March 6, 2019
What is kundalini awakening?
In the Indian spiritual traditions of Yoga and Tantra, sudden energetic awakenings are depicted as kundalini awakening. Kundalini—derived from the Sanskrit word kunda, meaning “to coil” or “to spiral”—is an intense and explosive form of energy that lies dormant in the first and lowest of the seven chakras (or energy centres), the muladhara. When this energy travels up to the highest chakra, near the crown of the head, it results in spiritual awakening.
Many contemporary spiritual researchers and transpersonal psychologists have studied the phenomenon of kundalini awakening, mainly focusing on the negative effects that occur when kundalini rises suddenly and dramatically.
According to the researcher Bruce Greyson, for example, this can cause major disruptions to psychological functioning that resemble psychiatric disorders and often result in a misdiagnosis of mental illness. Other researchers note that it can also cause physical problems, including involuntary spasms and vibrations, burning or itching sensations and lethargy. People may hear voices, see visions of light and have psychic experiences.
Interestingly, traditional Indian texts devote very little attention to these problems. At most, they hint at the potential volatility of the energy, describing it as “a ring of lightning, folds of flaming fire”[Jnaneshvar, 1986, p. 130] or as “fiery energy” that releases “dazzling sparks.” [In Silburn, 1988, p. 42]
The Vijnanabhairavatantra, a Tantric text, describes how depression and fatigue can occur if kundalini energy happens to move back down through the chakras instead of rising up. This text also mentions that if the yogi hasn’t entirely transcended their sense of identification with the body, they may experience uncontrollable trembling.
Presumably, the reason why these texts don’t explore the difficulties of kundalini awakening is because the awakening process occurred in the controlled context of monastic and spiritual traditions, under the supervision of gurus, with a great deal of understanding and preparation. Under these circumstances, such difficulties are probably less likely to occur.
This highlights the point I’ve already made: awakening is much more likely to be disruptive when a person isn’t prepared for it and doesn’t have a framework to make sense of it, and also when it occurs in a non-supportive environment.
Cases of energetic awakening from my research
Energetic awakenings—or kundalini awakenings—are common, although not as common as awakenings through ego-dissolution. In my Ph.D. research, for example, I found five clear cases of energetic kundalini-like awakenings out of 25, as well as two other possible ones.
Like most other cases of sudden awakening, the cases I investigated were mainly triggered by intense psychological turmoil, with the slight difference that they were more likely to be triggered by intense stress (often manifesting as sleeplessness) rather than through factors such as failure or loss.
Kimberley’s awakening
Kimberley, a case from my Ph.D. research, experienced awakening through explosive energy release shortly after the death of her mother.
One morning, while lying in bed, she sensed her mother’s presence and suddenly felt she couldn’t move her body or open her eyes. She felt heat and bright light around her body and felt frightened but somehow reassured at the same time.
Over the next few days, she had a feeling of “energy rising through my body with a loud screeching sound.” At night, when she closed her eyes, she saw visions of colours and symbols, and “random information at a very, very high speed, like a slideshow, showing frames throughout human history.” During her waking hours, she was acutely sensitive to other people; she was able to sense their feelings and thoughts and see colours around them.
Kimberley had no knowledge of spirituality or esoteric ideas and so struggled to make sense of her experiences. She suspected that she’d “gone mad,” even though she was sure that her experiences were real and that she’d entered a heightened reality rather than a hallucinatory one.
For several weeks, she was unable to work or function in everyday life. She was diagnosed with depression and found it difficult to sleep. She had problems focusing her attention and holding onto information with her mind. Sensing that conventional medicine couldn’t help her, she turned to
alternative therapies, which she felt helped to integrate her new state of being.
Overall, it “took two to three years to feel stable and finally understand what was happening.” Now that this integration has taken place, she describes her normal state as featuring a constant psychic and spiritual awareness:
Once it stabilized I realized I was left with abilities that could help other people. I started to get a sense of what the purpose of it was and what good it could do for others. With enhanced sensory awareness I can read what’s going on with people at the unconscious level, and help make those things conscious and help transform them. There’s an awareness of energy or vibration or consciousness, an ability to read that fundamental level of reality, what’s going on beneath the surface….
There’s also a more expanded awareness and a realization of our context in the universe, an expanded understanding of the journey of the soul and the continuity of consciousness, an understanding that physical life is just one dimension of reality.
I walk between two worlds a lot of the time. I’m learning to enjoy physical reality and family life, and just the simple things in life. That’s become heightened—an appreciation of everyday life. I always had a sense of beauty but it’s become more heightened now. There’s certainly a connection with nature and because of the openings and awareness of energy and vibration, I can certainly delight in nature and feel its forces and its cycles. When that first happened I thought I was losing the plot, when I thought I could almost feel a tree speaking to me, but now I realize I was just picking up on the energy….
