Musings about Kundalini

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Musings on Kundalini/ki

This is not meant to be exhaustive. It is written essentially off the top of my head. For more information, try Wikipedia or Google specific terms.

Part 1 – The Basics

Both Indian and Chinese thought accepts the concept of energy flowing through the body via “channels,” though they are viewed somewhat differently.1 In India, this energy is called prana, in China, ki (chi). It is my belief that both cultures are dealing with the same thing under different names.

I will use generic terms for specific chakras for clarity, though I will give the Sanskrit names once.
For some things there are no English equivalents.

According to Indian thought, prana is an energy which flows throughout the body by way of "channels (nadis),"2 which run throughout the body. There are three major nadis, the ida, pingala, and shushumna, and it is said, 72,000 lesser nadis. I have no intention of counting them, myself. The shushumna is the central channel running inside or with the spinal cord. It runs from the base chakra (muladhara) to the crown chakra (sahasrara). It is described as threadlike and can be pictured as a straight thread from base chakra to the top of the head. The Ida, on the left, begins at the base chakra and twines upward, passing through each chakra to the brow chakra (ajna). The pingala, on the right, also twines through each chakra and ends in the brow chakra. The ida and pingala also pass close to the nostrils, and can be stimulated by an exercise called pranayama.3

It is generally held that there are seven major chakras. They are, from lowest upward, the base chakra, located between the perineum and the sexual organs (about 2-3 inches in front of the anus), and associated with “I am-ness”, or the drive to be or live; the sacral chakra (Svadhishthana), located in the sacrum, and associated with reproduction and creativity; the Solar plexus chakra (Manipura), located about two inches above the navel, the will, personal power; heart chakra (Anahata), associated with compassion and love; throat chakra (Vishudda), communiation and expression; brow or third eye (ajna) chakra, intuition and understanding. Each of the chakras has a different color represented by the spectrum of visible light, the base chakra being red and the brow chakra being violet or purple. The crown chakra is white, the sum of all colors.

1 Indian philosophy, especially yoga, is concerned with achieving enlightenment, and control of prana is part of achieving this, while the Chinese look at ki as energy that controls health. Nontheless, the Chinese certainly had a knowledge of other esoteric effects, as well as the astral body, as shown by a painting of an emperor or ranking official sitting in elaborate robes and his astral body floating over him, represented by a smaller version of him.

2 A word on channels: Skeptics have pointed out that anatomists have not identified any physical structures which could serve as these channels. It has been hypothesized that there are intracellular materials that, while not forming visible structures, allow energy to flow through them and form subtle routes for this energy. My opinion is that early practitioners noted that these energies travelled by definite paths and used the word channel to describe this path thinking that this energy must be contained as it travelled through the body.

3 Pranayama consists of alternately closing each nostril while breathing through the other.

Part 2

Over thirty-five years ago, I had taken up the path of Eastern meditation. In addition to meditating, I was reading multiple books on meditation and related subjects, and it was natural that I was curious about some of the experiences I was having. That led to chasing kundalini, this curious energy that seemed to promise so much.

I’ll stop here to say that I did not achieve great results in a few weeks. It took months of hard, comnsistent work, perhaps as much as a year or more, I really don’t know. I went to work, came home and sat in my chair and meditated and exercised my chakras. Calendars were not part of my life at this time.

How do you exercise your chakras? Here’s my favorite method. Sit quietly. I used a meditation pose because it was comfortable for me. A straight back is good. Relax. Breathe slowly. Put yourself in a light trance. Pay attention to a chakra. Does it get warm? Good. Put your attention on another. Satisfy yourself that you know what your chakras feel like. Now concentrate on the base chakra for a while. Feel it. If you get a feeling of warmth or energy rising, let it. Don’t try to control it, just feel it. You may feel it inside, on your front, or on your back. Keep your mind quiet. If you don’t feel energy rising, just go to the next chakra and concentrate on it for a minute or so, then the next. You may feel energy running; you may feel nothing. Don’t worry about it. Eventually you’ll be able to open your chakras more than they were before

An ancient exercise is to feel the energy in the base chakra and direct it up the spine, over the head, and down over the chakras, brow, throat, heart, navel, sacral, and back to the base and so on. This will often have the effect of encouraging chakras to open.

Note: it’s not at all unusual to have your muscles jerk or your body to rock slightly. Let it happen. You’re body is releasing tensions. Go with it.

