(I see that Brian has registered; I'm posting this with his permission and hoping we will hear more from him. Phil)

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In the early and mid eighties I was very interested in exploring Consciousness using any and all available means, mainly with the aim of learning how to be more relaxed and easy around life in general. I had no lofty aims of any description and was mainly just feeling around in the dark.

In February 1986 I learned the Silva Mind Control Method which I knew worked since I did experience going consciously into eyes open �Deep Alpha� state using The Method. I couldn�t always get into �Alpha� though and wondered why.

I learned of the work of The Monroe Institute and became very interested in their tools for getting into Alpha and Delta and Theta brain states. I bought tons of their tapes which, I am sure you know, are all based on an embedded binaural beat aimed at inducing a third vibration in the brain which corresponds to the various Alpha states etc

The MI stuff interested me also because they had so many �Applications� for the tapes. There was so much to choose from. Amongst their catalogue however was a �Metamusic� section where the tapes were quite �open� in application and in general would simply lead one through the brain states and the fun was to see what would occur in any individual case. In short these tapes were like tools for quieting the mind and opening one up to meditation.

I wasn�t really interested in meditation at that point at all and was only interested in trying to find out why I was not able to stabilize the �Alpha� state which I had accessed with Silva.

Anyway, I was using a tape which DID have loose application: that of encouraging Lucid Dreams. The name of the tape was �Metamusic Green�. I used to listen to this tape every single weekday lunchtime whilst relaxing in a chair in a store room in the basement of my office building. No one used to ever go down there and I was always left undisturbed.

I didn�t realize it at the time but I was actually PERFECTLY following the best way to listen to the tapes as recommended by the Monroe Institute; I was listening every day; I listened always at the same time; I always finished the tape.

I listened to that tape for SIX MONTHS solid. My experience with it was interesting. Mostly absolutely nothing would happen at all. I never felt change of any description in any system of my mind or body. Every now and then though I would be seemingly wide awake and in a dream at the same time which was fun and interesting enough to just keep me playing with the tape.
As I said I was using the tape solid at work for a whole six months and, really, looking back at it, those lucid dreams really were not enough to have kept me going with the tape but somehow I just did.

One day I sat down in my store room chair as normal, put the tape on and listened to the sounds on it as usual. The sound was a kind of Xylophone scale, played up and down. Up and down with swirling synthesiser in the background. I had heard it tons of times and I was just relaxing in my chair in the dark as usual, musing about what the afternoon work schedule would bring.

SUDDENLY there was this TERRIFIC explosion in my head, like the loudest clap of thunder you could ever hear-I thought the building was blowing up. In a split second after the immense thunder clap I felt from the very crown of my head a falling of fine magnetic rain like iron filings of light energy which, as they fell through me, felt amazing. Also I felt total peace and my mind had gone quiet in the sort of way that it was as if there had been a noise going on in my mind all my life which had only just at that moment stopped. It was then I now know that I knew what Real Silence was.

I had absolutely no idea what had happened to me at all. I was astonished. I had no clue then about Kundalini and certainly was not �aiming� for any experience. Anyway, in the afternoon of that day I was back at work and all afternoon people were asking me what had happened to me. I never told anyone at work of my experience but when I asked what they meant by their questions they said I seemed different.

Several other strange things also happened-Immediately after the session when I went out of the dark into the basement corridors everything looked �New�. I went upstairs and into the street and WOW, EVERYTHING looked new and wonderful. I felt a deep rapport with the people I saw too. I never knew then why all looked new but I do now---It is not ��Things� that are new it is AWARENESS which is ALWAYS new

In the evening of the same day I was chatting with someone in a bar when I got a kind of �ringing� feeling and a compulsion to make statements to the person I was with �Just like I was giving them a psychic reading. I went along with it as a phenomenon which amazed me, following on as it was from the Thunder earlier. It turned out that every word I said was bang on and correct.

I felt the peace and sense of �Wholeness� for two weeks when it began to fade but from the outset the initial Thunder experience had kind of opened an �energy current � in me which has never stopped since that day. Since 1986 I have daily felt a current of energy which spontaneously makes its presence felt and moves around me and through me. It feels very light and wonderful. Also I have loads of heat in the body at times which is not nice at all. For the past year or so I have had experiences where I might be laying on the floor at home, stretched out on my back watching TV where suddenly it is as if my body starts to dissolve.

