Bardic Kundalini

Giving voice to stories of the inner experience

  • This is my book, A Shamanic Kundalini Awakening. It details the first intense years of my spiritual journey. If you are going through these mysterious, confusing and sometimes scary processes, this book is for you, you are not alone!

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    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019Y04G74

     

     

  • Kundalini Awakening

     

       I feel certain that through being stripped of physical comfort and financial security whilst at the same time being in a wild natural environment, that perfect conditions were being created for my kundalini to awaken. I spent more and more time going into the forest to meditate. I soon began to feel energy bubbling strongly up my spine from the area of the sacrum. As soon as I sat down to meditate it would rise up to between my shoulder blades and stop. I began to get some back pain, which made meditation difficult but I was motivated to continue. I have to say that I found this interesting but not spiritual. It was interesting in that it further confirmed to me that the kundalini was actually real, but it was in no way a spiritual feeling, physically it felt quite neutral, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. I was very happy to be having this experience but honestly did not expect anything more, that would be the preserve of the great saints and sages, a category which I didn’t and still don’t fall into! After a couple of weeks of this I had a trinity of dreams, Isis, a goddess in blue and an anaconda fighting a jaguar. This last dream was particularly important. I knew that snake dreams often accompanied kundalini awakening and initially I simply regarded the anaconda as kundalini, which of course at one level it was. I didn’t understand the jaguar at all. It wasn’t until years later when I went to South America, to drink the shamanic entheogen ayahuasca, that I discovered the Peruvian trinity of Serpent (kundalini), Feline (you in this reality), and Condor (higher consciousness). Then, I understood the jaguar as my ego-self, fighting the kundalini about to rise. This was not only a dream of kundalini awakening, it was at the same time a shamanic initiation. The anaconda and the jaguar are both avatars of ayahuasca, which is in fact a kundalini plant. From the very first, the shamanic animal and plant spirits were calling me. 

       The next morning after these three dreams I sat down to meditate and as usual, energy bubbled up my spine to between my shoulder blades but then something happened, the energy changed completely in character. It was no longer thick and bubbly, it became very sharp and focused and whipped suddenly in a snake-like motion up my left shoulder blade, up the back of my neck and into my brainstem. The feeling of the energy is very difficult to describe. The words electric, sensual, fiery, all come to mind but fail to convey, even a combination of all of them does not come close. It felt like my brainstem had been injected with some strange living liquid intent on entering my brain. I have to say I got a bit scared at this point, in fact my heart was beating like mad as I had read many of the scare stories of people going mad or being hospitalised or incapacitated as a result of kundalini awakening. Now the thing is, I wasn’t actually really afraid of any of these phenomena, it was just that it would be very inconvenient. I was just about to go on tour and so a lot of people were depending on me. In retrospect what seems really crazy is that the great goddess of creation was rising up within me, giving that most rare and exquisite of blessings and that my western mind was saying, actually Goddess, this is really not a good time, things to do, people to see, maybe catch you later, you know how it is! Anyway, I prayed for it to go back down and eventually it receded. After some time I gathered myself together and attempted to go about my day, but all day I could feel kundalini still subtly residing at my brainstem.

       That evening I was compelled to sit down again in meditation. This time I had absolutely no control whatsoever. The kundalini whipped straight into my brainstem and up into my brain, which is undoubtedly the most strange and shocking sensation I have ever experienced. From this point on I could see the kundalini inside me as a point of light, like a mini comet. I became aware at this stage also that it was intelligent and had an agenda. I sensed strongly it was searching for something, that ‘something’ being the crown chakra where Her consort was waiting. This mini comet proceeded to spiral round and round my brain finding the pineal and pituitary glands, the glands physically associated with the third eye and crown chakras. Energy began spiralling over my forehead and then on the top of my head. Round and round it spiralled, inwards, inwards, until it reached the fontanel. At this point the kundalini exited the fontanel (I could feel this distinctly), and headed for the crown chakra, which is actually located above the head. When the awakened goddess within me reached the crown she unified with her god, the great still consciousness of the Universe. As the union occurred, the energy of unification fountained down upon me as light. At this point a round patch of heat about the size of a coin formed at my fontanel. This became very hot indeed, not painful, but far hotter than any part of the human body is supposed to get. This patch of heat then expanded outwards and downwards to cover my whole head like a helmet, then from there, big drops of light energy poured down my body, and it was over. I think I was perhaps in a state of shock and really not sure about what had happened. I understood that something truly extraordinary had occurred but as far as I could tell I was neither insane nor enlightened, did this mean it wasn’t kundalini awakening? I was later to realise that kundalini awakening is not the end but really just the start. I went outside, sat on the steps and thought about how they certainly don’t teach you about this in school!

