The greatest mistake we can make when studying spirituality and mysticism is in thinking that here also we are dealing with ideas, ideas different from the ones we are used to, that we can somehow try to understand, take in and appropriate, in order to better our lives and become a little more happy. That has always been our attitude in reading and taking in information. With every new book we read we try to adjust our knowledge and belief system. We replace our old insights and our old value systems with new and better ones. We have done so in an effort of staying open minded , welcoming new and fresh ideas. This has worked well up till now, with all the different kinds of subject matter we engaged ourselves in.

But Jana Dixon of biologyofkundalini.com reminds us of the fact that replacing old ideas by new ones is simply translation and that translation will not do as this subject matter of spirituality is concerned. Because spirituality and mysticism are not about translation but about transformation. Not only our ideas need to be altered, but our whole body/mind system has to change before we can really understand what spirituality is about. This is truly funny in a way, because there are shelf loads full of books written about the words of the Buddha, about the Christ or about any other spiritual Master, where the author is merely mentally searching for an understanding of the words and ideas of the spiritual teacher. But he or she is merely groping around in the dark, because these words can never fully be grasped if you are not a Buddha yourself, if you do not feel the same way as the Christ felt when he uttered these words. Because truly understanding these words in not a matter of mind but a matter of being.

So to understand religion, spirituality and mysticism not your ideas need to change. It is you who needs to change. Kundalini yoga has always stressed this fact, that, in order to rise to a level where the words of Krishna, Christ or the Buddha become a living reality to you, your body, mind and soul, must first undergo a deep metamorphosis. First there is work to be done at the fundamental levels of our being. Kundalini yoga offers us the insight that this work must start at the lowest level of the Chain of Being, at the material, at the level of our body. So when we speak of transformation we primarily mean a biochemical and bio-electrical change in bodily homeostasis. This is crucial for enlightenment to occur. This is not to say that more psychological attitudes like metanoia, love, surrender, repentance etc. are not vitally important to the spiritual process also. It is only to say that somatic changes are the most fundamental and that psychological changes go pari passu along with it and do not take place in isolation from their somatic ground structure.

Though kundalini yoga is a very old science, it is only recently that we have come to learn more about the changes of the body effected by the spiritual process. In the West (but we find this problem in the East also) this is due to a disparagement of the body in the spirituality of the Platonic-Christian tradition, where the body was disqualified as an obstacle on our way to God and to heaven. Such a disqualification, endorsed by the tradition most spiritual writers found themselves rooted in, made them talk very sparingly about their body. They had learned that their body and the Devil were synonymous. So they did not give extensive accounts of the bodily changes they had gone through on their way to enlightenment. We only find accounts of the stillness and peacefulness they had reached, but what exactly the role of the body was in bringing about these feelings, is left dangling in midair most of the time. It is as if their bodies did not exist. It is the greatest shadow in most spiritual writers from the past.

But modern science has corroborated the ancient knowledge of kundalini yoga. Nowadays we know that spiritually advanced and realized persons are foremost characterized by metamorphosized bodies. Their whole neurophysiological make up has gone through a complete change. They have, so to speak, a different neurological wiring, different from most people. It is this completely different nervous system that makes them the way they are, saying the things they say and writing the way they write. Their brains function differently. They are altogether different persons, on all levels of being. Because their neurological basis has been altered.

The New-Zealand born female mystic Jana Dixon gives us a detailed account of these neurological changes taking place in the body of the mystic. The greatness of her Internet book is foremost the mixture of both the personal and the theoretical, in that she gives detailed accounts of the kundalini experiences she has gone through, together with extensive scientific studies explaining these experiences. So we shall follow her book close at hand and also not refrain from giving personal information. Because this is exactly what is needed for if we want to gain more knowledge about the mystical experience. We are in need of honest accounts of what it means to follow the Mystical Path. And nowadays we know that we have to speak about our bodies also. But first some personal information about Jana Dixon.

