Kundalini Awakening: The Wrong Way… and The Right Way

‘Kundalini’ is one of those Indian words that are now used also more and more in the West, but alas, usually without any real understanding of what they mean.

As it is most often associated in Western psychological parlance with the word ‘syndrome’, indicative essentially of a host of troubles arising together,  the word ‘Kundalini’ itself has become  rather feared by the lay person; if the psychologist they may have rushed to because of some strange symptoms in themselves mutters something about ‘Kundalini’, first of all they may not even remember the exact word they heard, let alone know how to write it, and so a Google search may become difficult to do, and the poor people affected by those mysterious but very real symptoms are left in a limbo of ignorance aggravated by a quite understandable apprehension – plus the physical pain some of their symptoms may cause to them. Anyway, even a Google search would have led them mostly to frightening pseudo-explanations by some psychologists on this topic they don’t really know about. Too many of those  perplexed persons end up believing they must have some serious mental disease – or the doctor they were unlucky enough to consult told them so, and they believed him/her; a good number of the people institutionalized in psychiatric wards may in fact be unfortunate cases of a ‘Kundalini syndrome’ misinterpreted as mental illness and not treated adequately.

So let’s start with some simple information about what is the kundalini and what role it plays normally in our system.

Various kinds of Energy present in the various dimensions of Total Reality enable our entire individual system to function:

Those energies constantly enter and feed our being, each of them through the corresponding ‘door’ (actually rotating wheel, called ‘chakra’ in India) that exists in us for receiving each one of them. For our normal functioning at the present stage of our evolution, the chakras  are hardly open at all, so as to let in, each of them, only a tiny amount of the cosmic energy it is the door to, the equivalent of a low voltage of it, one could say.

A few individuals here or there may have, already from childhood, some of their chakras more open than they normally are, which will give them some extraordinary capacities other people might be scared of, although for themselves it feels normal. But as we develop in consciousness, either spontaneously or as a result of intense specific breathing exercises or meditation practices, or because of a particularly intense emotional crisis, the coiled energy kept normally dormant at the very base of the chakras  (all located along the spine, but not in the physical body, so that they also extend above the head and under the sacrum) may get activated and start ‘awakening’, that is, rising up into all the chakras, opening more fully those ‘doors’ to increased amounts of the various energies, that will then flood our system.

If we are prepared for such a thing to happen, and have already flooded our being with the Peace from the higher spheres of the Total Reality, we will be more able to control and use positively these in-flowing energies and the many new experiences they will bring into our life, attuning us to the spiritual realms within us as well as around us, that we usually are quite unaware of in our presently very limited  consciousness.

But if we are completely ignorant of all this and these major changes happen to our system in an unprepared state, our panic may well make worse whatever problem is alarmingly presenting itself – especially if a whole number of them present themselves together!  So the best is to avoid as much as possible panicking, which only brings more confusion and turmoil at all levels of our being, and list out as precisely as one can the exact new phenomena one experiences at any level of one’s being.

Any major change happening without our wanting it deliberately in our routine way of functioning is usually seen by us as a disturbance, and our very reluctance to accept such a change will tend to prevent us from experiencing the positive and pleasant effects it may otherwise very well bring with it. For, let us remember, the kundalini awakening is as natural a growth process – if not yet as generalized – in us as are the adolescent changes we all have experienced, with their new hormones disturbing for a while the usual balance we were accustomed to in our body, until the changes stabilize into a consistent and enriched new way of functioning.

Of course with this other kind of change that the kundalini rising sparks off, our new way of being may not please the relatives or friends who would prefer that we remain always the same type of person as before. But what better example could we give them that a human being is not meant to remain for ever the same unchanging set of various habits and unchanging behavior?! Constant progress is the real law of life, and the joy of ever growing is what will keep us young and fit beyond the years of normal youth, and truly enjoying Life.

In case of real trouble with your kundalini awakening, common sense itself will dictate to you the best way to deal with the unpleasantness of the transition period: first of all, stop all forms of intense meditation or breathing practices, and let your system assimilate at its own pace the new energies and experiences coming in. This is not the time to get overexcited or start strenuous exercising of any kind. Just rest, and do quiet pleasant things that you genuinely like to do and that will have a relaxing effect on you.

This is not the time either to try and maintain at all cost your usual self-image or impress other people with the various outer skills you may have proudly developed earlier. You are entering a new phase of your life, be ready to let go of some of those previous skills, and see them gradually be replaced by new ones you never even dreamed of. Don’t be too serious, don’t ask too much of yourself, just take care of your overall well being as much as you can, possibly away from most other people, making for yourself the kind of psychological cocoon you need, being actually for a while something like a caterpillar slowly turning into a butterfly.

Cases like your own are steadily becoming more and more numerous, they will soon be common and become ‘the new normality’ (see my older post by that name) as our species in its entirety keeps evolving further. The Western present medical knowledge is not yet familiar with  this kind of inner growth changes and doesn’t yet know how to help those experiencing them, but we can hope that sooner or later they will catch up.

Among the already existing ‘specialists’ of inner growth (called ‘Yoga’ in India), Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s own advice  to make things happen in the smoothest way possible, was to avoid altogether focusing on any of your chakras but the chakra of the Heart: in the same area as the physical heart, but its inner space going invisibly further into our secret depths; it is there that we will come into contact with the inmost part of ourselves, the true core of our being, its very substance made of the loving Light whose unbelievable, ineffable sweetness will heal all our wounds and pains, if we let it.

The only part in us still conscious of being eternal and of being divine, the beloved and loving Child of our all-embracing Divine Father/Mother, it is our best Ally for reconquering fully our divine nature and way of functioning, also in the outer parts of our being – our mind, life-force and physical body. It is that flaming sweet Joy in ourselves that will gradually communicate to all the rest of our being its constant joy of growing and of becoming more and more, in its own unique way, its own infinite divine potential. In its total spontaneous faith in its divine Mother, this Soul in us will make us entrust into Her care our whole evolutive development, For only She, who knows each of us since ever, and much better than we know ourselves, will be capable of seeing what in us is ready and what is not yet, and to organize the circumstances of our life so as to give ample opportunity for the possible progresses to effectively happen, without burning any fuses in our internal wiring. In Her strong and helpful sun-like Presence, our way will become a happy, sunlit path, not only for this Kundalini particular stage of growth, but for all the other aspects of our Integral Development towards that New Step they initiated in terrestrial evolution.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother deeply wished that every human being taking up this evolutive challenge would do so with that simple child-like attitude, and would as a result find themselves blooming as naturally and painlessly as a flower does…  Let’s be that simple, and if it is not our spontaneous way of being, let’s ask inwardly for that childlike simplicity to grow within us, and then even the kundalini rising will happen smoothly for us, at the right time and in the right way! Or if there are negative effects already occurring from some accidental kundalini awakening, they will be considerably lessened, while the positive effects, once acknowledged, will be on the contrary enhanced.

My fraternal best wishes to all of you who may be experiencing such a turning-point in your lives, as I myself did many years ago for those chakras that the Divine Mother saw could already be opened safely, and did it for me in the right way She only knew.

She knows it also for all of us her eternal Children, and will be glad to do it for you too, if only you entrust yourself completely, joyfully and gratefully to Her eternally loving Wisdom…