What was interesting was that I moved back down to Devon (my hometown) and was fully expecting to walk into the room and for family and friends not to recognize me. I felt so different, like a completely different person, to be honest. All my internal frames of reference have changed. I no longer experience life as a random sequence of disconnected, separate events of which I’m merely a passenger or victim. I experience life as an interconnected co-creative partnership with some kind of intelligent force or ever-present sentiency. I live as a timeless soul enjoying my physical experience. That’s my daily reality.
Simon’s story
As another example, Simon experienced energetic awakening during a very stressful period in which he was forced to do a job that he intensely disliked, and while his wife was undergoing tests for cancer.
He “literally didn’t sleep at all for a week due to worry and stress….(Then) out of nowhere at 5 a.m. one morning I had what I now realize was a sudden uncontrolled kundalini awakening.” There were shooting pains and convulsions of energy going up and down his spine, and he had the experience of regressing to previous lives, and “had the clearest understanding of God and the universe.”
Even though Simon knew almost nothing about spirituality, he, like Kimberley, was sure he was undergoing some form of transformation. But there was no one to give him any guidance. He went to see a doctor, who transferred him to a psychiatric hospital where he was locked up and medicated.
Initially, he went along with the doctors’ diagnosis, believed that he’d gone mad and took all the medication he was given. But after a few months, once his condition began to stabilize, his certainty that he’d undergone some form of positive transformation returned.
He read the work of Eckhart Tolle and other authors (including Waking from Sleep: Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent, which was how he came to make contact with me), which helped him make sense of his new state of being. He began to attend a Sahaja Yoga centre and to realize that he’d undergone a spiritual awakening.
Simon described the changes his awakening brought to him as follows:
I found I wasn’t able to work full-time anymore. I had to work part-time. I was a service manager at BMW car dealers and I just couldn’t do it anymore, physically and mentally. I had a different perspective, a different outlook on life….Now I have lost all material desires. I used to think my life would only be complete if I had a newer, faster motorbike and drove my wife mad for years with impulsive purchases of dozens of different bikes. At the time of my original breakdown I was consumed with having the latest, biggest car and gadgets. This has all dissolved into thin air.
It took several years for Simon to feel that his wakeful state had fully settled and integrated and that the disruptive effects of his sudden transformation had faded away completely. But finally, he began to feel a powerful ongoing sense of contentment and fulfillment, one of the effects of which was a new enjoyment of inactivity and solitude.
He recognizes that this is one of the biggest changes he has undergone: “Now I look forward to nothing better than sitting and meditating in thoughtless awareness….I don’t get bored anymore. I only work two days per week and all I do otherwise is read books, go for walks and meditate. In the past, I couldn’t sit still for five minutes. I had to be doing something or going somewhere. The transition from that to being able to sit and do nothing is massive.
”Eric’s experience
As a final example, Eric experienced an energetic awakening after a Yoga retreat.
He’d suffered from serious psychiatric problems earlier in his life, and shortly after the retreat, he experienced his “first manic episode for 10 years,” probably triggered by the intensive Yoga practice. He had “several experiences where my consciousness seemed to rise suddenly, the energy meridians in my body were energized, and my mind became sharper and clearer.” He was sure he was undergoing a spiritual transformation, but was admitted to a psychiatric ward where the staff was skeptical and hostile.
However, he managed to persuade them to discharge him after a few days, and on the same day, he had a “breakthrough” experience: “My mind was becoming quieter, and at the same time the world was becoming sharper, more real, and the experience was lasting. I went for a swim while my friend taught a class at the gym, and for the first time in my life I experienced myself as consciousness. I went home that night still feeling very clear, and my mind was still quiet.”
This was followed a few weeks later by another shift in consciousness, which led to a stable, ongoing state of wakefulness. This occurred while he was having a shower one morning:
I was in a vibrant dimension of clarity, laughing my head off, absolutely elated. I realized a profound truth, what it meant just to be alive and to be able to have a shower, and have a bed to sleep in and food to eat….I was amazed at the quality of the colour of the sky, it had never looked like that before, and the warmth on my skin, it was like the world had been made anew.
I felt like a new person. The things that used to bother me didn’t anymore. I spend a lot of time in the present now, more than I ever did, and I can quiet my mind easily when I want to. My family has often remarked on my positive changes, and my psychiatrist told me recently that I’m one of the most psychologically healthy people she’s ever met.
