Kundalini is already active in our body and mind, it does not need ‘activation’, it is not dormant. It is already in charge of all the functions of the physical and the subtle body and can be found everywhere within them. You can feel it right now, beating your heart and digesting your last meal.
Kundalini gets the body/mind up in the morning and puts it down at night. It makes the body hungry, horny, excited, sad, clingy, nostalgic, goal oriented, depressed. It is and does everything you have ever experienced in this universe.
There is an epicenter, or, concentrated portion, of kundalini located at the base of the spine, in the lower chakras, very close to the genital organs, under the bulky digestive system. Most of kundalini’s daily functions have to do with survival behaviors such as eating, sleeping, reproducing and reacting. Occasionally the kundalini will feel and do other things slightly out of the ordinary in reactivity to something. It may produce strong emotions that it regards as special. Emotions such as; elation from singing with the congregation at church, or deep feelings, goosebumps and general ASMR, from chanting mantras, joy from dancing, connection through praying or even peace while meditating.
Even though kundalini life force is already active within each of us, even the animals, we should not be foolish enough to conclude that because of a mantra or the touch of a guru that it will spontaneously rise up within the body, spread its self out blissfully and cause a person to be suddenly enlightened and with upgraded DNA.
It’s a fancy thought but not the way it works. Most events that people describe as ‘kundalini activations’ are actually 99% normal, mundane, high end emotional experiences of the nervous system and have little to do with Hatha Yoga manipulations of kundalini – that is, if we are really into Yoga and not an imposter practice.
If you are into Yoga, your interest in kundalini is different than the average persons. The average person doesn’t even fathom what kundalini is or what their spiritual relationship with it might be. In fact they think they are the kundalini. They do not spiritually sort themselves out from it. It is their only known identity.
In Sanskrit this level of consciousness is called “advaita”. People at this stage are able to sense out the collective energies of the universe but are not yet able to distinguish themselves within that sea of everything-ness. Nature is adept at keeping us trapped in the stage of non-duality for a long time. She tricks us into thinking we've got it all figured out.
In modern terms it is the ‘oneness movement’ found in new-age religions.
If you are into genuine yoga your interest in the kundalini life force is in locating it, sensing it out, investigating it, cleaning it, reforming its stubborn, redundant ways, infusing it with oxygen and MANIPULATING (hatha) it with internal physical and psychic maneuvers in order to route its power upward through the body/mind into higher parts of the psyche where its light has the potential to cause a transcendental event and the development of insight. This is the path toward the goal of yoga called samadhi, meaning complete insight. Manipulation of the kundalini is the way.
Done often and over time, these yogically induced events may assist the core self in its venture toward freedom from the very life force it is manipulating.
It’s kind of like when Bruce Lee would use the power of his opponent to empower himself.
We manipulate the kundalini life force as empowerment for the spiritual person who is held captive by the whole thing.
Imagine a prisoner in a dark penitentiary who figures out how to temporarily turn all the prison lights on- and everyday he goes and does it again and again, even if the warden (kundalini) is reluctant for him to do so. During those moments when the prison is brightly lit up, the prisoner gets a good look around and with repeated looks, he may begin to figure his way out. Insight develops. With stunning clarity he looks down and all around the prison. He even looks deeply inward, even bringing the light within him, finding himself in another world, which under normal consciousness is undetectable to him.
The light causes him to be able to see and feel things he could not access before.
So if he knows how to do this, should he not go turn on the lights every day?
Or should he become passive, sit and chant, and wait for the light to spontaneously turn on? Why?
If you think kundalini should spontaneously rise and you claim this is what makes you a yogi, than what is the use of our Yoga scriptures?
Where does it even say that in the Pradipika? Or the Gita? Or the Sutras.
On the contrary, our yoga books let us know in no uncertain terms that yoga takes effort, will power and determination. It takes work. It is work.
Please do not let anyone tell you that this is not to be done every day. It is to be done every day. It is safe when done right. It is safe when we understand breath infusion and the locks.
Don't forfeit your potential to daily experience a transcendental event, for is a blessing from God. It is our way out. It is the path to the purified state required to reach higher dimensions.
So what is Yogic Kundalini Manipulation?
