How to Work With Kundalini Energy – Part 1

HJ:  Anyone who has spent any time researching and studying Kundalini energy tends to become enamored with the quest to access and kindle it within themselves.  This elusive, mysterious life force seems to be the holy grail of spiritual experiences.  This concept is wildly propagated by many ancient texts and modern treatises on the subject.  We are essentially told that to awaken the Kundalini is to achieve enlightenment.  While the Kundalini energy is definitely powerful and transformative, it has been my experience that it does not itself produce enlightenment.  Like many of you, when I first began to learn about the Kundalini energy, I became immediately preoccupied with trying to awaken and stimulate it, and spent many years doing so.  After finally having multiple Kundalini experiences, I hope to shed some light on the experience in order to give it context and cut through some of the hype that currently surrounds it.

First, I would like to say that the Kundalini does not itself cause enlightenment or spiritual advancement, rather, it is merely a symptom/manifestation of  the spiritual awakening process.  Having a kundalini experience is a sign that you are indeed clearing out energetic blockages and making progress spiritually.  In order to have a Kundalini experience, you must be ready at some level for the experience, and this does not happen haphazardly.  You my have set the stage for the experience in this or previous lifetimes.

Second, I would like to say that the Kundalini energy is an activating energy, meaning that it can activate higher spiritual abilities and powers, but again it is not the cause of them.  If you can imagine, the Kundalini energy is like electricity.  Electricity makes the lightbulb work, but it does not create the lightbulb.  We all have the capacity to access higher spiritual abilities and powers — the Kundalini is simply a source of energy that helps us ‘turn them on’.

Third, I have personally found that the biggest barrier to activating the kundalini energy is energetic blockages in the body, primarily at the Chakras, although not limited to them.  In fact, many people mistake the experience of having a chakra open after years of dormancy for a kundalini experience.  They are similar in many ways and both intensely powerful, but definitely different.

This article does a great job of explaining many of the foundational concepts relating to Kundalini, so I wont belabor them to much more at this point.  However, I will recommend a book for those interested in further study and practices to prepare the chakras and awaken the Kundalini energy.

The book is:

Kundalini Tantra by Swami Satyananda Saraswati and it comes with my highest recommendation.

– Truth

From Wingmakers.co.nz

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What is kundalini Energy

The Kundalini is often described as a female serpent coiled 3 and 1/2 times at the base of your spine…sleeping away. It’s a bit bizarre that such a divine being would be taking a nap at the base of your spine, yet she truly contains the most awesome power you can imagine in the Universe. Your Kundalini will sleep here until our bodymind is fully awakened to living 24-7 as the divine all-powerful God-being we truly are. This is called Samadhi. When we awaken her infinite Shakti power for the first time, we receive a spiritually enlightening experience (Satori) that can last for days. We then realize who we are is something much bigger than before. We see we are this energy, enthusiasm, inspiration and begin to realize we are responsible for the divine creation of our life exactly the way it is.

Kundalini is the supreme cosmic enlightening energy, that resides inside us, deep at the core of our being. Kundalini is the most powerful force in the Universe, and brings enlightenment to our world. Your Kundalini awakens the manifesting being in your life! Anything you wish to manifest is possible with an awakened Kundalini.

If we stay stuck in a life we are not excited about or love, the Kundalini snoozes away, patiently waiting for us to become totally conscious and realize that we are NOT just this ego-mind who is identifying with thoughts while feeling trapped in a body. In fact, the very moment we slow down and stop living in our busy heads filled with ideas of our past and future, she begins to rise up our spine and lets us know WE are this awakeness itself.

All our hidden Siddhi powers come from an awakened Kundalini. Examples of the Siddhi powers are supernatural abilities of strength, sight, hearing, levitation, bi-location, instant manifestations, etc… Basically anything you can imagine beyond the everyday world is possible when your Kundalini is awakened. The Siddhi powers are our natural abilities, yet through societal conditioning they have been suppressed and we have been programmed to believe they are malicious or wrong. They are as natural as the warmth from the sun above.

Kundalini and Chakras

The chakras are any of the nerve plexes or centers of force and consciousness located within the inner bodies of man. In the physical body there are corresponding nerve plexuses, ganglia and glands.
The seven principal chakras can be seen psychically as colorful, multi-petaled wheels or lotuses. They are situated along the spinal cord from the base to the cranial chamber.

Additionally, seven chakras, barely visible, exist below the spine. They are seats of instinctive consciousness, the origin of jealousy, hatred, envy, guilt, sorrow, etc. They constitute the lower or hellish world, called Naraka or patala. Thus, there are 14 major chakras in all.

