Kundalini yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual discipline for developing strength, awareness, character, and
consciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. Practitioners call Kundalini yoga
the yoga of awareness because it focuses primarily on practices that expand sensory awareness and intuition in order to raise individual consciousness and merge it with the Infinite consciousness of God. Considered an advanced form of
yogaYoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
and
meditationMeditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, its purpose is to cultivate the creative spiritual potential of a human to uphold values, speak truth, and focus on the compassion and consciousness needed to serve and heal others.
Definitions
Several definitions of
Kundalini yoga have been used in Eastern and modern Western teachings. According to various prominent teachers and authors, Kundalini Yoga has been described as:
A contrast of active and passive approaches designed to awaken the kundaliniKundalini literally means coiled. In yoga, a "corporeal energy" - an unconscious, instinctive or libidinal force or Shakti, lies coiled at the base of the spine. It is envisioned either as a goddess or else as a sleeping serpent, hence a number of English renderings of the term such as 'serpent...
.
Kundalini Yoga consists of active and passive asanaAsana is a body position, typically associated with the practice of Yoga, originally identified as a mastery of sitting still, with the spine as a conduit of biodynamic union...
-based kriyas, pranayamaPranayama is a Sanskrit word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or...
, and meditationsMeditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy....
which target the whole body system (nervous systemThe nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
, glands, mental faculties, chakras) to develop awareness, consciousness and spiritual strength.
Kundalini Yoga, at its highest form, is practiced for the purpose of attaining bliss, opening the heart center, developing power, serving others, attaining self-realization and ultimately merging into God consciousness.
History
Until modern times, Kundalini Yoga was on the whole a secretive and misunderstood technology – it was not widely taught by any master teachers outside of India until Yogi Bhajan brought his understanding of the teachings to the United States in 1969.
Perhaps the earliest known written mention of Kundalini Yoga is in the Yoga-Kundalini
UpanishadThe Upanishads are philosophical texts considered to be an early source of Hindu religion. More than 200 are known, of which the first dozen or so, the oldest and most important, are variously referred to as the principal, main or old Upanishads...
, which is the eighty-sixth among the 108
MuktikaThe Muktikā refers to the canon of 108 upaniṣadas of the Advaita school enumerated in the Muktikopaniṣad, the 108th of which is the Muktikopaniṣad itself...
Upanishads, associated with the Krishna Yajurveda, originating from India. The origin of this particular writing is difficult to substantiate because scholars disagree about the exact dates of the composition of the Upanishads, but agree that all Upanishads have been passed down through
oral traditionOral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
. Some have estimated that the composition of the
YajurvedaThe Yajurveda, a tatpurusha compound of "sacrificial formula', + ) is the third of the four canonical texts of Hinduism, the Vedas. By some, it is estimated to have been composed between 1400 and 1000 BC, the Yajurveda 'Samhita', or 'compilation', contains the liturgy needed to perform the...
texts date as far back as between 1,400 and 1,000 BC.
In the late 1800s into the early 1900s author
John WoodroffeSir John George Woodroffe , also known by his pseudonym Arthur Avalon, was a British Orientalist whose work helped to unleash in the West a deep and wide interest in Hindu philosophy and Yogic practices.- Life :...
, an Oxford graduate, translated some twenty original Sanskrit texts under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon. His most popular and influential book titled
The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga, became a major contribution of the time to the appreciation of Indian philosophy and spirituality and the source of many early Western occult appropriations of
tantraTantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
and kundalini practice.
In 1969 Kundalini Yoga was brought into awareness of Western and American spiritual culture by yogic master Yogi Bhajan, a renown spiritual teacher from India. He re-incarnated the previously
restricted yoga form and introduced it to the West as comprehensive spiritual system for personal growth. The yoga form was initially set about to teach Kundalini Yoga as an alternative and transformational technology for self-development, and to counter the drug abuse of the 60's. Throughout 35 years teaching until his death in 2004, Yogi Bhajan built up a legacy of information and teachings around the yogic lifestyle practice of Kundalini yoga, including the publications of over 100 related books on the applications of the yogic technology in the fields of
spiritualitySpirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
– covering yoga, meditation, body-work,
drug rehabilitationDrug rehabilitation is a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines...
, women's and men's yoga, psychology, healing, re-birthing, teaching, business, relationships, and marriage. He also succeeded in training a network of teachers who continue to share and disseminate this form of Kundalini Yoga all over the world.
In 1935 Sri Swami Sivananda penned a detailed, but esoteric depiction of some historically classic Kundalini Yoga practices in a treatise called
Kundalini Yoga.
All yoga forms are believed to be designed to raise kundalini energy, and have their origins in the pillars and Yoga Sutra of
PatanjaliPatañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...
– a foundational yoga scripture believed to have been compiled around the 2nd century BCE. Based on this foundation, most yoga forms and meditation derive their structure and discipline from the ashtanga 8-limbed approach, which provide guidelines for the austerities of practice.