two awakenings

Jana´s first awakening happened in 1988 after an adventurous sailing trip to Hawaii. Change of environment and adventurous travel always have a possibility to provoke kundalini awakenings, but in this case the parameters were even more up because she had precognitions about the loss of her father, who became seriously ill at that time. He was to die two years later. These stressful circumstances effected a spiritual awakening that finally made her move to America and set up home in Santa Barbara. There her kundalini symptoms intensified. Not in all cases do satori´s or related forms of mystical experiences lead to kundalini effected symptoms, but the mystically gifted persons destined to follow a serious spiritual path -often (also) the ones suffering from bad neurological ´wiring´ due to childhood traumata- are more receptive to the workings of kundalini energy. Jana definitely had the mystical vein. She 'suffered' from kundalini in more or less degrees from that time onward.
 
(biographical: Jana´s time of awakening oddly corresponds with my own. After a severe psychological crisis and burn out in 1987 I started meditation at a local TM center and got my first awakening in the summer of 1988. But there were no kundalini symptoms at that time. Only sheer bliss and contentment, the effects of deep meditation presenting itself after a couple of months of self training. Reflecting back on that period I have always been amazed about the fact that I was enlightened ´in a forth night´ after the severity of such a deep psychological crisis in 1987. But these were the facts: I was a completely different person after practicing meditation for only a couple of months. This inner stillness lasted a couple of years. But, alas, this is not the end of the story.....)

Jana´s second awakening started in 2000 after moving to Boulder, Colorado. She felt an intensive longing to be near someone she greatly admired, an author she admired ever since she was 16. She eventually got to see him -though she never met him in person until this very day- at a lecture where he served as cameraman at the reading of a friend. Just being in his vicinity sparked off a deep second kundalini awakening, that resulted in what she described as Sex with Eros. In the night after the lecture, her whole body was on fire with ecstasy and bliss, which sent a ´10.000 org´ energy up her spine, that was almost too much to bear. She felt like exploding with bliss. It was not just any ordinary sexual orgasmic experience. It was something far greater than that. It was the greatest spiritual orgasm a human being is capable of.

You can call this awakening a shaktipat more or less from a distance -because the author did actually lay her hand on her for a short while in the passing- but there were more factors leading up to this mystical experience. She herself mentions the fact that she had switched to a raw diet from the time of her first awakening, but also being all by herself in a strange and foreign country, which somehow turns you back on yourself, if you like it or not, triggered the rise of kundalini energy in her spine. Yoga, meditation and a very intelligent life style paved also the way for her. And of course, she had the gift and the neurological matrix to grow into such an awakening. A factor she does not mention a lot in her book, but which surely must have been a reason for her getting the kundalini shock, was midlife, the meno-pausal change happening to women in their 40´s (though it is also good to notice that not all meno-pausal change is kundalini related).

(biographical: but not only to women.... I got my second kundalini awakening in 2002, also at the age of 41. The effects of meditation had somehow lessened in the late 90´s, because of the heavy strain on my nervous system due to too much hard work in education -I´ve taught the classics for about 16 years- , which is comparable to working in the tropics even at the high latitude of Europe, and this worsening of my condition made me sad and depressed at times. In 2002 this all became too much. The pain and the yearning of my mind, soul and body to realize once again, but now permanently, what I had experienced in the late 80´s -the deep bliss and contentment of being simply happy with fulfillment- could no longer be repressed from consciousness. I had to make some drastic changes in my life situation. So I quit my job and began to devote all of my time to meditation, writing and making music. This had always been the greatest dream of my life. Like so many men in mid-life, I had no other choice than to follow my deepest dreams, now there was still some youth and energy left. But in my case it was not running after fine shining sports cars or once again taste the flesh of female spring. I simply wanted to be enlightened for the rest of my life, at all costs. But that turned out to be easier said than done...)

