Kundalini Splendor

Morning Thoughts

Fine silk rather than rough wool.

Birdsong at dawn,
not the trumpet sounding
before the approaching army.

Delicate as raindrops
falling softly on the branches
of the mountain pine,
not the deluge descending in tumult
to swallow the city.

Light playing,
hovering,
over cheek and brow,
against shoulder and breast.
Illumination within
and without.

Who am I now?

Dorothy Walters
March 7, 2010



Tantra is one of the most misunderstood spiritual practices of all. Many assume that it refers exclusively to sexual experience, as a technique used to heighten one's responses during love play. Many workshops purport to teach students how to achieve greater sexual satisfaction through "tantric" exercises. Often these techniques are presented removed from their traditional sacred context.

Now, of course, tantra was sometimes associated with sexual rituals in ancient India and nearby areas (and is sometimes so used today) but Tantra itself has much broader implications.

I think of tantra as anything that enhances and awakens the sacred inner energies, often manifesting as a sweet soft flow of feeling, rather than an intense rush of sensation.

I consider myself a Tantric, in the manner I have often described. I go into my practice without expectation, and frankly, this morning, I did not anticipate anything special, assuming that the "full moon energies" had all played out. But once again, I was surprised with the sweet delicate energy flowing throughout the entire system. even as I bowed before Buddha as I began. Sometimes I moved my hands in small, virtually invisible gestures. Sometimes I seemed to "stroke my aura," by running my hands over my body some 6 or 7 inches away. Each moment carried me into a feeling as of exquisite light illumining the body in a sensuous but extremely subtle way.

Currently, I am especially interested in Kundalini as it plays out over the many years, and how it changes in texture and tone over time. I find it surprising (but gratifying) that it continues, returning again and again even as we advance in age, though in transformed and ever more refined fashion, as the subtle body moves into higher and higher levels of vibration. I do not expect to levitate in this lifetime, but I am gaining an understanding of how this might happen as the light body evolves into its higher stages.

Now there is (for me) less and less reliance on outer symbols, systems of thought, and learned practices. One simply "shows up" and the inner guide does the rest.

And, of course, the practice concludes with prayers for those in need, and with the hope that the beneficent energies that have been aroused will flow outward to the planet, the universe, and to all sentient beings

I think a mind too filled with theory is like a house too full of furniture. We need to strip clean, throw out the excess, and live in extreme simplicity if we want to "know God" (the divine) in her naked form.

(Of course, I am not an established scholar in this area--what I know and what I say comes almost exclusively from my own experience, which I have witnessed and lived through over many years.)