       Life went on but the kundalini energy remained with me, it was particularly noticeable in the forehead/third eye region. I continued with various yoga exercises and meditations, as I didn’t want it to go away. I didn’t realise that this was to be a permanent condition. I didn’t understand that the unified energies of Shakti and Shiva were now beginning the long process of transforming every aspect of my being, a process that continues to this day.

       Over the ensuing months I began occasionally to experience some rather odd internal phenomena. The first was explosions of light in my head. It was like someone was letting off a firecracker in the centre of my brain. This would occur when I was relaxed and lying down but not asleep. It wasn’t at all painful and actually rather fun. Another phenomenon was hearing my name called, out of nowhere a clear female voice would softly say, Brendan. One day, I was lying on my bed and right from the centre of my head an owl hooted very loudly. Somehow I knew that this was going to happen again and it did, straight away. I told an Indian friend about this and he got quite excited. He informed me that that night, there had been a special moon, sacred to the Goddess Lakshmi. On this night it is said that whoever Lakshmi visits will receive financial blessings, he said our money problems would soon be over. Indeed, the next day our house was sold. Lakshmi is nearly always depicted with an owl.

       Around this time I also had occasional out of body experiences. I’m no expert in astral projection, it is not something I have pursued but it still happens occasionally, usually to give me some kind of teaching or information. The first time it happened was actually before kundalini came. I was lying in bed and I literally fell out of my body and began floating up to the ceiling. I remember seeing Michèle below me, and calling out to her but of course I couldn’t make any noise. I continued to float up through the ceiling and got stuck in the attic before being drawn back down into my body. Another time I woke and I could see a moon some distance from me, as I focused on this, very loud machine type noises began, like cogs grinding against each other. I knew I was about to leave my body and when I did I decided to fly. I flew high over our village before getting confused and being pulled back into my body once again. These experiences were quite fun but one OBE was more serious. I was pulled out of my body and taken high into the sky. There, I encountered a sort of matrix/web of blue light. I could press against it and it would move but I couldn’t pass through it and I was brought back down. When I came back I entered a sort of dream state, I could see a being made of orange light sitting at the foot of the bed, I sensed strongly that it was a tiger. On the chair next to my bed I could see a huge beetle like a stag beetle or a scarab. The meaning of the scarab in ancient Egypt was, he who is to become.

       As well as these phenomena, my dream life took on a whole new character and became almost more real to me at times than waking life. Early kundalini dreams were very intense.

    There is a shimmering mist; Michèle and I are naked, floating over a moonlit pond. Rising out of the pond is a huge spine, it is risen up like a snake. I am scared of it. It bends down, penetrates my root chakra and we are lost in ecstasy.

       Another time I looked out of a window onto a misty lawn. I could see a group of naked dancers forming the shape of a chakra. A woman came forward from the rest and a voice said, this is the Goddess of the Moon. She looked straight at me.

  • You Are Light

     

    Rainbow – a display of the colours of the spectrum produced by dispersion of light.

    Currently, I am studying to qualify as a cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapist. Hypnotherapy can trace it’s roots all the way back to shamanism, through to yoga and the sleep-temples of ancient Greece. Recently, I decided to hypnotically regress myself as far back as I could go, I wasn’t looking for a past-life regression, more a ‘just before this life’ one.  I wanted to know what I was, immediately before I was conceived.  I took myself back through adult life to childhood, back to my earliest memories and then, via my imagination into my mother’s womb.  I reversed the growth of my fetal body until I could go no further with my imagination, the information I was looking for was just beyond this point.

    Suddenly, a spontaneous vision manifested, it was a special type of vision, an empty form.  Empty form visions can arise from deep non-thought meditation and kundalini awakening but they are most closely associated with the Highest Yoga Tantras of Tibetan Buddhism. They are called empty because they are completely devoid of molecular particles, although they look absolutely real, they are beyond physical materiality.  An empty form vision is to be paid attention to and understood, because it is a direct emanation of pure consciousness without contamination.

    The vision was of a beautiful rainbow, arcing in front of me with the full spectrum of colours.  I was startled out of hypnosis by it’s clarity and vividness and all at once, information from previous spiritual experiences that I hadn’t fully grasped seem to coalesce in my mind giving me the answer not only to what I was, but also to what I am and to what you are, also.

