Derek,

Thanks! This sounds extremely helpful and timely!

I've lived with this for an awfully long time. But the sense I get is that it served a self-protective/survival type function but I don't need it anymore.

Later edit:
During the early years when kundalini was especially intense, I read the books then available and most of them warned about possible dangers. After seven years of struggling/being blasted by light, one day a friend whom I consider to be very psychic (wrongly or rightly I don't know) said to me, "Don't be concerned about the number of boyfriends you will have," meaning I was about to have a ton of them.

Yes, that could have been fun, but I was upset at the prospect because awakening the kundalini seemed to be like spiritually winning the lottery and I didn't want to waste it all on sensual pleasure (just as I much later found out many people who win the lottery become worse off through poor decision-making as in "resource curse.") So, I got myself to an ashram where I tried to play it safe and walk the straight and narrow.

I could have done worse. It served a purpose. Also, I tend to believe there is something to past-lives. (Not that I'm trying to convince anyone else--because how can a person really know?) Over the years, I've had a bunch of glimpses of people from different times that come in a flash, especially when doing a similar spiritual practice in real-time as they had in a different time in history.

For example, I went through a period where I did silent chanting of prayers using a mala (Indian rosary) at night in a dark hallway. One night within a flash of a split-second, I saw and learned many things about a young postulant in a French Carmelite convent from probably a few hundred years ago. {she loved God intensely and easily went into ecstasies, but pushed her body too hard and died quite young.)

Whatever the deal was, I did the best I knew how, and I feel like I made it through a very difficult impasse. Also, I had felt for many years building up to it a tremendous need to do a number of years of intensive spiritual practice.

I also think I had a lot more ideas back then about what was spiritual and what wasn't.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MaryAnn,

Derek, what you're saying about repressed energy makes sense to me. We store unresolved emotional stress in our bodies, and kundalini seems to really get into our physicality and attack that stress "at the bottom," so to speak. Since my kundalini process started, the "effects" increase and decrease over time but one thing that's remained consistent is my body will no longer tolerate unresolved stress. If I refuse to deal with conflict, it's very mentally and emotionally jarring and uncomfortable, and if I continue to repress it, it comes out in headaches and physical pain.

MaryAnn, I didn't have an experience like you've described, but I have had a fair amount of activity in my legs from time to time. I started doing energy work with Robert Bruce's methods roughly 10 years before I had a kundalini experience, and he advocates bringing energy in through the feet and circulating it up the back, and down the front into the navel. So while the energy body in my legs was fairly well developed, I still felt a lot of heat and activity in my legs (specifically the left leg) for several months after my first kundalini experience.

Anyway, it sounds like you're handling things the best way possible, i.e. the only way you can. I've wondered before if I'm doing things correctly or not, or if I'm helping or hurting the ongoing process, but then I think, if I could handle it any differently I probably would have already.


Paul

Thanks, Paul

Hello All,

First time posting here and I want to say how nice to have a supportive forum like this and to 'come out of the closet' about Kundalini.

Mary Ann your question prompted this post.

I had the first awakening almost 40 years ago by a shaktipat experience while a tourist in India. The process has been slow and intertwined with a lot of worldly responsibilities that are now winding down a bit. There seem to be very intense periods of spiritual devotion and growth and then a backing off, sometimes for many years.

To your question: A few months ago for a period of a couple weeks I began having sensations of heat in one or both feet that would come and go. It almost felt like warm water at the bottom of the foot. Not unpleasant,and no real explanation I could think of. I joked about my feet being held to the fire! I didn't think to relate it to Kundalini until I saw your post and also because in the past 2 weeks the Kundalini has become more active after some years of dormancy. What seems to be triggering it is sound; particularly crystal bowls and gongs that have been used in some yoga classes. 2 weeks ago while attending a gong immersion the spontaneous asanas and kriyas I experienced 15 years ago recurred.

I don't want to go on too long, but to say it's amazing to talk about Kundalini in a Christian context as I was brought up in the Catholic faith but was drawn toward Eastern spirituality since the teens. Knowing that Kundalini is also a Christian experience somehow makes it more real to me and also perhaps less frightening to allow the process to unfold and live life in a magical way once again.

I thank all of you for sharing your experiences.

Thanks for sharing, Pamela. That's really interesting about the feet. I don't remember ever feeling heat, just a whooshing of energy up them. Though I remember going through a period where I had burning/searing in the palms through the backsides of my hands, especially the right one. I got a red mark on it for a while that eventually faded away. This was long ago.