This heightened sexuality can only be explained if we get to the very heart of what kundalini actually is. For in my opinion kundalini can be triggered in a number of ways, but her workings are always bipolar. This means that we find kundalini energy suscitated both as a result of ergotropic/sympathetic hyperarousal, like in manic states, deeply falling in love, or in adventurous dangers, as well as from a result of trophotropic/parasympathetic hypo arousal, like in the different states of relaxation and meditation. 1)

Experience brings me to believe that the arousal of the parasympathetic branch of our nervous system is the most important factor in the whole kundalini process of awakening. That the sympathetic is so closely involved in it is because of the fundamental bipolarity of the two branches. The one cannot become activated, without the other in some way becoming involved in it and also becoming aroused. So what happens is this: when we start meditating or otherwise get engaged in spiritual activities, our parasympathetic branch starts wanting to take over control, by the sheer blissful stillness and tranquility of our spiritual activities. This is what Fisher calls the hypo arousal of the meditative states. Our parasympathetic nervous system wants to make our body, mind and soul regain its vital freshness and lead us further still, into the bliss of everlasting happiness. So I think that kundalini is the energy the parasympathetic uses to bring this projected state into dominance. But with the arousal of the parasympathetic a counter effect is also set in motion. This means that the other side of the bipolar nervous system gets aroused also. The one does not go without the other. So after the first parasympathetic kundalini awakening we tend to get very aroused and agitated, ´stressed up´ even, by the workings of the 4F (fuck, freeze, flight and fight) sympathetic nervous system. These 4F letters show in what kind of states we might end up, including the heavily aroused sexuality Jana talks about.

But it is wrong also to see the working of the sympathetic in a kundalini awakening merely as a reactionary spin off from the arousal of the parasympathetic. Because mystical ecstasy also occurs at the very height of hyper arousal states of consciousness, like with the use of drugs as mescaline, LSD, psylocibin, or like in the frantic state of manic or schizophrenic arousal, or even like in ordinary sympathetic activation leading to temporary states of euphoria, as eg. in danger seeking, or in the mere thrill of love making, dancing, music or sports. Here the sudden activation of the sympathetic can bipolarly switch to the catatonia of parasympathetic hypoarousal and create a Self related ecstasy that is very akind to the samadhi of the yogi´s. This would explain the mention of mystical experiences patients suffering from manic-depressive and schizophrenic disorders often report, while in such a state of sympathetic hyperarousal.

But, though both sides of the nervous system are vital to the spiritual process, I do think that in both instances of ecstasy - whether in hyperarousal or in hypoarousal- the parasympathetic is pivotal in bringing about such changes in the psychology and the chemistry of the body/mind system. When this parasymp activation is deep and lasting enough it might even trigger a total and unreversable kundalini awakening like it happened to Jana Dixon from the night of her Sex with Eros onward. With events like these the parasympathetic nervous system becomes so powerful and strong that it wants henceforth to take the lead in the bipolar structure of the two branches. But before her kundalinic dominance is established there are still some heavy battles to be fought. These neurological battles are nothing but the well-known Dark Nights of the Soul the mystic talks about.

White Death (the rebound)

To avoid any misunderstanding of the awakening process we need to underscore the fact that Sex with Eros is not the same as enlightenment. Final enlightenment will only be realized 3-6 years later. Sex with Eros is only just the beginning of the whole enlightenment process. SE is not the same as conversion either. Conversion mostly happens some years before the SE event. Sex with Eros is to be seen as the major satori (ie.a temporary mystical experience of ecstasy) that sets the fire of the kundalini energy ablaze, to such an extent that it can not be quenched anymore. From a Sex with Eros satori onward the whole process gets a rolling and takes on its own course.

