Kundalini Splendor

Recently I received a letter from someone who also sent a copy of this excerpt from the writings of Bradford Keene:

That Shaking Feeling and How to Get There

Shaking medicine is different from any spiritual dancing, aerobics, trance dancing, or bodywork I have experienced or witnessed. It is not the ecstatic dancing of Gabrielle Roth or the organized whirling of the Sufis. You don't consciously create the shake. The shake shakes you. Once you get going, you may find that some of your automatic movements seem familiar, but here they serve to bring forth the shaking medicine. In this spirited expression, the shake and the vibration are more important than the dance.

Here are some possible experiences:

• Highly charged excitement

• Simultaneous deep relaxation and heightened arousal

• Vibrating, prickling, or tingling sensations; sensations of energy or electricity-like currents circulating in the body

• Intense heat or cold

• Muscle twitches and involuntary body movements: jerking, tremors, quaking, and shaking

• Desire to move into an unusual body posture

• Awareness of an inner force moving inside you or an inner voice that guides

• Feeling of being high ("drunk from the shake")

• Intensified sexual desire

• Increased heartbeat

• Spontaneous expression such as laughing or weeping

• Improvised vocalizations

• Hearing inner sounds like bees buzzing, drumming, moving water or wind, roaring, whooshing, thunder, ringing, or music

• Altered states of consciousness: expanded awareness, trance, or mystical experience

• Blissful feelings in the head, particularly the crown area

• Pervasive and indescribable bliss

• Intensified feelings of love, peace, and compassion

• Visionary and out-of-body experiences and imagined flight

• Belief that you are acquiring a healing power

• Stimulation of the desire for creative expression

• Deepened understanding of life; enlightenment, conversion, or transcendent experiences

Knowing that what you are experiencing is "normal" can make it more acceptable and pleasurable.

A GOOD PATH TO THE SHAKE

Shaking in the company of others is one of the most powerful experiences I know. Your shaking can be catalyzed and deepened by the presence of others. You can join me and others for that experience, or you can begin on your own:

1 | Focus on good feelings -- preferably love, compassion, and kindness -- and stay connected to them. It doesn't matter what words or phrases, if any, come to mind.

2 | Turn on some spirited rhythmic music and start wiggling and moving.

3 | It doesn't matter whether your eyes are open, half-closed, or closed. Do whatever feels natural.

4 | Activate your muscles, wiggling and moving them from head to toe.

5 | Gradually increase the rate of breathing until you are breathing rapidly.

6 | Assume an active attitude toward becoming excitable. Encourage yourself to tremble, shake, and quake.

7 | Continue shaking for as long as you wish. This is not an indulgence.

8 | At the end of the exercise, let your body do what it wants -- lie down, sit, walk, or whatever feels right.

9 | Do this when you desire, even once a day, but at least once a week.

--b.k.


(End of excerpt)

I wrote my correspondent a rather lengthy response, which I am posting here. Some of you may be quite familiar with the ideas here, but others may not.

Dear Friend,
I just read with interest the article on the shaking medicine. All of the symptoms mentioned are common in kundalini awakening (whether spontaneous or induced), though not everyone will experience all of them, or even some of them the same way. This method described is similar to what was offered by the guru then known as Shree Baghwan Rashneesh, now deceased. Apparently the shaking practice is designed to awaken the kundalini, and might be helpful for some who were desiring to arouse it.

But I would definitely not recommend it for those already into the process. They will have enough of such effects arriving spontaneously--shaking and involuntary vocalization and unexpected postures (kriyas) can be quite disturbing (especially when they occur in public), and I think it is best to try to quieten the energies until the process is more fully developed and under some feeling of control.

I tried something like this practice once and it was very uncomfortable for me. I have not had most of the symptoms described--my path has been a mixture of bliss and pain--often one following the other in cycles of days or months or hours. (Does the writer of the article explain the connection with Kundalini? I hope so.)

I am still experiencing both bliss and pain--the bliss comes up mainly when I listen to sacred music or am in the company of highly evolved persons or groups or read sacred poetry or feel sacred earth energies-or when the energies are already aroused and lead me to slow movement, sometimes mere micromovement, sometimes more obvious moves, never heavy or strong (like those Gabrielle Roth's fast music arouses). This is a process that has unfolded over many years of time, as the energies have become ever higher in tone and more subtle in feeling, but always delightful.

When I go into such ecstatic states, I am apt to write "ecstasy poetry" such as I put up on my blog yesterday. The rest of the time, I tend to be in "normal" (everyday) consciousness), such as now while I write this letter and am concentrating on thought, rather than inner feelings.

Different kinds of practice work for different kinds of people, just as some people prefer soft, dreamy music and others the quick tempo of jazz or other dance music.

(Then my correspondent mentioned some reports from some famous psychics and channels .) The first says that it is getting more difficult for him to contact the "other side" because of all the confusion on the globe. He is of course right in that the world is in tumult, the energies of the planet seem to be whirling out of control and the social/ecological devastation is immense. As a highly sensitive psychic, he probably feels these disturbing currents more than most. Indeed, it is very easy to become depressed during this time.

However, I feel that this is the special challenge for all of us--to acknowledge the shadow, but not to be swallowed up by it, to inform ourselves on what is occurring now (totally depressing), but not to become part of the problem. How do we do this? By holding to our divine connection, to allow the bliss of union to enter (in whatever form it takes), to know that the seemingly impossible is in fact totally possible--that no one of us knows the total "game plan," why the world is falling apart and rebuilding all at the same time.

It is our responsibility to find how we can aid in this process of restructuring of consciousness, how we can know love and joy even in the midst of chaos and fear, and then hang on for the ride. This is why we have come here at this time and we are finding one another to give strength and encouragement. Yes, there will be dark moments, but there will also be times when we are bathed in light as we move into the next phase.

The second psychic/channel the writer refers to is a lovely man and his energies are powerful. I have attended one of his workshops and also have some of his C. D.'s, and, frankly, his energies are too strong for me, though I am fascinated by them.

Much of what comes through in his channeled communications is good and persuasive, but personally I do not believe that swine flu is a conspiracy (as some would hold), any more than any other pandemic in history was the result of conspiracy. (such as the Black Plague of the Middle Ages or the Influenza epidemic after World War I). In the world of nature, these things simply happen, though even the medical profession doesn' t always know why.

And, yes, cellular fatigue can be one aspect of personal transformation. Transformation is a tough job--it calls for total restructuring of the entire system, from the cells to the spirit. But it does get easier with time as the system adjusts and moves to new levels.

Namaste to all in transformation (and that includes all of us),
Dorothy


(The picture at the top is from the Hubble site and is called "Tadpole Galaxies." I think that is what we are also--tadpoles transforming into other forms of being--together becoming new galaxies.)