The seven upper chakras, from lowest to highest

Base Chakra / muladhara chakra (base of spine): memory, time and space;
Sacral Chakra / svadhishthana chakra (below navel): reason;
Solar plexus/ manipura chakra (solar plexus): willpower;
Heart Chakra / anahata chakra (heart center): direct cognition;
Throat Chakra / vishuddha chakra (throat): divine love;
Minds Eye / ajna chakra (third eye): divine sight;
Crown Chakra / sahasrara chakra (crown of head): illumination, Godliness.

The seven lower chakras, from highest to lowest

Atala Chakra (hips): fear and lust;
Vitala Chakra (thighs): raging anger;
Sutala Chakra (knees): retaliatory jealousy;
Talatala Chakra (calves): prolonged mental confusion;
Rasatala Chakra (ankles): selfishness;
Mahatala Chakra (feet): absence of conscience;
Patala Chakra (located in the soles of the feet): murder and malice.

Kundalini and Nadis

Nadis are the astral tubes made up of astral matter that carry psychic currents. It is through these Nadis (Sukshma, subtle passages), that the vital force or Pranic current moves or flows.

Kundalini when awakened, will pass through Sushumna Nadi and this is possible only when the Nadis are pure. Therefore, the first step in Kundalini Yoga is the purification of Nadis. A detailed knowledge of the Nadis and Chakras, is absolutely essential. Their location, functions, nature, etc., should be thoroughly studied.

The Channels Of Energy

Pingala Nadi

The right channel (“Pingala Nadi” in Sanskrit) is also called the Sun Channel. It begins at the Swadisthan Chakra (2nd center) and travels up the right side. It crosses over to the left temple (ego) at the Agnya Chakra. It provides the conduit for our active energy. This energy is comprised of our mental and physical activities.

When the demand for energy on this side is too great, the left side is weakened; the desire to have joy of the Spirit evaporates. When the right side dominates, the personality becomes very dry and aggressive. Excess pressure shoots up into the left temple and into the ego, causing it to inflate into a balloon that blocks the central channel.

The entire system is thrown off balance. Blinded by ego, sensitivity to our own emotions is diminished.

Decisions and actions are taken that dominate or disrupt the lives of others with a firm belief that they are necessary and logical. Taken to this extreme, right-sided behavior leads to heart disease.

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The high-tech, high-powered, “fast-track” environments of the Western world’s cities and suburbs are generating predominantly right-sided citizens. It is difficult to maintain equilibrium between emotions and action when work, school, and shopping environments are aggressive and stressful.

It is difficult to maintain a peaceful home where the imbalances and negativities can be corrected and purified. Instead, most of us go back to work or school with the accumulated negativities of the past clinging to our systems.

Sahaja Yoga practices are effective at removing negativity and balancing the chakras and channels. Using simple meditation and techniques such as footsoaking, lying on the ground, sweeping the aura, and shoebeating, you can begin each day with joy from the open chakras and energetic power from a balanced system. You can revitalize yourself and the relationships around you simply by working on yourself from the inside out.

The state of the right channel is felt on the right side of the body. In the beginning, it is most easily felt on the right palm.

Ida Nadi

The left channel (“Ida Nadi” in Sanskrit) is also called the Moon Channel. It begins at the Mooladhara (1st chakra) and runs up the left side, crossing over at the Agnya Chakra (6th center) into the temple and superego on the right side of the brain. It provides the conduit for the energy of our desire.

From these desires or wishes, our emotions are triggered. Emotions are actually desires that have not yet materialized. These desires and the attendant feelings about them travel through this left channel to the appropriate places in the body to bring about the actions of fulfillment. Our desires are essential for action. Without their impetus we would have nothing to act upon.

The greatest quality of the left side is to provide joy which is the steady condition of the Spirit. You may remember having this joy as a child, or you may have observed it in small two- or three-year-old children. They usually wake up in the morning happy. While they may experience physical and emotional pain once in a while throughout their day, they do not cling to it with memory. Rather, they cry, recover, and resume the steady state of joy.

The desire for this joy is still alive inside us the same as it was when we were infants. It may be blocked or covered with “tarnish” from emotional or physical injuries experienced in living life. Before Sahaja Yoga, we did not have effective techniques for clearing away the hurts and blows that are normal in living active life. The practice of Sahaja Yoga helps us remove those old tensions and recover that joy as a steady state of being.

