Before I get into my story, let’s get this question answered first:
What in the bleep is kundalini?
“Kundalini, a Sanskrit word meaning ‘circular power’, is an individual’s basic evolutionary force. Each of us is born with some of this energy already flowing. It is not just a matter of using what we already have, but of awakening the much greater amount waiting in the kundalini reservoir located at the base of the spine.”
Genevieve Lewis Paulson, “Kundalini and the Chakras: Evolution in this Lifetime”
Now, here’s my story.
2014. I was silently meditating when it all started.
My body began to rock ever so slightly. And the rocking kept intensifying. Before I knew it, my entire spine was rocking in a wave. I tried to stop it by contracting my muscles with all the willpower one could muster. But that didn’t work– it only hurt.
So I relaxed and let go.
My clinical brain tried to explain what was happening but there were no mental answers for this. So I re-focused the power of my awareness on my breath and on the wave in my spine.
The came the intense heat.
It started out at the bottom of my spine but before long, moved up with the wave. I felt like a furnace. My abdominals contracted forcefully and my torso bent forward over my crossed legs. My face was almost touching the floor.
It didn’t hurt at first but the contractions kept getting stronger and stronger. And they eventually started to cause pain. It felt like something had taken over my body.
I began to feel fear but there was a voice that whispered deep within:
“Everything is okay.”
Without knowing it, I was experiencing a kundalini awakening.
When the wave and heat finally subsided, I opened my eyes. My entire world had just changed.
Everything looked different. Intense colors, sounds of birds, the blue sky above. Everything in my environment seemed more alive. “Intense.” That’s the word that best described my new reality.
It felt like I was seeing the world with someone else’s eyes.
The days after my kundalini awakening were tremendously difficult. Intense physical pain, suicidal thoughts, violent past life memories, a rollercoaster of emotions. Thankfully, I had gone online and researched more about my experience.
I learned that I was living through a “spontaneous” kundalini awakening.
As I perused various websites and read multiple articles, I could sense a certain narrative around the phenomenon of kundalini awakenings. According to the “experts”, one must be very careful not to “force” kundalini to rise because it can cause severe problems, including insanity and death.
This narrative caused discomfort in me. It smelled of a spiritual mindset based on fear, not love. So I stopped reading articles about kundalini and decided to let the serpent energy (as she is known) do her job.
I was going to write my own kundalini narrative: one that fit-in better with the spiritual lessons I had been absorbing in my own life.
Here are the top three.
Lesson 1
Everything is divinely timed. In other words, everything occurs at the perfect time—not one minute too soon or one minute too late.
Lesson 2
We’re a part of an intricate, beautiful, and infinite web of life. And this web works on its own. It weaves even when we’re not consciously aware of it. Put another way:
Life has a life of its own.
We participate in the web and we are the web. We’re Creation and creators. But even though we’re powerful beyond measure, there’s still a natural flow to life that we cannot violate.
Lesson 3
The wisdom of the universe is infinite. Divine intelligence is infinite. And I may be Source at my core, but there’s one thing I have in this dimension that filters my divinity: mind or ego.
The ego is a wonderful tool but it’s limited. Bottom line: the universe always knows more than our minds do. Simple as that.
These three profound spiritual lessons just didn’t fit in with the kundalini narrative I was reading about online.
When people say that it’s dangerous to “force” a kundalini awakening, they’re assuming she can be awoken against her will. And to be honest, that sounds a tad arrogant to me.
If everything really is divinely ordered, if the universe really is perfect, if the web of life is wise and complex beyond our imaginations, can we really say we can “force” the central creating energy (kundalini) of it all to wake up?
To me, the answer to this question was easy and led quickly to another conclusion:
There’s no such thing as spontaneous or forced kundalini awakenings.
Kundalini awoke in me at exactly the perfect time, in the perfect manner. And I feel that’s always the case. Kundalini rises in us when our souls are ready and if we have a “soul contract” with her (ie, she’s helping us fulfill our life mission). I call this the Soul-Kundalini Partnership.
Kundalini awakenings are never about what the mind wants. They’re always about what our souls want, in collaboration with the Universe.
I’ve had many people ask if I could help awaken their kundalini. “I’m ready,” they say.
And my answer is always the same:
“The serpent energy in you will awaken if it is part of your path in this life. And she will awaken with or without help.”
