be well equipped to "breathe the new air," accommodate the new vibrations.
Gopi Krishna was the first to assert that kundalini is the agent by which human evolution will occur. I think he was right.
Oftentimes, this early euphoria does not last. It may continue for weeks or months or perhaps even longer, but frequently stresses again arise to plague the body and mind, creating symptoms of illness or psychological difficulties.
However, now there is a difference. The difference is that the body/mind (which may have been unduly sensitive to begin with) is now even more highly sensitized. The least little interruption or disturbance, the slightest irritation or difficulty in personal relations, may produce symptoms even more acute than those experienced previously. Indeed, some become so sensitive that it is difficult for them to remain in this world, with its many buffetings and challenges.
Most of the people I know who have undergone deep kundalini, perhaps with great initial bliss, have, later, encountered serious psychological or physical difficulties. Perhaps if we were able to retreat into monasteries or caves, where life was less stressful, we might fare better. But positioned as we are in the world at large (and many of us feel that here is where we belong if want to improve the state of the planet)--we are vulnerable, and must, along with the rest of society, experience our share of pain and suffering.
The textbook descriptions are based on an ideal model, a perfect awakening into a perfect state of being. The truth is that very few (if any) attain this state permanently. Even the gurus and masters who are in continuous ecstasy are often susceptible to the usual human complaints, and many die young.
I cling to the notion that kundalini awakening, now becoming ever more widespread, is part of the evolutionary process, and that those of us undergoing both its rewards and its stresses at this time in history are, in fact, the early models, the trial efforts. We are in fact helping to create Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field," which (for us) is a universe of higher vibrations, one less material, more spiritual in a literal sense. Only later will those appear who will not have to undergo such difficulties of adjustment. They will be well equipped to "breathe the new air," accommodate the new vibrations.
Gopi Krishna was the first to assert that kundalini is the agent by which human evolution will occur. I think he was right.
