Yilun Ong:
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.)
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.