Kundalini
Lawrence Edwards, president of Kundalini Research Network and author of The Soul’s Journey: Guidance from the Divine Within, has long been involved with the study of kundalini in a variety of ways—from exploring its beginnings in ancient texts to tracing it in our culture and art. In the following essay he takes a close look at how Kundalini can be used to understand the energy that makes up both the smallest aspects of our lives and the vast expanse of the universe. He introduces readers to the two significant ways in which we can understand Kundalini—one of them as our mind, body, and spirit and the other as the Divine, or Consciousness. He examines both of these as they pertain to “involution,” evolution and the chakras. Edwards also shares his profound experience with Kundalini, during which he encountered Maha Kali. Examining a number of sources including ancient yogic texts, Carl Jung, and his own encounter, he probes the significant question: How can we pursue the same Kundalini described in the ancient texts, and in doing so, discover our own true divinity?
Kundalini provides one of the most extraordinary maps of the inexhaustible energies within the body and in the highest consciousness. One may directly experience the enormous power of Kundalini through yoga, awakened Kundalini, and the system of chakras. In this context, a myth isn’t something that is untrue; instead, it is the only vehicle capable of bringing truths that lie beyond language and beyond the mind into the realm of words. The language of symbols and myths has a rare capacity for pointing to the ineffable beyond itself. Great meditation masters have used mythic maps for thousands of years to direct those earnest and qualified seekers who desire to push far beyond the limits of the ordinary mind, conditioned as the mind is to suffer the bondage put on it by family, religion, and society. Westerners on their quest for true freedom, both inner and outer, have long looked to Eastern and esoteric traditions for ways to deeply engage in their search, ways that a materialistic culture doesn’t provide. Joseph Campbell, the brilliant mythologist who worked with George Lucas on the first Star Wars trilogy, wrote about the symbolic quest in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
If we examine our life as a mythic journey, we may discover the deeper symbolic meanings of our struggles, our heroic battles—whether they are at work or at home, with our spouse, parents, or children, or addictions or disease. Connecting with the deeper symbolism of what we are doing allows us to know the significance of our lives regardless of whether the cultural markers of money and fame are present. Discovering the deeper personal symbolism of our journey, just as it is, also allows us to know and feel that our lives are deeply meaningful, or to make adjustments so they become more so. In this way, we progress on our personal quest. In the popular movie National Treasure and its sequel, Nicolas Cage’s character has the unique ability to decode the symbols and find the treasure. Understanding the symbolic meanings of the clues, the experiences we have along our journey, is the key to finding the greatest of all treasures: the source of unbounded love, compassion, and wisdom.
To use the ancient treasure map requires the development of viveka—fine discrimination—and the cultivation of one’s capability for reading mysterious symbols that one will encounter along the way. Some of these symbols will be archetypal, like those that can be partially depicted by chakras, nadis (subtle channels of energy), and the like, and some will have their archetypal nature clothed in more personal symbols. There are no quick and easy manuals for deciphering all that you will encounter on your path. For this reason, all ancient classic texts make it clear that this is a journey one can only undertake with the guidance and grace of a master. Still, many people find themselves thrust on this path by circumstances not of their choosing. Almost daily I hear from people all over the world who are having spontaneous awakenings or experiences that are transcendent, transpersonal, and powerfully transformative. That transformation can be extremely disruptive at times, and I work with people to help them regain their balance and functioning as they deal with the volcanic eruption of the Divine into their lives.
In the Bhagavad Gita there is an exchange between Arjuna, who among other things symbolizes the perfect disciple, and Lord Krishna, the archetypal guru, the guiding presence of the Divine operating through an individual form. Arjuna finally recognizes that Krishna, who has been his charioteer, friend, and teacher for many years, is much more than he seems to be. He asks Lord Krishna to reveal his true nature, and Krishna bestows upon Arjuna the grace needed to clear his ordinary mind and vision so he can directly perceive Krishna as God. The vision is so overwhelming that Arjuna, a great and strong warrior, begs Krishna to stop and come back to his ordinary form.