Problems of the left side tend to result in passivity or emotional extremism whereby we are thrown between elation and depression. With this type of imbalance, self-discipline becomes difficult and bad habits become hard to correct. In the worst case, we become lethargic and self-obsessed. Because this channel feeds also into the skull area, pressure on the brain becomes excessive. This cycle is what causes such problems as mental breakdown, epilepsy, and senility (decay of the brain).

The state of the left channel is felt on the left side of the body. In the beginning it is most easily felt on the left palm.

Sushumna Nadi

The central channel (“Sushumna Nadi” in Sanskrit) is also called the Middle Path. It begins at the place where the Kundalini resides and passes straight up the spine to the highest charka (the 7th or Sahasrara Chakra).

As the conduit for the parasympathetic nervous system, the central channel coordinates our involuntary or autonomic nervous system activities. We do not have conscious control over these activities.

Our heart beats, our lungs breathe, our blood system manufactures plasma, our brain centralizes and coordinates communication, our mind performs “word processing”… all of these incredible functions, and more, operate more powerfully than forty billion computers.

These operations are performed regardless of where our attention is focused. They seem to have no need for our conscious control. Yet, miraculously, the involuntary activities of our body function according to an organized operating plan with such complex interactions, syntheses, and communications that our deepest medical scientific research, which is now even probing into the DNA, recognizes that still we have only revealed the tip of the iceberg.

We have discovered that the human system is so vast and so ingenious that even to get some type of rudimentary understanding of it requires recognition of our ignorance of it. We are at a new frontier. This is what Sahaja Yoga is about.

The activities that take place through the parasympathetic system are spontaneous happenings. They happen naturally, without our doing anything. The rising of the Kundalini and her work, as well as all spiritual activities, are spontaneous. Hence the term Sahaja was selected to label this type of yoga because it means spontaneous. The implication of the parasympathetic nature of the Middle Path is that the rise of the Kundalini is totally beyond our own volition or control. This is why in actuality Shri Mataji acts as a catalyst.

Once our Kundalini has been awakened and has traveled through this central channel and out the top of the head, we can begin to become aware of the vast internal galaxy of our subtle system. This initial “enlightenment” or realization is only the beginning of our greatest adventure.ns at the Swadisthan Chakra (2nd center) and travels up the right side. It crosses over to the left temple (ego) at the Agnya Chakra. It provides the conduit for our active energy. This energy is comprised of our mental and physical activities.

When the demand for energy on this side is too great, the left side is weakened; the desire to have joy of the Spirit evaporates. When the right side dominates, the personality becomes very dry and aggressive. Excess pressure shoots up into the left temple and into the ego, causing it to inflate into a balloon that blocks the central channel.

The entire system is thrown off balance. Blinded by ego, sensitivity to our own emotions is diminished. Decisions and actions are taken that dominate or disrupt the lives of others with a firm belief that they are necessary and logical. Taken to this extreme, right-sided behavior leads to heart disease.

The high-tech, high-powered, “fast-track” environments of the Western world’s cities and suburbs are generating predominantly right-sided citizens. It is difficult to maintain equilibrium between emotions and action when work, school, and shopping environments are aggressive and stressful. It is difficult to maintain a peaceful home where the imbalances and negativities can be corrected and purified. Instead, most of us go back to work or school with the accumulated negativities of the past clinging to our systems.

Sahaja Yoga practices are effective at removing negativity and balancing the chakras and channels. Using simple meditation and techniques such as footsoaking, lying on the ground, sweeping the aura, and shoebeating, you can begin each day with joy from the open chakras and energetic power from a balanced system. You can revitalize yourself and the relationships around you simply by working on yourself from the inside out.

The state of the right channel is felt on the right side of the body. In the beginning, it is most easily felt on the right palm.

There are the two nerve-currents one on either side of the spinal column. The left one is called Ida and the right is known as Pingala. These are Nadis. Tentatively, some take these as the right and the left sympathetic cords, but they are subtle tubes that carry Prana. The Moon moves in the Ida and the Sun in the Pingala. Ida is cooling. Pingala is heating. Ida flows through the left nostril and the Pingala through the right nostril.

Do acts resulting in the attainment of phychic powers, Yoga, Meditation, etc.,during the flow of the sushunmna. If the breath rises by ida(moon) at sunrise and flows throughout the day, And Pingala(sun) rises at sunset and flows throughout the night it confers considerable good results. Let the breath flow through Ida the whole day and through Pingala the whole night. Who ever practises this is really a great Yogi.

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Read Part 2 of the Series Here:  How to Work With Kundalini Energy – Part 2: Practices and Methods