Digest Number 1355

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16. Vndism Redux & the Kundalini Experience

EBlackstead

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Kundalini and Non-Dualism: Kundalini is another word for Self

 

Hrdayam actually means, "This is That which sucks in everything".

 

When we fall asleep, the body fills with light, the energy withdraws into

the ida and pingala and from there withdraws into the base of the sushumna

where it rises to the crown with the experience of "Wha" as the crown opens,

then continued down to the pacemaker of the heart (Hrdayam). Yogis call

this "nerve vacuum." Anyone that is practicing long hours of pranayama and

fasting will experience this. Many visions of sun, moon and so forth are

seen as the energy withdraws back to the Hrdayam. Coming to the Hrdayam,

the inside and outside of the body vanish altogether like taking a cup of

water and dipping it into the sea. During this period the body rejuvenates.

 

We are unaware of this due to the stressed focus of the feeling of "I"

through attention to objects appearing in consciousness that are mistakenly

taken for "I" - an identity.

 

When the Hrdayam opens, a Singularity, like a Black Hole, is established

that pulses "I, I, I, I..." in the atma nadi (which Ramana calls "atma

sphurana"), between the Hrdayam and Sahasrara, radiating incandescently.

 

"Thy eye (the seer) is the light of the body. When thine eye (seer the

subject "I") is single (abided in exclusively), thy whole body will be

filled with light." Christ - Luke 11:34

 

In this filling with light, the Kundalini (evolutionary force) leaves the

Kundal, located between the navel and 4th vertebra (which regulates the flow

of prana throughout the body), and travels down to the base of the spine,

and from there up the silver cord (sushumna/spinal cord) to the brain. At

the same time the hypothalamus, along the gold cord between the pituitary

and pineal glands opens, which allows the influx of (involutionaly force)

through the 10th gate. With the opening of the Hrdayam (the Dissolutionary

force - located in the heart organ 2 digits to the right of sternum), the

sense of "I" is withdrawn from the sensations of the body and images,

impressions and thoughts of the mind, and attention to the activities of the

mind is relinquished altogether, like a needle being lifted from a record.

At that time, what happens naturally during sleep now occurs while wide

awake, which causes the Kundalini to awaken. This awakening means that what

we call the subconscious emerges into consciousness and what we call

unconscious emerges into undifferentiated all-pervasive consciousness. The

eve tat dissolves into Light as the entire body becomes electromagnetically

polarized and pulses with Light from the Hrdayam through the atma nadi and

crown.

 

Kundalini is nothing more than single awareness, and all these centers and

force fields are nothing more than a mechanism through which this experience

manifests. The Self always abides as the Self. An illusion of identity of

the "I" to thoughts, images and sensations - Maya - permeates the mind so

that the Truth isn't heard. With any amount of yoga to still the mind

coupled with the reading or hearing of the Truth as noted by the lives and

words of the great sages, the True Hearer hears and recollects Itself, and

at once begins to dissolve the illusion of identity of the "I" to the images

appearing within the field of conscious attention .

 

Reading through "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi" and other recordings, one

will see that there were many instances when people came to him for

instruction regarding the Shabad Yoga (sound current), which he said was a

path approved and taught by Rama, who Himself was taught the Path of Sudden

Enlightenment by his Guru - Ashthavagara Ramana also instructed in the

practice of Kundalini Yoga, where in one case an old Sikh came to him for

instruction.

 

Naturally, the emphasis was on Self enquiry as a critical and often

forgotten component of Yoga, as even Patenjali's aphorisms clearly state

that "The purpose of yoga is to isolate the seer," with a whole section

devoted to "isolation"and, as Ramana, also the suggestion as a place of

meditation being the self-effulgent light in the Heart. - that being the

Hrdayam, which is the only place where Light is self-effulgent, all other

centers, the body and the universe being only a reflection of that Light.

 

Ramana suggested that every means should be taken to realize and experience

this Truth, to isolate the seer.

 

Just as devotion to God will cause the crown chakras to open and draw up the

Kundalini as energy and light flood the body from above, which Ramakrishna

experienced continuously; so too enquiry into the sense of "I" causes a

dissolution and outshining of the entire mechanism.

 

The Kundalini rising from the Kundal is the result of a demand by the nerves

for the nourishment of the sexual fluid flowing to nerves, which are

carrying greater and greater amounts of energy/awareness. Without the

sexual fluid flowing initially into the bloodstream and eventually under the

increasing electric pressure through the central canal to the pineal gland,

the nerves of the body and brain cannot carry the greater voltage and may

become damaged. This is why in the practice of Kundalini Yoga, there is a

systematic practice oriented towards the development, charging and opening

of all the centers.

 

As the Kundalini is the bio-electric mechanism for the expanding of this

awareness, it is natural that with devotion it will awaken and rise to the

crown and with enquiry, it will awaken and rise to the crown and drop to the

Hrdayam while simultaneously opening all the centers.

 

Once the Hrdayam begins to open, there is little or no interest in what the

mechanism is doing, as the Consciousness abides in Itself. It is like being

the cup that has been dipped into the sea, but does not come out, so that

the experience of the Atman is that of being Brahman. One abides as

pervasiveness, and with the slightest hearing of the words of Christ, the

Buddhas, any of the Gitas and Sikh Gurus, there is a powerful inward pulling

and abiding as the Singularity of the Self.

 

"Emptiness here, emptiness there, no difference, for definitions have

vanished and no boundaries are seen..." Third Zen Patriarch Faith Mind

 

If one puts attention back to the body, the body is seen to have a flame

rising through the spine and through the top of the head and the atma nadi

to be radiating as a Singularity in which no thoughts can enter and survive,

while the body and minds images seem to fade similar to turning up the

brightness of the light behind a film of a movie projector.

 

The experience is very much like the medieval story about the stars in the

night sky, where people were told that the sky is the covering of a shroud,

behind which is the Glory and Light of God, and that the stars are pinpricks

in that shroud. The analogy is very similar to the experience of the

piercing of the Hrday Granthi, where the pulsing of the atma sphurana in the

atma nadi feels like piercing through the shroud and abiding as pervasive

Being and Light, as the substratum of Being and Light that lights

everything.

 

It seems that over time, with the periodic wars and various cataclysms and

social collapses, Kundalini Yoga, which encompassed all the Yogas and

included all their practices, became fragmented into component parts, which

those that had access protected and taught to an exclusive number of worthy

disciples, often as a basis for securing power.

 

Ultimately, whatever practice one may have, Bhakti (longing for God) is what

brings the Kundalini to the crown and Jnana (abiding in His Name) brings it

to the Heart/Hrdayam, and all this happens automatically.

 

Kundalini is another word for Self.

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