Kundalini Yoga: An Ancient method to reach Enlightenment

Ancient Wisdom - 15 min read

“To the question whether man can here and now attain the supreme state of Bliss, the answer in Yoga is yes.” –The Serpent Power by Arthur Avalon

Yoga – much more than downward dog

Yoga has become very, very popular, but what we today see and call Yoga is only a small portion of the original, ancient practice.

When you hear the word Yoga, what comes to mind? Most likely downward dog and comfortable, stretchy pants. However, its original, intended purpose was not superb flexibility and a killer bod but realized union with the cosmos… a.k.a. enlightenment. (The word “yoga” literally meaning “union”)

Mike LoPatriello

Writer

Ever since a sudden and brief opening of his third eye, Mike has searched for answers. He wrote his book The Eye Opening to share spiritual wisdom, tools, and his own profound and momentary experience of enlightenment. Read more here.

The physical postures that have become so popular, called asanas, are only one of the eight limbs of Yoga. Combined with the other seven, Yoga serves as a system of mental and physical practices and conducts to lead an individual to a direct realization of their oneness with all of creation and its Creator.

There is a lot of material to cover regarding Yoga and its methods, but this article will focus primarily on Kundalini Yoga, its symbolism, its goal of unifying the inner male and female energies, and how it relates to my third eye experience.

Kundalini

Kundalini represents the mysterious true identity, not only of our own soul but of the power within the entire manifested universe. It refers to the primal energy of creation, which in the body is said to be located, in its inactive, dormant state, at the bottom of the spine, as a coiled up and slumbering serpent.

In Kundalini practice, the yogi or adept attempts to uncoil the snake, awaken the Kundalini energy and have it rise up the spine, thereby activating each of the 6 chakras or energy centers it passes through.

The goal of enlightenment is achieved when the snake reaches the highest and final center, the crown chakra on the top of the head, the seventh, called sahasrara. Here the yogi’s individual consciousness merges with the One consciousness that is in everything. The yogi raises his Kundalini by performing certain techniques of meditation, pranayama (breath-work), purification, and by the longing with all of his or her being for union with the Creator.

While searching for answers, I was led to Kundalini

I’ve been searching for the deeper truth of what we are my whole life (more info here).

During my last year in high school, I started my spiritual search for answers. I wanted to know if enlightenment was possible. After a series of dreams I had over the following years during my search (all of them having to do with snakes in some way) I started exploring snake symbolism.

Turned out that snakes were used as symbols for Spirit and the Divine by nearly every ancient culture and its belief system. This discovery eventually led me to the topic at hand: Kundalini.

In other words, I asked the universe whether enlightenment was possible, and it answered: yes, check out Kundalini. I couldn’t deny the connection between my visions and this ancient Yoga and its dormant snake.

Here are some of my favorite, brief descriptions of Kundalini:

“Kundalini is the goddess force, the ultimate creative energy, the dynamism that keeps the world alive. It is the power resting at the heart of every entity and being in the universe. It lies for most of us in quiescent form, a sleeping serpent ready to rise within and lift us to unimaginable levels of ecstatic union with ultimate reality. It is then that we know that It and we ourselves are One, that this inscrutable source not only defines but comprises who we are, for we in ourselves are nothing but pulsating atoms within this infinite consciousness.”

–Dorothy Walters, Phd. “Kundalini and the Mystic Path,” Kundalini Rising

“Kundalini… the figure of a coiled female serpent—a serpent goddess not of ‘gross’ but of ‘subtle’ substance—which is to be thought of as residing in a torpid, slumbering state in a subtle center, the first of the seven, near the base of the spine: the aim of the yoga then being to rouse this serpent, lift her head, and bring her up a subtle nerve or channel of the spine to the so-called ‘thousand-petaled lotus’ (sahasrara) at the crown of the head. … she, rising from the lowest to the highest lotus center, will pass through and wake the five between, and with each wakening the psychology and personality of the practitioner will be altogether and fundamentally transformed.”

–Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image

“The psychosomatic mechanism of Kundalini, the biological lever in every form of Yoga, with its implications and possibilities, has been known and made use of in India constantly for thousands of years, from the time of the Indus Valley civilization. This culture, as fresh investigation has shown, had a lively intercourse in trade and culture with America of that day, and was the possible initiator in the cultivation of cotton on the Peruvian coast, more than two thousand years before the birth of Christ, centuries before the cultivation was undertaken in Egypt. I have mentioned this to show that references to Kundalini in the Maya scripture of the Zunis, called the Popul Vuh, where it is named ‘Hura-Kan,’ or lightning, must also have an Indian origin. In Egypt the minute snake on the headdress of the pharaohs carried the same significance. There are unmistakable references to Kundalini in the Bible. The circumstances attending the birth of Christ have some features common with those attending the birth of Krishna, the lord of yogis who in his childhood dances on the head of the venomous snake, Kali-Naga, that is the Serpent Power. To me it seems ironic that a cult so ancient, so widespread as to be global, and so well supported by the evidence of some of the loftiest intellects of the world, including Plato, Shankaracharya, Lao-Tse and others, should be a closed book to the intelligentsia of our time.”

–Gopi Krishna, The Awakening of Kundalini

“Kundalini is the power of Consciousness that allows us to know we are one with God, to know that all others are one with God, and to know that all of creation is one with God. Until that power of Consciousness is awakened within us, we can’t know the truth directly for ourselves. But when it does awaken, transformation of the highest order ensues.”

–Lawrence Edwards, Phd. “Kundalini: Her Symbols of Transformation and Freedom,” Kundalini Rising

“Kundalini represents the cosmic vital energy lying dormant in the human body which is coiled round the base of the spine, a little below the sexual organ, like a serpent fast asleep and closing with her mouth the aperture of the sushumna, the hairlike duct rising through the center of the spinal cord to the conscious center at the top of the head. When aroused, kundalini, they said, rises through the sushumna like a streak of lightning, carrying with her the vital energy of the body, which for the time being becomes cold and lifeless, with complete or partial cessation of vital functions, to join her divine spouse Shiva in the last or seventh center in the brain. In the course of this process, the embodied self, freed from the bondage of flesh, passed into a condition of ecstasy known as samadhi, realizing itself as deathless, full of bliss, and one with the all-pervading Supreme Consciousness.”

–Gopi Krishna, Living with Kundalini: The autobiography of Gopi Krishna.

From Living With Kindalini: The Autobiography of Gopi Krishna, by Gopi Krishna, © 1967, 1970 by James Hillman. Reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boulder, Colorado, www.shambhala.com

“The concept [kundalini] is not limited to Indian literature, however. It has been described in the ancient records of Tibet, Egypt, Sumer, China, Greece, and other cultures and traditions, including early Judaism and Christianity. The Pharaoh’s headdress, the feathered serpent of Mexico and South America, the dragon of the oriental mythology, the serpent in the Garden of Eden—all are indicative of kundalini.”

–John White, “Kundalini: Sex, Evolution, and Higher Consciousness,” Kundalini Rising

“The most important concept to grasp about the energy field is that the lower or negative pole will draw the universal energy into itself from the cosmos. From there it will move upward to be met and reacted to by the positive spiraling energy moving downward from within. The measure of an entity’s level of ray activity is the locus wherein the south pole outer energy has been met by the inner spiraling positive energy. As an entity grows more polarized this locus will move upwards. This phenomenon has been called by your peoples the kundalini. However, it may better be thought of as the meeting place of cosmic and inner, shall we say, vibratory understanding.”

–The Law of One Book 2, p. 248, llresearch.org

“According to the Tantric traditions of India … the energy that awakens the subtle-energy centers or chakras of the human body is coiled up at the base of the spine; the term for ‘coiled up’ in Sanskrit is kundala, and the energy in question is called kundalini, ‘the coiled one.’ Tantric imagery pictures this energy as a tightly coiled serpent; awakened, it climbs up the central energy channel of the subtle body to the center at the crown of the head, awakening the chakras one by one as it rises. This symbolism has a very straightforward origin. According to many of those who have experienced it, the process of energy flow up the central channel feels unnervingly like a snake slithering up the inside of one’s spine. The effects of the process include spectacular energy discharges, sensations of heat and brilliant light, and dramatic expansions of consciousness. Most kinds of mystical practice can set off the process of awakening kundalini, and many traditions of mystical spirituality (including some with roots far from India) have this as their principal goal; it’s therefore no wonder that images of fiery or luminous serpents climbing up tall, straight trees, coiled around poles, or flying up to the heavens play such an important part in traditional legend and lore.”