It took 4 years of wondering about that experience before I discovered all the Eastern stuff. I was pleased to learn about Kundalini and got involved with the Eastern teachers. I joined Siddha Yoga, received Shaktipat which itself was another powerful experience where I was forced into �Mudras� quite spontaneously. Since my Shaktipat I see the Siddha Yoga �Blue pearl�, a small luminescent electric blue pea sized light all over the pace. The light appears then just goes and it happens at any random moment. I could be sitting on the toilet and it might flash on the bathroom tile for a split second.

I was quite promiscuous in my Siddha Yoga days and out of curiosity took Shaktipat from three other Teachers. I never noticed much by way of phenomena with any of these other three Initiators though.

This phenomenon of energy which appears and courses around and through me is interesting since it really �sits up and takes notice �when in the presence or even remotely near anybody else with an awakened Kundalini of any reasonable level of development.

Often at meetings where an awakened individual was due to speak the �Energy� would alert me to the arrival of the individual long before his or her appearance on the dais.

I found it interesting in your book that you mention Da Love Ananda.. Around 1992 I had read that Da had made a Pilgrimage to the Christian Holy Sites of the World. He was reported to have had visions of the Blessed Virgin on his travels. This PISSED me off. I was feeling really fed up with my own spiritual journey before I learned of this fact about Da and the Virgin. In fact I was musing on it in the bathroom one day as I washed my hands. In that musing I was kind of dialoguing with the Blessed Virgin. The conversation went like this �Oh nice eh, You will appear to any Eastern oriented Tom Dick or Harry that claims to be enlightened and not even really Christian but hey I am one of YOUR OWN how come you can�t answer my prayers and appear to me?�---Just at the very second that that thought had become whole in my head there was a loud knock at the front door of my flat. It startled me. I answered it to two wizened and elderly figures who announced themselves as Ambassadors of �The Legion of Mary�. They left me with a Miraculous Medal and I have never challenged The Blessed virgin from that day to this.

I have no clue why but there is some element of this energetic stuff which leads me often to the Intercession of Mary who I have a deep longing to feel the presence of more powerfully than I currently do.

On another occasion I was lying in pitch black darkness in bed wide awake. I was reading Course in Miracles at that time. I was lying awake in bed musing away. I was kind of figure figuring and a stream of thought came to me. This was it;

�When Christ was alive people preferred to crucify him rather than listen to his message of Love and Peace.

Now that Christ is no longer alive people still prefer not to listen to His message, preferring instead to crucify themselves�
Just at the very moment that this musing became whole and formed in my mind the darkness of the room was pierced, like a knife slitting a black velvet curtain and a globe of pulsing light appeared at the end of the bed. It was as big as a basketball and pulsed a kind of saintly yellow light. It moved right along the side of the bed and remained suspended at my right arm about 18 inches off the ground. I jumped out of bed to look more closely at it. It slowly moved back to the foot of the bed and faded out. There was no accompanying peace with this experience; I have no idea if it was good or bad.

I have also had a very profound dream where I was initiated by hooded monks who told me that my salvation was assured- I am not so sure though.

I have met a lot of Teachers by now and they all have made cryptic allusions to my development saying that it is going well and will flower more deeply. I don�t feel this though.

My feeling about the Blessed Virgin brought me back to Church since the Yogis around now are all apparently corrupted and it is obvious that Kundalini does not confer goodness.

I confess I am still interested in Kundalini but I am not sure if it is Demonic or not. I am afraid of it. The Demons know a lot more than we do. They can impart much info to swell us up with pride. My own insights about Time and localization being mere concept both amaze me and scare me.

There has been tons of stuff which has happened and continues to occur. One time I felt myself leaving my body as an electric blue outline of a body separating from my sleeping body, the head would not detach though, so the experience there was quite muted.

For myself though I am unchanged I fear. I am in poor health and experience lots of anxiety about life.

Since I came back to Church I have not been able to explore the Kundalini stuff feeling that the Teaching of The Church is to leave such stuff alone. This is a terrible conflict for me.

Truth be told, I need a guide to help me complete this Kundalini process.