I recall that while working on my sacral chakra, I was running energy from my base chakra to the sacral chakra. It was not passing through, and felt as if it were collecting energy, sort of like a balloon being blown up. I sat like that, concentrating on the sacral chakra for a while, and suddenly I felt as if my sacral chakra were a small, filled balloon that started to release its contents in spurts, pulsing out energy up my spine.

In the old treatises, students are warned that there are three blocks (granthis). These are in the spine, the first at the base of the spine, another at he level of the heart, and the third one in the head at the level of the brow chakra. My take on the third one is that when it dissolves, the crown chakra opens. These really are blockages and you want to dissolve them, not push through them. I speak from experience. I believe the first one is passed when the kundalini starts to flow upward, or it allows the kundalini to flow upward. Eventually you may feel your energy running up your spine and stopping at the second one. Let it rest there; hold it there. Don’t force it or you will experience excruciating pain. Truly. When I first got past it, I forced it and it hurt like hell. I heard an interior sound that reminded me of forcing a fluid through a very small apperture. Let it happen at its own speed.

You will experience emotional reactions as you pursue this. Your experience and beliefs and their associated emotions have to be dealt with. It may take a while to get past one thing. As you reconcile yourself with an issue, the energy will flow upward. Sometimes you will need a break of several days or more to get to the point where you’re ready to try again. Often you will raise the kundalini and it will descend when your practice is over. If you keep at it, eventually it will rise and stay there.

So what’s the point?
When the kundalini has risen, your energy level will be elevated. You will understand things from a different perspective. It’s difficult for me to explain, but in many ways you will be a different person, with abilities you may not have thought of before. A piddling example: On one occasion, in an effort to explain the concept of personal energy to a co-worker, I had him stand facing away from me. I rubbed my hands vigorously to stimulate them, then started to run energy through them. Raising my hands toward his back I moved my hands in an effort to “hook” onto his enegy field. After a few passes I thought I had him and began pulling back. After several attempts he appeared to lose his balance and fell back, catching himself. His eyes were pretty big as he looked at me. He would never let me try that again.

In addition to books on the subject, there are web pages galore. Every one seems to be coming from a different viewpoint or “school.” Some are downright weird. My advice is to concentrate on the basics and ignore the trappings. And remember, practice and patience.

How does this relate to Seth’s teachings? It all comes down to beliefs and internal conflicts. I believe you could do this all by dealing with beliefs. Have you ever been working on beliefs and had a revelation? One of those moments where you realize how wrong you’ve been? Reached a new understanding? It’s things like that that open the chakras and the blockages.

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I tried the Vedic approach and that of the world’s greatest medical intuitive, Caroline Myss–she delineates different qualities associated with the first two chakras. Hers resonated with me and I find them richer, symbolically–which gives me a a more detailed message when I get feedback from my body or through dreams. Her book, “Anatomy of the Spirit” is superb. Myss was tested medically and had a 100% accuracy with medical diagnoses (only one case where she didn’t score 100% but I think she was right and the doctor was interpreted the medical symptom in a distorted fashion as a result of the medical belief system).

Science still hides secrets from itself–in the 1970s, a radio-isotope was injected at acupuncture points–it travelled along the non–physical meridian path–through physical structures! Also, if you take a simple galvanic meter, you can find all the acupuncture points (Meridian points) on the body.

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I know people who can’t read Seth. It’s actually hard for them to do it. I seem to have the same problem with Myss. I pulled my copy of Anatomy of the Spirit and have been looking at it, wondering why it didn’t make an impression on me despite the fact that there’s good information in it. I finally realized that it seems a thin stew, mostly broth with a little meat. Thank goodness there are many teachers.

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I had read the first book which is where she is tested medically, half of the book, and her understandings of what was happening when she did medical intuitive work and her evolving understanding as she saw patterns with people with the same medical problem having the same emotional problems, etc.

Considering she is the the most accurate and tested medical intuitive on the planet, I think it is not thin broth at all when you are familiar with the evidentiary underpinnings–the first two books in fact.

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anon38262219, I hoped my first three sentences would make it clear that my comments were meant to state that while Myss is someone you resonate with, I don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I take after my dad. He didn’t like to take a lot of time to get to the point. He didn’t want to read a report more than a page long. When asked by a minister why he didn’t go to church, he replied that he couldn’t listen to someone who repeats himself. Get to the point and stop. My problem with Myss is the result of a standard writing approach and could be the result of her editor telling her to use it. She makes me wade through a lot of history before she gets to her point. It’s just not a style I enjoy reading.

