Hi all,
I am wondering why some people (if not most of them) manage to reach high level of development and or even enlightened but do not experience any sort of Kundalini phenomena. Do anybody have a theory on why some people have a kundalini awakening and some do not need to go through this? Any ideas are welcome!
Thanks,
Mael

One way to view Kundalini is as an energy imbalance, but I would say the reason has to do with karma and practice. It may be like asking why do some awakening people gain various siddhis, while others do not. It’s always going to be speculation, but everyone’s energy body is unique, as is their karma and personal path of purification. I also think it has to do with sensitivity and awareness. My feeling is that many people are experiencing energetic upheavals subconsciously, and some people, for whatever combination of causes, perhaps practice-related, are more conscious of those movements and sensations. 

Kundalini awakening = a&p

I have gone through 4 books and numerous websites; I experienced samatha jhanas and now have difficulties accessing them when the Kundalini stuff happens to be cooking the same neurons, and even if I get through, it is seldom a pleasant experience; I chanced upon a full-blown K awakening after SE and have given up trying to use the vibrational markers in Vipassana to guide progress as the K and V stuff mixed together is mostly chaos. So all I can do now is meditating on the mindstream without physical markers.

From logically compiling what I read, K is Evolution. That force is in all of us. Some go further to say that K likes to activate in those that have past or given up on passing on their genes. I would correct Noah in that A&P is a Kundalini experience because an awakening is a full-time non-stop event going on even during sleep. An awakening lasts for years, has its peaks and dips, could complete one cycle and return years later for further runs. Read Biology of Kundalini - I wouldn't buy everything she writes though.

There are ways to activate awakenings, most common being drugs, shaktipat, near-death experiences and meditation. To answer your question of why some? is to speculate but I suspect it is a combination of many factors related to ego-death, being able to handle or need it, traumatic experiences necessitating K taking over to burn away the pain-body. 

Makes the most sense: the theory of K being an evolutionary force that clears away the previous pain-bodies to create an empty slate for further progress. That it can lead to enlightenment with the correct efforts applied but by itself, it does not. One can use the empty slate to further bad or good.

I have experimented and the fact that K does change the chemical/physical body is real. One can sense the energy coursing through the organs and hear/feel the organs react. Some previous problems are gone, some new ones appear. What to make out of all of it is going to be speculation for centuries after, so if anyone chanced upon a full-blown K - start accepting and integrating it. Trying to slow or stop K will be more suffering and perhaps disastrous. With all else within our control, resistance must be the first to go...

Let me know how else I can help.

That's not entirely true. For those who do drier vipassana they will normaly get the kundalini phenomena during the A&P stages. But for those who do Samatha practice before doing vipassana they will likely get very strong kundalini phenomena during the latter stages i.e. stage 8 of TMI. Though of course most people's experience of it will be at A&P as that is much easier to attain.

In my view, Kundalini is just nonsense like everything else.  Call it muscle tension, it is less glamorous, but less delusional.  We spend our lives laying on layers of worry and thus muscle tension and when you start to realize there is nothing to worry about - bam the body/mind wants to release all that delusional worry - tension.   

What works for me is just ignoring it and focusing on the nature of things.  Who cares what is pulsing or throbbing or running through the mind? 

Very much agree Seth. But to  be fair. When it feels like it's running round your body and exploding out of you head like a fountain. It is kinda a bit wierd. Difficult to pass off as muscle tension. Yes still nonsense, but I can see why people get a bit carried away with it.

It is easy to dismiss Kundalini awakening - I would a few months ago. It is so similar to K tingling, experiences as it appears similar in sensations, but awakenings aren't simply sensations. How do you explain increases in head size (same cap won't fit) after weeks of K drilling and hammering on your cranial plates on/off meditation? How do you explain raptures going on in your stomach, resulting in flatulence and diarrhea or constipation? How do you explain feeling K going at your liver, hearing sounds/pain and parts of you turn yellow the next few days? 

I spent months denying it, but after much empirical investigation, if I continue to do so, I have to say I am delusional instead haha. But very few actually have awakenings (Daniel-San & Bigbird), so it is best for everyone to chalk it merely as tingling/experience (watch and understand) and only a cause for concern if it goes on non-stop off the cushion: that is when I daresay all who get there will wish it didn't wake up. But guess what? Like much of life - learn that you have no control...

Now imagine some 'crazy' fella with such Kundalini 'migraines' going to the doctor one century ago or even today, complaining. Adding visions of seeing holographic hands going at his head. He can see the entire dance, watching the fingers cocking back more to deliver the heavier touches that he experiences. If any of you were the doctor, wouldn't you prescribe tranquilizers/anti-depressants and/or institutionalize the poor man with your current attitude and understanding just because you have never had it and science hasn't gotten to it yet?

I would just a few months ago. A good lesson I learnt to keep watching out for: the tendency to think I know. The fact is I know so painfully little about not just the world but myself included. Good to maintain a "not sure" attitude and keep up astute investigations...

