Jill/kundalini

April 19, 2001

Hi Jill,

(Thought I'd split up a long answer.)

>The best book I have found for understanding the dynamics of how k energy

>can sometimes wreak havoc on the physical body is David Frawley's book,

>Yoga and Ayurveda. I have heard Linda Callanan recommend this book on

>this list as well, for similar reasons.

>

>Perhaps Dharma could shed some light on this issue as well.

I began teaching meditation (Raja Yoga with a Tibetan accent in 1970,

the first time with a friend. We knew we were working with Kundalini, but

we didn't have physically active Kundalini... actually, didn't know HOW

active it could be! ) We were teaching in such a way as to NOT awaken the

students' Kundalini... at that time we were more aware of its problems than

of its benefits.

At that time I was married to a man with great gifts who, as far as we

know, didn't have active K. either. One evening in the early '70s we were

told by his spiritual guru that he was in danger of a heart attack and that

he had to have a period of rest and recuperation. I asked what I could do

and was told that he had been giving me energy for years and that he could

no longer continue it, that I would have to handle it myself. I asked how

to do that, and he said it would just happen.

By the next day I was shaking, and it didn't stop for three or four months.

At first I thought it was caffeine, and I cut out the coffee, but I kept

right on shaking. I began to radiate heat from the entire spine, and it

got so bad I couldn't sleep under the covers... we couldn't stand the

heat! Even on a cold night, I slept on my side with the covers over my

front and side, and the spine exposed to the air.

Then the burns... I was wearing a pair of sandals given to me by a friend

from India... they had large elaborate triangles covering the top of the

foot, and they were heavy leather. Before I realized what was happening, I

had bad burns on the tops of both feet exactly under the leather.

Apparently the radiation, maybe just the heat, from the chakras in the

middle of the feet had been blocked by the heavy leather. I lost the skin

on both feet and had to go around barefoot with just a false skin of egg

yolk covering the burns.

Eventually the burns were healed. I realized the shaking was simply

because I was somehow operating with a new energy or on a new energy level,

and I thought that if I could just tolerate it for a while, I would get so

used to it that it wouldn't seem like shaking any more. And that's exactly

what happened. The energy never went away, but I got used to it and didn't

notice anything. Life was back to normal.

No more K. symptoms - unless you count the CFS/ME - until my spiritual guru

awakened my Kundalini during meditation in September of 1997. At first I

thought I was getting a massage from some little devas or something... but

it got more violent... and then things began to happen that I recognized

vaguely as pranayama. When that wonderful energy began moving up from the

base of the spine, I knew what it was!

By that time I wasn't afraid of it, I followed my guru's instructions and

guidance completely and always, and I was able to give as much time to the

Kundalini work as he wanted. I have had no real problems with it... it's

now fully established and useful, though I always continue to work with it,

and I'm now teaching K. work along with meditation.

Lee Sanella, M.D., believes that the problems are mainly due to blockage of

the energy, and he gives case histories and personal accounts by patients

in his book, _Kundalini Experience_. This is the first book I always

recommend to people. He also includes in an appendix the seminal article

on Kundalini research by Itzhak Bentov. (I have the Bentov article scanned

along with all illustrations, and I can send it to anyone who wants it.)

I also found much help in Swami Muktananda's autobiographical book, _Play

of Consciousness_. His own guru awakened his Kundalini and told him very

little about what would happen. The young man had some painful and

terrifying experiences before he finally gained some knowledge of the

process. So he wrote about his own experiences for the benefit of others.

Gopi Krishna's books are very interesting, but I wouldn't recommend them as

a first read... scary stuff. )

The best advice I have for anyone on the subject is that you need an

experienced teacher to work with active Kundalini. And your own internal

guide, your own spiritual guru, is the very best teacher you can have. If

my students are not already in contact with their own guidance, their own

gurus, when they come to me, that's the first thing I want... to establish

that contact. I'm teaching over the net, but the spiritual guru is always

with them. And knows them better than anyone else possibly could.

Love,

Dharma

April 19, 2001

Thanks, Dharma, for all the posts and reposts on CFS and kundalini. There is a

lot of good information here. By the way, I also lost my fingerprints in the

early stages of CFS. But they came back after several years. So I have to be

careful with my criminal acitivities.

Jill

>>> deva 04/19/01 03:23PM >>>