–John Michael Greer, Monsters

OK, so Kundalini’s main goal of spiritual awakening is reached by raising the inner serpent, or inner energy, up to the center at the top of the head, but how does one do this?

One does this by joining together the universal male energy and female energy within the body.

This aspect of the Kundalini practice fascinates me.

The Male and the Female

In yoga ideology the human body has three main channels, called nadis, that energy uses to rise up and around the spine: ida, pingala, and sushumna. The sushumna rises through the center of the spine, while the other two are on left and right of it. Ida, originating on the left, is associated with lunar energy, the feminine, and the goddess Shakti. Pingala, on the right, is associated with solar energy, the masculine, and the god Shiva.

“The purpose of Kundalini Yoga is to reunite Shiva and Shakti, to create the eternal form of Shiva, Sadashiva. Sadashiva’s left side is female and the right side is male; the two principals have united but have not yet merged. If they were to merge that would be the end of the play… Sadashiva exists on the cosmic scale; in an individual this deity is called Ardhanarishvara (‘the Lord Who is Half Female’). In order to manifest Sadashiva the Kundalini must be made to rise fully, because the highest manifestation of Shiva in the human being is in the head, the highest part of the body.’”

–Svoboda, Kundalini

“Just as sexual energy gives birth to every living creature, when it’s internalized, it also gives birth to one’s higher self.”

–Stuart Perrin, “Life, Happiness and Kundalini Yoga,” Kundalini Rising

“The object is to awaken Kundalini through ritual practices and to enable her ascent up the sushumna nadi through the chakra system. When it reaches the topmost chakra the blissful union of Shiva and Shakti occurs. This leads to a far-reaching transformation of the personality.”

–Sonu Shamdasani, The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

“In the evolution of the yogin there is always the union of both the man and woman powers.”

–Wilhelm Hauer, The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

“Shakti [feminine power] and Shiva [masculine power] become one and in their union, everything… gets dissolved. Further, there is nothing more to experience beyond [this]. Hence let me stop speaking of it. For it is useless to talk.”

–Dnyaneshwari, lines 306-318

Shiva and Shakti, or the pingala and the ida, seem to represent not only the opposite sexes, but the opposite expressions of everything, the polarity and duality in all of manifestation: ying and yang, Father Sky and Mother Earth, hot and cold, sun and moon, day and night, etc.

Furthermore, Shakti represents manifested creation, or consciousness with attributes, and Shiva represents the unmanifest, or consciousness with no attributes. Another distinction is Shakti is kinetic, and Shiva is static.

Shakti is the universal power that is dormant within us, awaiting to be roused and joyfully wed with her lover Shiva, the cosmic consciousness. This holy wedding of the macrocosm’s polar aspects, according to Kundalini, occurs within the microcosm, within our own body.

The balancing of the feminine and the masculine energies within the individual is an idea found in other spiritual circles.

“Thoth, the Atlantian who later returned as Hermes and was the father of alchemy, used the symbology of two snakes intertwining around a sword to represent healing. … Complete understanding and acceptance of the male and female within each organism creates a melding of the two into one, thereby producing divine energy.

–Jamie Sams and David Carson, Medicine Cards

“The realization of the Divine in material form in fact renders the world as your lover in a higher way.”

–Paul Selig, The Book of Freedom

“The planet is looking for a balance in the self. Since the self is a composite of all things, it is a harmonic that balances all of your extraterrestrial selves, multidimensional selves, and male and female selves. You are incredibly whole beings. … Allow yourself to blossom and come into this completeness. No one hinders you but yourself. If you allow completion, there are vistas awaiting you that are beyond your imagination. You are discovering that you need your emotional body and that you need both your femininity and masculinity. … Through feeling, you can discover much more. … As you access multidimensionality, you must merge male and female … It is not outside yourself that you are looking for a twin flame partner. You are looking for the integration of the female and male essence within yourself. They make one whole.”