    So, for your information…(smiley face, this is fun!)

    You are Light,

    diffused by a crystalline mind into rainbow-like illusion,

    entranced by the reflections of Itself,

    in mirror-like consciousness.

    6
    An image from the Dalai Lamas Secret Temple. The walls are covered with murals depicting the secret spiritual practices and visions of the yogis. The illustration shows light reflecting off water and diffusing through a crystal held by a yogi. It represents the union of form and emptiness, how the One becomes the many.

     

    CosmicSerpentDesanaSketches-1
    From The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. A serpent swims through the center of the brain, towards the externally located crystalline mind.

     

  • Kundalini and Shamanism

       It is in India that the phenomena of kundalini awakening has been observed, preserved and most clearly elucidated. It is therefore not surprising that India should produce one of the most eloquent authors on the subject, Gopi Krishna. His simple definitions of kundalini remain the best,

    ‘Kundalini is the super-intelligent Energy behind consciousness.’ 1

     ‘…there are two aspects of the Power: First the individual aspect where She can be said to be lying dormant at the base of the spine, and second Her cosmic aspect, which is beyond our understanding.’ 2

      Looking first at this cosmic aspect, it is perhaps not too huge a leap, for even the most Cartesian mind, to consider that there may be a primal creative energetic force behind all the phenomena of the known universe, as yet unidentified by western science. The spiritual sciences of India long ago established the reality of this force and named it Shakti. Shakti is a Sanskrit word that can be translated as meaning power or energy. It is derived from the verb root ‘shak’, which means ‘to be able’, ‘to do’, ‘to act’.  It was also recognised that this force was feminine in nature, a creative mother energy. It is in this way that it presents itself to the aspirant, hence my dreams of Isis and the goddess in blue. In Hinduism, Shakti is personified as a goddess of the same name and the awakened kundalini in the individual becomes known as Shakti. It is considered that the primal goddess of creation is flowing in the person. This concept of a primal feminine creative power is expressed in the kundalini yoga, Adi Shakti mantra.

    Adi Shakti, Adi Shakti, Adi Shakti, Namo, Namo

    Sarab a Shakti, Sarab a Shakti, Sarab a Shakti, Namo, Namo

    Prithum Bhagvatee, Prithum Bhagvatee, Prithum Bhagvatee, Namo Namo

    Kundalini Mata Shakti, Mata Shakti, Namo, Namo

    (Primal She-Power, Salutations to Thee!

    All-Encompassing She-Power, Salutations to Thee!

    That through which Divine Creates, Salutations to Thee!

    Creative Power of the Kundalini, Mother of all Mother Power, Salutations!)

         This is the cosmic aspect of kundalini, which as Gopi Krishna says, is beyond our understanding. This cosmic feminine energetic force resides at the base of every human spine as latent spiritual potential, curled three and a half times like a spring or a serpent ready to strike. On the biological level Gopi Krishna has this to say of kundalini awakening,

    ‘…energy goes from the body to the brain like a radiant stream of light…The enlightened person has these two characteristics: a new area in the brain springs to activity, and a new form of energy rises through the spinal cord into the brain.’3

    Kundalini moves through the spiritual nervous system which overlays and sometimes coincides with our biological nervous system. The spiritual nervous system consists of the chakras (energy wheels) and nadis (energy channels or rivers). Of the nadis the most important is the sushumna, which means ‘auspicious’. The sushumna is the principle spiritual nerve in the body and runs along the spinal column from the root chakra (mooladhara), located at the perineum, to the third eye (ajna chakra), in the centre of the forehead just above the eyes. In fact, from there, it extends out and upwards into the cosmos. This is what the ancient Egyptians were depicting with the cobra coming out of the pharaoh’s forehead. Either side of sushumna are the two other principle nadis, ida and pingala. Ida is the moon channel and pingala is the sun channel. It is necessary for these two nadis to come into complimentary balance for the kundalini to rise up the sushumna.

       The mechanics of an awakening are as follows. The kundalini energy, at the base of the spine, moves up through the sushumna, through the chakras located on the spine, into the brainstem and then the brain. It then moves through certain nadis in the brain going through the pineal and pituitary glands until it is perceived as exiting the head at the area known as the fontanel. It is surely no coincidence that kundalini is felt rising in the area called the sacrum (sacred) and exits, ‘fountaining’ at the fontanel. It is clear to me that these names were given with full knowledge of the kundalini process. Upon exiting the fontanel a union of energy occurs, a little way above the head. This is a unification of female and male polarities, usually termed Shakti and Shiva. The energy then returns back down into the individual, continuing a process of transformation lasting years or lifetimes. What I have described here is an ideal version, in reality there are an infinite amount of variables and each person will have a slightly different experience. 

