The Kundalini Process: A Christian Understanding
by Philip St. Romain
Paperback and digital editions; free sample

Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality
- by Philip St. Romain
Paperback and digital editions

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Picture of Eric
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Does anyone feel that Kundalini is essential for enlightment? Can one realize their enlightment without a Kundalini awakening?

One opinion, espoused by the modern hatha yogin, Desikaran, is that pranic awakening is the true experience to be aimed for and kundalini is actually an obstruction. Desikaran sees the kundalini as a block in the central channel and thus the kundalini must be ``killed'' to make way for the prana.
 
Posts: 470 | Location: Greensboro, NC | Registered: 05 February 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Eric, I don't think K is essential for enlightenment, if E be understood as the non-reflective, observational aspect of the human spirit, awake to itself and its unity with the cosmos. Many people come upon this without activating the K. In fact, there are enlightenment traditions like Zen that don't have much emphasis on the K and even seem to minimize its importance.

OTOH, I do believe the K process conduces toward full-bodied enlightenment -- i.e., to transforming the body so that one can live more consistently in higher states of consciousness.

Check out http://www.innerexplorations.com/ewtext/some.htm for an amazing essay by Jim Arraj on this topic. See especially the philosophical reflections section, notably:
quote:
Kundalini as an integral form of enlightenment. Kundalini is meant to lead to enlightenment but it does so in a highly distinctive way, for it is a thorough-going activation not only of the mind but the body as well. From the Thomistic perspective we have just reviewed is it possible to make sense of this energy? Does such a process of development contradict what St. Thomas had to say about the union of soul and body? Not at all. Rather, they can mutually illuminate each other. Kundalini is that fundamental energy or instinct of the soul that is inscribed in its very being which urges it to become fully alive and activated so that it can be and see its own existence and that of all things, and experience in them the radiant mystery of existence that we call God. But if the human soul contains within it all the riches of elemental, vegetative and animal levels of existence, then this fundamental soul energy is animating all the levels of the human organism from within. But this presence of the soul is in some sense dormant, lying like a seed in these depths. In order to realize itself it must realize each and every level of its being. In short, the human soul is the inmost animator by which these levels exist and by which they become activated. In a certain way each of us contains the whole evolution of the material part of the universe, and our physical, psychological and spiritual growth is the activation of that heritage. Kundalini is not some strange freakish force coming from without, but it is a striking visible manifestation of an energy that is ceaselessly at work in all of us, both unconsciously and in our conscious strivings. Kundalini is the bursting forth of that soul energy that urges us to fulfill our destiny, but now becomes visible to us either because of our particular temperament or certain psychological gifts or traumas, or as a natural response to some supernatural gift of God�s grace. The whole purpose of this energy is to make each level of our being, starting from the most elementary, fully alive and fully nourishing of the next highest level so that at the end of the process the deepest intuitive powers of the soul are awakened and we can see who we really are and that we are. Kundalini can appear as an impersonal energy because it is not something under the control of the ego. It is very personal in the sense that it is an energy of the soul, but this energy must activate those levels of our being which are far from our conscious control.
 
Posts: 7539 | Location: Wichita, KS | Registered: 09 August 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Phil,

Wow! Thank you for that. I'm sure I read it before, but it seemed like the first time. As the experience
deepens, the perspective changes. After such a long time with the k, I'm sure this as been the case 4U.
 
Posts: 2559 | Registered: 14 June 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Phil,

That was the best explanation I have ever read for Kundalini. Thank you for that reply. It hinted at some things I was already thinking.
 
Posts: 470 | Location: Greensboro, NC | Registered: 05 February 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I am so happy to have found this community. As, I am pressed for time (and have already held my friends up who await my arrival for too long perusing the amazingly enriching and encouraging posts on this forum already), I can only say that it is refreshing to hear people who know God in Chirst Jesus to be speaking of authentic, deep spiritual experience and formation and attempting to account for the wider, extra-biblical material such as integral approaches, kundalini phenomena and so forth. It is like a healing balm to my soul. I have been painfully attempting to bridge these worlds and make sense of it all on my own for far too long. I am excited to interact with all of you through this forum in the future and deeply thankful. With that, I bid you good night and Godspeed.

-Adam
 
Posts: 1 | Location: Nashville, TN | Registered: 10 December 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Adam,

You seem like someone I'd like to know better! Smiler
Welcome, and please add you voice to the choir. No one else is doing this. Shalomplace is a Godsend!

caritas, mm <*))))><
 
Posts: 2559 | Registered: 14 June 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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