Greek myths told us that to see a god as it was would kill you. The ordinary mind and body have to be trained and transformed to withstand that vision and influx of Divine power. All the yogas and tantric training disciplines done with the guidance of a master teacher aim at such preparation. However, when the Divine suddenly penetrates people’s lives as a result of trauma, near-death experiences, or the innocent use of powerful practices done with inadequate guidance or with none at all, people need help to integrate the experiences and move on with their quests. Kundalini and the system of chakras of the subtle body provide an ancient and richly detailed symbolic map of the spiritual journey to ultimate meaning, freedom, wisdom, and love.
THE POWER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The power of Consciousness that propels us along our inner journey of discovery is given different names in various spiritual traditions: grace, the Holy Spirit, the soul’s yearning, mumukshtva (Sanskrit for “longing for liberation”), the bond between the lover and the Divine Beloved, the fire of yoga, and divine discontent are just some of those names. That power of all-encompassing Divine Consciousness, what we in the West call God, which seeks to reveal our own true nature and unite us with itself, is called Kundalini in the yogic tradition. She is spoken of as a Goddess. Though this may make her seem alien or separate from us, She is not. In fact, She is more fundamentally “you” than you can imagine, and if you follow her with reverence and devotion She will reveal the mysteries of the universe to you. In essence, She is formless, not a goddess at all, but pure Divine Consciousness. She’s the very power of grace, of revelation, residing within you even now.
It is Kundalini who creates the universe and knows itself as Creator. Kundalini has been called “the face of God.” And just as we recognize a person by his or her face, we recognize the Divine by its power of Consciousness: Kundalini. It is Kundalini that clothes the formless in form, that gives the absolute a face to adore, a presence to inspire, traditions to revere, and a body of wisdom to serve and guide. She is the esoteric goal of all yogas, the awakened mind of the thatagatas (the Buddhas who have “gone beyond”), and the source of the transcendent vision of saints and sages of every tradition. By knowing Her, all is known. By knowing Her, life becomes suffused with ananda: sublime, eternal joy. The wellspring of that joy is our very own self, forever present, nearer than our breath, waiting in stillness to be revealed. Drown the ordinary ego-mind in stillness if you truly want to know the Knower—the Self of All.
The Eastern traditions revere Kundalini as the Great Mother, the one who gives birth to all that is. She is seen as taking on limitations, contracting and condensing to form the material world. She is the essential energy, Shakti, more fundamental than nuclear power, that is the basis of who we are and all that we experience. When our limited mind is infused with Her transcendent power of Consciousness, we know directly the truth of our unity with the Divine and all its creation. Every spiritual tradition has its name for Kundalini—Holy Spirit, grace, Shekhinah, anima, chi, bodhicitta among them—and every saint and mystic has known Her blessing. Seekers on all paths need Her grace to succeed on their journeys. For this reason, shamans, yogis, monks, priests, nuns, and aspirants of all types approach Her as suppliants. Being the Great Mother, the Great Lover, She’s willing to take whatever shape and bear whatever name Her children wish to use as they bow to Her.
Kundalini is classically viewed as having two aspects. One maintains the entire existence of our body, mind, and spirit. The other aspect, considered dormant, is the power of Consciousness to know the Divine in its infinitude as Self. This potential power, innate to all of us, can propel our awareness from the paltry limitations of individual existence, with all its wants and needs and deficiencies, to Unity Consciousness—the sublime awareness of our Divine Self, infinite and all-encompassing.
