If there’s ever to be a scientific study of Kundalini, so that Kundalini awakenings can become widespread and verifiable, then the single thing that triggers Kundalini needs to be isolated. Kundalini awakens in a multitude of situations, with a plethora of apparent triggers: drugs, meditation, emotional catastrophe, shaktipat, even the bizarre practice of erotic asphyxiation, but these are merely circumstances, that surround the moment of awakening, they are not the trigger itself. We must look deeper to find the first cause. I think an indication of what the trigger is can be found in two small statuettes, both bronzes, from the Kashmiri and Tibetan traditions. These bronze statues combine two figures, but were made for individual meditation. One is the Tibetan yab-yum image of Vajrasattva, the Diamond Thunderbolt Sceptre seated in upright sexual congress with Vajradhatvisvari, the Diamond Thunderbolt Wisdom. The other is the image of a rampant Kali, again in the upright position, straddling the erect penis of the dead Shiva.
Vajrasattva has huge eyes. They stare out across Vajradhatvisvari’s shoulder on the brink of terror. He’s staring into the void, one foot lifted in a stamping movement as her body climbs his in a zigzag motion like a bolt of lightning. In the other statue, Shiva’s eyes are closed, while Kali’s eyes stare straight ahead into the same terrifying ecstasy. This is the moment when the physical eyes see the complete reality of space/time, of which our visual world forms only a small part.
Relativity and quantum mechanics both teach that space/time is static. This reality need not be confined to mathematical formulae, or remain a mere scientific concept. It can be experienced bodily, as the statuettes show. If all of time and space is present here and now, it follows logically, and in the most down-to-earth way, that the moment of my death is present here and now. I can look at it, experience it. This is what Vajrasattva and Kali are staring into — the fact of ending. This is what the corpse Shiva has already achieved. So what, then, does his phallus indicate? Surely a dead body is an inert, flaccid thing. On the level of reality where this trigger of Kundalini is found, ending is an action. It’s frightening, but it is something that is done. Ending is not something that’s inflicted on me, even though my body might be in a state of prostrate inertia.
This is not sexual fantasy either. It’s the moment when experience accords most with reality. Our bodies, including our brains, are made up of subatomic particles. Quantum mechanics shows that subatomic particles are not "things," they’re "events." My body is an "event" moving through days and nights that are a matrix of "events." Kali riding Shiva is an "event." Vajradhatvisvari climbing the Thunderbolt Sceptre’s body is an "event." And, as Feynman showed in his space/time maps, every subatomic event is marked by the annihilation of the initial particles and the creation of new ones. Vajrasattva’s eyes and Kali’s eyes are wide and stare-y, on the brink of terror, because consciousness can go down to this depth. The inner eyes can keep open even at this moment of becoming void. This is do-able. It’s more than a verbal concept. Consciousness, at the most fundamental level, is a quantum process. It’s been shown experimentally that the human eye, when it becomes adapted to the dark, can detect a single photon, with its zero mass, and its status as both wave and particle.
A quantum process of consciousness triggers Kundalini, but the question remains, why, then, does Kundalini have such a radical effect on the external, physical body and on the human brain? If the trigger is so subtle, how can what it triggers — Kundalini — be so outwardly powerful?
The universe is held together by four forces: the strong force, the electromagnetic force, the weak force and the gravitational force. The strong force binds atomic nuclei together. The electromagnetic force is the force that holds in balance the process of attraction and repulsion between charged particles, and allows particles to form new combinations. The weak and gravitational forces work on more long-range interactions. Kundalini is experienced as power because Kundalini begins as a flash, a "lightning flash," of the strong force (Vajra also means "Diamond Thunderbolt") at the nucleus of the atom, and then works outwards, or rises, through the more material manifestations of the electromagnetic and weak forces (the body in space and time). This is why the circumstances that surround a Kundalini awakening can seem so confusingly varied. The sexual symbolism of the statues is appropriate, because this lightning flash that triggers Kundalini, is very similar to what can happen at the moment of orgasm, if consciousness strips itself down to nothing, so that orgasm is suspended and something else comes into being.
Vajrasattva has huge eyes. They stare out across Vajradhatvisvari’s shoulder on the brink of terror. He’s staring into the void, one foot lifted in a stamping movement as her body climbs his in a zigzag motion like a bolt of lightning. In the other statue, Shiva’s eyes are closed, while Kali’s eyes stare straight ahead into the same terrifying ecstasy. This is the moment when the physical eyes see the complete reality of space/time, of which our visual world forms only a small part.
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| Kali’s Eyes Stare Straight Ahead |
Relativity and quantum mechanics both teach that space/time is static. This reality need not be confined to mathematical formulae, or remain a mere scientific concept. It can be experienced bodily, as the statuettes show. If all of time and space is present here and now, it follows logically, and in the most down-to-earth way, that the moment of my death is present here and now. I can look at it, experience it. This is what Vajrasattva and Kali are staring into — the fact of ending. This is what the corpse Shiva has already achieved. So what, then, does his phallus indicate? Surely a dead body is an inert, flaccid thing. On the level of reality where this trigger of Kundalini is found, ending is an action. It’s frightening, but it is something that is done. Ending is not something that’s inflicted on me, even though my body might be in a state of prostrate inertia.
This is not sexual fantasy either. It’s the moment when experience accords most with reality. Our bodies, including our brains, are made up of subatomic particles. Quantum mechanics shows that subatomic particles are not "things," they’re "events." My body is an "event" moving through days and nights that are a matrix of "events." Kali riding Shiva is an "event." Vajradhatvisvari climbing the Thunderbolt Sceptre’s body is an "event." And, as Feynman showed in his space/time maps, every subatomic event is marked by the annihilation of the initial particles and the creation of new ones. Vajrasattva’s eyes and Kali’s eyes are wide and stare-y, on the brink of terror, because consciousness can go down to this depth. The inner eyes can keep open even at this moment of becoming void. This is do-able. It’s more than a verbal concept. Consciousness, at the most fundamental level, is a quantum process. It’s been shown experimentally that the human eye, when it becomes adapted to the dark, can detect a single photon, with its zero mass, and its status as both wave and particle.
The universe is held together by four forces: the strong force, the electromagnetic force, the weak force and the gravitational force. The strong force binds atomic nuclei together. The electromagnetic force is the force that holds in balance the process of attraction and repulsion between charged particles, and allows particles to form new combinations. The weak and gravitational forces work on more long-range interactions. Kundalini is experienced as power because Kundalini begins as a flash, a "lightning flash," of the strong force (Vajra also means "Diamond Thunderbolt") at the nucleus of the atom, and then works outwards, or rises, through the more material manifestations of the electromagnetic and weak forces (the body in space and time). This is why the circumstances that surround a Kundalini awakening can seem so confusingly varied. The sexual symbolism of the statues is appropriate, because this lightning flash that triggers Kundalini, is very similar to what can happen at the moment of orgasm, if consciousness strips itself down to nothing, so that orgasm is suspended and something else comes into being.
