No pain, no gain.. don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I recently read a quote by a popular guru in a question and answer session. One of his disciples asked the guru about kundalini. Now, this guru is a famous personality in India, one that influences millions of people. Currently, you cannot talk about the spirituality/New Age scene in India without mentioning this person. The conversation went something like this:

Q: Guruji, what is Kundalini and how to awaken the Kundalini?

The Guru: Kunda means body, and Kundalini means the conscious energy in this body.

Whatever happens in meditations in the Advance Course is Kundalini itself. There is no other way to interpret Kundalini. If meditation happened, it would not be possible without the awakening of the Kundalini. If you went into meditation, it means the Kundalini has been awakened in you.

I was amazed, not only by the lack of knowledge of this well-known guru, but his touting of his 'Advanced Course' and reducing the definition of kundalini down to 'when you meditate, that is a kundalini awakening'. Here I sit, 6 years into a sometimes scary journey with profound insights, a writhing snake slithering up and down my spine, immense improvement in latent skills, becoming a better singer, photographer, a change in my outlook towards the world, a totally new person unfolding each day. I have undergone shock and trauma that rivals PTSD experienced by soldiers that have served in the worst war conditions, questioned my sanity, lived in existential terror for years.

Along comes his exalted holiness and gives this simplistic and downright misleading definition of the phenomenon. A lot has been said on this blog about what a K awakening brings, but I think there is a need to mention how to spot a fake and what a kundalini experience is not.

Anyone that quotes scripture and describes the kundalini process based on what's in the sacred texts, but has no explanation or personal stories about their own experiences should been viewed with suspicion. Likewise, people that remain exactly the same person without a fundamental shift towards spirituality, and more importantly, people that do not go through a phase of trauma, disorientation and a cathartic cleansing of the body and mind have not experienced a Kundalini awakening.

Our images of the divine are invariably the beatific, calm, sublime and angelic notions of a benevolent God. You just have to look at the pictorial depictions of Jesus or the Buddha to confirm this notion. In rare instances, depictions of wild, scary goddesses like Kali or a bellicose Shiva might stray from this image, but the pseudo-gurus usually play to the beatific, peace-loving guru image that they are expected to play. It makes them tougher to spot. They have memorized the scriptures and have a witty line memorized for every question. If you have undergone an awakening, however, these gurus are laughable and stand out like three-dollar bills.

Kundalini can be a scary, mean, energy that does not give a hoot about you, your ego and its notions about reality.

"I am an atheist who likes Richard Dawkins" may sound cool at cocktail parties, but gets thrown out the window when the energy takes over and starts to overhaul the entire being, starting with the fake rationalizations, the false ideas of self that we hold dear, the explanations we give ourselves to hide our skullduggery. There is nothing politically correct or gentle about it.  It is a benign energy, but when it does its work on us, our ego sees it as a horrible experience because the ego resists death. It dearly wants to hold on to its ideas.

As seen from the perspective of the dying ego, the energy is demonic. A surgeon operating on you to remove a gangrene makes you bleed, there is a lot of pain, but the eventual result is the healing of the body, leaving the person healthier. What the kundalini energy does is very similar. It removes the harmful gangrene attached to our souls, our ego. The things we keep hidden in depths of our mind, even from ourselves, (especially from ourselves) are laid bare. The first few months (or years, depending on how long you resist) are the worst. If you have spent a lot of time building up an ego, pretending to be someone you are not, your ordeal will be pure purgatory.

In fact, this is the real purgatory. The term refers to the bridge, the throat chakra, that separates the earthly realm (the body) from the higher chakras (the head). The concept of purgatory, in the metaphysical sense, are the visions seen by those undergoing a Kundalini awakening who are stuck in the in-between stage. The cleansing of past trauma, sins, wrongdoings stuck in the psyche as blocks are cleansed by the energy as it passes up and down the body, giving way to brief glimpses of the absolute (heaven) as the energy passes unimpeded to the third eye or higher, activating the pituitary and pineal glands, releasing anandamide, giving rise to mystic experiences as the left and right hemispheres underwent neuroplastic reconstruction.