       There are many ways that kundalini is felt in the body, it is certainly both a biological and spiritual energy. On the biological level the sensation of it is as tangible as any other physical sensation one might have. It is obvious to the person within whom the energy is moving that it is working directly upon the physical body, that at one level an evolutionary upgrade is being received. The energetic sensations are felt initially most strongly at the base of the spine in the area known as the sacrum.  The energy can be discerned entering the sushumna from this point. It may be felt as a very fine sharp energy, or as heat or cold, or as large bubbles. It may move slowly or extremely fast. Basically there is no restriction on how it may manifest, the only prerequisite for defining kundalini is that there must be energy moving within the spinal column. This is not the only place it will be but it has to be there. It may feel like insects crawling on the skin, it may feel like being stung. The left side of the body and face may go numb as if being anesthetised at the dentist. It may be felt at all chakra points, pulsing at the root or wrapping like a snake around the throat. It may be felt in arms and hands, legs in feet. Even the genital area may become ecstatic. It may rise up the front of the body as well as the back. It may be felt deep within the stomach, in the teeth, the eyes and nose. It may be as specific as having an intensely blissful nose tip, or it may be everywhere at once. 

       For me, the physical presence of kundalini is always immediate, if I simply turn my attention inward. However it may come at any time during everyday activity. I may find myself having a conversation but at the same time have ecstatic energy moving in my crown chakra and third eye. Divine sounds may be heard; I have woken in the night to hear thousands of crickets around me, the sound of water rushing through me, or the crystalline tinkling of tiny bells. In the right ear one may perceive the sound of kundalini in the sushumna. As kundalini begins to awaken our spiritual heart we may see fireflies, fire and smoke within us, we may see the full moon and the rising of the internal sun.

      Other physical manifestations are known as kriyas. In yoga a kriya is a set of movements, which combine towards a certain end. Kundalini yoga uses kriyas to attempt the raising of kundalini. The fact however, is that yoga is the gift of kundalini and not the other way round. I have found that many of the sitting and breathing exercises found in kundalini yoga happen spontaneously to the kundalini-awakened person in meditation. Arching of the spine, bending forward, twisting from side to side, the tongue going back in the mouth, bouncing up and down, strange vocalisations. These movements were clearly observed in kundalini-awakened people and then incorporated into yoga in the hope that imitation would bring about the same results. 

       As the awakened kundalini moves through every cell in the body, more and more of the spiritual nervous system becomes enlivened. Traumas from this and past lives accrue in this spiritual nervous system as blockages and as the kundalini progresses, it clears these blockages and traumas. In this way kundalini clears what we might think of as certain aspects of karma. Although this spiritual nervous system remains largely undetected and ignored by western science it is very real to the awakened person. 

       Kundalini may bring spectacular visions and experiences in order to shake the person to the very core of their beliefs about the nature of existence. Although most phenomena are experienced internally, sometimes visions may be given, to be seen with open eyes, in ordinary reality. Visions of this nature are the exception rather than the rule and although we crave more, we only need to see the Divine in this form once, after this we must learn to see the Divine in everything. Because we are rooted in the concept that what we see with open eyes is the true reality, visions that manifest here serve to reaffirm the truth of our experience and from there we may move on to inner visions with less questioning of their validity. 

       After a time the manifestations and experience become more subtle, as more and more of what the person is not, is stripped away and more and more of the true self begins to shine through, expressing out into daily life and those around them. Indeed, those close to the awakened one may certainly be effected by the process as they are drawn into the karmic vortex that kundalini initiates. Kundalini puts a person onto a karmic fast track, seeking in one lifetime to burn through as much karma as possible. This means that whatever residual negative karma there is will come but on the plus side, all the positive karma will come too. It should be understood that the search for truth and the process of spiritual awakening is not a selfish pursuit. In fact that desire to know the Self is the most selfless pursuit we can undertake because changing our own consciousness may catalyse the process in others and this is really the only way we can effect positive change in the world. 

