Recently, I've become more interested in the theory of bioenergetics and I wonder if you can help me clarify the differences between bioenergy and kundalini (because I believe they're not the same thing).

I don't know any good links to bioenergetics but I'm sure you're familiar with at least some Alexander Lowen's ideas.
His teacher, Wilhelm Reich, came up with an idea of the "orgone" or "organismic energy" when he worked with patient's bodies, releasing tensions and emotions connected to them. Reich, as far as I know, believed that there is universal, cosmic energy which is active also in our organisms. He thought emotions and desires to be the manifestation of this energy.
His disciple, Alexander Lowen, called this "bioenergy" and founded a bionenergetics therapy movement which is based on psychoanalysis and body-work.
In his books Lowen says that bioenergy is simply life-energy present in our bodies, but he also says that it can be directly experienced and felt, and that, in fact, all children can feel that, before their bodies become tense and rigid due to defense mechanisms.
Lowen also says that bioenergy is the same as prana, chi, qi, kundalini and Holy Spirit... well, this kind of position is well known, but putting all those different energies together just doesn't seem to make sense when you take a closer look.

I wonder what are differences between kundalini and bioenergy that can be experienced through psychotherapy and various techniques of movement therapy. I would say that these are different phenomena because:

1) MEANS OF AWAKENING
bioenergy can be experienced and "awakened" by some simple physical exercises that Lowen describes in his books, like his famous "grounding" exercise when you stand on your feet and bend forward to touch the floor with your fingers. By exercising this, Lowen says, you should feel "vibration" or "pulsation" in your legs when the energy spreads into them. Also - in my experience - psychodynamic, analytical therapy releases tensions and the bioenergy through verbal techniques such as interpretation and through therapeutic relationship. On the other hand, k energy isn't awakened so easily and in so many people.

2) SPIRITUALITY
bioenergy makes you feel your body, desires, emotions and gets you in touch with your Natural Child, with its impulses, desires, natural emotions etc. It certainly makes you more spontaneous, warm, alive, authentic, natural in relationships, makes you enjoy the present moment more, makes you feel energetic, like a few year old child. It allows intimacy in relationships, link sexuality to the heart etc. But it doesn't have to do anything with spiritual transformation - this is rather awakening of the Child, not reaching higher levels of growth. You can be very selfish when you're in touch with Natural Child, because it is naturally selfish and acts upon pleasure principle.

3) MOVEMENT
bioenergy is connected strongly to movement. It is movement. Children are always on the move, rarely motionless. Bioenergy is the energy of desire and aggression that flows from the belly towards the skin, feet, hands and genitals to meet the world and other persons in it. Lowen calls it simply freudian libido that can be directly felt in the body. Kundalini can make you move, as we know, but generelly it's experienced in a samadhi state when you body is motionless. The breath also tends to be diminished, while in bioenergetics we work on full breathing with the whole of the chest.

4) HIGHER CHAKRAS (THE HEAD)
kundalini transforms you when it gets to the head, to the brain and is felt there strongly. Bioenergetics says that "the head" is only linear, analytical thinking and the "energy in the head" means here mostly schizoid activity of escaping the body and the reality into fantasies and abstractions. Bioenergy is felt not in the head, but from the center of the body towards the peripheral areas where there is contact with others (hands - reaching, feet - grounding, genitals - love etc.).

Yet there seem to be some similarities. Phil called kundalini "pure libido". There are connections between kundalini and sexual energy, kundalini increases level of life energy, is felt in the body as "vibration" or "flow". Etc.

So what is bioenergy in relation to kundalini? Perhaps bioenergy is more like prana, the breath of life, which isn't exactly kundalini? Bioenergy might be the energy of our life, desire and emotions, a manifestation of kundalini on a more biophysical level?
There are interactions, but there are people who haven't experienced a full awakening of kundalini, but are in touch with bioenergy, and - ??? - are there people who experienced the awakening but are emotionally repressed and their "character armour" isn't released?
In my case I'm sure that the kundalini process began much earlier that I started to work on emotions and bodily tensions. It doesn't necessarily prove that bioenergy is different from kundalini. I don't think that the eminent teachers of bioenergetics like Lowen, Pierrakos, and in Europe - Cassius, Boadella etc. experienced kundalini.

Have you ever wondered about this? I'd like to hear your opinions - both experiential and theoretical.

and a happy new year to everybody!

Thanks for making those distinctions, Mt.

I think I experience what you're calling bioenergy--a sense of a flow or at least openness from my heart/throat area all the way out to peripheral areas (as in your #4 distinction), with no inner dialogue. I would call it "being present", though. ?? It helps me to relate both to people and my horses, and it helps me as a sculptor, too.

However, I don't experience kundalini. I have at times experienced an extremely sharp and vibrant hyperclarity of my physical vision, and that's been helpful spiritually to begin to accept how "even the very hairs of your head are numbered" and another reminder that I don't have to be special or outstanding to be seen, found, noticed by God. (I need lots of reminders of that. )

I don't know if my observations help at all. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.