We use the breath which uses the oxygen which is the highest of Earthly elements yogically speaking. However, there is one more element even higher than the air which is accessed by the air and by the magic of yoga asana, and that is the inner light. We access the inner light, the light of the subtle body, concentrated in the kundalini bulb at the base of the spine and we pull it up over and over again, unfurling it, in order to fill the bodies and provide the self with a well-lit environment – an environment in which nothing, no pollutant, no impurity, no anxiety, can hide out trying to screw up our big liberation plans!!!!!!!
I was practicing and teaching yoga for nearly 15 years before I learned I was doing it wrong.
I only realized that I had been taught incorrectly, when I was taught correctly.
To finally understand yoga, my greatest desire, the spiritual relief is hard to describe.
Here’s the Key:
When I was finally taught by yoga teacher Michael Beloved to perform breath infusion (bhastrika/bellows breathing) during my stretches, to use the locks (bhandas) to stabilize and route kundalini during breath retention, and to use special instigation postures, I finally experienced a transcendental event; an actual kundalini rise into my head which propelled my awareness into a higher dimension. I was no longer aware of my body. My teacher was right there, holding me up as I left my body that way for the first time. The body attempted to fall to the ground. I could hear him in the distance reminding me to hold my chin lock, pull the anus lock up and keep my mind pulled in. I did so and fought to stay physically lucid - even though I felt so psychically celestial.
As my awareness returned to my body and I was able to hold it up myself, I was able to continue studying the event. It was stunning and I knew in that moment that Yoga was everything I had sensed it was but had never been told or shown. Not by any of the big time teachers I had looked into, not by my Sivananda teacher training, not by Swami anybody. All that had been told to me about yoga up to that point had been mostly non-sense, maybe because they were withholding, or maybe because most yoga people are phonies.
I no longer need my teacher to be right there to catch me because he taught me specifically how to handle the kundalini energy myself. This is what the locks are for!! Specifically for this! To keep you in control of your body, your spine in place, braced, locked, for the proper and safe routing of kundalini up the central channel (shushmna nadi) in order for this event to be experienced and studied. This is the magic of Hatha Yoga.
Since then, I’ve raised kundalini hundreds of time and god willing I will raise it hundreds of times more before I leave this body.
If you truly wish for a Supreme Abode to be your new address then you will surely not sit around and wait for kundalini to rise within you. Instead, you will take the bull by the horns and do it yourself because you can and because you are ready and because the proper instruction IS available. It is not vague and it is not passive.
Yogis are not lazy or new agey, we do not expect for the God to just come to us because we feel we are that special.
Through yoga we become eligible to go to God.
We make ourselves special enough to be with God by shedding the current system that surrounds us and regurgitates us.
We do this by manipulating the system. That is what hatha yoga is, it is ‘manipulation’ yoga.
A yogi is like a hacker of the subtle body. He learns how he can go in and manipulate his own system to get what he wants, even if that means ultimate destruction of the program in which he lives.
He knows that there exists an abode appropriate for spiritual life on the other side of this material creation. He knows because he’s seen glimpses of it often during his kundalini manipulation events and following meditations.
Raising kundalini during a yoga exercise session can cause profound progress in meditation which is done immediately after exercises.
Put yoga to work for what it’s for. Stop making it less than it is. It is not glorified stretching, it is so much more and while you’re waiting for and telling others that kundalini should spontaneously arise within you “if you are a real yogi”, then you’re missing the entire point of Yoga and don't understand the first thing about it.
If you do not believe any of this that I have said, please read a worthy translation and commentary of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. It is hands down, unarguably our authority on Hatha Yoga. I would highly suggest the one by Michael Beloved titled – Kundalini Hatha Yoga Pradipika, as the translation is accurate and the commentaries are deeply insightful. He also doesn’t skip any of the verses – all the other translators unfortunately do.
All Hatha Yoga teachers should be using the Hatha Yoga Pradipika as their main standard for practice. They should be reading to their students from it. I realize that for a long time there was not a translation/commentary present in the world that made much sense, but there is now and it’s easy to find online.
And….if we want to more about yoga than Shri Swatmarama reveals in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, then we study Patanajali’s Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.