Here is reported my personal, direct experience with the reality of Kundalini.
This account is an attempt to an accurate description of the experience. Some interpretation is given to the happenings but mostly what happened (from the subjective point of view of an internal observer) is reported almost in a scientific fashion (and I strongly believe a good science report of an observation or experiment is never completely detached from emotion and personal involvement).
After I go to bed, I’m so exhausted, my entire body is shaking for tension and tiredness. I want to rest, to relax, to let go. This seems to be the magic word: Let go!
I feel more relaxed, my hand start to shake, my fingers one by one vibrate by themselves, like if they were moved by invisible springs or as a little puppet wire was inserted inside the fingers and a puppeteer was performing his act on them. The fingers beat so fast and strongly against the mattress. One by one the fingers vibrate in this way. I feel with these movements some stress is relieved, some tension is melted away. Then the entire hand is opening and closing by itself. It stretches, turns around the wrist, closes in a fist and opens fully, all by itself. I don’t see it yet as strange; I feel that just some tension is being released creating involuntary movements in my hands. I say to myself: “Be more relaxed, even more deeply than this, let go, let go of everything”.
The mind is going a little bit more calm and peaceful.
Then the experience starts in its fullness.
It becomes very fast, weird. The entire arm now is beating back and forth, twisting, releasing stress. The movement goes spontaneously to the shoulder that starts to rotate.
The lower part of the legs are lifted by an invisible force, up to form a right angle with the thighs, then suddenly dropped down. My head is stretching with a round, continuous motion. I start to recognize with surprise that this is a Kundalini experience. I’m excited and frightened at the same time. Now “waves” go up and down trough the back, from the basis of the bottom up to the neck, making snap the bones in the spine. The head rotates at the same time. The feeling is like a “chiropractor” is working on you, not from outside, but from within, adjusting every bone, straightening every nerve. The sensation is both painful and pleasurable at the same time. Together with this chiropractic work there is also a “massage” as done by an invisible hand that operates at the level of internal tissues, organs, the skin, and releases stress and tension moving every little muscle. The massage moves also up and down the body.
Then all of the sudden the body is turned as by a giant hand. I’m pushed in the same way in the seated position. The arms start to rotate fast with a twisting motion. The feeling is similar to having a body that is twisted as a rubber band and then let free, so that the band “untwists” and returns to its natural, unperturbed state “According to one of the most fundamental physical principles, every system tends to move to a state of minimum energy, once released of constraints...”
This untwisting goes up from the forearms to the arms to the shoulder. The arms start to rotate very fast. In same time the “massage” continues in other parts of the body, especially the spine. You realize that at every instant of your life some little stress is “accumulated” in some area of the body, stored as a kind of “memory’ of that event or situation. Above all, painful or stressful situations. Even too much joy or happiness gets stored as a kind of stress.
There is a kind of pattern to this “massage.” It starts from a particular region of the body and moves as a “snake” motion up and down through the body. The mind connects these “memories” to some kind of sequence of events in your lifetime. No images are particularly associated with these sequences, but a feeling to have lived that experience, and when it happened, in which order.
At some time a voice pops out, in particular my voice as a child, or my mother calling my name, as if looking for me. A particular traumatic experience, not well identified.
Now the body goes back to the reclined position. The leg start to get the same “treatment.” Sometimes it is very fast and general, as moving together the entire leg. Others it’s meticulous and precise, working on every little bone of the toes and foot. Actually it is possible to see the toes rotate in small circles, one by one.
The right leg, that was seriously injured a few years before because a car accident, receives special attention because a lot of stress and pain is stored there. Much more time is spent on this leg than the other, as the “chiropractor” and the “masseur” knew exactly about the history of my body. I can feel the places were pins and plates are, and pain and uncomfortable feelings associated with these areas are dissolved. The legs are spread apart and pushed back towards the groin.
The massage goes to the inner thighs and up and down through the thighs to the hips, the lower back. I feel waves of energy move through the spine. More work is done in other areas of the body, in continuous sequences as a chain reaction, or a “line of dominos” falling one after the other. After some more of this work and stress release, the body goes again into the seated position.
Then the “mudras,” the Hindu yoga positions start. The body assumes these traditional gestures spontaneously, almost as if using a secret language spoken to itself. These movements organize themselves in a perfectly choreographed “Indian dance” (The dance of Shiva), with a sequence of precise movements of the hands and the head. A more often repeated movement consists in the fingers touching the thumb and the hand rotating in small circles, and the arms swinging slowly from one side to the other of the body.
