Kundalini

Well...Kundalini can be dangerous. So it's good to talk about that.

Jan Brouwer

Hi all

Prior to my enlightenment I had physical and psychological symptoms that I found to my astonishment exactly written down as it was experienced by me. I found the list on an internet page about Kundalini yoga. http://users.aol.com/ckress/symptoms.html

There is not a symptom on the list that I have not experienced one way or the other.

Apart from a meditation technique with mantra I use the siddhi technique of 'yogic flying' described by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra's. For many years I had the following symptoms which made me often go trough hell, I can assure you. Twice I had a deep Dark Night, once before the unio mystica and lately a second one before realizing the state of non-dual no-self.

I do not like to talk of these experiences. I do not like to talk about myself 'being enlightened' because there is no self anymore and if there is still a little bit left it isn't that interesting.

But I would like to give you the message, that if you are experiencing the following symptoms on your spiritual path, that you do not need to worry. I have gone through all these stages along the via mystica. I can assure you: you are on the road to heaven...

The following are common manifestations of the risen Kundalini:

* Muscle twitches, cramps or spasms.
* Energy rushes or immense electricity circulating the body
* Itching, vibrating, prickling, tingling, stinging or crawling sensations
* Intense heat or cold
* Involuntary bodily movements (occur more often during meditation, rest or sleep): jerking, tremors, shaking; feeling an inner force pushing one into postures or moving one's body in unusual ways. (May be misdiagnosed as epilepsy, restless legs syndrome (RLS), or PLMD.)
* Alterations in eating and sleeping patterns
* Episodes of extreme hyperactivity or, conversely, overwhelming fatigue (some CFS victims are experiencing Kundalini awakening)
* Intensified or diminished sexual desires
* Headaches, pressures within the skull
* Racing heartbeat, pains in the chest
* Digestive system problems
* Numbness or pain in the limbs (particularly the left foot and leg)
* Pains and blockages anywhere; often in the back and neck (Many cases of FMS are Kundalini-related.)
* Emotional outbursts; rapid mood shifts; seemingly unprovoked or excessive episodes of grief, fear, rage, depression
* Spontaneous vocalizations (including laughing and weeping) -- are as unintentional and uncontrollable as hiccoughs
* Hearing an inner sound or sounds, classically described as a flute, drum, waterfall, birds singing, bees buzzing but which may also sound like roaring, whooshing, or thunderous noises or like ringing in the ears.
* Mental confusion; difficulty concentrating
* Altered states of consciousness: heightened awareness; spontaneous trance states; mystical experiences (if the individual's prior belief system is too threatened by these, they can lead to bouts of psychosis or self-grandiosity)
* Heat, strange activity, and/or blissful sensations in the head, particularly in the crown area.
* Ecstasy, bliss and intervals of tremendous joy, love, peace and compassion
* Psychic experiences: extrasensory perception; out-of-body experiences; pastlife memories; astral travel; direct awareness of auras and chakras; contact with spirit guides through inner voices, dreams or visions; healing powers
* Increased creativity: new interests in self-expression and spiritual communication through music, art, poetry, etc.
* Intensified understanding and sensitivity: insight into one's own essence; deeper understanding of spiritual truths; exquisite awareness of one's environment (including "vibes" from others)
* Enlightenment experiences: direct Knowing of a more expansive reality; transcendent awareness .

As you see it all ends with enlightenment......

Archi

from Rob

Hi All!

Yes, and I add the red stripe on the nose, after an outburst of energy in Sushumna. I have them rather often.

Well, I wonder if these symptoms are a good sign...and not a sign of overdoing it. The ego wants progress and succes. The ego wants enlightment, a permanent state of Bliss. And the ego wants to be succesful. So we do often too much. Too much meditating, too much of ...things..... The ego is afraid of not reaching the Ultimate Goal in time. But the goal is no-thing. So how do you want to reach that. That is impossible. Where is our trust in our cause? Can we let it like it is? Being open, being ready for it, and that's it?

Yes, that is all too hard for us. So we go on en then we suffer from symptoms caused by far too much energy in an system that can't handle that much of energy. You can harm yourself with it.

So...beware of kundalini!! Don't experiment with it. You are not in control, Kundalini is it.

Rob

p.s. this is not a commentary on the experiences of Jan!

Hi Rob

I agree with you that we have to be careful and watchful with bringing to life Kundalini energies. In some cases -eg. in the case of organic psychotic disturbed patients or in very imbalanced patients with a bipolar or borderline disorder- it may even be wise to dissuade them to meditate or follow a spiritual path altogether. Or if they do show signs of an emerging spiritual life, to advice them to meditate very sparingly and not to dive too deep into the spiritual world. Or perhaps to spread it out more over the years. For these patients the Kundalini energy can be devastating, you are right.