       The Katha Upanishad says, 

    ‘Those who see themselves in all and all in them help others through spiritual Osmosis to realise the Self in themselves.’                                                             

       Judee Sill is a largely forgotten singer/songwriter from the nineteen seventies. She was a musical genius with a deeply spiritual aspect to her work. She made some live recordings for the seminal British music programme, The Old Grey Whistle Test. Among them, her incredibly beautiful song, ‘The Kiss’. In her introduction she says, this song is about the union of opposites that we all have and the kiss is a symbol of that union. This is a perfect description of kundalini awakening and makes me think that perhaps she knew more than she was telling. Her lyrics describe beautifully the subtle sense of divine presence that tends to pervade the kundalini awakening process, holy breath, touching me like a wind song.

       The principle catalyst in kundalini awakening is the soul’s wish to return to Oneness. There are three main ways in which kundalini awakening may occur. It may come from self-initiation through intense spiritual desire (bhakti), it may be transmitted from guru to disciple (shaktipat) or it may be induced through spiritual austerities. Of the latter, yoga, for thousands of years has been the tried and tested method for safely raising the kundalini energy. Details of the various yogic methods for awakening kundalini can be found in the Kundalini Yoga Upanishad and the Hatha Yoga Pradapika. Yoga is the antidote to cumha, for me, yoga is the science of experiential remembrance of who we are. 

       The boundaries between yoga and shamanism are certainly quite blurred in places but ultimately their goals are different. Just as Gopi Krishna is the definitive voice on kundalini, the same came be said of Mercia Eliade on shamanism. Here he eloquently expresses the essential difference between the two.                                                     

    ‘But let us emphasise… the structural difference that distinguishes classic yoga from shamanism. Although the latter is not without certain techniques of concentration its final goal is always ecstasy and the souls ecstatic journey through the various cosmic regions, whereas yoga pursues enstsasis, final concentration of the spirit and ‘escape’ from the cosmos.’ 4

      Kundalini awakening and shamanic awakening should not be confused as necessarily the same thing. Kundalini awakening is the process of enlightenment, its function is to bring the person home into self-realisation. Not all kundalini-awakened people will be shamans. Shamanic awakening on the other hand is not primarily about enlightenment but about creating an individual that can be an intermediary between here and the spirit worlds, what Eliade calls, a technician of the sacred. Yogis have studied and written about kundalini awakening with scientific precision but the same cannot be said of shamanic awakening which is an equally mysterious process.

       In a shamanic spiritual awakening it is not the individual but the shamanic spirits that are the principle catalyst. The shamanic spirits may be considered as disincarnate consciousnesses in the form of animals, plants, ancestors, and shamans. Broadly speaking there are three main ways that a person may become a shaman. Firstly, it may be in the family and they continue the tradition, sometimes the helper spirits pass from one family member to another. Secondly, an individual may simply feel a strong calling and seek out a teacher. Thirdly, the person may undergo a shamanic spiritual awakening having been ‘chosen’ by the spirits. Even in traditional societies there may be an element of fear surrounding this possibility, there is a sense of choice being taken away, of accepting a destiny not desired. Traditionally the person must accept the calling, non-acceptance may lead to an unhappy life or even death. In some traditions it is considered that shamans are born not made, that even though the calling may not manifest until adulthood, a spirit has bonded with them from birth. Sometimes the shaman is likened to a cuckoo, raised in the same nest as its siblings but not the same. As with kundalini awakening, the process itself may be difficult and confusing, all the more so for a western person in a culture with absolutely no reference point for this class of phenomena. 

       During visions, dreams and ecstasies, the shamanic spirits teach and alter the shaman through attacks and dismemberments and inserting objects like crystals into the shamans’ spiritual body. The shamanic sickness is a particularly mysterious characteristic of this kind of awakening. As a child, Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux medicine man was struck down with a mysterious illness for a number of days during which he remained in a comatose state completely unresponsive to any treatment. It is during this time that the spirits come and he receives his great vision and after this he becomes a healer. This is a classic example of shamanic sickness. There is currently a trend to view certain forms of mental illness as shamanic sicknesses and while there is little doubt that some people undergoing the phenomena of shamanic spiritual awakening have been diagnosed as mentally ill, not all mentally ill people are misdiagnosed shamans. 

       Usually, initiation by spirits is backed up by training from a human elder shaman. In the modern context it should be noted that you can’t buy the former and without this the latter is irrelevant. In the west, training from an elder shaman from an ancient lineage is an unrealistic expectation and in any case it is the non-human initiatory aspect that is of primary importance. 