There is a “rhythm” to this dance, almost as if following a beating drum as accompaniment. The dance goes fast, then slow, then fast again. The mudra of “namascar” is done with almost a ritualistic accuracy and attention, and then little lights are going through invisible channels inside the body, along the spine, up to the brain. Lights spread into the brain, releasing pleasurable experiences, the light reaches the top of head. The “mudra” goes to the belly and becomes the “lotus” position. There is finally some rest.
This experience is beautiful and pleasurable but also exhausting. The lights, riding waves in the back, continue to come to the brain. This is extremely pleasurable. The lips start to vibrate releasing stresses accumulated there. The eyelids and every thousand muscles in the face and forehead, and then the scalp. The mind becomes more and more “expansive”
One of the fingers goes to the forehead, then moves in an arch and touches the ground (mattress). This movement is repeated several times. These “ritual” movements seem to have a meaning for the body, that is just barely perceived by the mind. Different thought come spontaneously, effortlessly to you as kinds of “messages” or “learning advice.” First that these movements are “encoded” in the body, almost at a level more profound than the DNA. Another thought is that all the knowledge in sacred texts, as the Vedic Literature, is not myth, or legend, or wishful thinking. They are precise descriptions of “lived experiences,” like “reports” to eventual seers to recognize them when they will meet them. Also these are “rituals” or “sacrifices.” This term is used to refer to the Rig-Veda type of ritual based on sacrifice, which have both symbolic meaning, almost like a prayer, and practical uses as one as way to “channel energy” or “release and guide flows of pleasure” through the body.
The rituals are not a reminder or model or indicator of dynamics and ways that the universe and the body work, but the essence of the dynamics, of the laws of nature themselves. The rituals allow the universe to unfold. The unfolding is a ritual. This again is not a philosophical or intellectual idea or thought, but a direct realization, a revealed truth (that can be felt by the mind (and even more by the body). A “taste of truth” comes with this experience.
The dance continues with “massage” and “chiropractor work” alternating with each other, other times together. Now the “massage” becomes more organized. Traditional body postures, “asanas,” are assumed, and enormous blocks of stress are released.
Now I start to vocalize as in making love with myself. Asanas are repeated in a precise order. Some of them are unknown to me, especially that one I call the “Egyptian” position.
Then the dance starts again. I kind of sing with it, following its particular rhythm The body shakes back and forth, sometime very wildly, producing a lot of noise as banging over the mattress. Then the hopping starts. I’m in the sitting position with crossed legs, and after feeling an enormous thrusting push at the bottom, I jump up from the mattress. These jumps are sometime repeated very frequently.
Laughs and waves of joy are coming up. Then waves through the spine that emphasize different “chakras.” In particular the chakra of the heart.
The wave goes down to the groin in the sexual organs. It becomes very sexual, at the same time maintaining an essence of purity and spirituality. When the wave reaches the sexual organs, I feel a push to the lower back, that is pressed towards the sky and I reach some sort of very intense “orgasm.” The penis is not erected and no semen is ejaculated. But the pleasure is a thousand times more intense than a normal sexual experience.
The energy moves fast to the heart. The heart needs a lot of healing. This is a very intense experience, almost painful. Feelings are worked out now. Past loves, desires, hopes, attachments, fears and anxieties, things of all sort that are grasped from the world and stored in the heart, that looks like a huge cave. The cave is filled with round, drop-shaped blocks of blackness, almost of the texture and color of obsidian. These are the “solid” manifestations of the trash kept in the heart. One by one they start to fly away, almost as if they were knives, or thorns being extracted from the chest.
The torso is pushed up. My arms are spread apart. It looks almost as if I was put on a cross. When these black blobs leave it is very painful, but there is a great sense of relief at the same time. The heart is letting go of its holdings, a difficult task. A crucial moment is reached when a particular huge blob is lifted. It comes out of the body with the effort and intensity of a birth labor.
I didn’t usually associate these black thorns with a particular desire or attachment, but I have a strong feeling that this last block is the love for Margit and the child, our family. The pain is so strong that I almost scream with all the air in my lungs, then a big sigh of relief as the last task is finally achieved.
The body seats, there is some peace. Open mind, and a vast, empty clean space in the heart. I stay in this position for a while. I think this is it, I’m enlightened. But then the dance starts again and the massage and chiropractic work. Last efforts are in my shoulder: an enormous, internal push of all the muscles and bones, above all through the right shoulder where I had the car accident injury, exactly on the blade. The massage goes to the stomach, all the tension on the many muscles there is released. I sit in the lotus position, I repeat many times the namascar mudra and the third eye mudra.