Yeah Yillum. It is pretty extreme. But it doesn't really matter what we think it is. Better to let the process do what it does and keep plugging away at the vipassana. If you want to know my perspective on all this, just read the 6th interlude of TMI if you have it.

It does matter, maybe not to you and I but it might be very useful to others. If someone thinks they have it when they don't or do not have it when they do - The course of action to deal with both differs, no? If there is disinformation here when chalking x to y and if I keep silent for reasons like fear of ridicule or that it clearly serves me no purpose, then that does not serve this informative site? TMI 6th interlude talks about the effects on-cushion, the key difference for K awakening is it is just there, when it wants to, for reasons beyond anyone.

A brief Kundalini checklist:

K Tingling (random): Everyone has it at some point of their life, meditation or not. Raptures good or bad, energy coursing up the spine or anywhere. Those out of the ordinary sensations one gets often, especially those on the spiritual path. If you like, you can chalk all raptures to this.

K experiences (temporary/repeatable with conditions): Stuff like A&P where it is a combination/formation of sensations - seeing/hearing/sensing stuff, involuntary movements, convulsions, the major works during meditation and shortly after. Noticeable lack of control. Goes away after a period of non-spiritual pursuits.

K awakening (permanent/absolutely no control): It is INTENSE. It doesn't stop no matter what you try. It is measurably real.  It has crazy levels of bliss, alternating with debilitating pain, it lasts for days/weeks/months when you are NOT meditating. You do not need to be mindful to perceive it. You see undeniable, measurable physical changes coinciding again and again with K no empirical difference in how medical science measures the cause and effects. You feel visceral fear, this is not the Dark Night fear - this is Death in your face: its movements escalate to the clear signal that the next wrong move is the end of your sanity or life. Absolutely no question about lack of control.

http://maryshutan.com/category/kundalini/

A good write-up written by someone with a good head on her shoulders. For close to almost all of you reading, you had a K experience. If you are not sure and do not have all the stuff in red above, follow the advice above - dismiss it as nonsense or use whatever insight it yielded.

Which do you think you have, Adam?

I did not mean to diminish the experience or cast doubt on it.  I am not sure if that is how it read, but i apologize if it did.

I have gone through lots and lots and lots  and lots and lots of this kind of stuff.  At first I felt like amazing things were happening and terrifying things and maybe meaningful things. 

Eventually I realized I was just relaxing, in a very intense way.  It is possible to  normalize it and slowly - no matter how crazy it gets - it doesnt seem like a problem or an episode with any meaning.  Calling it muscle tension pulled the mystery and the narratives out of it for me and helped me stop watching it and start just being.  It might work for others. 

No worries at all Seth!

I think it is a thin line between what is 1. Kundalini awakening and 2. post SE Insight Cycling

IME 2. requires mindfulness to perceive and is not on a crazy intrusive level e.g. it will not come on when you are engaged in something requiring a lot of attention/effort/energy. I can imagine that 1. will intrude during sex - but I cannot confirm ha. 2/ also does not yield much, if any physical changes especially the positive, like noticing an old ailment disappear. 1. is usually accompanied by a whole lot of action in the abdomen, causing digestive issues. 2. also comes on fully when one is meditating, that is not the case for 1. - it goes on when it likes to and you can watch a movie with it going full blast.

Do you think you have gone through 1 or 2 and emerged enlightened? You are right in that whatever is going on in 1. or even 2. is nonsense and there is no need to pay attention to it which is like Mahamudra but for those on the Vipassana path, these cycles are the stuff that is used to build equanimity and progress of insight. 

If someone has 1. the earlier he/she recognizes it and cedes control with acceptance, much less unnecessary suffering can be avoided. However, one needs to be careful about over-subscription to conceptual beliefs/labelling, spiritual or not. Whatever it is, it is what it is. Accept it. What is of ultimate value is life and love. Any distracting preoccupations should be understood and abandoned, finding a middle way between addiction to cognition or the opposite of dismissal so as to pay maximum attention to what is of value in our journey OF happiness. 

I wrote some detailed responses to this and each time it felt a bit false to me so I deleted it.   Who knows what I am up to.  

What I know is that Knowing is not useful.  It feels so important, but it is a trap.  Rita Marley sings: He who feels it, knows it Lord.  When the analytical mind truly gains mastery over its own fabrications  - Love is all that arises and knowing is revealed as a self referential game.  Everything I know is stuff I made up.  It is faster to skip the knowing nonsense and go straight to the loving. 

I have no doubt at all that Direct Knowing is the fastest, Seth. But I doubt most people are designed with that capability or have too much programmed stuff of making that jump without climbing the gradual path up the mountain and losing the baggage. I can see the benefits of the gradual path as one is working on defilements and I suspect there is a gap in "Training in Morality" between the 2. I think we are getting off-topic hahaha... ;)

Over two years ago I had a full and complete Kundalini shakti  awakening.

Every single atom of my very being is undergoing a realignment

I see nothing in any of these posts to indicate that a meaningful conversation on the subject is even capable of being had

Did anything actually happen or change? 

