quote:

Originally posted by Mark Thompson:
Those that are never satisfied with their role will ceaselessly attempt to penetrate this veil.

I learned recently that around 1918, Jung had a patient whom he diagnosed as having kundalini awakening, and this on the basis of his having just read Arthur Avalon's The Serpent Power. The course of the patient's analysis is described in Collected Works, vol. 16, pp. 330-7, to which I do not have access. Over the years, Jung fleshed out his ideas on kundalini, until he gave his famous seminar on kundalini yoga to the Psychology Club in Zurich in 1932. This is from those lectures:

quote:

You see, the Kundalini in psychological terms is that which makes you go on the greatest adventures. I say, "Oh, damn, why did I ever try such a thing?" But if I turn back, then the whole adventure goes out of my life, and my life is nothing any longer; it has lost its flavor. It is this quest that makes life livable, and this is Kundalini; this is the divine urge.

Derek
I really appreciate you posting that quote
from Jung. I needed to see it right at the
particular moment I set eyes on it.

Thank you again
Mark

Yes, I've seen that quote and others by Jung on kundalini, and it does resonate with the view that k is rooted in the human spirit and its longing for meaning and transcendence. I don't think he was ever quite able to place it in his psychological framework, however.

Jim Arraj did a nice reflection on Jung and Kundalini.
- see https://shalomplace.org/eve/for.../25010765/m/67210765 for a reprint of it on this board.

Thank you, Phil
I read the article that jim Arraj wrote concerning Jung's philosophy on the individuation
process, and the Kundalini. What is not addressed is the incredible expansion of the
human consciousness when it meets the Divine consciousness. As Teresa of Avila put it,
"To see as God sees". I guess this is where words and concepts fail. It's one of those
many paradoxes that will always elude us as we cannot put it under the microscope to
divide and seperate. However, the growing and enfolding process that eventually brings
us to this heightened Divine awareness, can be examined. This is where forms such as this
help tremendously.

Thank you for directing me to that article
God Bless
Mark

Phil,
it s hard for me to follow your theories. Especially what you write about the ego i cannot fully agree. Phenomenologie simply sais something different. i m not talking here about theories, i m talking about experiences, and even my own experiences do not fit with your theories.

>> "There is no loss of the Ego in all this . . . "<<
When i had my first major k arousal, almost all of my usual ego consciousness was simply erased by some kind of electrical burning inside my brain. That was not fun, absolutely not. it felt like some kind of dying. Not some contents of my ego consciousness were erased, but ego itself !!! in this experience the k left me about 5 percent of "me". In another experience my ego sheeth was completely taken away from me, and the consciousness of the soul came to the fore. there was no ego at all any more, there was no adjustment of the contents of the ego to the Spirit, as you say.. Something very much different !!! So you can believe me, i know the difference of the souls consciousness and the ego consciousness.

>>"and we are never deprived of intellect"<<
here my experience is different too. I have to disagree completely ! You know that some long time ago i was a scientist. in the meanwhile my "intellect" has changed allot. Sometimes i have some attacks from the intellectual world, and i am inspired to do some theoretical physics again. what happens then is that the k is extremely revolting. it numbs down my bain completely whenever i begin to concentrate hard. it is simply impossible any more. ok, when i continue and continue on this for weeks, the k is then getting weaker and allows me to think intellectually again and finally, after weeks the k disappears completely. That is then the moment when i have to decide what is more important to me, some intellectuality or spiritual progress. That is then the point where i decide for God again ....
Btw, if i remember right, Faustina has written here on this board some time ago something similar about her husband. he has similar problems.
>>"Ego is the center of consciousness"<<
_God_ is the center of consciousness !!!! not the ego ! Remember "Sat-Chit-Ananda" ? Translated: The existence of conscious bliss, some of the highest states of God. In this state there is no space and time yet, no souls and no egos yet. only a conscious bliss. Then the conscious divides. That is the birth of souls, far beyond space and time . (one could also say "eternity"), still no ego yet, but a conscious soul already. In other words: the soul is created out of Bliss, which is in lower areas called " Divine Love" ........ and then, after a long process of further changes down the road, when the soul decides to take birth on earth, then it gets an ego, and the soul gives a tiny part of her consciousness to the ego.
(but i think you do not believe this anyway, hehe. It is not my thinking, it is the thinking of Aurobindo)


Mark,
your writings are wellcome ! But i do not understand everything. What do you mean with the "dark night of the Spirit" ? And one expression that you use caught my eye : "God realisation" . as far as i know, this expression is mostly used by Neo-Hindus ( Ramakrishna and ff.) ??
I read partially one book of St John of the Crux maybe half, (the ascending to mount carmel) , but for me it seems i didnt find some concreet hints to the k. But what i recently found was very interesting to me: He, as a catholic christian writes that God is inside The human, and also inside everything ..... Maybe that is one of the reasons why he wanted his books to be published not before his death. He was afraid of the inquisition.