Methodology
According to yogic philosophy,
kundalini is a spiritual energy or life force located at the base of the spine. It is conceptualized as a coiled up serpent. Literally,
kundalini or
kundala is
that which is coiled (Sanskrit kund,
to burn; kunda,
to coil or to spiral). It is believed that Kundalini yoga is that which arouses the sleeping Kundalini Shakti from its coiled base through the 6 chakras, and penetrate the 7th chakra, or crown. This energy is said to travel along the ida (left), pingala (right) and central, or sushumna
nadi' are the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the subtle body are said to flow. They connect at special points of intensity called chakras...
- the main channels of pranic energy in the body. This process can be seen depicted even today in modern medical iconography as two snakes spiraling a central staff, and although the origin of this image is more directly derived from the
CaduceusThe caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings...
of the Greek god
HermesHermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
, it may express the same or a similar principle.
Kundalini energy is technically understood as being sparked during yogic breathing when
pranaPrana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" .It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation, viz. prana "breath", vac "speech", chakshus "sight", shrotra "hearing", and manas "thought" Prana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" (from the root "to fill", cognate to Latin plenus...
and apana blends at the 3rd chakra (naval center) at which point it initially drops down to the 1st and 2nd chakras before traveling up to the spine to the higher centers of the brain to activate the
golden cord - the connection between the pituitary and pineal glands - and penetrate the 7 chakras. Yogi Bhajan has also described the
aura-Science and medicine:*Aura , a symptom experienced before a migraine or seizure*Aura , a satellite in the NASA Earth Observing System series*1488 Aura, a main-belt asteroid*Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy...
as a supporting
8th chakra which he claimed is essential for integrating and containing the energy and effects of the Kundalini energy through the 7 chakras and allowing this energy to safely manifest in the body.
Borrowing and integrating the highest forms from many different approaches, Kundalini Yoga can be understood as a tri-fold approach of
Bhakti yogaBhakti yoga is one of the types of yoga mentioned in Hindu philosophies which denotes the spiritual practice of fostering loving devotion to a personal form of God....
for devotion,
Shakti yogaShakti from Sanskrit shak - "to be able," meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the concept, or personification, of divine feminine creative power, sometimes...
for power, and
Raja yogaRāja Yoga is concerned principally with the cultivation of the mind using meditation to further one's acquaintance with reality and finally achieve liberation.Raja yoga was first described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and is part of the Samkhya tradition.In the context of Hindu...
for mental power and control. Its purpose through the daily practice of kriyas and meditation in
sadhanaSādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
are described a practical technology of human consciousness for humans to achieve their total creative potential.
According to one school of thought, there being four main forms of yoga, Mantra yoga, Hatha yoga,
Laya yogaLaya yoga , also called Kundalini Yoga, is the practice whereby the Kundalini energy is raised, and which is attainable through deep meditation . Laya Yoga helps the aspirant to attain union with the supreme consciousness...
and
Raja yogaRāja Yoga is concerned principally with the cultivation of the mind using meditation to further one's acquaintance with reality and finally achieve liberation.Raja yoga was first described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and is part of the Samkhya tradition.In the context of Hindu...
; Kundalini yoga is really considered a Laya yoga. Yogi Bhajan refers to Kundalini yoga as a Laya form of yoga and taught many Laya form practices in his compilation of Kundalini yoga.
Mainstream traditions propose that kundalini energy can be awakened and enlightenment attained by practicing a combination of yogic techniques—ideally following the guidance of a certified teacher—including the use of
mantraA mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
,
pranaPrana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" .It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation, viz. prana "breath", vac "speech", chakshus "sight", shrotra "hearing", and manas "thought" Prana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" (from the root "to fill", cognate to Latin plenus...
and breathing techniques,
sadhanaSādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
,
asanaAsana is a body position, typically associated with the practice of Yoga, originally identified as a mastery of sitting still, with the spine as a conduit of biodynamic union...
practice,
meditationMeditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, or purely through devotion and prayer.
According to some Hindu traditions, Kundalini yoga is considered a highly developed spiritual awakening which relies upon a technique called
shaktipatShaktipat or Śaktipāta refers in Hinduism to the conferring of spiritual "energy" upon one person by another...
to attain enlightenment under the guidance of a
spiritual masterA guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
.
In the classical literature of Kashmir Saivism kundalini is described in three different manifestations. The first of these is as the universal energy or para-kundalini. The second of these is as the energizing function of the body-mind complex or prana-kundalini. The third of these is as consciousness or shakti-kundalini which simultaneously subsumes and intermediates between these two. Ultimately these three forms are the same but understanding these three different forms will help to understand the different manifestations of kundalini .
The path of Kundalini is said to proceed from the Muladhara Chakra at the lower end of the spinal column up to the Sahasara Chakra at the top of the head. But its awakening is not thought to be a physical occurrence; it consists exclusively of a development in consciousness. According to some claims, awakening of kundalini brings with it pure joy, pure knowledge and pure love.
The word 'Kundalini' can be traced to the Sanskrit word 'kundala', which means 'coiled'. Kundalini can therefore be used by believers to refer to the latent energy within the human body which is constantly trying to manifest as our insight, power and bliss.
According to one author, the word kundalini literally means "the curl of the lock of hair of the beloved.". It is a
metaphorA metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
, a poetic way of describing the flow of energy and
consciousnessHigher consciousness, also called super consciousness , objective consciousness , Buddhic consciousness , cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness and Christ consciousness , are expressions used in various spiritual traditions to denote the consciousness of a human being who has reached a...
which already is said to exist within each person.
The practices are said to enable the person to merge with or "yoke" the universal self. This merging of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness is said to create a "divine union" called "yoga".
In practice
The practice of kriyas and meditations in Kundalini yoga are designed to raise complete body awareness to prepare the body,
nervous systemThe nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
, and mind to handle the energy of Kundalini rising. The majority of the physical postures focus on naval activity, activity of the spine, and selective pressurization of body points and meridians. Breath work and the application of bhandas (3 yogic locks) aid to release, direct and control the flow of Kundalini energy from the lower centers to the higher energetic centers.
Along with the many kriyas, meditations and practices of Kundalini Yoga, a simple breathing technique of alternate nostril breathing (left nostril, right nostril) is taught as a method to cleanse the
nadis, or subtle channels and pathways, to help awaken Kundalini energy.
In the Upanishads, it is mentioned that the control of the three bhandas, along with the control of held and expired breaths, are the keys to releasing and harnessing Kundalini energy.
Several schools teach methods of visualizing and meditating on the chakras to balance and maintain the pathways for Kundalini energy to flow.
Development
According to some traditions Kundalini techniques are only communicated from master to disciple once the disciple is deemed ready. In these cases, yogic masters believe that in ascetic settings ignorance or refusal to follow instructions of a master can lead to harmful effects. However, in a few instances teachers from India encouraged students to update and spread the teachings to the West, thereby putting doubt to this claim.
Sovatsky, a scholar of Yoga associated with
transpersonal psychologyTranspersonal psychology is a form of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....
, adapts a developmental and evolutionary perspective in his interpretation of Kundalini Yoga. That is, he interprets Kundalini Yoga as a catalyst for psycho-spiritual growth and bodily maturation. According to this interpretation of yoga,
the body bows itself into greater maturation [...], none of which should be considered mere stretching exercises.
Observations
The system of exercises and meditations of Kundalini Yoga are demonstrated in some medical applications and trials to provide extensive benefits for improving mental and physical well-being. Some studies have shown that the physical and physiological benefits cover a wide spectrum of ailments, including healing treatments for memory problems, asthma, diabetes, pain, stress-related diseases, rehabilitating addictive behavior, and treating mental disorders.
All intensive spiritual practices associated with Asian traditions require attentive practice. Psychiatric literature notes that "Since the influx of eastern spiritual practices and the rising popularity of meditation starting in 1960s, many people have experienced a variety of psychological difficulties, either while engaged in intensive spiritual practice or spontaneously". Some of the psychological difficulties associated with intensive spiritual practice are claimed to be "kundalini awakening", "a complex physio-psychospiritual transformative process described in the yogic tradition". Also, writers in the fields of
Transpersonal psychologyTranspersonal psychology is a form of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....
and
Near-death studiesNear-death studies is a school of psychology and psychiatry that studies the phenomenology and after-effects of a Near-death experience .-NDE :...
describe a complex pattern of sensory, motor, mental and affective symptoms associated within the concept of kundalini, known as
kundalini syndromeThe Kundalini Syndrome is a set of sensory, motor, mental and affective symptoms reported predominantly among people who have had a near-death experience; it has also been attributed to practitioners of meditation or yoga.Researchers in the fields of psychiatry, transpersonal psychology, and...
. Believers say that the negative experiences might occur only when acting without appropriate guidance or ignoring advice, as this is a system designed for personal spiritual growth.
Medical research
- Preliminary research on the effects of Kundalini Yoga meditation known as Kirtan Kriya on retrieving memory and cognitive functions have been encouraging. Limitations of this research can be addressed in future studies with more detailed analyses.
- Venkatesh et al. studied twelve kundalini (chakra
Chakra is a concept originating in Hindu texts, featured in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "turning" .Chakra is a concept referring to wheel-like vortices...
) meditators, using the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory. They found that the practice of meditation "appears to produce structural as well as intensity changes in phenomenological experiences of consciousness".
- Manocha et al. used temperature readings to verify that coolness experienced on the palms of the hands resulted from the Sahaja Yoga
Sahaja Yoga is a new religious movement founded by Nirmala Srivastava, more widely known as 'Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi' and affectionately as 'Mother' by her followers . According to the movement, Sahaja Yoga is the state of self realization produced by kundalini awakening and is accompanied by the...
technique of kundalini meditation.
- Lazar et. al observed the brains of subjects performing, "a simple form of Kundalini meditation in which they passively observedtheir breathing and silently repeated the phrase 'sat nam' during inhalations and 'wahe guru' during exhalations," and found that multiple regions of brain were involved especially those involved in relaxation and maintaining attention.
External links