Hey guys, last summer I had taken a plunge into spiritual meditation practices. It evolved from just basic breathing exercises to relax myself, to chakra balancing and raising of the Kundalini, etc..I've been reading recently about potential negative side effects of the Kundalini rising too quickly and/or it encountering blocked channels..I've read recently that you're supposed to start from the sacral chakra to properly "ground yourself" and then work your way upwards..I had eventually started following this technique but I recall having an obsession w/ the crown chakra and 3rd eye..I remember during my meditations I would imagine energy coming down through the crown of my head, and exiting through the third eye.. I felt a profound "electricity" flowing through my body when doing this..It felt incredible..Unfortunately, I had developed a debilitating brain fog over the past 12 months and have been to each end of the universe trying to figure out whats caused it..I don't have the energy I used to w/o the aid of caffeine. I don't feel as sexually motivated or motivated in general. I don't get excited about things as frequently as I used to either..It's likely that all of these are stemming from the fog but nonetheless this is what I've been exhibiting. Every possible culprit I've considered was physical in nature..Vitamin deficiencies, diet, too much exercise, etc. Most recently I'm speculating Candida as the cause but treatments have been unsuccessful so I'm continuing on in my search for an answer.. Anyways, I'm now considering that I have possibly had caused a rising of my Kundalini prematurely, and or in the wrong sequence..I've been told you need to work from the ground up but I feel thats where my mistake was made..What can I do about this to try and remedy this problem. I want to get my life back :/ I hope someone can provide some helpful input..

I was looking through this thread

http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9336

I'm not sure if this is where I should begin but it looks promising..
Thanks in advance.

Mcc23, welcome to the forum. I hope we can be of assistance to you.

You haven't shared anything about a religious or devotional aspect to your religious practice. It would help to know more about that.

I do not recommend that anyone ever pursue the awakening of the kundalini process outside of a religious context where surrendering one's life to God is central. If that's not what you're doing . . . if, instead, you're trying to awaken and manipulate this energy process for other reasons (even self-enlightenment), then I would suggest that you are playing with fire and you ought to stop doing all meditations that are about manipulating energy, opening chakras, etc. Bale out now if you still can. Focus instead on an authentic religious tradition and start at the bottom as a beginner and learner, trying to live what that religion teaches. You will be much healthier and holier taking this approach.

Being new to the forum I didn't post a reply to this when I first saw it. But I was going to say more or less what Phil said. So take that as two votes for common sense.

It's been my experience that playing around with kundalini techniques outside of a formal traditional Hindu/yoga religious practice under the guidance of a qualified teacher leads to many messes, and is often part of a pattern of self-centered spiritual seeking in which cool experiences, a desire to have special powers, or desire to escape regular life are being prioritized. When those tendencies intersect with the heavy purification process that gets set off, the result can be a mess.

Echoing Phil further, any helpful solutions to resolving this kind of situation really have to take place within a fully committed single-tradition practice, too. Otherwise the dabbling in techniques without their context is like chucking cups of water at a bonfire, and doesn't sort out the underlying problem.

To be honest, I have met only a few people doing online courses such as AYP, and most of them are seeking the power, cool experiences, party-in-my-head thing, and thinking of enlightenment as a cool way to get superpowers. This speaks to a need for some real reflection about who one is and what one is trying to hide from. The lack of cultivation of humility, charity, generosity, surrender, (not to mention love of God) and so on is not healthy. Whether those training courses intend to cause those results, or simply attract people who already have those tendencies, I don't know. I suspect it's a bit of both.

Thank you both for your replies. I believe I began this adventure of mine when I had heard about the intuition benefits of the brow chakra. I figured enhancing this ability would benefit me somehow in my life. From there I had just began reading about the chakras and assumed that if I had made an effort to open and balance all of them, that I would benefit from it. I think the term "playing" is a bit inaccurate. I was very sincere in my approach to this, but my methodology may have been a bit lacking in terms of things like technique and having an experienced teacher, etc..I will say that if indeed what I am experiencing mentally is a result of my lack of preparation and research and experience, that I have learned a critical lesson when it comes to these practices. I think that for the time being it would be wise to just use traditional meditation, shifting my focus inwards and focusing on my breaths. And who knows maybe after a while I can dip my toe into more advanced techniques dealing with the bodys energies..

For the time being, would "grounding exercises" be a proper prescription for the foggy mind and fatigue/spaced out feelings I've been experiencing..And once this clears up, just resume the traditional techniques..? Thanks in advance for your help guys. It's greatly appreciated.

Mcc23, I can see where you're coming from, and I know there are books and web sites that write about awakening kundalini and balancing chakras without much of a religious perspective. But take the whole idea of balancing chakras, for example. The assumption seems to be that this is a good idea, but being out-of-balance seems to be the way life goes and so it's more normal to be that way than not. Being too out-of-balance is not good, of course, and neither is being stuck in an area, but perfect balance would be impossible to achieve, in my opinion, and not even desirable.

The breath meditation you mention is sure to intensify energy in the higher chakras, which might be a reason you experience "head fog" if they're just not ready to accommodate higher intensities/flows of energy. I think if you're going to do this, you should have some kind of meditative movement to go along with it, preferably afterwards, and in the interest of grounding. Qi gong or tai chi come to mind, but you can just wing it and move around however you want, too, feeling your feet on the earth, your body moving, etc. Also maybe back off a bit in the amount of time you do this kind of meditation.