Everything......... all is so fluid......nothing is as was, not anything

What's this.....k...... Crap?  That implies experience and or knowledge 

Respect please,  for that you know nothing of 

Kundalini,  or Kundalini shakti

So - In my experience, nothing changed.   Different experiences are arising in the mind, but they are just as empty as old ones.  I found myself identifying with a new improved me with bliss and looseness and the changes seemed huge and meaningful and exciting.  Nothing actually happened.  Atoms banged into each other.   There was never any more love or less love because of the activity in my brain. 

Once I accepted that, there was no more fear and craving even for enlightenment started to abate rapidly.   Does that make any sense? 

I rest my case .... 

I asked myself if I should reply and why. Is it to satisfy my own cognition or defend an ego that didn't participate but by investing in replying, am I conditioning its birth?

I've no disrespect for K or anything, knowing more wouldn't help my practice. I am contented with surrendering control and being "not sure". The know-how to deal with it is the same as before.

Only a pity and deep compassion to those who stumble onto such territory and face scaling it with treacherous disinformation everywhere. Consider sharing what one knows, it just might help to reduce somebody's suffering. Or perhaps that's what this journey is about -"embracing uncertainty? 

Come on man.... You have been here 5 minutes and you profess expertise in most everything.... Then again that could just be a reflection of my lack of intellect.....you and your mate... big bird

I'm sorry it's construed as expertise. Will you kindly let us know what you know as I know painfully little and have been trying to ask, even starting a post to no answers from people like you who know a lot but keep quiet. Consider this a cry for help? 

No.....work,  study,  research, evolve...... 
This is a truly fantastic resource,  with a core of of expertise that blows me away. 
Listen.... learn. ....
We each have our own path, find your own... don't dabble in others

the pot, calling the kettle... mmm

I don't know where you are coming from your royal highness, I hope the anger didn't bother you too much. Knowing something, insulting and saying nothing is too enlightened for a lowly one like me to fathom.

Chuckle, chuckle....... 

Your sudden modesty is unbecoming

Whatever floats your boat, Love... :*

I’d like to take another stab at the OP, as I think it’s a reasonable question and a pertinent subject in this field of ‘spiritual pursuit’.
The simple answer as to why some people have this experience and others don’t is ultimately unanswerable, I would chalk it up to the deeply personal nature of inner exploration and each person’s own make-up.
The more interesting question to me is what is kundalini, and how is it related to pragmatic dharma. There’s a lot that can be said on the subject, and while I have enjoyed reading the link from Yilun by Mary Mueller Shutan (and reading ‘The Biology of Kundalini’ and loads of other books) there are so many leaps of faith and religious inferences involved that don’t come from one’s personal experience that it can be off-putting. That said, the story of blips and bleeps and stream entry and awakening in general is a long yarn that takes a load of leaps itself.
As for K, from my personal experience, I would say that calling it a path of purification is fair. Kundalini is not A&P, at least as defined by MCTB, nor is it muscle cramps, whether gross or subtle – kundalini is a powerful cleansing force that allows one to feel muscle cramps, the muscle cramps were already there, but were somehow made conscious, or forced out, or something. Calling kundalini gross energy is like calling light darkness.
As anyone that has taken deep meditative dives knows, inner wisdom is not intellectual. Things tend to get intellectualized a lot around here because we’re so Western and ‘pragmatic’. But as loads of people here already know, the chakra system is representative of actual energy/sensate centers in the body, of which the mind comprises maybe one – the heart is more central in this work, and there are others. The wisdom that develops from these practices is innate and somehow downloaded from…somewhere, or maybe nowhere – but it is first felt and experienced. Later on it can be spoken about and made into models.
And that’s just what this ‘serpent power’ goddess is, a model. A terrifying explosive seemingly never-ending painful and (for some apparently) blissful model of an experience. It’s not the finger, it’s the moon. The same can be said for the A&P. Trying to wrap these somewhat shared experiences up with nice little definitional bows is something that the mind enjoys very much, as it keeps us from this terrifying uncertainty, as Yilun pointed out.
But…for those that have fully surrendered to the process of a kundalini awakening, there actually is no terror, there is no fear at all, it is incinerated on the spot, inside the body. For me, what was left was the innately manifesting inner guru. the embodiment of love, compassion, equanimity and joy. There is no footing for fear when one is lit up by the process, no possibility of developing ill will, stress, malice or anger. You are burning too bright inside for those energies to form. This is manifested Buddha Nature.
But…just like having a blip, or reaching a deep jhana doesn’t make one more enlightened, neither does kundalini or energetic purification. It’s like samatha v. vipassana. K awakening feels like it is giving us the chance to get closer to the gods, to really dip ourselves into the Brahma Viharas, and to be given the opportunity to evolve. Intentions and ego may take it from there.
As for blips and paths and emptiness and anatta, that’s all great – but it was never my personal motivation for beginning a meditative path a long time ago, and I would be surprised if it was yours. Back then I just wanted to be happier, have less of a monkey mind, and be more fulfilled in general, less anxious and more prepared for the eventual vicissitudes and pain that living and dying brings, more loving and compassionate. You can't be surrendered to a K process and be attached at the same time. 
Tantra/Dzogchen/Mahamudra know all about this stuff, and there are teachings and practices in these traditions that go in depth on the preparation and cultivation for kundalini awakening, as there are in a loads of other spiritual traditions. Some have said it is a point in development where the practitioner’s job is just to surrender to the unfolding, and let the inner winds be burned up by the process, and that’s pretty much what it's been like for me. 

