The Kundalini Guide: A Companion For the Inward Journey (Companions For the Inward Journey Book 1)

by Bonnie Greenwell

  If an awakening of energy occurs in a way that is sudden and overwhelming, there is not a lot you can do, other than surrender to it. If you bring consciousness deeply into your center and invite the energy to do what it must, in as gentle a way as possible, you may find a place inside, as Lorraine did, that already knows it is okay. This is a part of you that is already awake and clear, and does not see what happens to the body as especially significant. It trusts that this is work that now will be done because it is your time to do it. You may feel it is a mistake, or caused by an encounter you did not invite, but it is clearly your destiny, or karma, or it would not have happened. It is impossible to answer the question, “Why did this happen to me?” just as you cannot answer it in any given crisis. There is an element of fate, and if we spin our wheels seeking who to blame, we only distract ourselves from the real issues, which are: “Where can this take me?” and “How can I come to terms with it?” The sooner we meet the situation, and accept it with grace and equanimity, the sooner we can find a new place to stand in consciousness, one that includes the wider vision of what it means to be human and alive.

  The first step in finding this equanimity is understanding, or discovering a context for this radical downloading of old energies, and this major upswelling of new ones. Whatever has been stored in the cells, in the energy system -- all the suffering, drama, pain or loss or grief -- will be released in this process. It can be felt physically in a very intense way, as in these cases, or gradually leak out over a long period of time, without so much drama. In the case of Lorraine, my sense is that by sitting with death for so many thousands of hours in hospice she had prepared herself for an awakening, but her body needed to release all the holding of suffering she had taken in for others. I have had many clients with a background in hospice care, and believe sitting in such concentrated and transitional moments, makes the psyche more ripe for an awakening, just as meditation does.

  In the case of James, I believe the LSD triggered a quantum leap before his body/mind was ready for it, and so he was very vulnerable. It is like going into zero gravity without astronaut training. It’s a huge leap for the body/mind and can leave one in extreme states of confusion and exhaustion, overcharging and burning out the nervous system. So when this happens it is essential to take time to recuperate, eat properly, avoid stress, and strengthen or renew the physical body, however long it may take. In addition, yogis believe that drugs cause toxins to remain in the body, which inhibit the correct movement of energy until they have worked their way out of the system.

  In the case of Margery, it seems to me she was dealt with irresponsibly by a yogi who had an inflated idea related to his own power. She was opened emotionally and psychically in ways she had no control over, and so her suffering and darker thoughts about her life circumstances were externalized as demonic forces. The mind can create and enter many dimensions, and our emotional states often make us vulnerable to entering a dark and fearful realm. Without a teacher who can help us navigate and integrate these forces we can be stuck for a long time. In these situations one needs therapy to heal the psychic pain and splits, and spiritual guidance to find the light of awake presence in oneself. Knowing our true nature allows us to transcend the limitations of our physical situation.

  Lisa was prepared in a way for the awakening because of her Buddhist practice, and eventually brought it into a spiritual context. She had to recognize what was happening and claim her own truth, because a teacher could not, or chose not, to provide understanding for her. The body itself becomes overwhelmed by trauma at times, and this physical overwhelm is like a near-death experience, opening the energy as if one was dying, in which case kundalini would be unraveling to leave the body. Of course she did not die, but the dynamic energy stayed present and did not recoil itself. It took her many years of spiritual study and practice, and finding her way as a writer and teacher to help others in panic situations, to find her own ground of equanimity. Some people find the doorway into wisdom and compassion is full of pain, but once they have passed through they have much to teach others who are caught in suffering.

  If you are having a great deal of physiological response to a kundalini awakening, it is advisable to get a medical evaluation. The energy can put great stresses on the heart, adrenal system, nervous system, electrolytes, or hormonal balance. The body can indeed respond with chaos. A good medical workup can help you by identifying anything that needs addressing to become a stronger and healthier vehicle in this process, and relieve the mind from worrying about conditions that are not pathological, but simply part of the energy process.

  Psychological Reactions to Change

  Once a person has had a glimpse of their true nature, he or she is likely to find chunks of personal identity falling away, like an ice cap that is melting fast. The tendency may be to grasp, to hold on to something that used to have meaning, or offer comfort, and give a sense of belonging. But it doesn’t seem to work, this grasping, and instead one may feel fear, grief, or doubts about their sanity, when they notice how their mind is changing. It is natural to feel these things when we are losing parts of ourselves. It is natural to grieve for a little while. But if we make up a story about being someone who has lost so much, we are only creating a new identity, as mind prefers believing in something negative to facing its own insignificance.

  Our minds are tools, and like the modern science fiction tale of a computer run amuck and trying to control those who created it, our minds have overestimated their own importance. Thought continually flows through us, as synapses collide, pouring into our field all the associations of our personal experience and many collective ideas and dictates. This has been such a steady stream for so long that we have come to believe this is who we are, this collection of thoughts, memories and identities. It is a system designed to hold individuals in separation so that the One wholeness can play a multitude of roles and live as humanity and creation, and it is useful in terms of our capacity to relate, create and enjoy the forms we are.

