Kundalini Splendor

ations from Unmasking the Rose by Dorothy Walters
December 3, 2009 by charlessides

Unmasking the Rose A Record of Kundalini Initiation by Dorothy Walters

Pp 95-6 We are brought into a deceptive ego/identity so that we may learn what we are not. How do we discover that which we are?

All the world is seeking something it has lost, though most do not even realize what it is they seek. They look to things—gadgets, machines, items—or to superficial human encounters, or pointless occupations, to fill their lack. What they seek is of the spirit, but they, denying spirit, cannot comprehend its absence, or ways to recapture it…

Almost nowhere do they learn that God is Self, spirit in matter, reality in temporality. Nowhere do they find how to be lifted in an absolute sense, to experience actual transcendence.

Pp 154-5 One of the great errors of the spiritual path is to assume there is a goal, an ultimate state to be reached, a final ‘enlightenment.’ For most of us (the few highest beings such as Buddha being exceptions) enlightenment or final realization does not take place—nor should it.

If we were "enlightened"-completely filled with presence, light_we would immerse ourselves continuously in our bliss, letting it waft through us perpetually until we were pure fields of rapture. To experience this, we would need to take leave of this world and exist as mere clouds of joy.

To do what is needed at this time, we must retain our contact with the world of practical reality. We must live in the world, experience its involvements, its drama, its fluctuations of pain alternating with pleasure, in order that we may together move forward in our common progress.

The gurus and swamis who promise enlightenment as a permanent state to be achieved do us a disservice. The aim is to move constantly forward, progressing as our nature permits, in cooperation with universal forces, neither hurrying nor dallying on the path. "The path is the goal." Indeed.

I am indebted for these quotes to Charles Sides, whose blog at http://charlessides.wordpress.com/ offers many well chosen quotes from major writers. I was honored to find some of my words published there, and copied them for this blog, since it is difficult for me to copy text straight from books. Charles is himself a "solitary realizer," who has explore the major issues of spiritual awareness at a deep level. His blog is well worth your time.

Again, the words from "Unmasking the Rose" were written many years ago, but they still express my views. There are many contradictory views by ancient and modern writers about the role of Kundalini in enlightenment. Some insist that Kundalini awakening is essential to enlightenment, others contend just the opposite. Some systems, such as Vipassana, ignore Kundalini entirely (except, perhaps, as a sensation of no greater importance than any other.) Frankly I think if such a practitioner ever felt the full power of major Kundalini awakening, they might change their views, and acknowledge it as a as an event of supreme importance.

I do not know what to say about the Kundalini as a prerequisite for enlightenment, but I would have to confess that once that pivotal event occurs, one indeed feels closer to Source and to an understanding of the relations of self to the ultimate than ever might have been the case previously.