Totally agree. I was trying to share information based on the initial terror and frustrations I had 4 months ago to (later) folks whom I know will certainly chance upon K. I searched long and hard for this set of information but it isn't available anywhere, thus my great urge to share even though I expect ridicule as it is known to be dismissed here. There is too much dogma and nonsense as you have mentioned in sites and books mentioned, people who chance upon it will link it to their religion or beliefs somehow. But there is good and valuable information in them. I hope someone will finally write a Kundalini book without all the unnecessary stuff.

Someone who is new to this needs good information to allay the fear and be guided to the process of surrendering - it is not a walk in the park. And you have wrote the gist, very well in your post. Thank you very much, Daniel...

Please, it is time to recognize Kundalini as real (NOT A&P) and allow people to stand up and be diagnosed without being ostrasized.

May All Beings Be Free from Suffering

Maybe a useful way of thinking about kundalini is to think about Culadasa's ideas about sub-minds. When the sub-minds are pacified through meditation they can produce unusual effects. When the sub-mind that deals with vision is pacified we might get light - nimitta. When the sub-mind that deals with sound is pacified we might get sound - nada. When the sub-mind that deals with touch is pacified we might get sensations in the skin or elsewhere. When the sub-mind that deals with movement is pacified we might get the occasional jerking movement.

When the sub-mind that deals with speech is pacified we might get spontaneous vocalizations. I have heard people speaking in what sounds like a foreign language but isn't - it's called 'speaking in tongues'. Some people say that is a manifestation of kundalini.

Well written, Daniel-san!

My personal theory, after undergoing a period of accelerated kundalini in the late 90's is that it results from connections between the cortical body map on the top of your brain and the pleasure centers of your brain underneath that form as a result of intense meditation. I've been waiting for some enterprising doctoral student in the meditation research community to put an fMRI on someone undergoing a full-blown kundalini experience.

As to how to interpret that (the meaning I derive from it), as you say, it is like jhana: it doesn't make you more enlightened. But my experience is that you derive a certain level of control over your sensation body that wasn't there before, just like experienced jhana practitioners derive control over their ability to enter jhana. This control is somewhat along the lines of the tantric practices associated with, as you say, Dzongchen and Mahamudra, and I think Culadasa's body focus jhana is also along similar lines though less intense.

If your preference extends to interpreting the experience as serpent energy or a goddess, please don't let my overly objective and Westernized interpretation put you off. It's just the way I was trained.

Did you guys go through any physical changes? I do not really see that fitting with your theories. (Not that it matters, I gave up trying to fathom this thing and just surrender to it.)

I did and still have these stuff going on. Some stuff are damaged and recover later, some old ailments like gout (~10 years) , sinusitis (had it since I can remember) are gone. You can sense the vibrations going at these locations and they show up with visible changes. For more than a month, my left shoulder/arm feels like it is fractured and cannot do any more than light work and it feels like the pain is coming from the full length of the arm-bone.

I get what you are trying to get at Andrew, but pacification feels like the anti-thesis to the very violent stuff I am experiencing - My whole skull including teeth has been drilled/bored/rattled/pressured/shifted daily for hours.

This thing is the greatest teacher I've had for Equanimity: You can go along for a ride or fight till you are drenched in blood/sweat.

Not to discount any of the other stuff that has happened, but for this in particular have you seen a dentist? This kind of thing can happen from impacted wisdom teeth. Teeth will shift, joints in the jaw can become stiff and blocked, and they can effect sinuses too.

Pretty sure Adyashanti and U G Krishnamurti reported similar violent bodilly sensations and changes but in their case just after (I assume from their stories) attaining 4th path.

If I remember correctly in Adyashanti's case it lasted about two years and there was the implication that other Arahant's he talked to had similar experiences. I think this was an aside in one of his youtube videos.

I would guess that Kundalini awakening is somehow a switch being flipped and the process starting 'early'?

Hi Lewis, I've removed the wisdom teeth long ago and these shifts in the jaw/teeth comes from or is in concert with the higher regions of the skull - like waves/fast vibrations of raptures good/bad that move downwards - a little hard to explain as there's 10,001 ways it moves but this is 100% not a dental issue haha. They are followed or accompanied by stuff going on at the throat, heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, GI and all the other places I can point out to you but do not know their names. Afterwhich, the whole body vibrates at a frequency much higher than 40 Hz: I can't accurately determine - I have gotten someone to touch me and he can feel it, I can also hear the sounds that clothing make when skin/hair moves - so this is not merely neurons firing. I avoid meditating with unfamiliar people because my gut is quite the opposite of a symphony - tough to explain and it can be disturbing to their meditation.

