Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Ted TALK
Ted Talks CU
Dorothy Walters––Kundalini as the engine for universal transformation into the New Human
Call it the life force, the God force, the Ultimate Source, the Unfathomable, the Goddess, the Bliss Flow––whatever you name it, it is what keeps us alive, what streams generally unrecognized through our bodies and connects all of humanity and indeed all sentient beings as one essence, manifestations of a single unity, ourselves but infinitesimal components of the unfathomable Mystery. I myself think of it as the Beloved Within: She arrived in her full glory in May, l981.
At the time I was 53 years old and living as a professor of English and Women's Studies in a state university in Kansas. I had of course studied the great canon of western literature through many years of graduate study. I had inbibed the wisdom of such giants as Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, as well as the visionary Yeats and the majestic creations of T. S. Eliot. A colleague and I had published one of the early anthologies of women poets, and we had established one of the very first women's studies in the country in one of the most ultra conservative parts of the nation. I was now the director of this program and a dedicated feminist.
But with all of this background and experience, I was totally unprepared for what followed. I was abruptly claimed and entered by a love force so powerful that my life was changed forever. It was indeed (in the words of Porter) "the moment that changes everything."
What happened to me was a phenomenon well known in what was then often called "the mysterious East." It was an experience pursued by many of those ancient practitioners who often would spend years in preparation, following an austere life of meditation and purification under the supervision of a "guru" who would at the proper moment give them leave to undergo the final moment of "enlightenment." The means by which this momentous transition could be achieved was the arousal of "Kundalini," an internal energy virtually unknown in the West at the time.
I myself had barely heard of this mysterious energy called Kundalini. I knew virtually nothing of eastern practices. I had never done yoga and indeed did not know anyone who had, for at that time there were no yoga centers on every corner such as it seems today. I had never meditated: it too was a technique almost unknown to most of us at the time. I knew nothing of the "subtle body" and in fact had never had a massage. There were no gurus or knowledgable teachers where I lived, and the internet did not exist. I knew of one women who was a vegetarian and that was about the extent of my knowledge of the New Consciousness that was to stream into western awareness in the coming years.
Thus, without teacher or guidebook, I was catapulted suddenly into a new state of being, a love force so strong that it changed my life forever.
It happened in Kansas in 1981, when I was 53 years old. One morning as I was reading a book that mentioned Kundalini I became convinced that I could raise this mysterious energy up my spine as the ancients had done. I concentrated on opening the lower chakras and then began to breathe very deeply and concentrated on bringing the energies up.
What follows is the story of how this state of rapture unfolded over time as well as reflections on the process that I was attempting to comprehend. Since I had no external guide, I relied instead on the "guru within," the teacher ever available for all who call on its powers. For some fifteen years I relied on this inner teacher to lead me ahead, as I became a solitary practitioner, undergoing years of refinement, challenge and joy as my life was transformed at every level and dimension. My inner guide was always without name or form, so I called her the Beloved Within and indeed, love itself was the power that led me forward into realms undreamed of and feelings not describable in words.
I did not know it, but I was a "seed" sent early to lead others through the powerful transfiguration that was to occur word wide in the years to come. Mine was not an easy task, but I managed to survive the many challenges and exaltations along the way and live to tell the tale.
Briefly, my awakening occurred as an abrupt, virtually spontaneous introduction into ecstasy, the signature of Kundalini when it is in proper alignment. Such ecstatic states continued to visit me thereafter, at first intense and nearly overwhelming, later softening into a more subtle and refined and indeed higher vibration. I was led to the writing of spiritual poetry and now have published several volumes of verse. I also counsel those undergoing similar transformations of consciousness, at no cost to them.
We are now as a species undergoing massive transition into the New Human. I feel that if what happened to me in the place (Kansas) and in the circumstances it did, then anything can happen to any one anytime at any place. Global transformation into an evolved consciousness is possible. I am living proof of that. I am almost 90 years old and in excellent health.