  But the capacity of mind is more limited than the capacity of Self, which is all-inclusive, and its role needs to be relegated to the background, used for practical applications in the relative world. There is actually a natural dropping away of the self-criticism and inner chatter about “my” life, once a deep awakening occurs. The over-seer, or what Freud called the super-ego, may have little influence any longer, once it is clear that there is no separate self, and everything that happened in our past was simply a string of events about which we no longer need to concern ourselves.

  It is disarming when old desires, belief systems, friendships or jobs lose their meaning and carry no intrinsic satisfaction. It is usually unexpected, because if you thought of yourself as a spiritual person you were probably working hard at all of these things, and no one told you that giving up everything meant literally an internal giving up of everything. But once you relax into this letting go, and begin to feel the freedom of being present wherever you are without demands or expectations, your body/mind begins to experience a kind of contentment you have never known, a happiness independent of anything that could ever be gained or acquired. You find it underneath the rubble of your old conditioned personality. And then, paradoxically, some of the old desires and beliefs may jump up again, and you wish they wouldn’t, because you can see how they disturb your peace.

  Now everything is not lost, nor does it all stay melted. Like the ice cap that melts, it reconstitutes itself in some ways. But what is needed is to find out what is truly authentic for you – in relationship, work, and lifestyle. It is unique to each person, including some of the old ways and some that are new. If you are in a process of spiritual awakening, you are forced to live an authentic life, or you will be miserable, perhaps even ill. Usually patterns you followed that were driven by ego can no longer be sustained. There is no more room for lying to yourself about how you are going to express yourself in the world, and there is a deep interior impulse to move in new ways
you may not have considered in your pre-awakened condition.

  Many spiritual teachers will say this is so – that they never imagined themselves in the roles they now play, or had any attraction to such roles, when they were doing other work in the world. I was astonished after my kundalini awakening to find myself a therapist specializing in such an obscure topic, and able to lecture without self-consciousness wherever I was invited. In no way could I have imagined this five years earlier. But it was obvious it was where I belonged at that time.

  Dark Night of the Soul

  Most people in spiritual circles have heard about the “Dark Night of the Soul”, a phrase first expressed by the Christian mystic St. John of the Cross. There can be many reasons for this experience during a kundalini awakening (or any other spiritual process). Primarily it is felt because of this falling away of the familiar identity, so that one loses zest for life, temporarily, or feels empty of drive and direction. We become habituated to functioning in a certain style and do not know what to do when those old drives are gone. The mind tends toward depression at such times.

  Another factor is that after an ecstatic awakening it often happens that in a few days or weeks or months the blissful aspects fade, and it seems that the most wonderful blessed state of consciousness ever known has been lost. Great despair can set in, along with a return of the ego concluding it has done something wrong that caused this falling out of grace. Some people live in despair for quite a long time after an awakening, primarily because they get stuck in a new identity which is less functional than the old one, and they do not know how to move on.

  It is useful if you find yourself in this condition, to ask two questions: “Who is it that had this experience and thinks they have lost it?” See if you can find that person, that separateness, and you may be surprised. And go into your heart and ask: “Has that experience of knowing really gone away?” What is here right now at the deepest level of your being? Do not make the mistake of going into memory to recreate the past experience, but rather find out who you are right now, because what is most valuable in awakening isn’t the phenomena, no matter how grand, but the knowing of who you are without the mind, without any beliefs, without going into the memory of anything you have known. What is living your life in this very moment? These kinds of questions, and the willingness not-to-know are the keys to moving from a kundalini drama into true realization of Self. This realization will eventually free you to move into a liberated life.

  The next chapter will cover two remaining special conditions that may cause chaos in a kundalini process: fear of emptiness, and memories of childhood abuse.

  Chapter 4:

  Fear and Memory

  I woke up one morning with my entire body in a state of fear, and yet there seemed to be no triggering factor -- no thought, no event, nothing happening in the room, not even a dream to tell me why I was afraid. As I felt my way into the energy of this experience I found that it was an energy housed in my cells, as if my nervous system was stuck in a strange vibration that could hardly bare the temporariness of life, as if at any moment the body would be gone. And I could see that aside from the thoughts that generate fear, there is fear in the very DNA, because the body knows itself to be only a temporary manifestation, set up from the beginning for extinction.

  I used to think that fear is learned, and indeed the traumas of a young life profoundly activate the energies of fear, which frequently mark us forever after, making us reactive, protective, self-defeating and even violent. Nations create war out of fear (along with greed and attachment to being right.) We can be afraid physically, sometimes for good reason. But the most defeating of fears come from the mind, when we have thoughts about ourselves, our life, or other people that cause us to contract and withhold our vital energies and free expression. It’s as if the innate fear in the physical body seeps into the memory banks and distorts our mental perceptions.