THE FIVE POWERS OF GOD
In the monistic tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, one of India’s ancient and most sublime expressions of the mystical vision of God and the Universe, the Lord is said to have five powers. Everything else in the universe is a manifestation of these five: the power of creation, the power of sustenance, the power of destruction, the power of concealment, and the power of grace, or revelation. When the Divine goes to create the universe, there’s nothing to create it out of other than God. He or She (it doesn’t matter which, since God is neither and both) can’t run down to the nearest building supply center for stuff to create it with, so she uses herself. What is God? The Divine is Pure Consciousness, infinite power or energy that has the quality of all-encompassing Consciousness. That’s what the universe is made of. Everything is united with God because everything is made of God. God has the power to create all the forms of the universe, the power to sustain the continued existence of those forms, and the power to dissolve them back into the formless Divine. Now, in order for God’s play of creating, sustaining, and destroying to really work, all the forms in the universe—which are in union with God because they are made of God—have to forget they are one with the Divine. For their individual existence and the world drama to fully evolve, their union with God must be concealed from them. That’s where the power of concealment comes in. Our truly unbreakable union with God is concealed, hidden from us by God. It’s as if a part of God hides from another part of God in order to allow the drama of God’s creation to unfold. That drama is the seemingly disconnected part of God evolving and beginning to yearn for reunion with God once again. This is a symbolic, mythic understanding of the unfolding of Creator: creature and creation in constant union while the illusions of separation, suffering, and reunion are played out.
Imagine a vast, deep ocean, calm and still, as the infinite Consciousness of God. God begins to create, and a wave forms on the ocean, a form that seems to have its individual existence yet is still one with the ocean. Now imagine that the wave’s oneness with the ocean is concealed from it, and the wave is given permission to play at taking on all different kinds of forms. The wave is conscious and experiences itself as a huge wave, then a small wave, a ripple, a tall wave, a fat wave, and on and on. But, as with all activities, this gets boring after a while. The wave has learned all it can from taking on different shapes, and now it’s no longer creative or meaningful to continue doing that. The wave has a vague memory of having been a part of something greater and begins to long for something greater. It wants to reunite with the ocean, with God. This is where the fifth power of God comes in, the power of grace, the power of revelation. By an act of grace, God undoes the work of the power of concealment and reveals our true unity with God. The wave delights in being a projection of the ocean. The illusion of separation is dissolved, and once again we enjoy the ecstasy of oneness with our Creator.
The 13th Century poet saint Kabir wrote:
With the bestowal of grace, shaktipat, a Sanskrit term for the awakening of Kundalini, we awaken to the Truth, the truth of our union of God, the direct experience of the union of the wave and the ocean.
When we wake up in the morning, we begin to experience a different reality from the one we were in just moments before while we were asleep. The power of consciousness that begins to operate with our awakening each morning allows us to experience the reality of the waking world around us. Kundalini is the power of Consciousness that allows us to know we are one with God, to know that all others are one with God, and to know that all of creation is one with God. Until that power of Consciousness is awakened within us, we can’t know the truth directly for ourselves. But when it does awaken, transformation of the highest order ensues.
AWAKENING THE DIVINE WITHIN
Kundalini is often depicted in yogic texts as a coiled serpent lying dormant within us, a serpent whose mighty powers become manifest as it awakens. Many people have visions and experiences of this archetypal form of Kundalini in meditation and dreams as the process of Kundalini awakening and unfolding occurs. Given what we know about a microscopic bit of coiled, bound energy containing all the information necessary to make a human being—otherwise known as DNA—perhaps we shouldn’t be too skeptical about a form of bound consciousness lying dormant within, symbolized as a coiled serpent, waiting to propel your awareness back to union with the Creator.
Shankaracharya, the eighth-century sage of Advaita Vedanta, wrote an ecstatic prayer, Saundaryalahari, which proclaimed the supreme power of Kundalini.[3] In it, he states that all knowledge, all wisdom, all inspiration, and all creativity—musical, poetic, literary, artistic, as well as union with the Divine—come through the power of Kundalini alone. For this reason, the awakening of Kundalini is the esoteric goal of all yogas. The ancient Kashmir Shaivite text the Kularnava Tantra states that without shaktipat there is no liberation or Self-realization.[4]The descent of grace may happen spontaneously and unexpectedly or through the power of a master of genuine attainment. In some cases shaktipat is received through contact with a mystic guide who appears in one’s dreams or meditation. Often, it is awakened through an empowered mantra or the practices learned from an accomplished spiritual teacher. It may also have been awakened in a past life and is continuing to unfold in this life. No one person, practice, or tradition is the sole means of receiving the descent of grace, the awakening of the Kundalini. The Divine is too generous to put such limitations on its accessibility.
