Kundalini Splendor

Sunday is traditionally a day reserved for lovers and churchgoers. For years my practice (on Sunday as well as other days) has been to listen closely to certain music (preferably with headphones) and to feel the bliss energies stir as a consequence. As I have explained before, there is no touching involved. If I move at all, it is mainly my hands tracing circles over my body from a slight distance, to awaken the chakras or other energy centers here and there. Sometimes just rotating my eyeballs is enough.

Typically, I have a favorite recording or two which I listen to again and again, until my subtle body responds automatically to its blissful tones. Early on (perhaps ten years or more ago) I listened to things like Bach's B Minor Mass or Brahms' German Requiem. These are very powerful renditions of sacred music and served their purpose well. Later, I moved into other types of music plus some poetry and chanting. One year I focused on a tape of the Gayatri Mantra (the most common mantra in India) by Vyaas Houston, a celebrated teacher of Sanskrit and a gifted performer, and fell deeply under its spell. For awhile, it was a CD of the poetry of Hafiz, which included musical selections. Then I went to "The Chord of Love," which consisted of Ram Das reading ancient sacred verse along with pieces by Jai Uttal and other musicians and singers. Then there was Krishna Das plus other recordings by Jai Uttal, as well as the music of Jonathan Goldman, which is often quite powerful ("Trance Tara" is wildly exciting.)

Now I have two favorites: Tibetan chants alternating with Diana Rogers usually on different days. The Tibetan chants work best for rootedness, connection with the deep forces underlying our own systems and the universe itself. They are powerful, and seem to take us back to some primal era when mystery and actual magic were much a part of worship. They are even a bit frightening, but we like to be a bit frightened (in safe circumstances.) They stimulate the lower chakras and legs, connecting us to elemental source.

Diana Rogers' magical pieces awaken (primarily) the upper chakras--including the crown itself. If you do not know her work, I recommend it highly. Her two CD's are "Love Reigns" and "Unveiled," both based on traditional Hindu songs of devotion. For me, just hearing the sounds of sanskrit is sufficient to awaken the bliss. You can order from her website, http://www.dianarogers.com/ As I listen, I sometimes think, This is the music I would like to leave by.

Such is ecstasy, the state which carries us out of the small, restricted self into a place of forgetting, where we lose all sense of ordinary identity, how we are in the world, our problems and challenges, and we enter another realm where there is only exquisite, ineffable, divine feeling. God (the goddess) makes love to us in those moments, and we realize that this is our source, our beginning, our reality, and our home.

So today I did not go to church, but kept the Sabbath staying at home, making love with the inner divine as I listened and moved gently to "Love Reigns."

(Image is of Krishna and Rhada, famous lovers in Hindu mythology and emblematic of divine and human love. from Wikipedia.)