Hi Tara:

One of my neighbors is a member of Self Realization. So i have met quite a few Hindu's through her. I've also met several Buddists from the Mahayana tradition. Our discussions have not produced much fruit.

I experienced what i believe was kundalini after taking a homeopathic remedy. About a year later I reached out for assistance after having an experience that left me feeling unsafe in the process. Basically i was ignorant of Buddhist , Hindu beliefs as well as Christian. To me what i experienced was Christian but found no support except in some writings, especially St. John of The Cross.

The last person i worked with was a transpersonal therapist. There was no one path but i see quite a bit of Mahayana Buddhism there. So God was not part of the path & was seen as a group & personal interior and exterior thoughtforms. In other words we create God out of our needs. Exercises were few. Chakra balancing & exercise to rid our bodies and mind of inner thoughtforms. The last change i experienced there was seeing Jesus dead within me then the Tree of Life. I lived in a place a great peace & physical healing for some time. There was the neccesity of the continual deconstruction of a lower ego. The mind would feel dead at times. I kept feeling i had lost something so precious to me. I no longer experienced God. Yet there was such peace. I feel i am starting to understand some things but this puts me in conflict. Great Peace & improved physical health = death of Jesus. Over a period of years this influence is leaving me
& God is returning, only differently. In the emptiness. Although yesterday the exchange was very personal & filled my heart.

This is my concern over visualizations. If done enough times it could turn into an inner thoughtform . A personal creation.

Mary Sue



"Hi Mary Sue
yes, I can say quite a few things about this.

Would you mind copying and pasting your post from above into the kundalini section and maybe start a new thread there because I think my answer will be relevant for virtually everybody who is in the kundalini process.

I can also answer it here if you prefer."


Tara http://www.taraspringett.com/k...i/kundalini-syndrome

"

quote:

I experienced what i believe was kundalini after taking a homeopathic remedy.

Can you say a bit more about it? What exactly happened?

quote:

The last person i worked with was a transpersonal therapist. There was no one path but i see quite a bit of Mahayana Buddhism there. So God was not part of the path & was seen as a group & personal interior and exterior thoughtforms. In other words we create God out of our needs.

A transpersonal therapist should not impose his or her religious beliefs onto the client but use their existing path to help them connect with the divine (or transpersonal). To say God is just a thoughtform that we create out of our needs is an atheistic view. (and quite harsh, too, if I may say)

quote:

Exercises were few. Chakra balancing & exercise to rid our bodies and mind of inner thoughtforms. The last change i experienced there was seeing Jesus dead within me then the Tree of Life.

Kundalini is an opening up of our unconscious mind which can be confusing and frightening. My general line of approach is to teach my clients to 'stay the boss' in all their weird and wonderful experiences. So, you can look at inner experiences or explore them but you should never ever let them be boss. Because if you do you will be in trouble and taken over by forces that you cannot control anymore if you have given them free reign.

If you were my client and would see Jesus dead I would have asked you, 'do you want Jesus to be dead for you?' and presumably you would have said, 'no'. Then I would have encouraged you to dismiss this inner image and actively chose a better one. You are the boss!

quote:

I lived in a place a great peace & physical healing for some time. There was the neccesity of the continual deconstruction of a lower ego. The mind would feel dead at times. I kept feeling i had lost something so precious to me. I no longer experienced God.

There can be peace within your chosen path - it is not either or. As a transpersonal therapist you should never lure anyone away from their main source of comfort.

But I also wonder if there was a part in yourself that wanted to try something different, maybe?

quote:

This is my concern over visualizations. If done enough times it could turn into an inner thoughtform . A personal creation.

We do not create God or divine beings through visualisation - 'create' is not the right word. It's more that we draw a deity into our life by thinking about them or visualising them (which is more or less the same thing). So the more we think about Jesus and visualise his face the more he will come into our life. This is not creating a thoughtform but a real divine being (that we can not see with our human eyes) entering into our personal space.

Let me know if you have more questions or what you make of what I wrote.

quote:

Originally posted by KundaliniTherapist:
Kundalini is an opening up of our unconscious mind

That makes a lot of sense to me. How about to those of you who have had kundalini experiences? And why do most people who access unconscious material (e.g. in psychotherapy) not experience kundalini, while a few do? What is the difference between them?

quote:

Kundalini is an opening up of our unconscious mind

I believe it is more then just that. It is the driving force that re-unites the Father and the Mother, brings together the bride and the groom, conjoins the conscious and the unconscious. Rather than seeing it as an opening up of the unconscious, I prefer to see it as a harmonization of (apparent) opposites: Male and Female become Anthropos.
From an experiential point of view, kundalini indeed gives this impression, as if it were opening up the unconscious. As it tries to uncover the muck that we have tried to hide there for many aions, it indeed leads to uncomfortable situations: since we above all love ourselves, direct confrontation with the dirtiness of the Ego can be rather distressful. I started to experience this after awakening of the Heart. But ultimately, its aim is not to uncover the unconscious, but rather to unite with it.

quote:

That makes a lot of sense to me. How about to those of you who have had kundalini experiences? And why do most people who access unconscious material (e.g. in psychotherapy) not experience kundalini, while a few do? What is the difference between them?