Interesting that you are very sensitive to sound.

YES!! "Knowing that Kundalini is also a Christian experience somehow makes it more real to me and also perhaps less frightening to allow the process to unfold and live life in a magical way once again."

Welcome Pamela. Good to have you join the forum.

Pamela and MaryAnn, you've both shared that your experience with energy phenomena began decades ago and has become more intense recently. Had the process simmered down during the in-between years? And I know you've both shared a little about how/why you think it's become stirred up again, but could you say a little more about that?

With me, it's been rather steady for the past 30 years or so, since shortly after the awakening. As Paul has noted, stress has a drastic and negative effect, however, and that's been my primary struggle. The issue of "right lifestyle" is difficult indeed.

Hi Phil,

For about the last four years, I've had a shakiness in my system that has become chronic. People have asked if it is part of the kundalini process and I really don't know. I've tried doctors and alt med. Still no real answers.

I feel like I'm stuck in a lower level of functioning and stamina. Short-term memory is affected, the nervous system is tweaked. I had major surgery and returned to my folks before that (returning from India), and have stayed with them since then. Seems like most of my adult life has been in survival mode (when the kundalini settled down, then a major structural problem kicked in).

After all the special effects and doing this and that, it is sort of like "so what?" What is the relevance? After initially many years of struggling with the kundalini awakening with some help from friends/various people, I went to an Indian teacher for guidance and support. Did a whole long cycle including years in India. Returned a number of years ago, and returned worn out and jaded with India/teacher/org.

About a year and a half ago, a bunch of info came out about the teacher and org re: ethical violations. I completely withdrew at this point and talked to various people for support at that time (friends, Buddhist teachers, a Dominican nun who is a friend's spiritual director--a bunch of people who seemed ethical and solid in their spiritual life and community).

Long ago when I had gone to the Indian teacher, the kundalini did settle down, but that might very well have been a result of a busy, regimented life. I think the teacher mainly gave me a space to work things out, but the lifestyle definitely wasn't healthy/sustainable.

I'm still struggling in my return process to find right activity, meaning and relevance. I spend most of my energy on family, health, work, and friends. I'm a bit scared of prayer these days. I'm not really sure what to make of all the medieval content that continues to flow through me. I realized a few years ago that the practice I did as a child (due to inner guidance/prompting) was probably Lectio Divina--where you use Biblical passages as support for your contemplation and enter into the living word.

I recently made a new friend at my work place who is a few years into kundalini (shaktipat-related via a visiting yogi from India). I've shared some of the things I've gleaned from my experience and promoted positive lifestyle habits, etc. (and to be very weary of these visiting teachers who often have their own agendas and don't really care about the individual). I have also wondered if I were at the beginning of kundalini now, what resources would I have and what would I do different? I guess I still wish it might have been easier and less time-consuming.

I've felt a need to connect with other Christians who have the experience of K, share feelings and what choices they made, etc.

Best,
Mary

Derek,
I have not read Washburn, but I am having some problems with the notion of repression in this context. Its Freudian sense is in contemporary psychoanalysis reserved for a relatively mature defense mechanism, which is developed around 3-4 year of life. The ego develops gradually and only when it is strong enough, it can repress impulses amd fantasies. Also, most analyst would say that we repress in the strict sense only verbalized experiences and they continue to express thmeselves in a symbolic way e.g. in dreams, slips of tongue, etc.
In early childhood, until 3rd year, the majority of analysts woukd agree that it is not repression that is used, but rather splitting and projection, which means that experience is separated into idealized and persecutory, hostile states of the mind and the latter are projected onto others. Part of the problem in severe mental disorders is the inability to repress painful experiences. They are either activated immediately in relationships, or expressed somatically, or some kind of addiction is sought to lower the tension.

So my problem is that the ego of a 2 year old is not strong enough to repress anything, let alone the dynamic ground. I agree with Wilber on this - it is hard to believe that infants are more in touch with their spirit than adults. But maybe I am wrong on this.

Hi, Mt,

If you define repression to mean the defense mechanisms that are typical of adults and children over the age of three, then of course you are correct. They cannot exist before the acquisition of language.

However, I was reading a book by Phebe Cramer that suggested that the precursors of defense mechanisms are habitual physiological tensings. (Sorry, I don't have Cramer's book with me, so I can't give you a reference.) These physiological "defense mechanisms" can begin before the acquisition of language. I suppose it depends if your definition of "repression" is broad enough to cover these.