I continue to pray The Divine Mercy prayer asking for help with all this stuff and to be given the discernment if it is all error or to be guided if it is a Good Thing.

Certainly at times of very active Kundalini in me I have felt such unconditional Love for others.

Mostly though, I am a grumpy, irritable old git of 53, struggling to handle, on his own, what obviously can�t be.

Hi Brian, welcome and thank you for sharing, which took tremendous courage and bravery for you to do so.
excerpted from your post

My feeling about the Blessed Virgin brought me back to Church since the Yogis around me are all apparently corrupted and it is obvious that kundalini does not confer goodness.

Brian, this paragraph holds the key for you. Divine Mother is embracing you with her love and calling you back to Her always in service to Father God and Christ and Her love for all Her children Your return to the Church together with sharing here on our forum will give you the needed support, strength and love you so deserve.

I never had any interests nor desire in pursuing anything other than my spiritual life centered in Christ. I can understand others, like yourself, having these interests in the exploration of attaining a higher consciousness. The enticements of the new age offering courses, products that promise you a cosmic consciousness are phenonemal, together with spiritual gurus who claim to be the ONE, right here, right now. Soner or later, mostly sooner, I have learned from people who had pursued every avenue available, that severe problems do arise and, yes, one can easily open oneself to the demonic with a crossing over that is so subtle that many are unaware until there is an enmeshment.

We still have no absolutes about the knowledge of the kundalini, yet Phil gave a most beneficial one by Saint Thomas Aquinas, but I have learned that awakened yogis can and do use these powers for good and/or evil. Most kundalini experiences entrusted to God will come to a fruition of goodness. This is important for you to know Brian. What a blessing to be made whole and enlightened with God's knowledge and God's understanding of love, in service to Him.

Being in a progressed kundalini awakening myself together in a new birth, I totally entrust myself completely to God. Whenever doubts arise, or some kind of fear about kundalini arises, I call upon the Lord. When the Lord is with you, who can be against you Brian. Claim this truth right now.

It appears from your post that you have spent between 8-10 years following to some extent the Eastern mind and lifestyle associated with it, together with having received shaktipat from four different teachers. These are some heavy duty transmissions transferred into you. How well did you know these four teachers?. I pray that all energies stabilize within you.

For right now, this moment in time, I feel and experience tremendous joy for you Brian, for a prodigal son has returned to Divine Mother, Father God and Christ. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guard you, strengthen you and guide you through your kundalini process, giving you peace once again. What a joyful homecoming.

Will discuss another time some of your experiences to help clarify things for you.

Please read my thread under Transformative Experiences and see the power of God's love. It is entitled "God's Healing Love".

Welcome, Brian! This loving circle of support may be just what the doctor ordered, if the doctor understood anything about this. We're just biding our time in here until the X-files unit of the FBI
throws us all into pedded cells. Again, welcome!

mm <*)))))><

�WE FLY TO THY PATRONAGE O HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, DESPISE NOT OUR PETITIONS IN OUR NECESSITIES, BUT DELIVER US FROM ALL DANGER O GLORIUS AND EVER BLESSED VIRGIN�

Thanks to those who have posted in reply to my original posting. I am glad to have a chance to air some of my thoughts after such a long time.

I feel overwhelmed at how to comment about some of your points Freebird, since I seem to have such a lot to say about them.

As I say in the beginning of my original post, when all this stuff began for me I was simply looking to find a way to be more �Chilled�around life. I never knew it would all unfold in the way it did. I wasn�t even looking for any ways to �experiment� with consciousness either; It really was a matter of finding a way, or ways to be less �uptight� which seems to be my nature as a personality.

I hope I won�t confuse anyone if I jump around in time with this post; Presenting a cogent post is not going to be that easy for me.

Prior to the Silva Method in 1986 I was just living a regular life. I have always felt myself to be a Christian though I fell away from the Catholic Church when I was around 16. This happened mainly because I felt that the Church was simply an �Institution�. It felt empty and bereft of �Juice�. I couldn�t face the dry ritual of it all. I felt no love in it and rebelled against the �Guilt� that I felt it was dumping on me. Although I never went to Church, I always felt still connected in my heart and always prayed- most especially having a strong devotion to The Intercession of Our Lady.