Ignorance. Not IQ-based ignorance, but unawareness of the real life. At one end of the equation, there is He constantly calling His creation to return to Him. At the other end of the equation, there is creation not knowing well what to do. Some subjects choose to continue dwelling where they are, others will go away from Him and still others want to return. This situation is subject to what some have called karma and the level of ignorance will define how much a person will remain entangled in its web.
People can have “spiritual experiences” in their life. The way in which they respond will define whether they will walk through spiritual awakening or remain in their self-created but comfortably feeling prison cell. In my own case, I received (what I years later found out to be) shaktipath through a non-incarnated intermediary at a moment that I was still very materialist, actually rather hostile towards everything that had to do with the spiritual. At that moment, I had a choice: remain ignorant, or take into consideration that everything that I thought to be correct was actually wrong. I went for the latter way, the narrow gate, but it is not difficult to see that many people would prefer to remain in a more comfortable zone and opt for the security of the known world. Only but compassion for those who want to remain blind…
As long as people prefer to remain in the comfort zone, kundalini will not rise, or only with great difficulty. Because for you wanting to pave the road between the Bride and the Groom, she needs your intention. If your karma causes her to rise even though at this moment you do not want it, it surely will be Hell.

quote:

That makes a lot of sense to me. How about to those of you who have had kundalini experiences? And why do most people who access unconscious material (e.g. in psychotherapy) not experience kundalini, while a few do? What is the difference between them?

Hi Derek
in a lot of my clients and also in myself the defining reason for a kundalini opening is a passionate desire - and I really mean passionate/desperate/incredible desire to change, to find something new, to get out of the prison cell of one's previous sense of self.

Then these people (certainly true for most of my clients) embark on some form of self-development work - often random, ignorant and without proper guidance - to destroy the boundaries of their previous ego and that is when more kundalini/life-force can enter into their mind.

There are also a lot of people who would say at this point, 'but I want to change as well and I do not get kundalini'. In my experience, these people are held back by their unconscious ego-defences that keeps them safe despite their wish to change.

And then there are of course those for whom none of the above is true and kundalini strikes like a lightning bolt out of the blue. I my experience these people are very rare - I never had a client like this, I only read about them. In my world view this must be caused through some past life karma.

Obviously, everybody who has a kundalini awakening has a propensity to that due to past karma, as well.

quote:

But ultimately, its aim is not to uncover the unconscious, but rather to unite with it.

Hi Aion
welcome to the forum! Are you male or female?

I agree largely with your post. The ultimate aim of kundalini is to evolve to higher spiritual realisation and unite all our inner contradictions.

However, in my work as a kundalini therapist that is exactly what people are NOT doing. Instead, they fight against all the material that emerges from their unconscious mind, which is understandable because it can be very disconcerting (as you rightly point out) and also very frightening.

It is my job (and the job of every spiritual director or transpersonal therapist) to help people to find this union of what seem irreconcilable contradictions. They also have to learn to be a witness of this whole spectacle rather than identifying with everything that comes up in their mind.

It seems you have managed your own awakening well. Can you say a little more about how it went?

quote:

Originally posted by KundaliniTherapist:
in a lot of my clients and also in myself the defining reason for a kundalini opening is a passionate desire - and I really mean passionate/desperate/incredible desire to change, to find something new, to get out of the prison cell of one's previous sense of self.

Then these people (certainly true for most of my clients) embark on some form of self-development work - often random, ignorant and without proper guidance - to destroy the boundaries of their previous ego and that is when more kundalini/life-force can enter into their mind.

There are also a lot of people who would say at this point, 'but I want to change as well and I do not get kundalini'. In my experience, these people are held back by their unconscious ego-defences that keeps them safe despite their wish to change.

And then there are of course those for whom none of the above is true and kundalini strikes like a lightning bolt out of the blue. I my experience these people are very rare - I never had a client like this, I only read about them. In my world view this must be caused through some past life karma.

Obviously, everybody who has a kundalini awakening has a propensity to that due to past karma, as well.