Life is simple. And life is precious. All forms of life are sacred. Life is a miracle, and it’s to be enjoyed. Every moment is different; every moment is alive with possibilities. If I was to lose everything tomorrow, I’d be OK. The greatest way I can use my life is to contribute toward the well-being of all forms of life….I spend most of my time in the moment, and in many ways encourage others to do the same. There’s nothing lacking from my present situation. I don’t feel uneasy when I’m lacking direction or stuck. All of the difficult things in my life happened to get me to where I am today—and I’m very happy with who I am and where I am—so I no longer label experiences as good or bad.
Erica Covello Reply
Hello, I went through a kundalini awakening, it was very painful and my insanity was in question. Here is a short story how my life changed, I do not mention the kundalini in my article or describe the three years of pain I went through since not everyone will understand it.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/question-changed-my-life-forever-erica-covello-1/
Eric Reply
I experience intense kundalini awakenings when practicing Vipassana meditation. It is very intense. During periods when I practiced Vipassana meditation a lot, awakenings can happen even during my sleep. I sleep and I can observe the kundalini rising. I don’t know what you mean by ego dissolution but kundalini rising happens when I am aware of my whole body energy instead of form.
Because of this, I have stopped practicing deep Vipassana for extended periods. During the day, I do practice for a few seconds at a time, letting myself go into that state where I feel no specific form but all my body at once. I call it dematerialization when my feeling does not appear to be bound to the limits of my body anymore. I feel safer that way.
Should I practice the Vipassana state and favor that intense kundalini awakening or am I better to keep it at bay?
Thanks for your advice, you can reach me by email if you want.
Pranav Sharma Reply
Kundalini awakening is amongst the most misrepresented concept of present times. At times, paranormal experience are taken as Divine experience. Anything paranormal is not Divine. Kundalini Awakening is a spontaneous process which takes place only in presence of realised soul or the Holy Spirit. It cannot be purchased or sold because it’s truly a divine process.
In the present times, the method to awaken kundalini by masses is available only through Sahaja Yoga which was founded by H H Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, when She opened Her Sahastrar on 5th May 1970. In over 130 countries since then millions have experienced this. UNESCO recognises this as a peace initiative.
It’s a very scientific process and researched globally. On awakening Kundalini one feels cool breeze on his palms and over his head (because all 7 chakras have seat there) and invariably a feeling of Joy, a state of thoughtlessness. Since it’s a free process and available en masse, one can simply visit the website http://www.SahajaYoga.org or http://www.freemeditation.com and experience Self Realisation (Kundalini awakening) sitting at home anytime or any of Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre (free) in various countries.
It’s not a one time activity. It’s a living process hence one needs to practice Sahaja Yoga Meditation everyday (even 5 minutes will do) to keep this awakened and feel the joy of life.
It’s medically researched as well that doing Sahaja Yoga Meditation regularly gives one freedom from stress, many incurable diseases and also personality imbalances.
Jack Reply
I had one in 1992. It was an incredibly stressful time, and I’d been messing with Tarot cards and doing intense meditation on the Green Tara.. I’d also been smoking marijuana.
Suddenly, I felt the energy move up my chakras and the top of my head open (the lotus flower). I felt as though a shaft of white light was coming out the top of my head. At the same time i was aware of all of time – past, present and future – and beliefs I was connected to something truly profound.
As it subsided, I had the sense my heart had been touched by God, and I felt the most amazing sense of peace and calm, as though God had touched my heart. It was then followed by a tsunami of terror in which I felt completely out of control and was losing my mind. At the time I thought I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to have the feelings I was going through.
A few other things happened that are too personal to describe here, but over the coming days and weeks the most profound coincidences kept occurring that spooked me as much as the incident itself. Many, many coincidences that to this day I can’t properly come to terms with.
I should mention that before the event I’d been involved in a car wreck which I’d had a premonition about before it happened. Again, too personal and lengthy a story to talk about here, but awful, profound, and bizarre.
I could write a book about the experience, frankly. It was the most profound of my life, no exaggeration.
Rahul Reply
We live in a time where humanity is collectively at a threshold where it is very easy to experience the awakening of this energy, once considered very difficult to raise. It is because with more and more people getting their self realization the energy field of entire earth is elevated, so someone even just having a strong desire to go deeper know oneself can experience such sudden awakening, it is possible, however important thing is to nurture this connection, sustain it and grow in this new dimension of awareness. For that you need some guidance, a community of fellow realized souls. Sahaja Yoga is such a medium. I have benefitted personally tremendously by practicing Sahaja Yoga meditation. It led to fulfillment of my spiritual seeking through awakening and sustaining of kundalini energy and as a result a growing awareness towards the absolute reality of your pure, peaceful blissful Self shinning as star within all of us. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi a great spiritual Master of our time made it easily possible. Give it a try and see for yourself! It is a gradual process like nature how a flower turns into a fruit. Slowly brain evolves through this energy to sustain higher dimensions of awareness, when done properly it is a very smooth gentle evolutionary process.