Blissin
Frist, let me agree with you on the ego. Twenty years ago I had a vision
where I was standing in a very dark room, but somehow I knew I was on a threshold.
If I crossed this threshold I would be crossing into Eternity, but there was one
major stipulation, I had to strip down to nothing. Mark, as I knew Mark, could not
cross. The ego consciousness is temporary, but very important to this enfoldment
process. We must have an ego before we can lose the ego. I believe the ego helps
narrow our focus which allows us to find this narrow path to the Divine.
The Dark night of the Spirit is when this spiritual force within starts to put
this temporary self within the fire to purge and purify the soul. It is the
"dying unto self", and as you know, it can be awful. In my case, (and I am a tough
nut to crack), It is teaching me how to surrender. It's a tough Love, but I'm the
stubborn type.
What I find fascinating about the christian mystic, is that they seem to keep their
eye on the prize. When the K rose strong in me, and my life started to fall apart,
my focus never did waver on this Totality of Love. Reading and examining myself about
the K was necessary, but my eye remained on this Pearl. If the K was part of this
process to get there, then so be it. Prior to the rise of the K, it was the descent
of the Holy Spirit/Goddess Shakti that was moving and motivated me. After the K
rose all the visions, flight of the soul experiences, stopped. Now it is about peeling away this ego to find the Center of Being. This Eternal Self is enormous! As Phil stated, and you,
if we are not prepared, rebuilt for this encounter, it can kill us.
This is written also in the upanishads, Gita, etc. I have noticed that when something needs to be conveyed to my outer being, it will use symbols as I am still not ready to experience the fullness of my Christ, or Eternal Self. There are moments of clarity and seeing vary
large. There are also moments of peace, and love. But this Totality of Being in the
Center of the Soul is thousands of times larger then my ego consciousness, and if
it came on to soon, it would scatter me in a thousand pieces. So just these gentle
touches of this Pure Being within can put the ego/temporary self in agony. This fire
within seems to burn slowly by our time based stardards. Thus the phrase, "Long suffering".
The only reason I picked the path of Christ, was that all my visions throughout my
lifetime were christ oriented. But I also love the Hindu, Buddha and Greek philosophies.
The path of the shaman is also wonderful. The "Philosophier's Stone", etc. Rumi, the
poets. The list goes on. This is about "God Realization", which may or may not include
religion depending on the soul that is being awakened. This is the High Frequency of
God which is Whole, Perfect and Beautiful. This Perfect and Pure force/love could care little
what belief system one holds within the self. When the time is ripe it will bring home
the soul and all our notions about how we got there will be gone.

Thanks for the forum, phil
God Bless
Mark

Just a quick note to speak to what Phil was talking about.
Perhaps a quote from Shakespeare says it. "Two distinct, division none".

Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, perhaps the greatest
work I have had to pleasure to read. Aurobindo
did not experience the rise of the Kundalini.
His experiences were with the descent. This is
that envelope opening about the crown and seeing
the vastness of a timeless space that is
filled with Life. Sri Aurobindo came to this
by way of Love. Aurobindo brought this Holy
breath down through his body.

I'm not needing to debate about "Ego" as I've written extensively on this and have qualified my meanings many times. Perhaps the only clarification would be that when I say that Ego is the center of consciousness, I mean its conscious aspect. Surely, yes, God indwells the center of our being, but God does so as God, not "me." But as I also noted, "we have to let go of all ideas of who we are" and "who we really are in God is mystery." So the Ego remains, but it is the obedient servant of the Spirit -- most of the time. The only perfect (non-sinful) person was/is Jesus; even the greatest Saint (including the Hindu ones) falls seven times a day (old saying that has much truth).

Same goes for "intellect." It can become intuitively receptive to guidance by the Spirit, but remains functional for those times when we need to deliberate and reflect without the assistance of charisms. There's a tendency for many spiritual writers to be negative about the intellect, however, equating it with deductive reasoning. That's way too narrow. It's basically synonymous with "mind" or "human intelligence," and surely we don't lose that.

The transformative process is not about destroying us so that only God remains. What would be the point of human life if that were the case?

Mark, I appreciate your openness to other witnesses to transformation while holding to your Christian faith.

You wrote:

quote:

This Perfect and Pure force/love could care little what belief system one holds within the self.

I don't think I'd go that far. The Incarnation is God's reaching to the heart of the human race and creation to draw us to reconciliation and union in the Spirit. A mind and will formed in appreciative and faith-filled openness to Christ has many advantages over others who have not come to know this gift.