    ‘…sicknesses, dreams and ecstasies in themselves constitute an initiation; that is, they transform the profane, pre-choice individual into a technician of the sacred.’ 5

       Shamanism and yoga may certainly combine harmoniously as one. That shamanic yogas may have existed is supported by Pantajali in his famous Yoga Sutras where he refers to certain medicinal plants (ausadhi) that in equal measure with samadhi, can give the yogin miraculous powers. As Eliade points out,

    ‘…the protohistorical origins of classic yoga in no sense exclude the existence of intermediate forms of shamanic yoga directed to obtaining particular ecstatic experiences.’ 6

       The word ‘shaman’ is said to come from the Tunguskan word saman, which may be translated as ‘one who knows’. After encountering Siberian shamans western explorers and anthropologists began to apply the term to all the traditional healers/spirit workers they encountered in other parts of the world. So the word shamanism was invented and entered the English language to describe any form of indigenous healing practice, despite the fact that they are incredibly diverse in nature. In this sense it is best really to talk of ‘shamanisms’ rather than shamanism but that said, irrespective of culture or geographical location, the shamanisms of the world exhibit far more similarities to each other than differences.

       The shamanisms of the far north, of the Inuit, the Sami and Siberia all display knowledge of kundalini in various ways. From Siberia, where it is said that all shamanism originated, comes the oldest wooden statue in the world, the Shigir Idol. It was preserved in a peat bog and is estimated at 9,500 years old.  It can be viewed in the Yekaterinburg History Museum. Professor Mikhail Zhilin, leading researcher of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology said, 

    ‘We study the idol with a feeling of awe. This is a masterpiece, carrying gigantic emotional value and force. It is a unique sculpture, there is nothing else in the world like this. It is very alive and very complicated at the same time. The ornament is covered with encrypted information. People were passing on knowledge with the help of the idol.’ 7

       Currently the idol stands 2.8 meters tall but originally was more likely 5.3 meters. Depicted on it are seven faces distributed on both front and back. Six of these faces are one dimensional, the seventh one on the top of the idol being three-dimensional. The faces on the idol are staggered up its length and linked by snaking zigzag patterns and markings very similar to those found on the handles of Siberian drums representing the vertebrae of the spirit figure, the ongon. It is very clear to me that this idol is depicting the six chakras on the spine, the zigzag pattern representing the snake-like movement of kundalini. The seventh face, being the only fully formed three-dimensional one, can be seen as the crown chakra.

    Professor Zhilin observed that the people that created the idol, 

    ‘…lived in perfect harmony with the world, had advanced intellectual development, and a complicated spiritual world.’ 8

    Miraculously, they have left us a clear depiction of knowledge of the spiritual awakening process from the Mesolithic Stone Age.

       In Inuit shamanism the master shaman obtains the angacok for the apprentice.

    ‘Then the master obtains the angakoq…the disciples ‘lighting’ or ‘enlightenment’, for 

    the angakoq consists of a mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire…’ 9

    The fact that the shaman ‘obtains’ this luminous fire for the initiate does seem strikingly similar to the process of shaktipat in India.

       The designs on the drums of the Sami people provide some of the most valuable insights into shamanic cosmology. Hundreds of these drums were burnt by missionaries along with their owners the Sami shaman, the noaide. On a detailed drawing fortunately preserved of one of the lost drums, there is a clear depiction of kundalini. The serpent passes through the three shamanic worlds, spiralling around a central line representing the spine. At either end of the serpent are the sun and the moon representing ida and pingala nadis and the unification of male and female energies.

       In North America a Navaho sand painting to a blessing chant from New Mexico (1950) shows clearly a union of opposites and energy ascending a central column with different levels. This represents a spiritual ascent along what the Navaho call the Pollen Path. Campbell notes that,

    ‘The parallelism of the tantric visionary ascent of the sushumna and the ritually controlled transit of the Navaho Pollen Path is not so simple to explain.’ 10

    And that,

    ‘The conformity of this particular sand painting to the sense and symbolised experiences of the yogic sushumna is certainly astonishing…’ 11

    In Africa, the San on the Kalahari, call kundalini n/um, it rises up their spines like a rope connecting them to Heaven. The Zulu call kundalini, umbalini, the two words are strikingly similar. The indigenous peoples of Australia have the Rainbow Serpent.

       In South America, we see the trinity of serpent, feline and condor representing the kundalini awakening process. The Q’ero, shaman-mystics of the Andes, speak of the siki, located at the base of the spine from where there is, 

    ‘…a specific kundalini-like movement of energy, visualised as a serpent of light, that can be unleashed from the siki…’ 12

       In the Amazon, the entheogen Ayahuasca, a snake-like vine, ascends a tree-spine as the feminine principle, earth energy seeking the sun. The San Pedro cactus, a phallic masculine entheogen compliments this union of polarities.