As you know, research into the experience of infants is fraught with difficulties because infants cannot self-report. We must make do with hypotheses that appeal to us, even if they can never be proven. So I'm looking forward to reading what Washburn has to say, even if it turns out to be speculative. (My book still hasn't shipped yet. Everything seems to take so long to reach Canada.)

quote:

Originally posted by MaryAnn:
For about the last four years, I've had a shakiness in my system that has become chronic.

I feel like I'm stuck in a lower level of functioning and stamina. Short-term memory is affected, the nervous system is tweaked.

Hi, MaryAnn,

Are you following some kind of restricted diet?

Hi Phil,

I'm beginning to see the process as a continuous journey in that even during times I wasn't having overt spiritual experiences there was always a sense of a presence and of being guided. Life has been quite an intense teacher and some of my least 'spiritual' experiences have been most instructive; usually in needing to see my dark side unfortunately.
After the initial shaktipat (I didn't know what it was until many years later)for about 5 years I was guided to various teachers and experiences that took me deeper spiritually. I was then led to return to school and become a medical doctor and also have 3 children and 3 quite challenging marriages which lately I've begun to think were karmic in nature.
I didn't experience physical kundalini until I was led to a guru following a very intense period of loss, grief and loneliness. I immersed myself in spiritual practice while raising my youngest sons and working and it was about 15 years ago that the kundalini became physically apparent. I was led away from this particular group when I began to feel as if I was drug seeking. The spiritual experiences were quite euphoric. I chose to remarry and once more became more focused on the material side of life.
The past 5 years life changed dramatically following divorce then a car accident with, interestingly, a traumatic brain injury. I have been forced to work less and struggle financially. It has opened my eyes to things I wasn't paying attention to and has also served to humble me. I guess that wasn't enough to slow me down so last fall I injured a knee and was unable to walk much for months and began meditating again.
Recent losses have again brought me to my knees with grief and loneliness and it has brought me closer to God.
As for the reactivation of the physical kundalini it has always been there if I relax into meditation or yoga with muscle twitches and random times of energy rushes usually beginning in the middle of my back and radiating outward. I've just gotten used to being twitchy over the years.
The movements became more intense when I attended a gong sound immersion recently.
The brain injury has been intriguing because I believe it is our thinking mind that keeps us most separate from our true spiritual nature. I definitely am forced to limit mental activity these days and I'm ok with that. I'll end there. Thanks for your interest.

Pamela,

You have been through a lot!

I'm amazed by your strength and ability. Became a doctor, raised three children, and so forth.

I agree that the Indian can focus too much on the bliss at the expense of other things.

All good wishes to you!

Thanks MaryAnn, Its sounds like you've been through a lot yourself. Reading other's experiences lately has made me do some reflection on this path of my own but lately it's seeming less and less personal, less serious somehow.
Warm regards!

Derek,

then you'll have to read Washburn for both of us

of course, we can think of a very broad notion of repression, which perhaps would be term in psychoanalysis as "warding off". That is, an attempt, of elimination of whatever is painful in the internal world.

But my point is that all the observations of infants seem to point to the fact that they are not that good in warding off, repressing or whatever. They cry for help in releasing tensions, they are totally dependent on the others also in their psychological functions. As British analyst and pediatrician Donald Winnicott said "There is no such thing as an infant", meaning there is always infant-mother unit. So I don't think that infants could be efficient in eliminating e.g. their connection with the ground of being. And certainly I will never believe that the acquisition of language cuts us off from some enlightened consciousness, as many spiritual writers seem to believe.

Btw, since 18th century some authors were faacinated by childhood, like Rousseau, Blake, Coleridge etc. They believed that we lost spontaneity, innocence and even mystical consciousness of childhood. Culture and civilization is bad, beczuse it stifles our inner goodness. Of course, the same was reactivated during the sixties of 20th century. We can discuss this, when you will have read Washburn, but I think this sort of romanticism is not so good and in fact not so Christian. We lost our innocence back then in the garden of Eden, not in our childhood. This is just archetypal thinking, projecting all the good on our past. Children suffer greatly, whenver they are frustrated and they dont have mature ways to deal with that, so they suffer more. They are better off only because they seem to forget quickly, but you know that they dont forget. So childhood is heaven and hell, oscillating and gradually evolving towards less heaven and less hell.