Daniel Slanley - There are many people who do not emerge enlightened as well - conscious effort of some level is required? I do not know what it is, all I know is there is nothing I can do and I better live well with it. Most of the time, it is a mixture of bliss and biological-changing type of pain for me, when the bliss overwhelms the pain, it is immensely enjoyable though.

Daniel - san - the Psychospacial (PSM) and Neuroemotional (NER) meditation exercises (~ Page 410) in "Biology of Kundalini" works for me. You might want to try them. I suspect it is beneficial for those not having K as well. PSM is a good method to increase Piti/Sukha for jhana entry.

P.S. I touched a fellow meditator (he's pretty desperate for progress) earlier when I am vibrating and he said that it coincides with pain going away with rapture and bliss-wave. Can't be sure, but something to think about shaktipat perhaps. Oh and I'm rocking a blue balls type of pain on 1 side as I type this but in intermittent waves, so be careful what you wish for... (and I can't be going for checkups every day for new symptoms - they'd throw me into the psych ward!)

Hi Yilun,

I had to leave the retreat where it started early because I had severe abdominal pain. I went to some doctors, they thought it was a gallstone but it turned out that there was no evidence of any. My family doctor had my spine MRIed and they found a thorassic herniated disc poking forward and so pressing on the abdominal nerves, which could have caused the problem, combined with intensive, nonmoving meditation for a month and a half. I had back pain on and off for about 10 years prior to the retreat, an occupational hazard of being a tech worker. But then I got two full 10 series of structural integration (aka rolfing) in the years after the retreat and have never had any back pain since. Structural integration realigns muscles and removes tension in the fascia, and I highly recommend it if you practice yoga or meditation.

I still get prana flows especially when I am deep in concentration medititation (I am not able to go into the luminous jhanas but can manage both the body focus jhanas and pleasure jhanas, according to Culadasa's map). I also get them in daily life when, for example, some particularly nice music comes on the Youtube feed or di.fm, or I'm listening to some rockin' Baroque composer like Frescobaldi.

Psychosomatic illnesses have been known for a long time. These are cases where the mind causes physical changes in the body. I don't really know whether the thorassic herniation was causing the problem or not, most older people have herniations, so some of my problems may have been psychosomatic.  

Hope that helps.

Man I could spin some yarn about the crazy mystical K experiences I've had, I really need to write a top ten list and compare notes with you guys. Mind you, I did not start meditating desiring anything mystical at all and had never even heard the word kundalini (as I consciously remembered) before my initial experience. That said, when laying in my tent that one retreat evening over ten years ago going through some sort of controlled schizophrenic breakdown, when things then exploded and energy shot up my spine and out the top of my head, a little voice in my head (thoughts) said, 'oh, my kundalini just awakened'. I didn’t even know what that meant. Then everything went from whooshing insane technicolor madness to quiet still black-and-white back-to-Kansas in an instant. I laid down and went to sleep.
Regarding real physical changes (although one experiential insight was that ‘psychosomatic’ is ultimately all bs, the line between mind and body isn’t so distinct), I’ve had a few. One that comes to mind, after meditating without moving for 3 hours in intense pain (but still a Mona Lisa smile on my face due to fourth jhana equanimity) I feebly rose to my feet following a midday retreat double session and hobbled my way outdoors as best I could, due to excruciating leg and knee pain. I had an ACL and medial meniscus surgery some years prior and was used to daily sharp penetrating pain in both of my knees. My body was pretty much moving me, totally on it's own without volition, I was observing everything. One leg lifted itself up, marionette-style, shook violently for a few minutes as I stood in the middle of a tall grass field, then was set back down. The other leg lifted itself, same thing, lots of shaking. I could feel the gross energy pouring through my body and out the bottoms of both feet as this happened, until the vase-like container of my inner body was once again cleared of gross sensations. Feet on the ground. Zero pain in my legs – interesting (I thought). I would never again experience knee pain for the rest of that retreat, or until the present day.
Geez, I've got so much more where that comes from. I would lay hands on my girlfriend to relieve her bad sciatica pain in minutes and feel the energy pouring from her body into mine. We would laugh about this because neither of us are especially woo woo or even believe in those sorts of things, but it did work. Another time I meditated before going out with her to dinner. I was intellectually freaking out (the sensations of fear were being burned up in my body as soon as they formed so it wasn’t normal anxiety) because I thought I was going mad. I wished hard for the K train to stop, to make me normal again. My body moved around in rhythmic dance-like symmetric movements as I sat down to meditate, making all sorts of mudras (that meant all sorts of things according to Google). A calm still early afternoon day outside suddenly got extremely windy. The wind whistled through the old windows, huge trees blew violently about, my head was jerked back by some strong outside-feeling force, and my mouth opened up wider than I thought it could. Big trails of prickly uncomfortable sensations (energy) were pushed in series down my throat into my body in long large threaded beads. Some type of evil spirits probably lol. The chaos went on for five long minutes, then the heavy wind suddenly stopped outside as abruptly as it had started. My head was jerked back level and my eyes were opened and body got up. I walked into the living room, and my girlfriend was asking me if I heard that crazy wind that came from nowhere and stopped so quickly. Yes, I heard it alright.
There's stranger things than those, talking to a higher self, knowing obscure details that my girlfriend asked of her psychic, using a ready-made Ouiji-board to learn from my 'higher self' that this was all due to ‘TMS’ and told to google it to find out what that meant (both transcranial magnetic stimulation and tension myositis syndrome ala Dr John Sarno for those keeping score). I would need to be a better writer to fully capture some of this weird wild stuff, as it’s all so out there, and totally unbelievable from any kind of pragmatic viewpoint. They’re still just unbelievable fantastical stories to me too, except I experienced them. I’m sure a number of you can relate to stuff like this. Still, I never heard voices, didn’t see apparitions or even hallucinations (despite being a very visual person) and I (luckily) never spontaneously combusted, nor felt like I was about to. Other people have had wilder experiences than my own. Pretty pretty weird.
As for your symptoms Yilun, you're in the thick of it, I can tell – good thing you have a very level head on your shoulders. You already know this stuff, just trust in the process. I truly believe these naturally occurring experiences (you’re not on drugs) are only allowed to happen by the mind when you are ready – not in an especially magical way necessarily, I simply don’t think the mind grants access to these depths of self awareness without the naturally prepared for equanimity and awareness developing first. That’s just another insight I had, whether true or not. Regardless, surrender is the only sane reaction. It's non-reaction, equanimity. 
Keep doing what you’re doing, allow everything that comes up, pain, bliss, fear, joy, numbness, craziness, whatever. This is a natural purifying process that you are lucky to experience. Let it be, you’re practicing non-attachment. These are all just passing sensations and passing thoughts anyway, as uncomfortable as they are, they just happen - and they will surely change. 