Edit: Phil has talked about something that sounds to me like what I'm calling "hyperclarity of vision". I'm not calling it the work of kundalini for myself because I don't feel anything else unusual. I've wondered if it might be from extended periods--due to my job as an artist--of being able to turn off the judging/verbal/reflective faculties, maybe thereby letting my brain divert most of its resources to perception? Then again, it's extreme and doesn't feel like a place where I could stay, though my regular senses, when I'm present, are already vibrant.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ariel Jaffe,

On a bit of a weird note, I guess, horses have been my main teachers about paying attention to my energy or intentions. For example, if I'm leading a young horse or riding a horse in a field along a road and I see a big scary truck coming, I used to--in my head-- tell myself not to tense up and scare the horse into spooking. With few exceptions, though, a green horse will spook in that case...my body is still telling the horse I'm scared. However, if I stay present, attentive and silent in my head, I can more easily match my inside to my outside--fully intend with grounded peripherals and an open heart--to communicate to the horse that I'm calm and "there" for him/her in the midst of a flight animal's natural concern about scary trucks. The horse is unlikely to spook then. A shudder may run through their body, but they almost instantaneously sense I'm looking out for them.

Seeing the horses' reactions has helped me to trust God a little more--remembering that He's "there" for me, sometimes in the form of friends-- and also made me quite a bit less shy about staying present with people--realizing that they're reading me whether or not we acknowledge it, and they're possibly just as scared of me as I am scared of them. So I think some awareness of bioenergy has been helpful for me.

Okay, no more horse stories from me.

quote:

So what is bioenergy in relation to kundalini? Perhaps bioenergy is more like prana, the breath of life, which isn't exactly kundalini? Bioenergy might be the energy of our life, desire and emotions, a manifestation of kundalini on a more biophysical level?

Hi Mt. and Ariel. Good topic.

Thru the years, I've come to consider K to be more a process than a specific energy. What people experience pushing through blockages and flowing is probably what goes by the name of chi, ki, prana, or bioenergy. Take your pick. It's the "substance" that acupuncture deals with, and chiropractic medicine as well (along with other alternative therapies). In the case of K awakening, however, it seems that the flow of this energy is ordered unto sustaining embodiment of a new aliveness in the 3rd eye and crown chakras, however one wants to understand those terms (metaphorically, experientially, metaphysically, etc.).

Does that make sense?

Yes, Phil, that makes sense to me, though I still don't "get" everything you guys are talking about when you talk about k.

I certainly don't think k is demonic. I do think, though, that for me it might exacerbate a tendency to feel I need to be outstanding --different, elite, whatever--to get God's attention. Throughout my life as a Christian God has repeatedly and creatively--and sometimes painfully--shown me He can heal this tendency. Sometimes the beginnings of healing have come through "special experiences"; for example, one many years ago of knowing God knew me, individually, by name, as His--and I need not strive to catch His attention. But for me "experiences" can carry both cure and poison--in letting me know He knows me already just as I am, He heals me, but I later on manage to twist that around to thinking I'm special to have received those experiences.

But, though things are much, much, better than they were in that regard relative to when I was younger, I can't say that tendency of mine is not there at all anymore. So I think k would be a distraction for me...and my respect for you to whom it is not a distraction, though I know most of you here have acknowledged a struggle with similar tendencies to what I just mentioned in me.

But again, I think God probably is no more upset with me sometimes thinking I need to stand out to get attention than I am when my two dogs compete for my attention--they don't need to do it, and it's immature puppyish behavior, but it's not evil.

So my rather wandering point here is that bioenergy isn't a distraction for me, but k might be. And I really am just saying it might be a distraction for me--"me" here, and in any of my posts, is genuinely me talking about my own business.

Um, sorry, Mt, for messing up this thread you started. I was thinking about this last night, though, regarding why k might seem demonic to some people. For some, already going that way, I guess it could be complete and diabolical distraction towards a "Who needs Christ?!" direction, as Shasha phrased it somewhere, and as I think you, Phil, w.c., and others have noted. But for me it wouldn't be demonic, but might simply stir up my difficulty in believing I can receive grace and love in quiet trust, rather than striving to compel and control it by being special...immature, a bit funny, and pointless, but not demonic. So anyway, I'm posting my thoughts from last night on your thread here.

yes, Phil, I agree that it's useful to think about k in terms of an embodiment of the enlightened mind. Certainly, harmonizing body, soul and spirit may involve many energetic processes and experiences, as well as emotional, intellectual, physical, mystical etc. K might be just one type of what happens when our spirit takes deeper hold of our soul and body in order to transform it. And if the Holy Spirit is at work, no wonder similar and different things may also happen. For sure, if we react with strong emotions to some powerful relationships (sexual, love, frienship, parenting etc.), no wonder our energy of life and other energies can react powerfully when we relate to God. That's what I feel in contemplative prayer - various energies "go wild" sometimes, which I understand to be a kind of total reaction of my whole being, physical, astral, emotional, intellectual and spiritual to the Love.