I don't know what your religious/spiritual persuasion is, but it seems that the love of God is the safest context for kundalini awakening. Even if no great energy fireworks happen, your mind and heart will be in the right place.

Phil, thank you so much for the prompt reply.
The main grounding technique I've been reading about involves simply imagining your feet with roots attached to them and extending downwards into the earth. Also I've read that it is the root chakra that is not open that could be causing this "lack of grounded-ness" I don't want to keep trying to manipulate the energies if my body is simply not ready for them.. But if addressing the root could help me feel more coherent again, I feel it would be reasonable to give this a try.. But only the root chakra and not trying to do anything with the others.

Should I just do my 10-20 minutes of regular meditation trying to silence everything, and then perhaps take 5 more minutes to employ the technique I mentioned above..Or do you think that meditating in general would only exacerbate the problem in the upper 3 chakras.. Thanks again for your reply. It is appreciated.

Mcc23, most people do not seem to be adversely affected by taking a few minutes a day of some quieting meditation such as you describe. Of course, one has to be attentive to what consequences come from this practice. It's really impossible for me to say what would be good for you.

I'm hoping Tara (posts as KundaliniTherapist) will share her perspective on your situation as well. She might have more guidance to offer.

Here I am

Mcc - I wholeheartedly agree with Phil's first reply that you should practice kundalini exercises only in the context of a religion (of your choice) (my own background is Tibetan Buddhism) because a kundalini awakening only makes sense in the context of devotion, ethical living and most importantly with the sole aim to reach enlightenment or union with God for the benefit of all beings.

I work as a kundalini therapist and I had many clients with head pressure or fog. What is happening is that through the focus on your crown chakra you have highlighted (not created) a problem that was there before but was more unconscious.

Grounding is a good idea in general but will not solve this problem (at least in my experience)

Kundalini is a mind/body experience and any treatment needs to encompass the mind aspect.This cannot be dealt with by just trying to move the energy this way or that way.

What is the mind aspect of the crown chakra? I will suggest a number of topics and you could see if anything applies to you. But do not be surprised if you cannot see any connection because kundalini highlights what was unconscious before, or in other words, what we do not want to know about ourselves.

So, here goes:
- insufficient devotion to a divine being
- wish to stay unaware, ignore details and rest is some sort of numbness or dream world
- over-confidence, arrogance

As I said, you may not see any of this in yourself and I do not want to impose this 'diagnosis' onto you.

In general, kundalini problems need to be worked through on a personal level. There is no one-size-fits all solution apart from general good-health and grounding.

Let me know if you need more help,

Ona
welcome to the forum!
Thank you for your well thought-out reply - I could not agree more.

I have studied the AYP website quite a bit and also posted there as kundalinitherapist.

They claim that following their steps will not produce kundalini symptoms and admonish everybody to 'self-pace', which means to take it slowly.

I find it hard to believe that they do not produce symptoms with their approach and indeed have found some of their senior teachers curiously immature in their attitude towards kundalini. I actually asked myself if we were talking about the same thing.

The main problem with AYP approach is that they do not focus on love, which does not make sense to me because any spiritual development should have love as its ultimate aim.

They focus on stillness and bliss/power/kundalini. To me this is ultimately an ego-trip because there is nothing in their approach that could erode the ego - just building it.

KundaliniTherapist, thank you for your reply..
So may I ask how you would advise "treating" this? I don't think merely stopping my basic meditation practice would help because I took a while off from it and hadn't noticed any improvements.


"In general, kundalini problems need to be worked through on a personal level. There is no one-size-fits all solution apart from general good-health and grounding."

How would you advise I begin treatment? Just the grounding exercises and not trying to manipulate other body's energies?
Like I said in one of my previous posts, I've certainly learned a valuable lesson in all of this.

Hi Mcc
if you would work with me I would ask you lots of questions about all aspects of your life and then pin-point the area that needs healing (with your agreement). Then we would go about healing this area with the method higher-consciousness healing (see my website) and if all goes well your head pressure/fog would disappear. If it has not disappeared completely we would work with it directly (with the energy body).

So, I always start with emotional, relationship-related and spiritual level and sort that out first and then most of the time the physical symptom disappear with that.

That is how it works with virtually all my kundalini clients. In general this takes a few weeks but more likely a few months depending on how much your life is in order (or not).

Tara - your approach sounds very sensible. The several very difficult cases I have dealt with involved people who were trying to hide from very heavy/painful personal trauma, and thus were unwilling to consider any emotional or relationship-related investigation.

In several cases the situation had opened them to constant nightmares/visions/spirit visitation, to which they had a love/hate relationship. That is, they were frightened of it, but they also were somehow attached to those experiences. In such cases where the person simply doesn't have the courage or will to make a wholistic change, I usually recommend regular prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, self-exorcism prayer, and do exorcism prayer on their behalf, but that is a bandaid. It can provide a bit of space and clarity that may allow the person to see their options more clearly and find some courage, but it doesn't treat the underlying conditions.

In the future I may refer such cases to you!

KundaliniTherapist, thank you for your reply.. Are you saying you WOULD like to work with me more in depth with my issue and its respective healing process? Or were you just positing a hypothetical? If so, is this a service that is free of charge? Thanks again for all of the advice you've provided so far..

I just navigated over to your website.. I saw that you offer a free 20 minute consultation. I can contact you via that page?

Mcc - yes, please contact me through my website.

Ona - what kind of work do your do? Are you also a therapist or a priest? Yes, you can refer them all to me. As I am a psychotherapist, I guess they know what is coming