Dear Daniel-san, it's still comforting and heartwarming to hear from people I know about their experiences although it is crystal clear about letting go of control and surrendering to the process. When I had my first meditative experiences, I did not even know what to believe (not even MCTB, skimmed much of it with a large pinch of salt and I thought Daniel M.I. is some insane, arrogant fella till I checked out this forum), much less in wishes for enlightenment (undecided yet about the truth of it) or mysticism. All I wish and knew about meditation was gaining peace/clarity through it and training in morality. To be honest when the undeniable fact of K hit me, I was pretty distraught and wished that it did not happen, I asked why can't it leave a monk alone to practice the traditional path so that the knowledge gained can be used to help others. I have since let that wrong view go and am appreciating the process. And yes I do feel loved and lucky now...

You should write a book or at least start jotting them down when you feel like it, I am sure they will be of use to others. I know I will read it many times over.

Deepest gratitude to you and all before me, sending you metta with a warm smile.

Hopefully those K boys/girls find their way to read information like this early on!

I was re-reading TMI and he seems to be saying that when the process of pacification is proceeding people can get all of these side effects. When the process of pacification of the sub-minds is completed then they will stop. Some people have a lot of side-effects and some people have hardly any. He said it seems that the ones who have the most side-effects are the ones who get the best results at the end.

I do not think it is very complicated.  "Kundalini" is just nervous tension and it comes from subconscious worry.  As one sees that there isnt much - or anything - to worry about the nervous system is able to release nervous tension.  These releases can be mild or if one develops the practice or has a major change in the amount of things they are worried about the releases can be incredible.  The experience of bliss and fear and fireworks is just mental churn resulting from these releases. 

When he says subminds, you could say unconscious worriers and it would mean the same thing.  

Actually you have it backwards, it’s a common misconception about Kundalini. Nervous system tension is different, it’s something everyone has. Kundalini awakening is likened to the goddess Shakti because it is a purificatory force in movement, most people are not in process. It is an energy that rips through ones mind/body eliminating all of that tension that you describe. ‘She’ is relentless and unforgiving in her quest to purify the energy system, and many people mistake the bright open energizing force for the heavy energetic sensations (tension) that she is actively blasting to smithereens. She doesn’t rest until the system is purged of tension and mental/physical conflict. That’s why I said that this common misunderstanding about the K process is mistaking light for darkness. It is like putting your awakening process on autopilot, and it feels like being possessed. It cannot be willfully turned off, she bites back. 

Not sure I understand your point.  I suggest that Kundalini is the release of nervous tension and you suggest that it is some supernatural force that results in the release of nervous tension ?

I have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours working through this purification and there is nothing supernatural going on.  It sure feels it! 

Seth, this release of nervous tension is what I experience when going up/down the Path of Insight especially in the Dark Night where one can identify (not always) the tensions/pain with emotional stuff and feel the relief from experiencing both go away (often simultaneously), this also results in the sense of freedom (sometimes with insight) post meditation.

Now this K thing is another wilder animal - where I am now, pleasant/unpleasant stuff co-exist. There is rarely if ever, a moment where it is purely one or another. The moments of what seems like pure bliss are those that cover the painful work that is still ongoing. It does not stop, definitely not when one goes to sleep, not when one wakes up to pee, not ever. There is no tension-release link that is as clear as those from POI (at least for the moment, I am blind to it). What I can perceive though is what locations on the body, relate to stuff like: Clarity, wisdom, serenity, satisfaction, faith, gratitude, confidence, reverence, peace/unity with the world...