This is the most honest answer I can give. I think it helps bring the phenomenon of kundalini awakening out of the prism of the mind and into the prism of the soul.
Kundalini awakening should never be a goal we set with our minds. This will only lead to frustration and anger. That’s not to say that people cannot be helped. I certainly was and am very thankful for the love and support I received during the tumultuous weeks following my kundalini awakening.
We can give each other love, help, and support when a Soul-Kundalini Partnership is activated.
Kundalini awakenings can be ecstatic, blissful. But they can also be extremely difficult. Mine was. But we can rest assured of one thing:
Our Soul-Kundalini partnership is only activated when we’re ready.
And that awakening always comes for the greater good of all, with unconditional love.
Now it’s your turn!
Have you experienced a Kundalini awakening? If so, what were your symptoms?
Let me know in the comment section below.
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With deep love and gratitude;
* This article was originally published on the Elephant Journal on 06/01/15. Edited.
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With deep love and gratitude;
CHRISTINA LOPES, DPT, MPH
I’m a life coach, healer, spiritual teacher, and former clinician. My life’s work is to help you open your incredible heart, heal your past, and live with joy and purpose. Aside from my weekly video content, I also work 1-on-1 with people who need private individual guidance. If this is you, the fastest way to get help is to book a single session with me.
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I think I had a Kundalini awakening in 2008. When I came into my friend gathering. There was an guru who introduced having ability to cure diseases, which I don’t know if it’s true. They made a group which aligning in the circle and the guru was outside using his secret energy. Everybody spoke “Aum” and everybody started to shake body. I didn’t join in that group, Then later that guru insisted me to join in the circle, I refused several times, but he still insisted. Then I hesitated to join in. I felt my body shaking slightly. Then the guru asked me to move in center of circle. Then my body started to shake left and right, back and forward, then circle. When I came back home, my body started to shake continuously. I had to restraint my body all the time 24/24 and I felt very tired. I was freaked out and asked my friend what hell going on. He couldn’t answer, the guru had gone. It happened shaking for weeks, then my body back to normal. I didn’t intend to awake Kundalini, and didn’t have any ambition to awake it. But it happened.
Then later it happened the strange thing, when I sitting quietly, my body start to dance. I moved my hand very flexible, with the shape look strange too, just like the kind of spiritual rituals. I was still be conscious to watch my hand moving at that time.
One guy told me that is a sign of evil, just like somebody possessed my body and he asked me to stop it. Then I tried to stop. Then year later, I watched documentary about Kundalini in india, there was one guy shaking the body just like mine. So I understood it is a kind of Kundalini. For me, the Kundalini is still a secret, there are contradictory about Kundalini. Some say it’s good, some say it’s evil which I really don’t know which way I should go from here. I let it go. Years by years, it seems my intuition increased a lot, What I think in my mind, it comes in reality. Then I start seeing a lot of synchronicity.
When the good thing come, my mouth lifted up and made me quite scared about that, because It seems i knew the reason why I smile, I knew there was good news come to me at that time. But when my mouth smile like that, it seems someone else smile, not me.
One day I found one of my ability. On the way to work, I had an abdomen. At that time, i just knew how to do thing by letting the energy coming to my abdomen and relax it not to feel pain anymore. I was very surprise that how can I know to do thing like that. I’m the person who is not patient and lazy 🙂 so I don’t do that often. Because to make the pain relief, I need to concentrate long enough which it hard for me to focus long
Another thing is surprised too, I automatically know how to mediate when I’m moving, riding on the street. I just know how to vision like imaging the green water….to fix my body not function well. I often have stress in work, when doing that my head just like being massage.
Every time, I have questions in my mind, I pay attention that there are always answers on youtube for my cases. It seems invisible force show it to me.
But since one year ago, my house has the strange phenomenon. When I sleep up stair, I always wake up around 3am. Then if I back to sleep, my body cannot move although my conscious come back. I was very scared about ghost. Something alert me to get up at that time. Then if I back to down stair to sleep, then it is back to normal. Please help me to have a video about it. I don’t want to fear all the time. The ghost if available, I want them to let go in peace
The stiff phenomenon recently I can control by calm down and observe the body stuck and it back to normal. But I don’t know the root cause of it. I found in youtube just general information about waking up at 3am, but I don’t know if it’s true.