–Barbara Marciniak, Bringers of the Dawn

“If two make peace with one another in this one house, they will say to the mountain: Be removed, and it will be removed.”

–Jesus, Gospel of Thomas, The Other Bible

Descriptions of the orgasmic union of the polar opposite energies of the male and the female, or Shiva and Shakti, fascinate me more now than when I originally studied them because it is exactly what it felt like when my third eye opened.

As I mentioned in the detailing of that experience when my third eye opened it was as if I was having an orgasm, but ten times the intensity and pleasure, and not in the genitals, but in the center of my head.

“There is little general awareness that this intense rapture of the erotic union can occur at places in the body other than the genitals and other erogenous zones… The whole mystical literature of the world and many extant works in Sanskrit on kundalini, including the Tantras, provide the testimony of thousands of individuals of unquestionable honesty and truth about the reality of this phenomenon.”

–Gopi Krishna, Living with Kundalini: The autobiography of Gopi Krishna

“‘What need have I for an external woman when I have an inner woman in my own interior?’ says a Tantric practitioner quoted by Arthur Avalon [in his book The Serpent Power]. In some of the Tantras and other works on Kundalini, She is alluded to as a “widow,” “washerwoman,” “sweetheart,” “damsel,” or “virgin,” or even a “harlot.” … at the same time, is regarded as a Goddess, a Divine Mother, or as the Creatrix of the universe.”

–Gopi Krishna, Living with Kundalini: The autobiography of Gopi Krishna

“All the authorities on kundalini yoga are agreed about the reality of the ambrosial current, which irrigates the seventh center in the brain at the moment of the union of Shakti with Shiva, the superconscious principle behind the embodied self, and it is said that the flow of the nectar into it or into one of the lower centers on the spinal axis is always accompanied by a most exquisite rapture impossible to describe, exceeding many times in intensity that most pleasurable of bodily sensations, the orgasm, which marks the climax of sexual union.”

–Gopi Krishna, Living with Kundalini: The autobiography of Gopi Krishna

“Indha (i.e. the Kindler) by name is this person here in the right eye… Now that which has the form of a person in the left eye is his wife, Virāj. Their meeting place is the space in the heart. Their food is the red lump in the heart. Their covering is the net-like work in the heart. The path that they go is that vein which goes upward from the heart.”

–Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.2.2

In this last excerpt, again we see the mention of both the masculine and feminine residing within the individual, but here the union is said to take place in the heart, after which they travel up towards the head.

The opening of the heart center has always been the initiator of all my spiritual experiences. It is a main theme in all of the spiritual texts I’ve read during my research.

Simply put, it is the location of God within the individual. It is our source of life in the body, and our spiritual source, the Source of all life. I explore this more in the article The Heart…

From the heart, the Kundalini energy continues its ascent towards the sahasrara, the last chakra, located at the top of the head.

“In the course of Her [kundalini’s] ascent from Her seat at the base of the spine to the crown, it is averred that She waters with nectar the six lotuses flourishing at the six important nerve junctions on the cerebrospinal axis governing the vital and sensory organs, which bloom at Her approach, until She arrives at the thousand-petalled lotus at the top of the head and is absorbed in ecstatic union with Her heavenly consort. When released from the chains which bind it to earth, the embodied consciousness soars to sublime heights of self-realization, made aware for the first time after ages of bondage of its own ineffable, deathless nature.”

–Gopi Krishna, Living with Kundalini: The autobiography of Gopi Krishna

“It comes to us from the Universal through the Christ within, which has already been born within us all. As a minute speck it enters through the Christ, or super conscious mind, the place of receptivity within ourselves. Then it must be carried to the mount or highest within ourselves, the very top of the head. It is held there. We must then allow the Holy Spirit to descend.”

