culating it continuously through all the centers. The goal was to
build a solid and powerful energy base, self-contained within the
human form, before the final transormation of the mind (or “soul”)
into spirit was effected. They would so thoroughly master their chi
flow within the body that they could consciously circulate this chi
outside the body as preparation for a safe pathway on which this
soul could follow.
Master Chia thus describes the Taoist approach to kundalini
awakening as the body and mind “parenting” the rebirth of its own
soul into the next dimension of consciousness. One does not ex-
pect a human infant to fend for itself immediately after birth; that is
the parent’s responsibility. The reborn soul, ascending out the crown
chakra and arriving as an infant in a confusing new world, would
have “adult” guidance in the form of a powerful field of balanced chi
energy protecting it from malevolent astral forces.
Because the full transformation of all physical and mental chi
into spiritual chi energy normally takes many years, there is a dan-
ger of premature physical death before the process is finished.
This danger becomes more acute with practices that accelerate
the inrush of kundalini energy, as the body and glands must adjust
to radical changes in metabolism. The Taoist masters circumvented
this by mastering the act of physical longevity, chronicled widely in
Taoist literature as the quest for physical immortality. The collec-
tive genius of the Taoist masters evolved an esoteric spiritual sys-
tem designed to simultaneously awaken the kundalini and function
as a healing system applicable to the whole gamut of daily stresses
and illnesses.
The attraction of the Taoist yoga system is that it is as safe and
methodical as climbing a ladder. You climb only as high as you can
safely maintain balance and still keep the ladder rooted. The Taoist
masters emphasized staying in harmonious balance on each step
was more important than getting to the top of the ladder; trying to
jump ahead increased the risk of falling. The goal was not to leap
into some transcendent pie-in-the-sky, but to arrive with the grace-
ful surefootedness of a Tai Chi dancer.
Awakening of the kundalini energy does produce a transcen-
dent state of consciousness, but with Taoist Esoteric methods it is
only achieved when the ever changing and opposing forces of yin
and yang are first identified and then continuously, even automati-
cally, brought into harmonious balance by the individual. It is a pro-Chapter XIV