But more and more the psychiatric world discovers that many symptoms originally labelled as pathological, are in fact Kundalini related. They are the spontaneous symptoms of an emerging spirituality. Many people have gone to hospital with symptoms that were in fact the result of the emergence of these new and with them unknown spiritual energies. They had become panic stricken because these energies were so novel to them. They could not give the right diagnosis to these upheavels in their souls because they lacked a framework of referrence.

I for myself became very terrified and panic stricken when the Snake for the first time got a hold of me. I thought that I had become psychotic and that they had to lock me up in an asylum. Later on I discovered for myself (nobody had told me so, I am completely autodidact in the field of mysticism) that the symptoms of the Kundalini were quite harmless and that the deep depressions and the fits of grief and rage that seized me, passed away of their own accord. For the difference with a true psychosis is that in a Kundalini experience we never lose completely our awareness of our self. Their always remains a still eye in the mids of the cyclone, that keeps us from going really mad. So in the end I learned to lock me up in my room when I had these fits and plug out the telephone. 'Do not call in a doctor', I told myself and my neighbors. The Kundalini will subside after a while.

For in my view the Kundalini energies are purgative energies that are Godsent and serve to purify the nervous system. Kundalini is nothing more than a bit of an old hocus-pocus way of describing an extended working of the parasymphatic nervous system, that part of the nervous system that destresses us and rids the system of its tensions, neuroses and traumata.

Thanks to meditation and the emergence of spirituality (which is besides body related also mind related) this parasymphatic branch becomes (highly) activated. In religious language: God wants us to be pure and whole again. He wants us to be his children. etc.

So I cannot agree with you when you say that it is our ego-self that wants us to be enlightened. In fact it is our ego-self that invents all kinds of pretexts and detours not to become enlightened. For to have the Kundalini Snake purify you is really the hard way, I can assure you. My ego-self wanted to quit this path I've trod a long time ago.But my higher Self (my true spiritual Self) had other plans for me in store. All we have to do, if we want to be happy and peaceful, is to surrender ourselves to this higher force. So when we are truly 'being open, being ready for it' (as you write) then the Snake will be suscitated. There is no stopping Him. Isn't that very beautiful? Tears of ecstasy now are running over my cheaks .... There is no stopping Him....

For the emergence of the Snake is something that is going to happen one way or the other. Sometimes if you like it or not. Prepare yourself for it. For it is your natural growth. But if the Snake seizes you from below, always look above. Then you will also a White Dove descending from heavens. For it is the Holy Spirit that will guide you through these ordeals. In the end ..... Welll, this is something we have to find out for ourselves.

A very astute explanation of Kundalini on a Dutch site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~robvd/kundalini/

based on the book:
Spiritual Emergence: when personal transformation becomes a crisis.
ed. Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof

Warm greetings!

Jan

Hi Jan!

Well if you are sure that you didn't press your spiritual development (I did, to be honest) than it is as you say. That you have to take the consequences of that what is happening all by itself.

But I warn the readers that they have to be extremely careful with kundalini. I'm not the only one.........

According to renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung:

"One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way. It is a meddling with Fate, which strikes at the very roots of human existence and can let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed. These sufferings correspond to the hellish torments of the chönyid state..."

C. G. Jung, The Tibetan book of the Dead *

Well, when you have read it all, you will understand that it is not a cardgame....

Rob

Links Outlining the Dangers of Yoga, Kundalini, and Transcendental Meditation

New Age and Eastern Religious sites:

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS of KUNDALINI Awakening from the "Shared Transformation" website. This website article was the first to make me aware of the nature of my experiences after four weeks of living hell. However, many of my more subtle symptoms started several years earlier.

Kundalini Complications page from the " Kundalini Survival & Support" website.

Arild's experience with Kundalini and Transcendental Meditation from the Swedish Kundalini Information & Kundalini Network page. Arild's awakening has continued for 17 years and he has been hospitalized 26 times!

Kundalini Warning! Investigation and Diagnosis of 76 Cases of Kundalini Arousal. from the Kundalini Information & Network page. This is an eye opening summary account of the many dreadful experiences people have had. Please notice how ill-informed the yoga and meditation teachers are of the effects of this process. If you think it can't happen to you, think again. These are not cheap thrills if you consider potential brain damage, hormonal and other physical changes as well as all the psycho-spiritual effects.

Public letter to Mr. Deepak Chopra A public dialogue on the dangers of Kundalini between Marja Savola, the creator of the Kundalini Information and Network website, and Deepak Chopra.