After the initial �Alpha� experience with The Silva Method and the subsequent Kundalini awakening with the MI tape it was clear to me that there was indeed a possibility to feel different states from what I was used to, including feeling a deeper love for others: it was THIS which I identified, over time, as the �Juiciness� which I had felt was missing in Church.

My initial involvement with Siddha Yoga arose completely by accident.�I was around that time considering learning Autogenic Training, which is a powerful relaxation technique. I had read a magazine article which mentioned that a lecture about Autogenics was to take place in town. I went along but there had been a mistake and there was indeed no such lecture taking place. What WAS taking place however was Siddha Yoga meeting. As mentioned in my original post, my own Kundalini palpably �Sat up and took notice� in proximity to the Guru stuff so when someone saw me wandering around the Siddha meeting room looking for the Autogenics gathering I explained and was invited to the Siddha group instead.

I felt amazed to have stumbled on this group which seemed to be able to �explain� the phenomena which I had been experiencing since 1986.

I read a lot about the Siddha teachings too. It seemed perfect for me�Not in the sense of having a Guru and changing religion but rather, it seemed that the teachings of the Guru and the activity of the Kundalini ( which, we were all told would be guided by The Guru) would slowly reveal the UNCONSCIOUS influences in my life which caused me to behave badly and �Miss the Mark� when my conscious intention was always to be the best I could. This was what I felt should always have been available in The Catholic Church but simply never was�At least I thought so.

As an aside, which demonstrates my disillusion with Organized Catholicism, I found my initial feelings about Church at 16 reinforced amazingly when I was ready to return to Church fully in 2002, I rang a priest and asked him what resources were available to people me like who were long time �lapsed� and wanted to chat and get some guidance.
His response; �Don�t worry about chatting and guidance JUST TURN UP AND FOLLOW THE RULES�

The Teachings I found in Siddha Yoga and other teachings arising from the Eastern Traditions were much more compassionate. It is also TRUE that in the course of my involvement with these teachings, as a result of them, combined with The Kundalini, I have indeed uncovered a lot of unconscious material which was hindering my life without my knowing it.

To have had such an experience is a very strong re-inforcement to stick with things. Without a doubt my involvement has made me able to Love more deeply.

From the outset, as Phil mentions in his book, The Kundalini �Shakti� was touted as being the same as the Holy Spirit and I never questioned this at the beginning. My first Shaktipat was in 1990. It was a very powerful experience, but, in spite of that, I am in no doubt that it was not a factor in my Kundalini awakening which occurred four years before in 86. I fact, in hindsight, I would go as far as to say that, intuitively speaking, that the Kundalini phenomena I feel to this day are all attributable to that initial experience and that Siddha Yoga merely �sparked� things up a little�This is more likely to be true now, at a time when lots of others are speaking freely on the net about being left to their own devices regarding Kundalini activity ---No Guru help at all.

My involvement with the Yoga was not an easy time and the Party Line from the Yoga people is that any problems are not really anything other than�Purification�. I went along with that for a while and then started to read about and research other Teachers and Lineages with a view to discovering whether my personal struggles with my Spiritual Path were not mine but could be rather with a �Grating� style of The Guru and His or Her Organization.

It was this which drew me to take the other Initiations, You are right Free to question what I knew about these Teachers and all I can answer is to say in hindsight that I didn�t know enough and still don�t. I did the best research I could though.

Amongst other things, I have realized and continue to realize, that I have the unconscious tendency to idealize myself and rather than see the falsity of such Idealization I have a tendency to project that idealization onto Significant Others. In part this is what allowed me to get so caught up in the Guru business.

Paradoxically this awareness is both a gift of the Kundalini, which I am convinced, is instrumental in refining the intellect and also the reason for my return to Church and away from the Guru.

Apart from really loving Chanting, I never really had an �Eastern Lifestyle�, but since interiorizing and �owning� this Idealization I mention above I am very happy to be back at Church.

I am also slowly realizing that the dryness and aridity which I mistakenly saw in the Institutional Church was never there at all. It was me that was dry and arid all along.

I still am in deep conflict about Kundalini activity though. I have no clue what influences from the various transmissions are still at work in me.

I continue to pray for help.