Speaking for myself, here, I can say that there has never been a time in my journey when I enjoyed absolute certainty about anything. The opening of the higher chakras does not signal the end of belief, trust, faith, or hope. Expanded awareness can be understood, from the human side, as the spiritual soul awakening to its innate spiritual potential, which might or might not be graced with knowledge of the divine. We only, ever, always know God through grace, and that as people who are "looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection" (1 Cor. 13:12). Without intellectual convictions (beliefs) concerning the truths of Christian revelation, I would have lost my bearings long ago and would have most likely drifted off into the weeds of some kind of monistic gnosticism, as that's the kind of system kundalini literature resonates with.

Beliefs are like the finger that points to the moon. When we catch a glimpse of the moon, it would be silly to keep examining the finger, but the moon often goes behind the clouds, or even seems to disappear at times. We journey in faith, which, in the end, transcends all feelings and experiences.

Phil,I couldn't agree with you more. This is about growth, and a high superaltive refining.
Christ was our perfect example of our own capibilities of coming to this complete Love that
does not recognize divison. He forgave all, because this Love can hold no contained jugments, nor creature attachments. It's see
wide and far. All is perfect in this world, even
though we see the muck and mire in the moment.

What is the translation of the Christ? Is it not the "Annointed one"
If a Shaman is praying to his/her Creator, does not its Creator listen?
Phil, It is all in our sincerity and intention. Names and stories vary,
but the "One" is in us all regardless of our culture and our time in this
historical evolutionary enfoldment. The One in the many, and the many in
the One. Christ was not the man, but the power of the ONE.

Mark,
" peeling away" is the right expression for the diminishing of the ego. the k works constantly day and night like a planer in the brain, when you hear this "chiiieew" there. This peeling then gradually leads to a thinner "skin" of the ego, that makes one more vulnerable against attacks from outside and from inside (the problems of the soul) . i think some time ago Shasha wrote about this here on the board.
Mark, what then is the difference in your view between the dark night of the soul and the dark night of the spirit ? If you have a time please read the description of Sister Faustina in her first diary maybe from section 50 to section 120. I would be interested in your opinion of that. What is new here is, that additional to the withdrawing of God and the pain of the soul because of that (btw some NDElers describe this as an expierience of hell in the Beyond), at the end of her dark night of the soul God additionally rejected her deeper and deeper everytime she prayed to God.
What i forgot to write yesterday is: Thank you for writing about "expansion of the consciousness" . so i m not alone here! i wrote about that here some years ago under "Heart meditation with the help of Kundalini". (Scroll the content site down). The consciousness starts expanding, but i do not really see the connection to Gods consciousness of this, as you wrote above. maybe your expansion continued already to a vaster degree . My guru those days said that the starting of the expansion is the point where (heart- ? ) meditation really begins to start !
>>"But this Totality of Being in the Center of the Soul is thousands of times larger then my ego consciousness, "<<
Yesssssss ! But it seems you are more advanced then me. i never was in a state that i would describe as the "center" of the soul. I think i was at the periphery only, but this state is still much much more intense than the ego. the souls consciousness is very sublime and subtle, not so rough as the ego. the ego rather seem to filter any soul consciousness away once it tries to come and communicate with the ego. this filtering process is done because of the roughness, and because of the "thickness" of the ego peels. That is why during the spiritual journey the ego rinds have to be peeled, so that it is easier for the soul to come through, and vice versa. I think this is the reason why saints like Sr. Faustina had so easy access to their soul. when the ego skin is getting thinner you feel this as a kind of happyiness and lightlyness of your consciousness . ("If you do not become like a child you cannot go to Heaven!" . Also Jesus asked Sr Faustina that every time she goes to the holy communion she should get into the mood of a child, otherwise she cannot absorb the sublime blessing of the host. )

Savitri. Aurobindo wrote this completely under automatic writing, like his finger were only the instruments of the Supermind. And he said, that the human mind cannot understand this book, one has to read it with a higher mind/Supermind. unfortunately only a handful peoples were able to have access to the supermind

Amen to the "One in the many and the many in the One."

quote:

Christ was not the man, but the power of the ONE.

Mark, the amazing thing is that Christianity does affirm that Jesus, the man, is the Christ -- that his divinized humanity is the means by which we, too, are transformed in the Spirit. That's why I believe Holy Communion is especially important.

- - -

Re. Aurobindo -- seems you guys are buying into his schema, which is thoroughly monistic and at odds with Christianity in many basic aspects.
- see https://shalomplace.org/eve/for...3110765/m/8884089538

Let us not forget that there are many "ordinary" religious people out there who are being deeply transformed, but who do not evidence kundalini nor even some of St. John of the Cross's signs of the Dark Night.

Kundalini seems most associated with people who do Easternish forms of meditation, Christians who do centering prayer and similar contemplative practices, and Christian charismatics. The Holy Spirit is alive and well outside of this noteworthy grouping.

This discussion also demonstrates the importance of ongoing discernment in the spiritual life - - that we'd best never lay our critical thinking skills aside.

Phil, if they all of a sudden discovered that the life of Jesus was much
different then what we have been taught; or even perhaps, just a story. Would
it change anything for you?