C.G. Jung wrote that “when you succeed in the awakening of kundalini, so that she starts to move out of her mere potentiality, you necessarily start a world which is totally different from our world: it is a world of eternity.”[5]
Into that mystical world our quest leads us.
EXPERIENCING THE SUBTLE BODY
The yogic system gives a fascinating description of what is called the subtle body. It is in the subtle body that the energy form of universal consciousness known as Kundalini resides. Once activated from her resting place within it, the awakened Kundalini begins her work of transforming and purifying the subtle and physical bodies. The ensuing experiences and shifts in consciousness constitute the seeker’s unfolding spiritual journey, and the evolutionary potential becomes realized.
The subtle body is an energy body that interpenetrates our physical body. You may have heard of it without knowing it has this name. Acupuncture, for example, is a respected form of medical treatment that works on the energy flowing through the subtle body—subtle in comparison with the gross body that we experience very concretely through all the physical sensations our sense organs make available to us. The subtle body is the “body” of our mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, intuitions, and other less commonly identified forms of energy, known as prana in the yogic system. It’s a subtle realm that is very real to us, even though science can’t verify the existence of any specific thought or feeling we might be having in this realm.
Science deals with the gross physical domain and can only detect physical correlates to thoughts and feelings such as brainwave patterns, respiratory rates, or galvanic skin response. A researcher using the most refined instruments attached to your skull may be able to give you data about neuronal activity, but only you know that at that instant you are recalling a tender moment of being held in the arms of a loved one. That kind of memory is not at all subtle, yet the rich content of it goes far beyond the ability of the most sensitive scientific instrument of measurement to detect. You, in contrast, already possess the most subtle and powerful instrument capable of apprehending such memories and even subtler phenomenon: that instrument is consciousness. Your conscious attention is your power of apprehension, and it can be developed and refined through meditation and the awakened Kundalini.
During ordinary waking-state awareness, our consciousness is almost entirely identified with the physical body. In waking-state consciousness, our experience is dominated by body awareness and things related to it. We’re aware of various sensations, feelings, and thoughts about ourselves that are rooted in the gender of our bodies, the shape they are in, and the functions or roles they perform in our families or in society; we think of ourselves as man or woman, fat or thin, husband or wife, boss or employee. Wakingstate awareness is primarily physical-body consciousness. Even the subtle-body activities of our minds and emotions are primarily related to the physical realm and what is happening there. Sadly, for most of us this comprises all of what we will give our attention to for our entire lives. But there’s infinitely more to who we are and what we have available to experience and learn from.
The subtle body is another realm entirely.[7] We experience it most exclusively when we are in the dream state of consciousness and in some meditative states. In the dream state, which is the experience of the subtle body that people are most familiar with, we are outside the physical realm. The laws of physics no longer apply; we leave behind the constraints of ordinary time and space. We experience consciousness relatively free of the fetters of the physical body, but consciousness is still bound in certain ways. We’re still identified with a limited sense of self, with the thoughts, feelings, and reflections of our body identity, but these can change dramatically and easily in this shape-shifting state. At the same time, we can move about through time and space in ways the physical body never can. In our dreams, we fly, and we move back to the past, ahead to the future, or to some alternate present. Because we are so identified with the body and waking-state consciousness, the subtle body and the subtle realms of dreams, thoughts, feelings, imagination, and intuition are often disorienting. These realms may seem alien, unknown, perhaps even incomprehensible to our waking-state sense of self. Usually our waking-state “I” dismisses or devalues our dreams and any other unusual subtle body experiences. But through meditation, we can enter and explore the subtle realms quite consciously. The great yogic sages have done this and reported on the physiology of the subtle body.[8]
Just as our physical body has conduits for vital fluids and nerve impulses, the subtle body has conduits for the energy of consciousness. They are the nadis, and they carry the living conscious energy, prana. In meditation the nadis may appear like the filaments of light in fiber optics. Where several nadis join together, the conduit is larger, like a bigger fiber-optic cable. In the physical body, the main nerve conduit running from the brain down to the base of the spine is the spinal cord, a great bundle of nerve fibers that connects the highest centers in the brain to the entire body. In roughly the same location in the subtle body there is the main conduit of Kundalini, called the sushumna nadi, which runs from the head down to the base of the spine.