       So it can be seen, from this by no means comprehensive list of examples, that kundalini is a fundamental principle underlying various shamanisms of the world and also the source and goal of the spiritual science of yoga. Both kundalini awakening and shamanic awakening bring the individual into awareness of the illusory nature of reality. If we take the analogy of water as pure consciousness, then what we experience here is snow. Here, consciousness is condensed, you can shape and mold snow in ways that you can’t with water in its pure state. It is this way so that we are not overwhelmed. Both yogi and shaman learn to navigate the waters of consciousness, they learn to swim where others might drown. Until, through our yearning to return home we awaken the goddess within, we remain as children, playing in the snow.

  • One of the traditional ways to awaken kundalini is via shaktipat. This is a spiritual transmission from a guru. The problem is, its fraught with potential problems. Firstly, the shaktipat might not take, it depends on your spiritual condition. Or Shakti might rise a little but not complete the journey, resulting in the aspirant repeatedly returning for more and developing a dependance on the guru, some of whom charge quite a lot of money.

    Also not all spiritual transmissions are shaktipat, you may be told its shaktipat, you may even feel something but that doesn’t mean its the real thing. Although there are undoubtedly genuine gurus, there are also a lot of very dubious people out there willing to exploit the spiritual seeker. Just because an individual may be displaying spiritual powers, its not an indication of advanced spirituality. There are various meditations to acquire powers without ever even reaching the stage of kundalini awakening.

    Once Shakti has completed her journey and unified with Shiva at the crown, although you are firmly now in the ‘enlightenment’ category, you are also paradoxically very vulnerable at this point. There will have been no previous experience to compare with this, there will be a lot of integration to do. The aspirant may seek help from those they perceive as being further along the path and it is at this point they they are most vulnerable to spiritual predation. I know, because it happened to me!

    I have been found by several gurus that have long departed the physical plain. One example being Neem Karoli Baba, the great Indian saint who departed his physical body in 1973. He came to me in the night. Smiling radiantly, he hunched down next to me. I placed my hands on his head and gave him a blessing. We were both laughing, as he of course was the master. He took me on his lap and hugged me, it was so blissful and we were both crying, as he imparted the shaktipat. He urged me to remember how we’d first met, I couldn’t and still laughing, he looked in my eyes and said one word, Aghori.Aghori are the Indian sadhus renowned for their extreme practices like living in charnel grounds and meditating on corpses. Was I an Aghori in a past life? Ive no idea but then an Aghori appeared. He wore an orange robe and was covered in malas. Flowers were thrown over his head. They scattered into the air as a column of light burst from the top of his head. Above the petals, blue blue flames appeared. I woke and found myself surrounded by blue flames.

    The Blue Flame was the great gift of this Shaktipat. A flame that purifies but doesn’t burn, the essence of a purified high frequency state of kundalini-Shakti.

    The guru does not need to be in human form, the guru does not even need to be incarnate, the true gurus have left their essence in the astral and are still available to us, we may receive their grace without ever being aware of it. So I encourage you not to actively look for the guru but rather through your spiritual practices, draw them to you. Its their job to seek you out and not the other way round.

  • ‘Those who see all creatures in themselves

    And themselves in all creatures know no fear.

    Those who see all creatures in themselves

    And themselves in all creatures know no grief.

    How can the multiplicity of life,

    Delude the one who sees its unity.’

    The Isha Upanishad

    I dreamed I was in an old stone building. In front of me was a huge gothic archway. Through the arch I could see a beautiful garden. Hanging from the sky, framed in the exact centre of the arch was a single strand of spider silk. I watched as a green grasshopper flew down from the left and landed on it. At this point I was looking at the grasshopper from the side. The grasshopper then turned to face me and spread out its arms. It grew to fill the whole space of the arch and morphed into a fractal grasshopper, each side mirroring the other exactly. The fractal patterns were gorgeous, in various stunning shades of green. It had fingers that extended into long green tendrils that connected to everything in the garden and the universe beyond. It stayed like this, looking at me for a few moments before blowing away in the wind on the strand of spider silk. I felt the connection of everything in nature, that it was the same thing looking out of every eye. The God in the Grasshopper, my mind was blown.

  • In the Coils of the Goddess

    This is a typical kundalini dream experience.

    I’m standing in a garden, as a giant anaconda crosses the lawn at great speed. I can see the beautiful skin patterns clearly and sense tremendous power.