The SE satori is so devastating and shattering in its outpouring of ecstatic bliss that the nervous system would within no-time be drained of most of its energy. To counter this loss of energy and to preserve the health of the system -even the outpouring of bliss can be too much for the body-, the sympathetic almost immediately rebounds again to the parasympathetic, according to an old reptilian mode of survival called ´freeze response´. Fisher 2) about ´neurological rebound´:

Just as the SE event was a rebound phenomenon (from parasympathetic to sympathetic), so is the ensuing White Death experience Jana Dixon talks about. But in this case -as in most kundalini satori´s- the rebound is not into samadhi but into the catatonia of depression and anxiety, the emotional state of the freeze response. Dixon about the White Death experience:

The White Death is a metabolic toxic shock caused by the fall-out from the massive hyper activation of the central nervous system during the influx of Spirit (inner-conjunction). Possible agents of this biochemical shock include Nitric Oxide and other free radicals, glutamate, lactic acid and the byproducts of altered emergency energy generation in the mitochondria. These metabolic byproducts lead to nerve damage and suspension of normal nerve transmission. Thus the entire body contracts, interfering with sensory-motor coordination, digestion and all body processes until the recovery period is complete. Even the chemicals involved in the ecstasy of the inner conjunction itself (endogenous cannaboids, tryptamines, peptides and endorphins) might be instrumental in this shock phase. (in a letter explaining the White Death event)

This clearly is a description of the well known mystical Dark Night. Observe the fact that such a Dark Night not happens before the mystical ecstasy but afterwards, something already mentioned by Bernadette Roberts in her Path to No-Self. The mystic does not get the sour before the sweet, but after it, surely a grim fate to endure. The hardest thing about the whole kundalini process now ensuing, is the fact that our nervous system, after SE and White Death, keeps oscallating for years to come between these ongoing rebounds from the sympathetic into the parasympathetic and vice versa. This is very nerve wrecking and takes up all of our energy. We can become exhausted with fatigue by these circle movements of excitation and catatonia.

Besides the rebound theory another explanation of White Death (and other ensuing die offs within the kundalini process), given by Jana Dixon, needs to be mentioned. For this explanation we must look at the workings of meditation and its effect on the brain and the central nervous system. Dixon points to the fact that meditation slowly undermines the dominant control of the prefrontal neocortex over the precortical limbic system in the brain. When the mystic ´stops thinking´ by way of concentration techniques and other means of kenosis, this ´emptying of the mind´ has the side effect of lifting the superegoic mechanism of repression from within the neocortex. The safety valve of the limbic system is pulled out, so to speak, as a result of meditation. Now, after the meditations and especially after the deep parasympathetic excitation of a satori experience, the dam of limbic remembrance gives way, so to speak: all former traumata, guilt,shame, pain etc. now once more enter consciousness. And with it the sympathetic nervous system is aroused with pain and anxiety because of the neurological remembrance involved in it.  So the initial effect of meditation is not of tranquility but of painful and depressive sympathetic arousal. Once more we relive the traumata of our past, but now even more vividly, because there is no repression blurring the sharp edges of our sorrow. Both parasympathetic and sympathetic arousal give us plenty of time to look our demons right into the eyes.

Kriya's 

The rebound of trophotropic/parasympathetic activation can become so intense that the body spontaneously starts shaking and jerking. These are the well known kriya´s, the bodily seizures, contortions and convulsions, kundalini yoga talks about. They can be very light, from a mere tinkling in the arms or legs, to heavy pseudo-epileptic attacks on the spinal region, the neck and the brain area. They are nothing but a sympathetic release of a destressing nervous system. But they are only felt and experienced after a kundalini awakening and can be very frightening, especially to the aspirant who is badly informed about the workings and consequences of meditation. It happens all too often that such a ´victim´ of kriya´s is taken to hospital, for symptoms that cannot be diagnosed from within a medical system that has not as of yet acknowledged the effects of kundalini energy.

Traditionally it is said that the kriya´s ´untie´ the ´knots´ (granthis) in the chakra system. If we take this symbolism in a more figurative way, we can see that there is deep truth in this old belief, because kriya´s do actually resolve tensions (´knots´)  in the nervous system. They can do it in a hard, pseudo-epileptic way, more thoroughly than normal sleep could ever work out. For normal people, sleep is pobably the only moment tensions in the nervous system are being resolved. But intense meditators with aroused kundalini also resolve neurological damage during the day, which shows in their bodies.