The sushumna nadi is seen as not only the major channel the creative energy of consciousness flows through as it manifests the universe of personal experience; it is also the repository for all the past impressions left by our actions, both mental and physical. The sushumna contains the impressions, called samskaras, of all our many lifetimes. In this way, it is the storehouse of all our karmas, all the consequences of our past actions that we have yet to experience. Everyone’s familiar with CDs and DVDs. On a CD, millions of subtle impressions are stored. When the laser light of the CD player mechanism passes over the CD, it reflects those impressions and converts them into music, pictures, video, or whatever it was that was stored on it. In a similar way, the sushumna nadi stores within a subtle energy field the countless impressions of all our various actions. When the light of one’s individual consciousness passes through them, it picks up those patterns and manifests them. In this way, patterns of thinking, feeling, acting, relating, and creating are built up over lifetimes and reproduced again and again. It is these samskaras, the patterns and consequences of our own past actions, that bind consciousness to the forms of identity we normally experience as ourselves each day.
To become liberated or enlightened requires becoming free of those samskaras and the limited “I” awareness that creates them. This is the work of the awakened Kundalini. She does this in two ways. First, the Kundalini moves through the sushumna nadi “erasing,” if you will, the impressions stored there and releasing the energy bound up in them. This extraordinary purification process then releases us from the patterns in our lives created by those impressions. Second, she opens up states of consciousness that give us access to unbounded awareness, awareness of the transcendent self, what some call God-consciousness, Buddha mind, or Christ-consciousness, totally free of ego-mind. These are the altered states of consciousness, the experiences of mystical union and profound meditation that allow us to perceive directly, perhaps for the first time, that we are much more than we think we are. They lead to the mahavakya proclamations of the ancient Vedas of “I am Brahman,” “I am the Absolute,” or in the words of the Christian mystic St. Catherine of Genoa, “My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God himself.”[9]
In order for that state of unity consciousness to become stable and fully manifest in the individual’s mind, body, and actions, the sushumna nadi and all the lesser nadis must be purified: cleansed of impressions and blocks that contract or restrict consciousness to the confines of ordinary human experience. Though we are discussing the subtle body, nadis, samskaras, chakras, and the like, as if they are concrete things, we must always be mindful of the fact that this is the result of our language and not their subtle, symbolic true nature. No matter how beautiful or seemingly complete a description you may find in any ancient or modern text, it will always be incomplete. This keeps what needs to be hidden inaccessible to the uninitiated, for their own protection. However, it also means that people can spend years or lifetimes lost in delusions of their own incomplete knowing. The dharma of true teachers is to protect their students from that prolonged route of suffering. Concrete thinking—taking the symbolic for concrete, literal descriptions—always leads to fundamentalism in spiritual traditions, whether yogic, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, or others. The seeker must always maintain the finest levels of discrimination to properly understand the boundaries between domains.