In the state of mystical hyper-awareness, the trauma and past 'sins' are churned up and as the energy burns through them (literally, a burning sensation as the energy passes through the spine) each is seen vividly. This is the experience of hell. The journey from earth to hell to heaven is the span of the vertebral column. The number 33 has a significance in metaphysical literature of disparate traditions. Jesus 'died' at 33. 33 is not only a numerical representation of "the Star of David”, but also the numerical equivalent of AMEN: 1+13+5+14 = 33. In Kashmir Shaivism, the universe is explained in 36 tattvas or principles. The first 33 are in the realm of divinity in an expanded form, the last 3, shiva+shakti = paramshiva, when the yin (right brain) and yang (left brain) unite to become the absolute (crown chakra). In Hinduism, there are 33 levels or koti of Gods. Each level has its own deities. (The word koti also means the number 100 million in Sanskrit and Hindi and it is mistakenly said that there are 330 million Gods in the Hindu pantheon).

Why the emphasis on the numbers 33 and 36? Simple. There are 33 bones in the vertebral column. The energy takes the human being through the expansion of the absolute, a reverse evolution or involution back to unity. The 'death' of Jesus at 33 is the death of the human and the subsequent unity with the absolute. 33 steps on the way to heaven, then a purging of the impure or demonic in purgatory (ego loss) and entry into heaven. There are countless tales of wars between Gods and demons, one of the most famous being the Hindu tale of Samudra Manthan, where Gods and Demons churned the ocean (consciousness) using a snake tied to a mountain, Meru (Meru-danda is a term used for the spinal column). It yielded several gifts, gems, powers and the poison halahal, which Lord Shiva held in his throat, turning it blue. A reference to the throat chakra and the poison or toxic blockages and trauma that have been cleansed by the energy. The detailed account can be found here.

Now, all this magical, mystical stuff, wondrous phenomena, revelation that solves ancient riddles and explains allegorical tales from mythology, summed up as “when you meditate, you awaken kundalini” by this charlatan. Sad state of affairs. Kundalini fundamentally changes you as a person. The old you does not exist any more. The new you is a higher ascended being (if the process is allowed to unfold properly). Politically correct ideas do not come into play. Lofty ideas about 'helping society' take a back seat to just keeping your back from breaking into two and keeping your sanity intact.

I have run into all kinds of people during my awakening. The worst kind are those that have made a commodity out of spirituality, to be bought and sold in hour-long sessions of chakra therapy, energy work, past life regression and assorted mumbo-jumbo. Some of the worst advice I have received is from these hucksters. Kundalini is a rare phenomenon and there are very few people that can offer genuine advice and help out a person suffering in the depths of 'hell'.

On the other hand, there is 'modern' medicine, that has relegated this incredible experience to 'kundalini syndrome' in the pages of DSM IV, the reference manual for mental health professionals, to be treated as a pathological condition, to be 'cured' with powerful anti-psychotic drugs, doing immense damage to the poor person struggling to cope with an extraordinary occurrence.

There is no gentle way of easing into this experience. People who prepare all their lives to receive this blessing, through a regimented set of practices, breathing exercises, yoga, a diet of fruits and vegetables, cleansing rituals may never receive the blessing, and people that are totally unprepared and clueless about it stumble into it as I did, through a spontaneous awakening as a byproduct of drug use, meditation, tantric sex, while delivering a baby — only to wander through life looking for answers. The rare individual that prepares for this through yogic practices and receives it under the auspices of a true guru maybe one of the few that can ease into the subsequent process with minimal trauma, but most aren't that lucky. The disoriented, terror-filled stage which makes the person look and sound 'crazy' is almost a given.

Any guru that does not warn you about this is doing you a huge disservice. It is better to read true accounts of people that have undergone a real awakening, people in the modern era, not ancient sages. It will save a lot of time and may even provide simple, common sense answers like my previous description of terms like hell, heaven and purgatory as seen from a 21^st century perspective, but with the aid of mystical experience. Stay away from the hucksters. I thank JJ for starting this and other blogs and forums so people with a genuine experience can inform and educate others.