Kundalini, the spiritualizing force within human beings discovered by the Rishis (seers) and the Yogis of ancient times, is the means which enables the transmutation process in transformative spirituality. In my opinion, it is even more essential than that: not only that this force should be recognized as the igniting and transmuting element in transformative spirituality, but it should be one day also acknowledged as a force that plays a major part in the possible evolution of human consciousness.
For every sincere spiritual practitioner – whether consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally – Kundalini is a living and tangible reality.
Many millions of people have experienced throughout the ages a certain degree of Kundalini awakening and have documented such awakenings – and not only in the world of Yoga, in which this force was most directly conceptualized. Many so-called “metaphors” capturing the Kundalini dynamic can be found in esoteric texts written by mystical practitioners and their small groups within religions and various spiritual schools.
What clearly distinguishes Kundalini from most mystical descriptions is that it is not a mystical phenomenon at all – at least not in the known sense of an “out-of-the-body” occurrence.
Kundalini is, in fact, a deeply physiological phenomenon. The experience of this force is highly sensual and is very far from elusive or subtle.
This should make us question even more generally whether the entire phenomenon of subtle anatomy – as so carefully outlined by Rishis and Yogis – is nothing but a dormant evolutionary structure lying in the human body itself. Are the Nadis (subtle nervous system), Chakras (major nerve confluences) and Kundalini undiscovered layers of our physical constitution?
Whatever the answer to this important question might be, as soon as one experiences the force of Kundalini rising throughout the spine – both the subtle one (called “Sushumna”, the central subtle nerve column) and the physical – one can acknowledge directly the appearance of a clear energy stream, followed by tingling, heat waves, cold surges, a fluid-like flow carried upward, or a general sense of a lively river streaming against the force of gravity.
Such phenomena may be the outcome of a direct and intentional kundalini practice, but mostly this happens as an indirect outcome of the spiritual practice: as a person sincerely focuses on the activity of transformative spirituality (turning one’s mind inward, in the direction of consciousness itself, rather than the usual object-oriented attention outward), it seems that by doing so, one brings about an opposite dynamic within one’s flow of life-force. While the psyche ordinarily flows in the same direction of the gravitational force – downward, towards the earth, through earthly occupation and focus – it now flows against gravity’s pull upward, towards the brain and the skull, where the higher faculties of human consciousness reside.
This anti-gravitational flow gradually creates a new type of human being.
It shifts the center of gravity of one’s being to consciousness and it steadily transmutes the life-force, which is ordinarily invested in earthly elements and tendencies, into a potent energy of higher forms of awareness.
In this way, instead of having as one’s center of gravity the animalistic, materialistic and earthly being – literally, keeping the life-force concentrated more in the sex organs and the digestive system – it moves to the most refined levels of perception, which seem to awaken new types of activity within the pituitary and pineal glands.
The more the force of Kundalini rises throughout the spine, the more the person finds less and less interest in, and dependency on, the material and earthly plane of existence. The person’s sexual desire significantly diminishes; one’s needs – including the most basic, such as food – become minimal; the aggressive will fades away, and one’s emotional system depends significantly less on external emotional feedback.
The reason for this is not only the shift of the center of gravity to the higher centers of perception – but also the fact that such a shift is clearly followed by a highly gratifying experience of emotional elevation, supreme happiness or bliss and a profound quietude of self-contentment.
For example, the experience of physical orgasm limited usually to brief moments during sexual satisfaction becomes, through the rising of Kundalini, a vibration of refined and quiet pleasure which floods the entire body from head to toe.
It seems like the entire system – physical as well as emotional – turns into a self-nourishing system. Rather than the ordinary focus on receiving gratifying feedback, it transforms into a source of silent radiation towards all that surrounds it.
Kundalini, then, radically alters our human experience. By transforming our centers of perception it causes a higher sensory stimulation so that one requires far less to feel sensual fullness. It removes physical, emotional and mental blockages which pull us downward, toward our earthly and denser elements and tendencies, and brings to life a vaster potential of brain activity and perception.
Treating Kundalini as a mere esoteric force limits our willingness as a human culture to explore this phenomenon as a possible source of physiological energy, as well as a psychological system of transformation and a salvaging force within the human itself. In reality, this force is the closest thing we have to self-salvation, which could enable the human being to grant oneself the actual capacity to govern the mind and body and their baser earthly elements; to organize these different, sometimes conflicted elements into a unified and integrated being, and to direct one’s consciousness according to one’s own higher will.
Studying this system, which millions testify to its existence out of their direct experience, would be similar to acquiring a map that could guide us how to access dormant forces within the human body. These forces hold not only an individual potential change but also a collective and shared emotional wellbeing, higher levels of happiness and satisfaction, mental clarity and a genuine world peace.