SYMBOLISM OF THE CHAKRAS
Along the sushumna nadi, there are energy centers where numerous lesser nadis intersect the sushumna, similar to the nerve centers along the spinal cord (Figure 1). These energy centers along the sushumna are called chakras in Sanskrit, meaning “wheel.” They may appear to the inner eye during meditation as wheels of energy or light. Chakras are also described as lotus flowers with various numbers of petals. The energy channels intersecting at a chakra form what appear to be the petals of a flower. The highest center, technically not a chakra though it is commonly referred to as one, is the thousand-petaled lotus of the sahasrara. Because the energy in the subtle body is conscious energy, these energy centers are actually operating centers of consciousness. The descent of Consciousness from the energy center at the top of the sushumna, called the sahasrara, to the energy center at the base, called the muladhara, marks the process of Consciousness going from the highest transcendent Unity Consciousness to the limitations of embodied consciousness you and I normally experience as we live out our existence on earth. The muladhara chakra represents the element of earth and is the final destination of Divine Consciousness, the Kundalini Shakti, through the process of descent and manifestation of the world. It is in this chakra that the Kundalini lies dormant after creating the world and embodied existence. It is here that she awaits the great awakening that will reverse this process, removing the limitations Consciousness has taken on, and allowing us to once again be aware of our transcendent, unbounded, divine nature; the wave merges back into the sea.
The process of involution is that of Consciousness descending from the formless transcendent Godhead, condensing, contracting, and taking on more and more limitations until it manifests the earthly realm of human existence, “involving” itself in all of creation in the process. Evolution reverses this, with Consciousness as awakened Kundalini ascending back up through the chakras, becoming ever freer of limitations, restrictions, and the illusion of being bound and separate from its source: God/dess. Between the sahasrara and the muladhara, between Divine Consciousness and earth-bound awareness, there are five other energy centers or chakras, representing the intermediate stages of Consciousness in the processes of involution and evolution.
FIGURE 1: THE PRINCIPLE CHAKRAS OF THE SUBTLE BODY
In descending order (see Figure 1) the energy centers are: the sahasrara at the crown of the head, the ajna chakra between the eyes, the vishuddha chakra in the throat, the anahata chakra near the heart, the manipura chakra at about the level of the solar plexus, the svadhishthana chakra at the root of the sexual organs, and the muladhara chakra at the base of the pelvis. The involution of Consciousness from the transcendent realm of the sahasrara on down to the muladhara is in part symbolized in the progressive order of the elements that each chakra represents. Involution is a process symbolizing Consciousness coalescing, becoming grosser, denser, and more limited. (This is as seen from the pinnacle of understanding that this is all an illusion and completely nonexistent, but since we’re enjoying the play of this illusion, we’ll continue to describe how it seems to come into existence!)
Just below the sahasrara is the ajna chakra, the “third eye” between and above our physical eyes, and this is the realm of pure individualized mind. Consciousness at this level has lost its formless, all-encompassing universality but hasn’t yet coalesced into the physical realm. Here, Consciousness may be experienced simply as a limited sense of “I-ness” that doesn’t yet have all the qualities we normally experience as ourselves, such as our gender, body shape, and role.
The subsequent five chakras represent the manifestation of the five elements comprising the physical realm. In descending order, there is a progression from the subtlest to the grossest of the elements. The next chakra, the vishuddha, at the level of the throat, represents the element of ether or space, the subtlest of the physical elements. After this we descend to the anahata chakra, the heart chakra, and the element of air, symbolizing consciousness becoming a bit denser and grosser than it was at the level symbolized by space. Next is the manipura chakra and the element of fire. Fire is still subtle, but it has more definition and is grosser than air. Then comes the svadhishthana chakra, which represents the element of water. Water is denser and more substantial than fire but not as gross and dense as earth, the last element, which is associated with the muladhara chakra at the base of the sushumna nadi. At this level we’ve come to the densest, grossest, most limited and bound form of Consciousness, the earthly physical realm.
Thus everything, from the most subtle sense of “I” awareness to the physical domain of earthly matter, is made of consciousness in varying levels of contraction. Even within the most bound forms of the physical realm, the full power and presence of God, of Divine consciousness, are present. The release of that bound energy is like the release of the potential energy bound in matter that suddenly results in the extraordinary power and light of nuclear reactions. The awakening of Kundalini is the release of the bound power and light of God present within the human form.
When Kundalini awakens—in other words, when our innate power of Consciousness to move our awareness beyond the limitations of body and mind comes to life—then the energy of Consciousness, also called Shakti, moves up the sushumna nadi and pierces the chakras in ascending order. Consciousness moves from the constrictions of the earth realm, ever expanding, shedding limitations along the way until it finally reaches the unbounded realm of the sahasrara once again. The wave once again knows its union with the ocean, and we experience reunion with God, the Self of All.