Thanks for reading this long post

Brian, you've shared a lot about your background and experiences, but I'm wondering if you'd say more about the "deep conflict" you feel about kundalini activity. It sounds like you're in touch with a number of gifts and good fruit that have come from the process while also becoming more clear through the years that it's not the Holy Spirit or the "goal" of Christian spirituality.

For ongoing integration, my general recommendation to all is to simply practice Christian spirituality -- i.e., let the love of God and neighbor be the primary focus and let the energies and other kinds of struggles "fall into line" accordingly. I know that's simplistic, but I do believe that we need to surrender all of this to the governance of Christ and his Spirit. In the context of that ongoing surrender, we are usually given the wisdom to know what to do -- even if it means simply gritting one's teeth to get through a painful time.

Thanks Phil. For me I think the conflict is is in n not being sure whether the Kundalini is as 'neutral' a force as it is sometimes proposed to be. This worries me greatly. No one actually knows for sure. I have a certain unreasonable paranoia around it. Without a doubt some of the changes that have occured in me due to the Kundalini are what I might call 'Good' Ie the uncovering of unconscious stuff etc--Still I am not sure if even that is not a Demonic 'Sprat to catch a Mackerel'

I have found how easy it is to get carried away with all of this in the past.

In a naive way I would say I have a Child like fear. After all Lucifer was an Angel of Light. In the End days we are told that all kinds of wonders and signs would be found which would not be from God. I am just afraid that some of thse so called 'wonders' might not include personal Kiundalini stuff.

I think it is the current Teaching of The institutional church that all Kundalini stuff is 'Occult' and as such off limits,

I know as people who have experienced it we may disagree but I am still in doubt about it all.

I think what you say about Love of God and Neighbour is the best guideline ever.

Come on, Brian, surrender and give it all to God.

Jesus said:

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy ladden, and I will give you rest". "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls". "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light". Matthew 11 28-30

Brian, can you give me the names of these four gurus who gave you shaktipat.

Blessings.

Sure..

# Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

# Swami Shiv Mangal Tirth

#Anandi Ma

#Shri Shankaracharya ( Sadanaashram )

These Teachers were all initiated me formally but over the years I met and received 'Blessings' from quite a few other Indian Gurus.

I wanted to just come back in for another shot at answerings Phil's question about this 'Deep Conflict' I feel.

I have already said that it is my experience that Kundalini, in my own case has been instrumental in refining and 'deepening' my understanding of all kinds of things.

One fruit of my travels along the Indian Path has been an abiding interest in Mystical Christianity and the Contemplative Tradition. I feel that my Kundalini experience has enabled me to penetrate more deeply the available material and has made that material all the more 'Spiritually Nourishing'. THis Aspect I find wonderful and attractive and it is hard to consider anything wrong with it. But on the other hand, going back to my earlier answer about 'Knowledge' being True but from a source not of God ----Then this is my dilemma.

I find my concerns around this conflict so very deep to articulate.

I pray daily to be given the Grace to surrender all this stuff and hand the reins over to God ---But strangley I believe that Kundalini, which I am afraid of, is possibly my best hope for making my deepest prayer to surrender.

It is almost as if my prayer becomes 'deeper' to me with the help of the Kundalini.

Yet whenever I feel that spontaneous deepening as I pray I am suspicious about it .

Just as I am suspicious of that Sidda Blue Pearl which has just this very instant flashed across my keyboard as I write this post.

Hi Brian,

Good to know you!

I very much relate to your fears and worries over the whole K process. I was brought up in evangelical protestant churches but wandered away in my late teens. To cut a long story short, I had a K awakening when I was about 24, got involved in a lot of Eastern, new agey stuff, then suffered a serious of psychic attacks which still go on to a lesser degree today. The long shot is I came back to Christ, gave myself to Him and my life has been considerably more settled ever since.

The circle of Christianity I'm involved in has little understanding of the K. A lot of people talk about it in demonic, occult terms and have talked about deliverance etc. Indeed, the K has opened up a lot of bad stuff for me, some good too, but there doesn't seem to be any immediate deliverance from the bad stuff. That may sound discouraging for yourself, but if you think about it, it kind of means that God is giving me the grace to live with it. If it were truly evil and demonic I'm sure, in His mercy and love, He would take it away. But He doesn't. He lets it go on and instead fortifies me against the bad stuff, which may or may not come with it. By returning to God and giving it all to Him, I've been strengthened against negativew energies and been allowed to enter into a unique, Kundalini active relationship with Him.