Ah, okay. So a passionate desire to break through the walls of the ego, combined with untutored and unsupervised spiritual practice, and possibly exacerbated by fighting against what emerges. Again, that makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder if any of our members who've had these kundalini experiences would care to comment on the extent to which that pattern applies to them (or whether they fall into the rare "out of the blue" category).

I resonate with the comments about K awakening, and have stated many times that I consider it to be an opening of the spiritual dimension of the human unconscious, usually through meditative practices that weaken Ego defenses. These defenses can also be weakened by drugs, or by the kind of passionate desire Tara mentions, such as we find in mystical spirituality, where the longing for God seems to drive the process.

I realize that the term "spiritual unconscious" might seem an oxymoron to some, but it is to recognize that much of our spiritual potential is not yet realized, and this for a wide variety of reasons. Human consciousness is essentially spiritual, and infuses the dimensions of psyche and organism, becoming their principle of life (we are embodied, en-psyched spiritual beings). So when the spiritual unconscious awakens, this will stir up those aspects of psyche and organism that need to come into alignment with the new potentiality awakened. Hopefully, the Holy Spirit is the conductor of this orchestration.

quote:

How about to those of you who have had kundalini experiences? And why do most people who access unconscious material (e.g. in psychotherapy) not experience kundalini, while a few do? What is the difference between them?

Derek, my response to this is that one can open the psychological dimension of the unconscious without opening the spiritual. Again, the common denominator is weakening Ego defenses, but the driving force behind the diminishment of defenses would be different: aging, the sheer weight of repressed emotions, stress, addictions, etc. An unspiritually-formed Ego has great difficulty adjusting to the eruption of repressed material, and therapy attempts to provide support and encouragement unto a new integration of the Ego and the unconscious. I have never been very optimistic about the prospect of this happening outside of a spiritual formation context. Jung wasn't either:

quote:

I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook.
- Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Good. So now we have the following list of predecessor conditions for kundalini syndrome:

• a passionate desire to break through the walls of the ego
  
• ego lacking spiritual formation
  
• untutored and unsupervised spiritual practice
  
• opening to spiritual dimensions as well as psychological
  
• fighting against what emerges
  

How's that? Anyone want to add to or modify it?

Hi Derek
I would agree with that but only when things go wrong.. Point one could also be phrased: passionate desire to find God.

If things go well I would change it to this:

a passionate desire to break through the walls of the ego or find God
ego well prepared for being replaced by the divine mind
wise spiritual practice
opening to spiritual dimensions as well as psychological
having witness consciousness and not identifying with content of unconscious mind

Excellent. We have the beginnings of a model. And to the list of factors provoking kundalini experience we can add:

ignorance/unawareness of spirituality (aion)
homeopathic remedy (Mary Sue)
recreational drug use (Phil)

I can feel a Youtube video coming on.

Hi Tara:

Thank you for your reply.

I saw a Homeopath & was given a remedy in 2 different doses. 50 M & 30C. Shortly after taking it energy rose up my spine constantly with each breathe for the next 30 days. At some point after this I remember feeling very sick & believed i was dying. I called out to God for help & my heart filled with love & a great white light radiated throughout my body & i knew that i was loved very deeply by God. Very different from the God i was raised to fear. This Love sustained me for a long time as i continued to be sick.


++++
Tara "But I also wonder if there was a part in yourself that wanted to try something different, maybe?" There can be peace within your chosen path - it is not either or. As a transpersonal therapist you should never lure anyone away from their main source of comfort.


+++
What you brought up here was significant and has allowed me to start processing this differently. What i needed the most was to be able to understand this from a Christian perspective. I heard the Holy Spirit instructing me that a change was going to occur in my relationship with Jesus. I saw Jesus was dead in the loving arms of his mother after being taken down from the cross. And why did Jesus die? For my sins & everyone's so that i/w can be reconciled to God the Father.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Sue,

May I add intense unrequited love to the model?

This in the mix for me, together with a desire to find God, drug use - a potent cocktail - kaboom!

Music was a catalyst, lying in bed, stoned, yearning for love, yearning to know God and love, the deep emotion of the melody and rhythm, not a great context for a safe awakening, but a trigger nonetheless, and the fact that was I was only 24, perhaps not mature enough to deal with such an upheaval.

I like what people are saying here - the spiritual unconscious, union of inner contradictions, union of male/female polarities. All a search for love. It makes sense.

And I resonate with Mary Sue's need for a Christian perspective... the need to fit this into a Christian upbringing, an adolescent spiritual formation, otherwise the break is too swift, too severe, and one goes wandering off into the dark and gets lost, and complicates matters further in the dark wood, as I did... still stumbling at times, still trying to embrace the light.

There are fairy tales in these kundalini stories.