Peace. Lights up through channels. Infinite expansion of the mind. The end result of the work on the body is that no stress, no tension is there. The body now, is like that of a new born baby: soft, white, pure. It is so sensitive to the touch, I can feel even the presence of the air around me. An incredible pleasure is associated with being with this body, not grasping it, not owning it, but being with it. The mind is clear thoughtless. A beyond words knowingness is present.
The heart, the other strong center of awareness, is without feelings, no fear, no joy, no sadness, just a calm, peaceful, blissful sense of being. All the wild movements, the massage, the dance subsides and, as evidence of the physical intensity of the experience, there are the sweat-drenched bed sheets. It is almost as if my body went through an exhausting workout, but I feel full of energy and completely rested.
I know I should sit still for a long time, doing nothing, to stabilize this state of mind, to not fall back in the traps of the ego. But for some reason I move, I try first to rest, laying down on the mattress. But even the pressure of my body is too much for my muscles. It is like if the body is made of butter, soft to the touch. I decide to get down from the bed. I tell myself to take it easy, to be gentle with myself. I take a shower and it is much too intense of an experience for my new body... Every drop of water feels like little needles, it is pleasurable and not simultaneously. I eat breakfast and again every bite is so full of zest, even water has fine levels of texture and different shadows of taste. I cannot take more than few bites.
There is a sense of festivity in the air, as this day is a Holiday not just for me but for all the beings.
Text © 1999 Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. This article appeared originally under the title ‘Kundalini is Real’ (submission 00065) on the website of The Archives of Scientists’ Transcendent Experiences (TASTE).
GS (pseudonym) was a student of Kundalini Yoga and a PhD candidate in astrophysics at a major US university when he had this experience in 1999. He has won prizes for his work from the Mathematical Association of America.
Articles about Kundalini and shaktipat on this site.
Charles T. Tart is the creator of TASTE from which the above article is reprinted.
Enlightenment Through the Path of Kundalini
By Tara Springett
This is the masterpiece of spiritual books on kundalini. It illustrates the basic concepts of kundlini, chakras, purification of chakras, and the effect of chakras on our health. Tara Springett explains this complex subject in a very simple way. Her experience in the spiritual journey helps her to be a psychotherapist, counselor and medication teacher. She explains the subject with the help of numerous case studies. Her union with a higher power ordered her to write the book. The book is the outcome of her communication with a divine being, White Tara, which opens the way to the deepest metaphysical secrets of universe. Read this book to balance the sea of love and blissful life force which exists in the divine essence of every human being. Your journey toward the deity-state will be easy by following the path shown by Tara Springett. —Shirish Bhoodhar
Living with Kundalini: The Autobiography of Gopi Krishna
By Gopi Krishna
This book is a greatly expanded (two-thirds more material) version of Gopi Krishna’s autobiography. It contains the most famous published account of a Kundalini explosion, a dramatic event that sometimes occurs to people who practice certain kinds of Yoga. Gopi Krishna was a government bureaucrat who, while meditating in 1937 at the age of 34, suddenly perceived a roaring stream of light rising into his head from his spine. For months afterward he suffered a variety of painful physical and mental symptoms including some that seem akin to psychosis. These symptoms gradually subsided into a condition which he regarded as higher consciousness. The work is particularly fascinating because Gopi Krishna was a modern, skeptical, secular man who described his experiences with the skill of a novelist and without mysticism. For a first-person account of a similar experience which was inspired by this book, see this article by one of our contributing editors; he explains how he made it happen.
—Editor, realization.org
The Kundalini Guide: A Companion for the Inward Journey
By Bonnie Greenwell, PhD
Ruth Angela, an Amazon reviewer, writes:
“This book has everything explained, clearly and succinctly for the person looking for clarity about Kundalini awakening. I highly recommend it to anyone who has no idea what Kundalini is or what an awakening means. But it is also very useful for those who have awakened and need to fill in some basic facts and details about the phenomena.
I met Ms. Greenwell recently, and she has a deep and common sense understanding of this topic having had years of interviews with people who have been through this life-altering process. She lays it all out for everyone to understand with examples and a review of commonly asked questions. It could be a primer on the topic. The focus is on practical down-to-earth advice and information. The same information could be in some ancient Indian text, but to a Western reader it would be incomprehensible; Bonnie Greenwell has rectified this problem by covering the thousand questions one would have on this subject in simple straight-forward language. Her first book "Energies of Transformation" was a great help to me and many others who wanted to find out more about this topic. But this new book has condensed everything into a easily absorbed format that can be read both as informational and for future reference. Start here if you really want to get a clear picture of the phenomena of Kundalini.”
This page was published on July 12, 2019 and last revised on July 13, 2019.