Not sure how the above helps to differentiate or resonate with your past experience.

In my experience, everything that happens in my mind is just nonsense.  Bliss, despair, need, fear, genius - I have examined everything in detail and it is all fabricated by the combination of sensations produced by my mind using nerves in the body and thoughts/stories.  When my mind has seen through one of these fabrications, it never arises again when i am mindful as my mind can watch the fabrication occur and labels it sensation, thought and not fear or bliss. 

When the mind stops watching the parade of sensation/thought pairs, because it has become convinced they are meaningless, it can see that it is all/ I am all just undifferentiated This and it/I is/am perfect.  

The experience of "Kundalini" is, I believe, the experience of a rapid release of nervous tension such as occurs in orgasms, laughter, a scare, etc.  Rapid releases of tension are accompanied by edge case mind states and the causality goes both ways.  It feels like crazy crazy stuff is happening, but I am just sitting there and my nervous system is relaxing.  

That is my best understanding. 

I would agree to this in general, but it is still a view like any other, a modern ‘scientific’ one. What is a thought or a sensation really and are they two different things? Is one thing yours (mind) and another thing not yours (sensation) and is there some line separating you from not you that can objectively be found? What is your mind perceiving something, and is this actually what happens or is this more view/story-making? (another discussion). 
Yilun made the critical point and it’s the case in my experience as well. Prior the what is referred to as my Kundalini awakening, I was able to directly perceive the relationship between mind and body and vice versa. Mind thinks a nice comfy thought, a pleasant sensation arises. Body feels a sharp piercing pain, a negative mind state arises, etc. Kundalini does not follow these rules. One can be non-attached in deep equanimity and have heavy sensations of what we may ordinarily refer to as fear pouring from the heart center. Curious, one may think. It doesn’t stop regardless of conditions, and it’s not a quick release, it’s a decades long S-storm. 
If what you’re saying is you’ve been practicing for tens of thousands of hours and you have not had any improvement in your mental/emotional state (more love, joy, compassion and equanimity), I would ask you why you are practicing and what do you think is the point of realizing anatta and being non-attached in the first place? For me at least, I began practice to cultivate these divine abodes, however one experiences the various stirrings, experiences, or full blown no hands barred awakenings, Kundalini is the mental/energetic concomitant with this ‘path of purification’. A&P is it’s cute little baby sister, but it’s not it. As long as you realize all these words are mere designations and we are drawing imaginary lines around non-existent ideas and concepts and these ideas are not the actual thing, which it seems you do, one doesn’t get caught up in arguing whose map/religion is more correct or authentic. 

1.  You can call it anything you like, there is no intrinisic existence to any of it and no one is watching or juding you.  I agree. 
2.  In my view, Calling it muscle tension most closely describes what is really happening to our modern human minds.  I argue this because it works - every sensation does map to nerves in the body and because we know those nerves have no cosmic meaning.  Labeling it tension allows me to have 100% confidence in both what it is, what to do about it and that it cant really hurt me or have meaning. 
3.  Muscle tension and worry are the same thing.  It is a physical manifestation of subconsious - or conscious - concern.   When I release muscle tension I have fewer irrational worries, when I release irrational worries I have less muscle tension.   When I am not irrationally worried, I am happy and see oneness. 
    

In all honesty I just feel like bringing my life to an end, there is little quality of life since this energy has completely taken over. I’m fatigued and bed riddden a lot of the time. What purpose I have in living is beyond me. 

I used to get transcendent experiences that were full of joy and insight. I used to feel full of energy for days, but the energy took a different turn in the last year. I thought I’d been through the worst of it, the hospitalisations, agony in my spine that I couldn’t walk for months and fatigued to the point of being unable to walk. I thought something had to come out of this. But it got bad again, I’m in agony at the moment, pressure inside of my skull and it feel bruised to the touch. It hurts so much that I feel like I could scream. I really don’t know how much more I can take, I option of suicide of a drastic measure. I don’t know if I have it in me. It saddens at the thought it becoming a consideration in my life after all this time. 

My had his kundalini awakens within months of mine. He spend years in bed suffering with spinal pain, even having operations on his spine to no avail. He had breaks in the suffering like I used to have, and we were able to develop our relationship, there has clearly been significant changes in the both of us. I discovered at the time an ability to love and have compassionate feelings towards others that I’d never felt before. In those shorts breaks it was as if something was truly changing inside us. However they were short lived experiences and suffering would return, it got so bad that we’d be hospitalised around the same time for digestive issues,  sadly for dad he had to have his entire colon removed. I was on medication for years. In the end dad ended up with cancer and died several months ago, he did find a lot of peace in himself in the end but was definitely ready to go. 