Dorothy Walters––Kundalini as the engine for universal transformation into the New Human
Call it the life force, the God force, the Ultimate Source, the Unfathomable, the Goddess, the Bliss Flow––whatever you name it, it is what keeps us alive, what streams generally unrecognized through our bodies and connects all of humanity and indeed all sentient beings as one essence, manifestations of a single unity, ourselves but infinitesimal components of the unfathomable Mystery. I myself think of it as the Beloved Within: She arrived in her full glory in May, l981.
At the time I was 53 years old and living as a professor of English and Women's Studies in a state university in Kansas. I had of course studied the great canon of western literature through many years of graduate study. I had inbibed the wisdom of such giants as Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, as well as the visionary Yeats and the majestic creations of T. S. Eliot. A colleague and I had published one of the early anthologies of women poets, and we had established one of the very first women's studies in the country in one of the most ultra conservative parts of the nation. I was now the director of this program and a dedicated feminist.
But with all of this background and experience, I was totally unprepared for what followed. I was abruptly claimed and entered by a love force so powerful that my life was changed forever. It was indeed (in the words of Porter) "the moment that changes everything."
What happened to me was a phenomenon well known in what was then often called "the mysterious East." It was an experience pursued by many of those ancient practitioners who often would spend years in preparation, following an austere life of meditation and purification under the supervision of a "guru" who would at the proper moment give them leave to undergo the final moment of "enlightenment." The means by which this momentous transition could be achieved was the arousal of "Kundalini," an internal energy virtually unknown in the West at the time.
I myself had barely heard of this mysterious energy called Kundalini. I knew virtually nothing of eastern practices. I had never done yoga and indeed did not know anyone who had, for at that time there were no yoga centers on every corner such as it seems today. I had never meditated: it too was a technique almost unknown to most of us at the time. I knew nothing of the "subtle body" and in fact had never had a massage. There were no gurus or knowledgable teachers where I lived, and the internet did not exist. I knew of one women who was a vegetarian and that was about the extent of my knowledge of the New Consciousness that was to stream into western awareness in the coming years.
Thus, without teacher or guidebook, I was catapulted suddenly into a new state of being, a love force so strong that it changed my life forever.
It happened in Kansas in 1981, when I was 53 years old. One morning as I was reading a book that mentioned Kundalini I became convinced that I could raise this mysterious energy up my spine as the ancients had done. I concentrated on opening the lower chakras and then began to breathe very deeply and concentrated on bringing the energies up.
What follows is the story of how this state of rapture unfolded over time as well as reflections on the process that I was attempting to comprehend. Since I had no external guide, I relied instead on the "guru within," the teacher ever available for all who call on its powers. For some fifteen years I relied on this inner teacher to lead me ahead, as I became a solitary practitioner, undergoing years of refinement, challenge and joy as my life was transformed at every level and dimension. My inner guide was always without name or form, so I called her the Beloved Within and indeed, love itself was the power that led me forward into realms undreamed of and feelings not describable in words.
I did not know it, but I was a "seed" sent early to lead others through the powerful transfiguration that was to occur word wide in the years to come. Mine was not an easy task, but I managed to survive the many challenges and exaltations along the way and live to tell the tale.
Briefly, my awakening occurred as an abrupt, virtually spontaneous introduction into ecstasy, the signature of Kundalini when it is in proper alignment. Such ecstatic states continued to visit me thereafter, at first intense and nearly overwhelming, later softening into a more subtle and refined and indeed higher vibration. I was led to the writing of spiritual poetry and now have published several volumes of verse. I also counsel those undergoing similar transformations of consciousness, at no cost to them.
We are now as a species undergoing massive transition into the New Human. I feel that if what happened to me in the place (Kansas) and in the circumstances it did, then anything can happen to any one anytime at any place. Global transformation into an evolved consciousness is possible. I am living proof of that. I am almost 90 years old and in excellent health.