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Question: All the sources state that the sacral chakra is seen as an orange ball. However, Whenever I concentrate on mine and run energy through it, I see it as blue. I always have. I’ve learned to think of it as orange, but as I start to envision it, it’s always blue. Blue is, of course, the compliment of orange. Does anyone have any idea about this? I’ve never seen anything about this before.

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thank you, CeC! your post got me to read about chakras & begin to try some exercises

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I had a spontaneous Kundalini awakening when I was around 28 years old. I woke up around three o’clock in the morning with a green aura tinged with yellow that felt electric. The whole phenomenon had a definite electrical feel to it (electro-magnetism).
I first wondered if the electric blanket was on fire and then remembered that I didn’t own an electric blanket. Then I wondered about the bed burning…but no. I had felt some electrical-like feelings coursing my spine the two previous nights but simply dismissed them. One is not supposed to feel electricity up one’s back, right? However, the halo experience was too much to dismiss. It changed my perception from that of a typical western doubter to a person opened to psychic phenomena, and it firmly set me (despite a few sceptical relapses) on the path to serious questioning.
I could not dismiss my experiences anymore : )

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There are a number of layers, like that of an onion, to the human energy field and the chakras are not isolated to any one of those fields. In my experience they extend through them. So the level of one’s focus would logically play a role in our perception of what we “see” as color. Consider also that we are “seeing” the color through the energy fields as well. The fields are always there, so that too affects the visual appearance of the chakra. It’s like looking at an object with colored lenses, where the lens is the composite of all the fields between the level from which our consciousness that is looking, and the level into which we are focusing. There are no real separations, though some may say so… somewhat like when Seth says that there are no real divisions to the Self. The downside to using color to evaluate chakras is that it requires secondary information, such as what each shade of color means. A more direct means of determining the state of a chakra would give the person tuning in to the chakra a more reliable evaluation. The eyes are, after all, as Seth makes clear, creating what we are “seeing”. We can sense the state of things by merging with them rather that operating from the idea of division, such as is the case when we tell ourselves that we are “seeing” it, which continues to support the idea that the separation is real. We are, in fact, creating the experience of seeing and thereby creating the perception of color rather than the directly experiencing the state of that which we are tuning into, which is ultimately the purpose behind determining the color. Just something to think about.

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I agree. Plus, we are plugged in the whole universe.

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I had a psilocybin induced, full blown kundalini awakening when I was 23, some 25 years ago.
I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I had my eyes closed and was experiencing some mild visions, half expecting to walk among aliens, or something like that. I distinctly remember that something started to pull my consciousness downwards to somewhere dark, which was quite different from the careless lightshow I was enjoying up to that point. It felt serious and important.

There was a moment of balance between the pulling and my resistance to it. I knew that to enjoy the full ride I had to pay the ticket, and the price for the ticket was complete surrender. Letting go of any expectation and fear of the unknown was the only way to move forward.

Once I consciously took this decision, the ride unfolded in front of me in all its majestic glory. At that point I knew I had taken the right decision and fully trusted whatever it was that kept moving me.

After a while (who knows how long), I started feeling a massive energy build-up at the base of my spine and then growing in intensity as it rose up, shifting and pulsating through my stomach, chest and throat. There I felt the last bit of resistance, worrying about choking from the pressure of this pillar of energy that was very intense at this point. Again, I decided to let (it) go and trusted the process. Before I knew it, the energy passed my throat and erupted through my head in an explosion of white light.

What came next is very difficult to put into words. One way to explain it is this…Imagine walking around in a dark place. The only source of light is a candle you’re holding. The light is only strong enough to illuminate a meter or so around you and that makes walking a slow and tentative process. Now imagine switching on a light so strong to illuminate EVERYTHING. You can now see up to the horizon, 360 degrees! You see and you understand. Questions are being answered without being asked and everything becomes clear.

That was the moment when I felt I have truly awoken from a dream. What I’ve experienced there was more real than anything in my whole life. It was pure physical, mental and spiritual ecstasy.

Up to that moment I considered myself an agnostic atheist, but I couldn’t ignore the evidence anymore.
This experience initiated over 2 decades of studying and synthesizing all kinds of beliefs and integrate everything (the outside knowledge and my inner knowledge) into my own personal belief system.

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Your inner being collective, that is your greater self-selves, decided it was a time for you to experience a psychic-spiritual breakthrough, from inner ego to outer ego, to expand your awareness of ALL THAT IS…ron.