Kundalini can be brutal in some people, it’s been brutal with me and the way it came into my family. It was an uninvited guest, we never knew anything about until it arose spontaneously around eight years ago. I often wonder who are the mad souls in search of such a monster, I’d stay well clear as you’ve no idea how it’s going to unfold in you. I’d say enjoy your life if you can and don’t bother yourself trying to awaken some sleeping giant that you don’t know anything about. As I did it was spontaneous in me therefore I had no choice. But for those that do, I’d focus on rounding out your personality and what makes you happy as kundalini can make your nightmares come true. Obviously for some people, this isn’t the case and they enjoy a pleasant awakening. You just don’t know 

staying alive is tough at the moment, it’s like living with a terminal illness but no real diagnosis. But it is what it is, I guess we all have different destinies, even as I write this it feels like my head is about to explode. I don’t know what it wants, I just hope somehow, someday this will end. God bless x 

Kris.

What did you and your family members do to get this going? What did you practice? Was there guidance from a teacher/expert? And what exactly happened last year? Describe the change. All this does not sound like kundalini, at all.

The initial experience was spontaneous, I was in a therapy session and something she said triggered an explosion out of my spine. That was my very first experience of transcending everything I had thought myself to be in that moment, I could see directly from consciousness itself as consciousness. It dissipated after several days, but those days were very transformative. It was like a love was pouring out from inside me, something sacred had become apparent. It’s vegy difficult to describe it exactly 



I had no idea about kundalini, it was only after several months of the energy expoding out of the spine that I recognised a description of it when searching online for answers. The openings would happen every few months, and they would be significant, bringing about a lot of change in my personality and general direction and motivation in life. When this energy wakes up in you, you don’t miss it. It’s not something that you are uncertain about, you recognise who you are in that moment. You see directly from that place. You know something significant and beyond the every day sense perceptions has occurred. You don’t have any doubt, as it’s your first hand experience. The energy itself permeates every everything, it dissolves the thinking and cognitive mind which is how you dissolve into it. The entire structure of identity dissolves in an instant and you recognise yourself. However these are experiences and when they dissipate, it’s like a trap door has been lifted and every repressed memory, emotion and thought you had ever shut out come flooding in. Light very quickly turns to darkness. You didn’t even know such dark places existed in you. 

My father had his awakening several months after mine on the back of me telling him how much I loved him one day. He felt it so deeply that the energy exploded in him too. It was quite miraculous. 

I think a lot lot of people don’t really like to hear about the dark side of kundalini, because as much as it has the possibility to give you wings to transcend the world, it also reveals to you every dark corner in your life. It demands change, anything in your life that isn’t in allingment with it starts to fall apart in ways you could never imagine. You can become so ill in environments and around people that don’t go well with the path you are now on, whether you like it or not. And as you listen and go along with those change, using your intuition then things get easier. You begin to see what it wants. And for some that is easier than it is for others. Some people like myself have a lot of latent diseases in the body that become active, psychological trauma and conflicts that can become unbearable. However when you get through parts of it, the energy clears and you can feel it moving freely again. More transcend experiences etc. However after that temporary relief it starts again, and for me it’s been almost eight years. No guides or anything, and recently some stuff has begun to surface that feels unbearable and it’s the first time that I feel I can’t cope. But one thing I can say, which keeps me going is knowing that when that energy moves through you, its beyond words. It’s like being pushed into another dimension that is right here in this moment, it support something a transcendence into that’s dimension like a ladder allowing you to see clearly. It’s like the world disappears and you with it yet you are right there in a completely different way. In a very ordinary way,  

OK, a little context. The word kundalini is commonly used for the energy specifically related to the spine. This should not be confused with prana, breath energy sensations, in the spine.

So, Kris, you had an energetic opening several years ago. And apparently, as often is the case, it had an infectous effect as it made your father's energy body vibrate in the same way.

You also say that you haven't done any practices (method/teacher) and that its overbearing now. This is where your problem lies. At this point the energetic process in your mind/subtle body has spread to areas of heavy karma and that's what is causing all these problems. Very difficult to sort this stuff out on one's own as you describe.

I recommend you find a buddhist (perhaps even non-buddhist) teacher who teaches mantras/prayers and whose method involves a lot of chanting. To be able to balance this stuff, you need to start bringing in the blessings of the buddhas and the lineage into your bodymind (which automatically brings in your own buddha nature/awareness). This is the only way to fix this problem.

If you wish to try it out right away, find out about Amitabha Buddha and start chanting his mantra: Namu Amida Butsu. There are many other mantras and prayers, some of which come with or without empowerment, but for Amitabha mantra you don't need an empowerment. Amitabha is the buddha of light of your own mind so when you chant it, gently or with very strong focus, it will cut through the sticky emotions.

Hi Kris,

If you haven't connected with people who have experience with helping with this process you might consider doing so.  Two resources I know about are http://www.kundaliniguide.com/ and  http://www.spiritualemergence.org/  People from those organziations are on this recent panel presentation from a spiritual conferencel
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-power-and-mystery-of-kundalini/

When i needed support I found buddhist sources to be very hit and miss despite being within buddhist commmunities - but partially what i needed was emotional support around the difficulty of the process.