One thing we must be aware of during the height of our psychic peak is that
while in the exhaustion phase we may become “less” psychic than we were prior to
the awakening. As a culture when we learn to manage kundalini without excessive
organic damage, we should be able to grow in a fashion that prevents blowback
slumps in our functioning. We should anticipate and be psychologically prepared
for a loss of physic ability after the peak, so that we do not become soul-sick
from our apparent loss of depth. Integral practice prior to awakening will deepen
the integration and integrity of our hormonal base so that when an awakening
occurs we can use the peaking energies and hormones to productive effect, rather
than have them wasted in resistance, dysfunction and coping mechanisms. Integral
practice will permanently up our baseline pituitary hormone levels so that we do
not fall quite as low after an awakening.
To illustrate the need for preparation I will quote a very important passage from
Ouspensky’s A New Model of the Universe.
“Hatha yoga prepares the physical body of man to bear all the hardship connected
with the functioning in him of the higher psychic forces; higher consciousness,
will, intense emotions etc... These forces do not function in ordinary man. Their
awakening and development produce a terrific strain and pressure on the physical
body. And if the body is not trained and prepared by special exercises, if it is in its
usual sickly condition, it is unable to withstand this pressure and cannot keep up with
the unusually intensive work of the organs of perception and consciousness, which
is inevitably connected with the development of the higher forces and possibilities
of man. In order to enable the heart, brain and nervous system (and also the other
organs the role of which in the psychic life of man is little, if at all, known to Western
science) to bear the pressure of new functions the whole body must be well balanced,
harmonized, purified, put in order and prepared for the new and tremendously hard
work that awaits it.” 249
What is the motive of the need to kindle kundalini? I question the soundness of
trying to initiate kundalini via yoga practices. I think just to have a yoga/meditation
practice for its own sake is the correct way to go about it. In my experience
kundalini sparks up spontaneously in the course of one’s life through the interplay
of stress/release, pain/pleasure, trauma/achievement. Going after kundalini is like
going after orgasm for its own sake, it’s masturbation. Saying that however, I think
that only the raising of kundalini (or various extreme life experiences that facilitate
neuronal dissolution and regrowth), can free us from the pain-body, neurosis,
trauma and the miasmas of past history that we have recorded in our tissues.
We can never know what kundalini is like until it sparks up and in our unbalanced
western bodies the fire is going to pretty much dismantle our existing life. You
have to be spiritually advanced or supported in order to keep up productivity and
function during the height of the flame. Everyone is going to get some downtime,
some crisis, some death—this is unavoidable during a full-on awakening. Yet to
be afraid of kundalini only amplifies the dangers, for it is like being afraid of one’s
own soul. Realizing that kundalini is the very process of incarnation itself, we