Thoughts on Kundalini Yoga and Shakitpat

I had found another blog that had an essay on Kundalini vs. Jnani Yoga, and it suggested the following essay:

Dear Harsha,

You posted an excellent essay. When I first got into Kundalini Yoga some 30 years ago, I thought much the same thing, regarding the close relationship between Tantra and Kundalini, as well as the Chinese Tradition of Qi or Chi. And I recognized the somewhat opposite traditions of Vedanta or Jnana Yoga. I’m glad to see that someone else has been thinking along those very same lines.

But there are several things that I might add, coming from my practical experience with the Kundalini. First, it is not necessarily a linear process – starting from the bottom before one can go to the top. Indeed, in many of the Shaktipat Traditions, where the Kundalini Energy is passed along by a Guru to the new Initiate, it is easier to simply open the Forehead Chakra. Yes, without all the lower chakras below being open, as well as the entire central channel, the effects won’t be quite so spectacular, but neither will they have the danger involved that we often hear about regarding the Kundalini practice.

Secondly, while it is easiest to acquire an initiation from a Shaktipat Guru, from whatever branch or school, it really isn’t necessary. I once read in a translation of one of the Upanishads that “in the presence of a God or Saint, the Agna Chakra will blossom”. Well, it does. If it opens in a very big way, by the concentrated efforts of a very good Guru, one will experience a certain amount of bliss and light. But if one simply walks into the same room as a person who already has their Agna Chakra open, then one will feel a slight pressure in one’s own Agna Chakra, that is, in one’s forehead, a bit above the brows and about an inch inside the head. In most every case, where the person is not looking to feel this sensation, the sensation is dismissed as an incipient headache, and the feeling is ignored until it goes away. However, if one is searching for such an experience, and then latches onto the feeling and concentrates upon it, then the attention given to that ‘feeling’ will serve to fix it so that it may take root in one’s energy system.

Of course, the Shaktipat Gurus have a great deal of experience to impart, but the problem there is that they often charge more money than is easily affordable, and so the aspiring Initiate may feel obliged to take his ‘Initiation’ for free as detailed above.

Well, once the self-made initiate feels the energy in his forehead, then how should he or she proceed? For the first few days one should concentrate on that energy spot very often. Rub the spot with one’s finger. One can use the simplest and best of all ‘pyramid powers’, that is, any pointy object, ballpoint pens work the best, and point them into the chakra. Magnets are also good. Also, reading inspirational spiritual literature or poetry will serve to energize one’s higher centers.

But after a week or two, the Chakra may acquire so much energy that it gives one a headache. Many unexplained migraines may indeed be this very thing. In this case, one should discontinue thinking of one’s forehead and rather think it down to one’s tailbone, the very bottom of one’s spine. A simple visualization may help in doing this – one can take a drink of water and as the water goes down one’s throat, one can imagine that the energy is going down with it, to the bottom-most tailbone. If one can leave the energy down there, then the danger of these headaches will discontinue.

To acquire greater control over this energy, then one should find the key location for just such control, that is, the swivel point at the top of the spine, inside one’s head, just up and behind one’s pallet. It is easy to locate that swivel point simply by swiveling one’s head around and noting the point in one’s head where the swiveling occurs. Then one should focus the energy in one’s Forehead Chakra and visualize that energy coming back, along the roof of the mouth, to that swivel point. At first the Swivel Point will energize and feel about as large as a large grape, but it really must be focused upon until it is much smaller. It won’t take long, but just only a few minutes, concentrating on the energy as though one is peeling off the layers of an onion until one is at the very central point of the Swivel Point Center. It will be as small as a housefly and you will feel it pulsating, about in time with your heartbeat. Once you can feel that, then you have the Key to your body’s energy system, and you can send the energy up to your Crown Chakra, or even up over your head to create halos for yourself, or you can direct the energy down through your body. The remarkable thing, at this point is that you become aware of your body as an energy system. Before I could do this, I was conscious only of feeling in my skin, or within my body only when there was a pain, or in certain other regions when there was some stimulated pleasure. But for the most part the volume of my body was a void in regards to sensation and feeling. But once one had gone through the Swivel Point Chakra, then one becomes aware of all of the various energy flows.

Regarding this point, once I was able to discern energy flows, I was able to develop an easy and effective exercise. I had read of Huong Po’s ‘one finger’ exercise and tried to research it out, but couldn’t find a thing about it, but in my experiments I found that by rotating my thumbs, one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise, for only a few minutes, until they got tired, then, once the thumbs were stilled, the energy would flow into the central channel and rise up into the head.

Now, we are accustomed to hearing wonderful stories of bliss and light. Well, unfortunately, as far as I know, such experiences, for the most part, are reserved for those in deep trance, or in dreams. Once when I was dreaming, a Dream Guru told me that a few seconds of meditation in a dream was worth thousands of hours of waking meditation, and he was right. What in waking is felt as a slight pressure will be experienced in a dream as Bliss and Light. It is as though the sensations of the waking self and the dream self are placed along a continuum, with the Dream Self being much more sensitive to those things. And so it is that one should encourage oneself to do one’s meditations during one’s dreaming. Every morning when one wakes up, if one did not meditate during one’s dreams, then it is sufficient to simply note that one regrets the fact and to take a moment to resolve that one will remember to meditate the next time one is dreaming. Eventually it will have its effect, and one will have a dream of blissful meditation with white light and all that. Now, remember that this is not all imagination, and that dreams are more collective than many materialists would wish to admit, and that one’s dreams, no matter how well planned, will come with surprises from some Higher Source.

Oh, and this reminds me of a dream I had in which my deceased father came to me and showed me a spiritual trick, that if one hisses out one’s breath, making what one supposes is a noise very similar to the ‘white noise’ sound, then what in fact happens is that one’s brain lights up with the actual spiritual White Light. If one is sensitive to such things, then it also works during one’s daily meditations, though instead of feeling the White Light, one simply feels the sensation throughout one’s cranium.

Well, that should be enough for now.