Kriya´s are perfectly harmless and leave no neurological damage. I do not think that kriya´s effect the so called phenomenon of ´kindling´ which is described in literarture about epilepsy, brain damage that perpetuates and intensifies epileptic seizures, the reason being that the shocks and convulsions of kriya´s do not injure the brain tissue of the limbic system, like epilepsy probably does. We must clearly state a difference between kriya´s and epileptic seizures: kriya´s never make you pass out and do not last as long as an epileptic attack; kriya´s are more centered in the lower regions of the nervous system (convulsions of the lower spine, diaphragm and abdomen), while epilepsy is more upper (brain) centered; kriya´s do not have the disturbing somatic symptoms of epilepsy, like biting of the tongue, turning blue or foam on the mouth. That kriya´s are often mistaken for epileptic seizures is because of the heavy shocks and convulsions both neurological phenomena have in common. But kriya´s are neurologically far more harmless.

But this does not mean that kriya´s can be psychologically harmless. Even in the handbooks of kundalini yoga it is rarely mentioned that kriya´s are very hard to endure. But it is a hard fact of kundalini that kriya´s in the beginning are mostly accompanied by feelings of badly tempered rage, depression, pain and grief (later on the kriya´s will be transformed into the bodily expression of bliss). You have to be very courageous and already fairly centered with egoic resilience, to withstand these aggressive impetuses. There is a saying in psychotherapy: ´if you want to be healed, it has to come out first´.  Well, this is probably an understatement as kundalini is concerned, because kriya´s make it all ´come out first´, but not in a nice and smooth way, taking all of its time, but as if it all has to come out at once, in one throwing up of neurological waste. If one is not prepared for this, it can leave more psychological damage than it cleans up.

Yogic flying (hopping, levitation)

Patanjali in his yoga sutra´s (section III, 40) describes a technique that is of great help to the whole process of kundalini yoga. It is the so called art of ´yogic flying´. Patanjali only gives us a few clues about the exact modus operandi of this technique, but what he gives is just enough to make it work. It goes like this: when in samadhi, the meditator concentrates his consciousness on the gravitational pull of the earth, and by totally surrendering to this pull, the body starts lifting a few centimers from the ground (not actually ´flying´, but merely a jerklike hopping of the body in lotus position). I conjecture this technique to work by the law of reversed effect. For by falling into the flow of the gravitional pull, the body is actually repelled by it and starts to rise ´on its wings´, like in reversing a magnet.

Now this would be just a silly trick, not worth the attention of serious, grown up people (why for godsake do you want to hop through your room?), if this hopping did not have such a tremendous inpact on your nervous system. For the muscular system that is involved in making the body rise, is actually the vagus of the nervous system in the lower back. So this levitation technique sets the activation of the bipolar nervous system a going. This means that the whole purgative phase of kundalini becomes highly activated, when employing this technique. It tremendously speeds up the process. And with it all the aforesaid symptoms of kundalini yoga become intensely triggered. We might say that yogic flying is actually a voluntary arousal of kriya´s, in that the body starts shaking and destressing immediately as we employ this technique. This makes it a very hard (and even dangerous) technique, especially in the hands of beginners.

(biographical: already in 1990 I discoverd the working of this technique for my self, after reading the Yoga Sutra´s. But during the 90´s I was too much afraid of practising it. The stress release aroused by it was simply too much to handle, something not very convenient when in the middle of streneous and exacting work, like in education. I did it only once or twice during that period, though, but it made me feel as if flinging myself at the wall. So I left it aside as something for the future. For in the back of my mind I had come to know the tremendous importance of such a technique. It was like compressing a whole meditation retreat in one quarter of an hour. After my second awakening in 2002 I began to employ it more and more, but with the effect that I became heavily ablaze with kundalini fire (especially at the time one of my parents died). So I have had some rough years, with a lot of ecstasies, but with as much die offs also. Now my nervous system is so purged that I can do it once a day, without any negative kundalini aftermath. The whole process has become extremely deepened by it. I feel ecstatic the whole day and the kriya´s I still have, have turned into kriya´s of bliss. So for stabilized meditators I can strongly recommend this Godsent kundalini technique of the great Patanjali.)