Now this is the briefest possible look at the chakras and what they represent. There’s much, much more to them and what they symbolize. Each is a level of consciousness, and the yogic sages have explored and given detailed accounts of them. Each chakra has associated with it certain powers and characteristic feelings that affect how we create our individual realities—our relationships, our worldview, our sense of self, and our ways of interacting with the world—when we are acting from the level of that chakra. If you read Sir John Woodroffe’s Serpent Power,[10], which includes translations of the yogic texts dealing with all the chakras and the Kundalini, you’ll be awed by the rich symbolism and the extraordinary map of Consciousness they provide.
THE GIFTS OF MAHA KALI
Once a renowned author who had written about Kundalini came to meet my guru, Swami Muktananda. Baba, as my guru was known, was revered for his exalted visions of the Kundalini and his rare ability to give shaktipat. The author, too, had visions of Kundalini, but to him she appeared quite unimpressive, looking like an ordinary woman, not like a Goddess at all. As he waited outside the room where Baba was receiving visitors, he was astonished to have a vision of the Goddess Kundalini herself entering the room where Baba was—only this time she appeared in her most regal and resplendent form, magnificent and awe inspiring. The author was shocked. When he finally went in to speak with Baba, he asked why it was that she appeared so ordinary to him, while for Baba she came as the Goddess of the Universe. Baba replied simply, “Because I worship her.”
After I first heard that story, I began contemplating what it means for an accomplished yogi to worship Kundalini. I kept wondering how a yogic master would worship Kundalini and why. After a year, my mind finally gave up its vain attempts at piercing the mystery on its own, and I prayed to the inner guru, the Shakti, for an answer. In a profound series of meditations, Kundalini, this great power of revelation, showed me how worship, actively honoring and revering the Divine power of grace within, is the key to receiving all the wisdom she wishes to impart. This is the path of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, where the worshipper and the worshipped merge, where duality surrenders with love to nonduality. This ancient Kundalini Yoga (not the contemporary one that goes by that name, which has positive attributes of its own), the yoga that unfolds solely by the grace of awakened Kundalini, includes all yogas: bhakti, mantra, hatha, raja, laya. On this path, Shakti delights in the play of shifting back and forth between the sublime joy of dualistic worship and the ecstatic consummation of the union of Herself as lover and Beloved.
The intense practices I began doing culminated in a series of meditation experiences in Baba’s ashram meditation hall during a weekend retreat in 1982. Various forms of the Goddess began appearing fully and spontaneously in meditation, as real as any person standing in front of me. I worshipped each in turn, trembling and awestruck as I did and only able to do so because of the strength the Shakti gave me in the moment to withstand Her Divine presence. Goddess after Goddess appeared until finally Maha Kali was present there before me. I prayed with all my heart to be able to stay conscious. Her skin was blacker than black, like deep black velvet in a darkened room. Yet in some miraculous way Her form was radiant, revealing Her own richly magnificent blackness. A thought appeared in my mind: “My God, this is Kali! She’s the Great Mother, Goddess of the Universe, creator and destroyer of all that is!” But She was in the most exquisite, beautiful, loving form, not the fearsome presence She is usually depicted as having. This was Her hidden form. I did the only thing I knew to do: I did puja to Her, an ancient Indian form of worship, while shaking with a mixture of fear, awe, and overwhelming love. Tears flowed down my cheeks. Then the Goddess came forward and embraced me, wrapping Herself around me. Everything slowed down. I could feel myself gradually merging into Her, and I could hear Her laughing the wildest, most ecstatic laugh! We disappeared from the ordinary world. My awareness shifted, and I could see the whole solar system with all its planets, and then stars and galaxies being withdrawn into Her. The entire universe was merging into Her, and all the while it was merging, the infinitude of the cosmos reverberated with Her ecstatic laughter. Finally, I disappeared into Her as I dissolved into infinite Light and Love, and then into a nothingness beyond even that, beyond the mind, beyond any duality of experience. There simply was no “me” left; I was gone, gone, gone beyond.
