The Awakening of Kundalini

 

The manifestations of this form of psychospiritual crisis resemble the descriptions of the awakening of Kundalini, or the Serpent Power, found in ancient Indian literature (Woodroff 1974, Mookerjee and Khanna 1977, Mookerjee 1982). According to the yogis, Kundalini is the generative cosmic energy, feminine in nature, that is responsible for the creation of the cosmos. In its latent form it resides at the base of the human spine in the subtle or energetic body, which is a field that pervades and permeates, as well as surrounds, the physical body. This latent energy can become activated by meditation, specific exercises, the intervention of an accomplished spiritual teacher (guru), or for unknown reasons.

 

The activated Kundalini, called shakti, rises through the nadis, channels or conduits in the subtle body; the pricipal three nadis rising along the body’s vertical axis are called Ida, Shushumna, and Pingala. As Kundalini ascends, it clears old traumatic imprints and opens the centers of psychic energy, called chakras situated at the points where Ida and Pingala are crossing. This process, although highly valued and considered beneficial in the yogic tradition, is not without dangers and requires expert guidance by a guru whose Kundalini is fully awakened and stabilized. The most dramatic signs of Kundalini awakening are physical and psychological manifestations called kriyas.

 

The kriyas involve intense sensations of energy and heat streaming up the spine, usually associated with violent shaking, spasms, and twisting movements. Intense waves of seemingly unmotivated emotions, such as anxiety, anger, sadness, or joy and ecstatic rapture, can surface and temporarily dominate the psyche. This can be accompanied by visions of brilliant light or various archetypal beings and a variety of internally perceived sounds.

 

Many people involved in this process also have emotionally charged and convincing experiences of what seem to be memories from their past lives. Involuntary and often uncontrollable behaviors complete the picture: speaking in tongues, chanting unknown songs or sacred invocations (mantras), assuming yogic postures (asanas) and gestures (mudras), and making a variety of animal sounds and movements.

 

C. G. Jung and his co-workers dedicated to this phenomenon a series of special seminars (Jung 1996). Jung’s perspective on Kundalini proved to be probably the most remarkable error of his entire career. He concluded that the awakening of Kundalini was an exclusively Eastern phenomenon and predicted that it would take at least a thousand years before this energy would be set into motion in the West as a result of depth psychology. In the last several decades, unmistakable signs of Kundalini awakening have been observed in thousands of Westerners. The credit for drawing attention to this condition belongs to Californian psychiatrist and ophtalmologist Lee Sannella, who studied single-handedly nearly one thousand of such cases and summarized his findings in his book The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence (Sannella 1987).

 

Episodes of Unitive Consciousness (“Peak Experiences”)

 

The American psychologist Abraham Maslow studied many hundreds of people who had unitive mystical experiences and coined for them the term peak experiences (Maslow 1964). He expressed sharp criticism of Western psychiatry's tendency to confuse such mystical states with mental disease. According to him, they should be considered supernormal rather than abnormal phenomena. If they are not interfered with and are allowed to run their natural course, these states typically lead to better functioning in the world and to “self-actualization” or “self-realization” - the capacity to express more fully one's creative potential and to live a more rewarding and satisfying life.

 

Psychiatrist and consciousness researcher Walter Pahnke developed a list of basic characteristics of a typical peak experience, based on the work of Abraham Maslow and W. T. Stace. He used the following criteria to describe this state of mind (Pahnke and Richards 1966):

 

Unity (inner and outer)

Strong positive emotion

Transcendence of time and space

Sense of sacredness (numinosity)

Paradoxical nature

Objectivity and reality of the insights

Ineffability

Positive aftereffects

 

As this list indicates, when we have a peak experience, we have a sense of overcoming the usual fragmentation of the mind and body and feel that we have reached a state of unity and wholeness. We also transcend the ordinary distinction between subject and object and experience an ecstatic union with humanity, nature, the cosmos, and God. This is associated with intense feelings of joy, bliss, serenity, and inner peace. In a mystical experience of this type, we have a sense of leaving ordinary reality, where space has three dimensions and time is linear. We enter a metaphysical, transcendent realm, where these categories no longer apply. In this state, infinity and eternity become experiential realities. The numinous quality of this state has nothing to do with previous religious beliefs; it reflects a direct apprehension of the divine nature of reality.

 

Descriptions of peak experiences are usually full of paradoxes. The experience can be described as “contentless, yet all-containing.” It has no specific content, but seems to contain everything in a potential form. We can have a sense of being simultaneously everything and nothing. While our personal identity and the limited ego have disappeared, we feel that we have expanded to such an extent that our being encompasses the entire universe. Similarly, it is possible to perceive all forms as empty, or emptiness as being pregnant with forms. We can even reach a state in which we see that the world exists and does not exist at the same time.

 

The peak experience can convey what seems to be ultimate wisdom and knowledge in matters of cosmic relevance, which the Upanishads describe as “knowing That, the knowledge of which gives the knowledge of everything." What we have learned during this experience is ineffable; it cannot be described by words. The very nature and structure of our language seem to be inadequate for this purpose. Yet, the experience can profoundly influence our system of values and strategy of existence.

 

Because of the generally benign nature and positive potential of the peak experience, this is a category of spiritual crisis that should be least problematic. These experiences are by their nature transient and self-limited. There is absolutely no reason why they should have adverse consequences. And yet, due to the misconceptions of the psychiatric profession concerning spiritual matters, many people who experience such states end up hospitalized, receive pathological labels, and their condition is suppressed by psychopharmacological medication.