One of the sure signs of realized enlightenment is when kriya´s have changed from means of neurological purgation to bodily expressions of ecstasy. When the moment has arrived that  kriya´s are no more accompanied by feelings of rage or depression, but have become the somatic motions and spasms of sheer positive ecstasy, then one knows that the path has ended. Then one has arrived. At that moment the mind and body will know that enlightenment has finally come. For the system itself will know that it is perfectly purged by then. To describe in words this state of being, is far beyond my capabilities. It is not enough to compare such a perfectly healthy nervous system of a realized adult with the healthy nervous system of a child. For it is good to remember that the former is a completely metamorphosized system while the latter is merely a system that is not unhealthy (yet). So let´s not call the kundalini awakening a regression into a childlike state. It is in every aspect a transgression of former states into something completely new and unheard of.

exhaustion phase and die offs

In most cases the kundalini awakening cycle is initiated by a satori like event of the Sex with Eros type. This is, like we have seen, such a tremendous shock to the nervous system, that the body instantaneously goes into a rebound of parasympathetic freeze and catatonic depression. This is the exhaustion phase of a kundalini awakening. So two world shattering experiences follow each other close in line: a deep mystical and ecstatic awareness of unity with the cosmos, followed by the deepest feelings of loss and loneliness one has ever had to endure. After these two major events, the whole kundalini cycle starts a going and can only be stopped if one forgets about what has happened, starts blocking every maturing process one will ever go through, stops meditating or engaging in spiritual activities and lives from that moment on only a life of mean, shallow and selfish pursuits. But if one opens up to the changes and welcomes the new -whatever it will bring...- , the cycle cannot be stopped anymore. 

The discipline and hard work Jana talks about consists of prolonged phases of deep meditation, self isolation and solitary walks in nature, the mystical ´cocooning´ of the ´cave period´ laying the ground for the transformation  to occur. In this period the kundalini process itself takes over control. All one can do is to be receptive to the workings of Grace in due humility and passivity. For by now one knows that something greater is running the show of one´s life and to stand in the way would only be foolish and counterproductive to the goal the Self has set. One is ´rewarded´ for this by the visions, hearings, ecstasies and all the paraphernalia of psychic and subtle level development, but ´punished´ as wel by so many die offs, sometimes even lasting for a few days. And yet, despite the depressions and the panic, the novice is unable to stop now. For to be deprived of what is about to come would be far worse than the depressions and the fatigue. For the heart knows by now that the die offs are only a phase in a process. One has seen glimpes of heaven and one knows one is heading for it. Who would want to stop now?

The intensity and the scope of the exhaustion phase and its successive die offs are not the same for everyone. The ones with a healthy nervous system, who have been blessed with warm and supportive care in childhood and who were welcomed into the world with a great amount of eye/heart contact from the primal caregiver (mother), suffer less from down cycles, than the ones who have been abused or otherwise emotionally neglected in youth. The first three years of a child´s life are pivotal in building up his neuro-structure. Social conditions at the time, together with the shape the nervous system of the parents is in, condition the ground structure of a child´s neurology, psychology and physiology. Whether we like it or not, we become later in life, what we were shaped into as a child. A kundalini awakening only magnifies and exaggerates these conditions. So if we were abused in childhood or otherwise suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), due to tragic accidents (later) in life, kundalini will bring it all out in an amplified way. These people will definitely have the hard times.