The next things I was aware of were the Light and Her laughter once again. Maha Kali’s magnificent black form reappeared, and I began seeing galaxies, stars, and planets reemerging from Her womb. I, too, began to emerge and take on a subtle form of “I-ness,” still without a body. I felt sad and pained taking on a form separate from Her and was startled to hear Her laughter continuing unabated. She then reversed the process and everything, myself included, began dissolving back into Her. Once again, waves of ecstasy washed through me, feeling Her laughter as my own. She continued alternating back and forth between creation and dissolution. Each time it was the same for me, ecstasy on the dissolution and pain during the taking on of form. Clearly for Her, both were equally ecstatic. I tried to rest in the ecstasy of taking on form and limitation, but at the time I just couldn’t do it. Finally, She let me take on my complete set of limitations and form for this life—physical body and all.
I returned to my awareness of being seated on the floor in the meditation hall, my body trembling. She also returned my clarity of mind. The experience ended; feeling profoundly grateful, I bowed to my inner guru, my Goddess Kundalini. This had all unfolded as a result of shaktipat from my Siddha master, Muktananda Baba, years earlier, and my prayer to know the highest form of worship of Kundalini. Complete worship merges you with the one you worship. Through worship and prayer, the Goddess reveals the mysteries of Her creation to Her creature: the seeker—you! She doesn’t want or need to be approached with force, prodded along like some servant, as degrading yogic perspectives still polluted by outdated patriarchal attitudes continue to maintain. Avoid such deluded paths or She’ll let you roam the labyrinth of your own mental creation until you finally understand that love and surrender are the keys to Her realm. Reverence and devotion draw Her grace without reserve.
No words can describe how overwhelmed and truly awestruck I was by the appearance of the Goddesses classically depicted in the chakras, followed by Maha Kali Herself. These were the Goddesses that Kundalini manifests, as well as Her primal form as Maha Shakti, the great power, that takes the form of Maha Kali, the Black Goddess. It is this highest power that dissolves the universe as She merges into the sahasrara, creating it once again as She descends from that transcendent realm. Each and every one of us has the innate capacity to know this spontaneously and directly by the grace of Kundalini. No artificial visualizations can compare with this direct knowing.
Just as the aspects of Divine Consciousness were being presented to my awareness symbolically in the forms of the Goddesses, in the same way the union with those Divine forms was symbolized by sexual union. Readers familiar with the experiences of mystics of many spiritual traditions will recognize that this is a common way for union with the Divine to express itself. Very often the Tantric traditions, both yogic and Buddhist, that deal with the Divine Feminine depict union in this way. Sexual symbolism and the experience of that form of symbolic merger in meditation are often confusing for people, especially Westerners, who take it literally. That type of misinterpretation has led people to either conclude that Kundalini is just a form of psychosexual energy or to uselessly pursue “tantric sex” in an effort to enter a domain of knowing to which Her grace alone gives access.
The mysteriously radiant blackness of Kali arrests my mind every time I recall Her divine form. In an extraordinary book, Mother of the Universe, the ecstatic hymns to Maha Kali by the eighteenth-century Bengali saint Ramprasad Sen, the translator, Dr. Lex Hixon, writes:
The mystic vision the Goddess Kundalini gave me in that meditation in 1982 continued to unfold in subsequent meditations and has led to Her greatest gifts. I’ve heard so many stories of visions and other transformative and healing experiences people have had after sincerely praying to the Goddess that I’m sure She is as available to seekers today as ever. She demands that people do the necessary practices and disciplines in order to prepare themselves as vessels capable of holding Her gifts. Too often, people receive so many graces, so many treasures, but their minds are so full of holes, these blessings all leak out in no time. Meditate, follow the eight limbs of yoga or Buddha’s eightfold path, and you’ll be able to see Her treasures falling in your lap all the time!