  We can be afraid of life as much as we are afraid of death, of people as well as of loneliness, of our thoughts and minds, and of the absence of thought. It seems as if there is nothing that someone cannot be afraid of, and that fear lies in wait in our bodies to be brought into action whenever our separate and conditioned identity feels the slightest threat.

  So it is understandable that a kundalini process, with its unfamiliar energies and sudden shifts of consciousness, will trigger fear in some people. Often this is expressed as a fear of death or a fear of insanity, neither of which is a probable outcome in the process itself. There are two types of experiences that are especially likely to bring up fear following a kundalini awakening: fear related to emptiness, and physical fear related to early childhood abuse.

  Falling Into the Void

  I spoke once to an audience of people who had near-death experiences in their history. Most of these experiences are remarkably pleasant, considering the circumstances, with visions of loved ones, lights, angels, or other comforting beings, and ecstatic and loving energies beyond any known by ordinary consciousness. But one woman stood up and angrily told me she had enjoyed no such experience. Instead she had only a voice telling her over and over, “You do not exist!” She felt cheated and wounded by this encounter.

  Unfortunately, I did not know at the time how essentially true her experience was. Years later, after a profound awakening to Self, I began to understand the essential emptiness behind all experience. Many people, during a kundalini awakening, fall occasionally into what is called void, emptiness, nothingness, even a kind of blankness or blackness in which the mind is silent and the experience scary. They pop out of it quickly, if they can, and wonder what it means, and they are disturbed by the implications of no self. This is not the spiritual experience they expected, especially if they have been having lovely mystical images and bliss prior to this revelation.

  You usually need to go to the scriptures and teachings of the non-dual spiritual paths to find a description of this emptiness that has been stumbled upon unknowingly, although St. John of the Cross alluded to it in his profound writings about his own realization. If you cannot intuitively overcome the fear and enter into this empty space, you will benefit from finding the teachings and recognizing your experience in some of the great systems of spiritual thought such as Advaita Vedanta, and Dzoghen or Zen. If old scriptures seem too remote for you, the teachings of the sage Ramana Maharshi, or some of the modern non-dual teachers may describe the meaning of this territory in more modern language. The important thing is to meet your fear of emptiness with compassion. Release it or move past it if you can, or soothe the mind by understanding what others have had to say about it.

  When you have been in a kundalini process, and a deep clearing has been carried out for some length of time, you will be invited into the next stage of awakening, the awakening of mind and heart. These are not experiences of energy as we think of it, but rather openings in consciousness, beyond the energy phenomena. This nothingness or emptiness can also be called vastness, unlimitedness, that which is deathless and eternal.

  When you find the courage to fall into it, or you are knocked into it despite your resistance, and you stay awhile, there are great discoveries to be made. Hold still where you are, feel yourself to be That, and see where consciousness will take you. No one can speak of this place in language: all words seem to degrade it. It cannot be talked of clearly, but it can be known. Do not let the contraction of fear prevent the openness of being present in this unanticipated spaciousness, simply because the mind does not understand it. This is a place beyond thought, and so the mind and the small self feel threatened. It is a profound invitation into a new territory. But you have to enter it instead of standing there looking at it, and it can feel as if you are letting go of your mind. In this place, true understanding of Self can arise. The sage Bede Griffith, a monk who blended Christianity and Hinduism in an ashram he founded in India, once said that when you enter into this darkness fully, you find love.

  Fear Related to Memories of Abuse
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  Jackie came to me with a story about her sexuality. She had a deep awakening during a retreat, and felt a great opening of her heart, and expansion of consciousness. But when she returned home her sex life had changed. Whenever her husband touched her she would involuntarily experience physical contraction and terror. In her dreams she was seeing a small child being sexually abused. She was very distraught about the impact this was having on her marriage and wanted to transcend it spiritually and move on.

  Lauren was a nervous young woman who had been involved in fundamental Christian churches, and she lacked self-confidence, but she went to a meditation weekend with a friend, thinking that meditation could help her feel better about herself. She found it very easy to meditate, simply leaving her body and resting in some distant space, very detached, until suddenly a great energy rushed from the base of her spine into the sexual organs and belly. Everything quivered uncontrollably, she felt intense heat, and her mind seemed to snap. She threw off most of her clothes and ran outside the building and down the street screaming hysterically, unable to control the trembling in her body.

  Our bodies store the memories of our childhood, including material that is painful and repressed, which means we do not remember it consciously. If I raise my hand to hit you, you will contract, and that contraction will somehow remain as an imprint long after the physical sense of it is gone. Any therapist who has worked with the body, or with the emotional content of a person who has been physically or sexually abused, has seen how these past events are stored, and must be released for the person to feel free to express themselves fully in the world. People with such histories can certainly lead productive lives, but they often harbor self-doubts or self-destructive beliefs, and they tend to limit themselves unnecessarily due to unconscious patterns woven deeply within.