But these are the blessed ones also. Because these traumatized, suffering and isolated mortals are precisely the ones who run the chance of having a kundalini awakening after all. With them the workings of meditation go to the very depth of their being and raise the kundalini fire, as a spontaneous counter balance of nature, to restore and magnify their happiness, while the more healthy ones are more superficially affected by spiritual alchemy, if they do turn to meditation and spirituality for help at all, which is seldom the case. Their healthy system makes transformation less necessary. And when they do turn to it, they run the risk of quiting when the process becomes a bit inconvenient. Like everyone knows at heart, a human being is deepened by suffering and very seldom have the spoiled ones become enlightened. But, it must be said, in some rare cases it does happen. Then a healthy upbringing is coupled with great innate intelligence. These are the individuals who smoothly, without severe upheavals in their emotional and biochemical life, pass over from awakening to enlightenment.

kundalini or non-kundalini burn out?

Not all burn outs are kundalini related. In fact only a few are. A kundalini type of burn out is different from the one most people are familiar with. An ´ordinary´ type of burn out is in most cases conditioned by external causes, like too much hard work, too much pressure from the outside, a mourning period, difficulties in relationships, to name only a few of the reasons to destabilize your nervous system for a couple of months or longer. But a kundalini burn out is, once triggered by shaktipat or meditation, to a higher degree motivated by internal factors. After a kundalini awakening your nervous system can burn out for considerable time by the sheer toxity of all the repressed neurons in your limbic brain. So you become ill ´by remembrance´, so to speak. There is no reason on the outside for you becoming ill. The traumata from the past are the reason for your nervous system to get into a state of shock.

There are other differences as well. They are briefly stated in the following checklist. Such a checklist may come in handy if you have doubts about your psychological problems being kundalini related or not.

                          
   

The kundalini process is one great mood swing from up to down and vice versa lasting for a long period of time. All succesive moods are greatly exaggerated, which makes it very hard sometimes to keep one´s wit. But one is not really depressed during a kundalini die out, at least not in  the same way as in non-kundalini depressions. For the whole process is drenched in meaning and the novice bears the cross with courage and dignity. The Self knows to what purpose all this suffering takes place. And so deep spiritual knowing offers consolation to the dying and transforming self.

criticism

The problem with all these coping skills is the possibility that they may enhance the fierceness of our kundalini fire, instead of reducing it. Then we are better off without them, in a way. For all these coping skills, from fasting to yoga asana´s, from social intimacy to spine grounding, make us even more relaxed with our body´s, which activates parasympathetic arousal, which again rebounds to sympathetic arousal, etc., ad infinitum, as long as kundalini lasts. So after a day in nature we may have effected precisely the opposite of what we intended, namely the enhancement of our kundalini fire instead of its diminishment. After a whole day walking or bicycling in nature we often have our worst moments, which is sometimes not very convenient if we have to get up early for work the next morning. So when the heat is really too much to bear, I can recommend only one thing: stop meditating for a day or two. This prevents parasymp arousal and this in turn will reduce the fierceness of the die offs. But needless to say that you would only want to stop for a day or two, lest you´ll thwart the transformation process in the long run. And this is about the worst that can happen to your Self. So if you have plenty of time to sit it out, please do. In the end it will have proved worthwhile.

A second point of criticism can be raised against taking kundalini too physical. Jana´s book is describing in objective ´it-language´ the physiology and neurology of the kundalini process. Like we said in the beginning, this is great because this approach is missing in most accounts of spirituality, past and present. So her approach is crucially complementary to our understanding the how´s and what´s of enlightenment. But the great danger in this approach is again reducing Reality to the Upper Right quadrant of the sensory realm, which can make our understanding of kundalini attractively scientific, while at the same time missing some crucial demands of integrality. Then again will we have fallen back into Flatland approach. For, like Jana knows, kundalini is also a  Left quadrant phenomenon, as much a consciousness thing, as being body related.

The whole issue of how to cope with kundalini is closely bound up with this fundamental insight. For the best way to cope with heavy kundalini attacks is to reach higher, not with the fingers of our yoga asana´s, but with our consciousness, to the level where we will transcend our body. For kundalini is about spiritual growth. This growth must be seen as an integration of all lower levels (matter, body, mind) into a higher embrace. But being an integration it is a transcendence as well. So in the end we will transcend our physicality and our sexuality, something also alluded to by Dixon in her chapters about Suprasex.