My experiences with k mostly involve head and neck area, but sometimes also the whole body. It feels different than what happens during bioenergetic work. I think the purpose of bioenergy is to flow through the whole body, in order to make us alive, feel emotions and express them through our body if we decide so. But it's not "spiritual" per se. Spiritual for me means a deeper integration which involve more than what the body can offer, although the "betrayal of the body" (Lowen's phrase) certainly can block our spiritual potentialities as well.

Perhaps, what some Christian mystics and Eastern sages call a "childlike" quality of their spirituality, sort of freshness, spontaneity, innocence etc., is a result of freeing the Inner Child from the restrictions of the Parent, which involve muscle tensions and blockages on the physical level. But you can be a great saint without your Natural Child - we all know saints who are rather obsessive, compulsive or repressed.

Mt, that makes sense to me, too. Thanks for this topic, as I've been wondering how the k discussed on this forum fits in with the sort of energy I'm already familiar with.

I looked up some websites with information about Lowen. What I read appears to concur with what I'm observed/been taught about bioenergy through my interest in horsemanship--it was familiar information for the most part. So, yes, I would agree that bioenergy is not necessarily spiritual, though it's helpful to be aware of it.

I don't know about horses, but for sure animals and children are more sensitive to our nonverbal communication which involves emotional energy. Eric Berne (founder of TA) thought that there is a part in our Inner Child that he called "Little Professor" - an intuitive part which is very sensitive to nonverbal signs of behavior. This part makes us want to go out with this particular girl before we even manage to exchange more than few casual sentences with her. Unfortunately, we usually go out with people who enforce our old patterns of emotional reactions, but the point is that we can really "feel" other person, and it doesn't have to be "spiritual intuition" familiar in New Age circles.

The same, I guess, with animals - our Little Professor, if we have access to him/her - can be extremely helpful in interacting with them. I suppose you use him in your work.
Recently, I heard a story from a mother whose child is in a very vulnerable phase of development, called by Mahler "rapprochement" (he's about a year and a half). When he wakes up in the night, he's very scared and she has to calm him down before he sleeps again. She said that it happens only, when she is focused entirely on the relationship with him. If her mind starts to wonder, he wakes up immediately. That's fascinating, because it proves that our bodies can be sensitive to the point that we can feel rather than observe than the other person is distracted. Of course, mother-child relationship is particularly strong in those terms, but I suppose it goes for any close relationship of sensitive and attentive adults, as well.

Again - this energetic sensitivity is rooted in our emotional bioenergy rather than in spiritual, third eye energy, which can give us intuition of another kind.

There are some people, I'm sure in this forum as well, who "feel" energies of places, people, even websites that go beyond bioenergy and relational sensitivity. I sometimes had such hunches when I was reading some New Age websites - "don't go there" - it's very "bodily" intution, but it comes from kundalini, from "the brain" so to speak. I rarely have them, so maybe others can share such experiences and help to distinguish them from simple hunches we sometimes have that some people are "good" for us and other are "bad" for us (this is rather Little Professor, in my opinion). And sometimes our hunches can be misleading if we are under the spell of our "life scenario", looking for people who are gonna play a part in that. This usually ends with: "Why does this always happen to me... why do I always meet people like that..." - this sort of stuff.

More interesting information, Mt--thanks.

I don't know if you hope to have children (and I won't pry ), but if you do, and he/she shows an interest in horses (in the world of horsemen Polish people are known to have affinity for horses, especially Arabians, so you may end up with a horse-crazy kid ), it's a good interest to encourage...kids can almost always get lessons in exchange for barn help (read=an acquaintance with the messier byproduct of horses). Horses have a nearly incredible ability to sense our energy--they can serve as a 1000 pound, honest and drama-free mirror to show a child what's inside himself. One of my horses has a particularly well developed "sixth sense" that has humbled, embarrassed, and amazed me, but he's a real buddy and caretaker when it comes to children.

MT,

I have found that the hunches or intuition you are speaking of is simply a natural part of our humanity.

As Phil said above, K can be viewed as a process, rather than a thing. In this perspective, the symptoms you feel like heat, tingling, movement, etc etc, are actually due to problems of your body/mind/soul and not actually "kundalini." That is why everyone experiences K differently, because everyone has different problems/issues/blockages.

What Kundalini really does is heal you. It strips down all the damaged layers until you are left with you true self, for lack of a better term. This true self has fantastic intuition, amazing powers of insight and a natural enthusiasm for life.
When you hear something inside you say, "No, this is not good", it may or may not be correct. It may be the voice of your true self, but it may just as well be a damaged part of you.

Its just my opinion though, but I hope that helps clarify a bit