Occasionally, the "occult" word crops up in relation to the K and that can be kind of scary, as can all the negative occult energy stirred up by it, but I've learned to think of it as an activated soul energy,which, yes, has its psychic complications, but which can be integrated into a meaningful life of devotion and service, if God grants us the faith. It ain't easy but the fear and worry diminish the more God's Spirit works with the K. And talk of the K in itself being a force of evil is really just scare mongering. I don't think it's evil in itself, but for me, it has attracted a lot of nasty energy. It can lead to scary stuff, but it can also lead to much blessing. Give it to God and He will come to you, I'm sure of that. He will bewith you whatever experiences the K throws at you. As for me, He may deliver me and leave me with a harmoniuous integration of the energy, but He may not. I just trust in Him, whatever His will is for me.

If you think of the K as the psycho-physiological resonance of the human spirit's reaching for transcendence, it's difficult to see how this in itself can be a bad thing. This reaching can indeed open one to a range of influences including dark forces and entities, but that's not about the K per se so much as our lack of boundaries and centeredness in God. The human spirit can become "contaminated" -- even polluted by disharmonious energies and malevolent entities, for the "spiritual universe" that the human spirit opens into is not all benevolent; it's just another level of existence that includes both good and bad. But, again, this shouldn't make one suspicious of the K process per se any more than one should be distrusting of adolescence.

In the best of all scenarios, we can imagine the K becoming activated when our growth in union with God stretches us beyond the limits of our median psycho-physiological development. A "switch" of some kind would be turned on, activating an archetypal process and "recalibrating" our DNA so that the psychological and physiological levels of our being would become transformed to accommodate and manifest the more expansive state of consciousness we we were growing into. That's how it seemed to go with many of the Saints, for whom the K was a gentle and hardly noticeable process.

Unfortunately, that's not how the activation happens for many, and even when it does, we have all sorts of impurties that need to be burned out. We might also become more aware of and enamored with our own expanded spiritual consciousness, which is somewhat captivating and entrancing to experience, but which eventually becomes just as boring as anything else we've "gotten into" along the way.

So it's back to God,
- back to God,
- back to God . . .
- and accepting our suffering as our little piece of the cross of transforming the universe in Christ.

That's how I see all this in a nutshell.

Brian:

Hope I'm not overloading you with this suggestion, but are you familiar with the Christian practice of Lectio Divina? I find this form of prayer rather stabilizing, as it nourishes and soothes all the faculties through the Holy Spirit, and doesn't plunge one so deeply or quickly into an absorbed state. Lectio Divina is the most ancient form of prayer in the Church, and still retains its high regard among many monastic orders today.

Here's a link to Lectio Divina for both private and group prayer use:

http://www.valyermo.com/ld-art.html


BTW, I received Shaktipat from one of the gurus you mentioned, and experience the blue pearl off and on. Kundalini has been similar in my case, mostly release and purification of resistances to love, but not easy going as it brings so much of the subconscious pain into awareness. For that I've found several gentle healing approaches helpful. Here's one of those:

http://www.focusing.org/short_awcbmg.html

I've experienced what seemed like true evil three times. It was horribly nasty and frightening, and Christ has been my protector. K has made me more vulnerable to this, but much more vulnerable to the good, as you and Stephen describe.


Last but not least, Holy Communion is healing to K, in my experience.

Brian:

Just another thought regarding the effects of K you describe in your journey. I remember at one point some years ago, after initial K awakening, feeling I was on the verge of some increased power related to psychic abilities; it scared me so much, I backed away, and fortunately it didn't persist on its own. The initial experience of K, or the strongest one that seemed to set much of its course, was in response to doing forgiveness work with my family. So I've always felt the heart-orientation gave me some protection, or balance, I might not otherwise have had.

Perhaps the siddhis, or deep archetypal powers within the soul, without the Holy Spirit to fashion them into fruitful means of service, easily overwhelm the fallen human nervous system.

I'll be taking a look at those links W.C. Thanks to everyone for your kind input.