So what we can do when we are caught up in ´the hard years´ is to cultivate a perpetual higher stance from where we can look down at our body. The first thing one can do is becoming more intelligent about the whole process. That way we will lift up our consciousness from body to mind. In a way Dixon´s book is an example of this becoming more reasonable. The tone of her book is very scientific, probably the best way to approach all phenomena, including this one, kundalini. Though she is in her female way concerned with the body in the whole process of transformation, she also employs the ´male approach´ in lifting her consciousness up to the level of mind. She theorizes very intelligently about what is going on with the body.

But the best way to cope with kundalini is to reach to even higher levels of realization, even, or especially, in our worst moments. This we can do by already at the beginning of the process anticipating the level of transformation we´ll finally evolve to. For all these levels are ´always already´ given on forehand, like a sort of blueprint of the evolution that is stored inside of us. This means that in our heart we already know where we are going to. Our heart at its deepest/highest level has already realized the outcome of the whole process, or, to be more precise, there was not a moment when the the final realization was not already given. So it is more like an anamnesis, a ´remembering´of what we will going to be at the end of our evolution, really.

So the best way to cope with kundalini is to focus our whole consciousness on Spirit, lifting it up from body (while at the same time remaining fully aware of what is going on at the physical level, lest any pathology disturbs the process, by our becoming unconscious of it). This higher reach of Spirit we can effect by conversing with spiritually advanced persons or by reading and learning about Spirit. So the best way is always to have an advanced person nearby, or, if we fail one, a book, a video or audio tape close at hand that is comforting and inspiring on our Path, be it the Bible, the Gita, be it Osho, the Sufis, you name it, anything that has the greatness of Spirit and is comforting to our heart. These persons, these words, these images and these stories hold out the torch for us to follow, to remind us of what we are evolving to.

the final transformation

After years of ecstasy and alternated suffering, there comes a time, sometimes gradually, sometimes in the flash of a moment, when we finally (after how long?) notice a deep stillness to have descended on us. This stillness holds on in all three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, not for the fleeting of a moment, like it was when the fire was still up, but now forever and ever henceforth, for all the remaining days of our life. The perpetuality of  this stillness and this inner contentment is the sign that the kundalini fire has died down and that our nervous system, our mind and soul are completely reborn and rejuvenated by now. This inner peace and quietness can not be described in words. Only few human beings so far have had the experience of such an inner stillness, because only few were brave enough to let the kundalini fire do its work right to the very end. For the music of kundalini never stops before the closing bars of its symphony are over.

From this moment on such an advanced person is completely ecstatic. Every meditation is a feast and a celebration to him. Every time he sinks away into samadhi he now only feels sheer joy, happiness and ecstasy, instead of the pain and the suffering he so often had to confront, when closing his eyes amid the fires of kundalini. Sometimes the mere thought that this goes on and on in perpetuum, and that it will only get ´worse´ as time goes by, make him dance, sing and laugh for hours in his room. For what reason? For no reason. For his joy and ecstasy is uncaused by any object. It is the energy of the universe dancing and singing from within.

This final transformation is the final answer to everything. When that day has come we will finally know what it means to be human and what it means to be alive. We only live to realize this final stage in our evolution. It is the final blossoming of all the possibilities and talents that ever germed in our soul. Now we have become one instead of the multitude of voices and faces we once were. We have finally reached our home and our Penelope. This final outcome was the purpose of the kundalini alchemy all along. It was there to transform us. So in the end we will know that kundalini was sent from the gods to create heaven on earth. And then we´ll know that our suffering was not in vain.


                                    
 

Amsterdam, Febr. 5  2007

 

1) See Roland Fisher´s important article about the bipolarity of ecstasy and the ergotropic and trophotropic sides of human consciousness in Science Vol. 174 pp. 897-904 1971

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