–Baird T. Spalding, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, V.1

“The metaphor of the coiled serpent being called upwards is vastly appropriate for consideration by your peoples. This is what you are attempting when you seek. There are, as we have stated, great misapprehensions concerning this metaphor and the nature of pursuing its goal. … We have two types of energy. We are attempting then, as entities in any true color of this octave, to move the meeting place of inner and outer natures further and further along or upward along the energy centers… Meanwhile the Creator lies within. In the north pole the crown is already upon the head and the entity is potentially a god. This energy is brought into being by the humble and trusting acceptance of this energy through meditation and contemplation of the self and of the Creator. Where these energies meet is where the serpent will have achieved its height. When this uncoiled energy approaches universal love and radiant being the entity is in a state whereby the harvestability of the entity comes nigh.”

–The Law of One Book 2, llresearch.org

“Piercing the head at the point where is the edge of the hair… He obtains self-rule. He obtains the lord of the mind Lord of the voice, lord of the eye, lord of the ear, lord of the understanding—this and more he becomes, even Brahma, whose body is space, whose soul is the real, whose pleasure-ground is the breathing spirit, whose mind is bliss, abounding in tranquillity, immortal.—Thus, O Prācĩnayogya (Man of the Ancient Yoga), worship.”

–Taittiriya Upanishad 1.6.1-2

“We must all ascend to the heights, the very highest in consciousness to receive our illumination. This height means the very top of the head and there, if the faculty is not developed, we must develop it with spiritual thoughts. Then from the heart, the love center, we must let love flow forth to balance all and when this is done the Christ is revealed.”

–Baird T. Spalding, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, V.1

“The center at the top of the head is the highest focus in the human body, and there the Silver Cord of ‘Liquid White Light’ from the Great Source of Creation enters.”

–Godfre Ray King, Unveiled Mysteries

“Man is created perfect in the image of his Creator. Then after closing the door (at the top of the head) and falling from grace into the uninhibited expression of his own human will, he begins the slow climb upward. … With this turn man rises upward, bringing into predominant function each of the higher centers. The door at the crown of the head then opens, and he merges into wholeness of all Creation, whence he sprang.”

–Frank Waters, Book of the Hopi

Before reaching the crown chakra, the grand finale so to speak, the Kundalini passes through and awakens the 6th chakra, ajna, or the third eye.

The Take-Away: Practice with the Heart, not the Head

What is important is that Yoga shows us our true potential.

Exposure to its wisdom opens our belief system to allow for the possibility of enlightenment and great transformations of our consciousness.

However, we won’t find what we are looking for if we approach Yoga and Kundalini with only our minds, and not our hearts: “If I do 100 deep breaths, can hold all of the asanas without flinching, meditate for an hour a day, and visualize Shiva constantly, I will become enlightened.” Many approach it in such a manner, and in my opinion, that is not the point.

I am not saying that these traditional methods won’t lead to an opening or revelation. They have for others and they will, as long as your heart is open. For the tools to work, we must come from a place of love, worship, and reverence.

Therefore, let us approach this beautiful, ancient practice with love and honor, with more of our hearts, and less of our minds, which seek for secret formulas and short-cuts. Without love and an open heart, there are no short-cuts.

Even though I was led to Yoga and Kundalini by my visions, the unfolding of my beautiful experience of the opening of my third eye and heart was not initiated by meditation, pranayama (breath-work), or asanas, but by a surrender to a rise of emotion.

I surrendered to an overwhelming love that erupted from my heart.

Studying the symbolism and ideology helped me, fascinated me, inspired me, and thereby excited me, but ultimately the allowance of an alignment to the heart and its strong emotion of overpowering, unconditional love is what led to the awakening.

Therefore, approach Yoga from your heart and surrender to its wisdom. Then Yoga and Kundalini’s power will quickly become evident.

……..

I am grateful that there is now occurring a resurgence of Yoga and Kundalini. They provide a map to our higher potential, and I am so grateful that the wisdom is still intact.

This article is only a small introduction. It merely scratches the surface of Kundalini and Yoga. If you want to go deeper, I recommend the following books: