kundalini awakening & substances

[Guest guest]

Dear Gill, Swaminarayan !

 

Drugs can indeed trigger kundalini and make it rise through the psychic

channels, giving you an expanded experience of yourself. Many, many people

have had this happen to themselves in the past decades.

 

My initial kundalini awakening also came about after smoking cannabis.

However not all psychedelic experiences will automatically release shakti,

but when it IS triggered and actually travels up through the spine, the

sensations involved aren't easily overlooked. So, I'd say that if one feels

the energy move, electric, orgasmic sensations crawling up the backbone,

electrical tingling within the brain, visions of light in the spine etc, then

it is a true awakening. The kundalini can go back to sleep for a while

afterwards and one might have to deal with possibly unpleasant or even

disastrous side-effects of the drug, but it's still just as real - or

unreal - as anything else in these worlds we live in. Other experiences are

equally real but then don't involve the active shakti.

 

Believing mystical experience and kundalini-release will only come about

after rigorous discipline within the framework of traditional teachings, is a

limiting view and doesn't correspond to the way these things actually seem to

happen - although having discipline and knowledge of the traditions can save

one from a lot of hassles and definitely seem to be necessary at some point

along the way.

 

So many things come into play, what about the past-life factor ? If you spent

a whole incarnation doing asanas and pranayama and then decided you needed a

break and became a wine-drinking and meat-eating gourmet, smoking

hashish-cigars in this lifetime, you could possibly be closer to a kundalini

awakening than someone who's spent only 20 years in an ashram in the here &

now.

 

If heart and feelings are pure and one is in tune with oneself and the world,

I think there's a bigger chance of having a mystical experience than if one's

a grumpy, self- and narrow-minded so-called yogi. (been there, done that )

 

And what about grace ?

 

Probably no one knows these things, in the end everything mysteriously seems

to happen within God according to plan - so, in that respect, everything is

always alright. If everything is always God or Self experiencing itself,

there are no true or false experiences - just whatever is.

 

As far as I can tell, there's a big difference in the way the various drugs

and alcohol act upon the body-mind system and this probably has a lot to do

with the predominant tendency within the substance itself.

 

Psilocybin mushrooms and cannabis for instance seem to contain a fair amount

of sattva (spiritual purity - although cannabis at least has a lot of tamas

in it as well). So, for a sattvic consciousness, these substances, in the

proper circumstances, seem to enable the unlocking of the inner gateway to

the greater self.

 

Alcohol on the other hand seems to increase rajoguna (activity, agression)

and then quickly turns tamasic and makes one drowsy and less conscious.

 

So, I'd say, having a kundalini experience while downing cocktails could only

happen to those of an extremely sattvic or pure disposition, who are able to

convert the darkness and restricting quality of their vodka & lemon into

light - and most probably people like that wouldn't be seen drinking

cocktails in the first place )

 

Take care,

 

Michael