    It heads towards the house and enters through a window. I run into the house and find I’m in a corridor. I know the anaconda is going to come up the corridor which obviously represents my spiritual spine. There are rooms to each side and I frantically get my family and pets safe behind doors, as I fear they will all be just snacks for the anaconda. Once I’m satisfied everyone is safe, I go to find the snake.

    It has coiled up behind a couch. It is covered in something like a stocking, which I realise is a shedding skin. The anaconda sheds the skin and begins to rise up, it’s looking straight at me.

    Then, it transforms into a beautiful dark haired woman. She comes to me, puts her arms around me and kisses me. I know I’m in the arms of the goddess but that from the waist down, she is still a giant anaconda.

    She says, I really know how to party!

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  • Our Lady of the Reptilians

    Warning, this blog may be a bit strange but I assume you have read the title and know that already! I must say, that I find quite funny that in these times, it’s actually more socially acceptable to talk about Reptilians, than to question vaccines!

    Over the years, I’ve had many dreams and visions of UFOs and beings not of this earth, this is quite a common theme with kundalini awakening.

    In the early days of Covid, I had several dream/visions of spacecraft, I think it’s interesting to look at them in sequence. First, I dreamed we had bought back an old property we used to own. It was called Anma, which means soul, in Occitan language. It felt so real, I kept questioning if I was dreaming, within the dream.

    Inside, all the walls are white and I hear the phone ringing (I am often given a phone in these experiences when I’m receiving an important message). The ringing is very loud, it gets my full attention. Eventually I find it, just when it stops ringing. Then, I look up through the window. It’s night-time and two rows of UFOs are flying past, they are orbs of pure white light, so beautiful, I cry out with joy, it’s such an amazing vision.

    In another dream, I found myself in deep space, stars all around. Ahead of me, were a group of UFOs. They were saucer shaped and pure white, heading to earth. I was following them.

    Next, I dreamed of a golden vortex emanating light. I knew there was a vast UFO on Earth but that it can’t be seen, although it’s hidden in plain site. Then I saw a statue of an owl, grid patterns, then stars, as a metallic UFO disc, descended over my crown chakra, like a hat.

    During meditation, the UFO type disc came once again, it was beaming down light, energy was pouring into my crown chakra. After this, hours of visions came, starting with blue and orange fire. Then Ayahuasca, I saw her as the anaconda, her fractal tentacles took me into outer space, I saw millions of stars.

    On the anniversary of our house fire, I dreamed of lights in the sky. It was daylight and several orbs/UFOs were flying. I went to the top of a hill to see better. A voice said, this place, is SO sacred.

    Then things took a different turn. I dreamed I was in a room with my father. He gave me a magic staff and a beautiful, egg shaped quartz crystal. He said, there are three worlds inside the crystal, like in your head. There was a door with a small window, through this, I could see eyes with black vertical slits, looking in at me. I pointed the staff at them. This was the first time, I got a hint of the Reptilians.

    Following that, I dreamed I was in Ireland. It was the the equinox and I watched a beautiful full moon over the ocean, the waves lapped gently. Writing appeared in the sky, it said, about those reptilians…

    In the next dream I was shown two reptilians. One was ferociously sucking energy from the brain-stem of a human. The second stood in front of me, it was really aggressive, a hyperdermic needle, was floating in the air between us. This was obviously a message about what is really behind the vaccines.

    This all culminated with a very intense experience, which left me feeling very strange for several days afterwards.

    I go to a medieval style chapel, dedicated to, Our Lady of the Reptilians. Inside, there are eyes carved on the walls and the floor descends in concentric circles. I sense great power down there, like a dragon, uncoiling. A man is with me, I’m beginning to sense something. I say to him, is she…? He gives me a knowing look and says, yes, she even has a tail.

    I go outside, where there are two stone columns. On them, are carvings of Our Lady of the Reptilians. She is dressed in the clothes of a medieval noble-woman. She is just like a normal woman, except for her head. This is much like a human head, except it is covered in scales and has no hair. Her eyes are lovely.

    Then I come to full consciousness. Everything is black. In front of me in the darkness are two huge reptillian eyes, the size of tennis balls. They are round and emerald green, with black vertical eye slits. I gaze into her eyes, I feel no fear, I sense ancient intelligence and power, I can see galaxies, stars and timelessness is in those eyes. Its a really, shockingly, beautiful experience.

    I feel I was being reminded that, the primal power of the universe, Shakti, the goddess, creates and resides in everything. There is only the ONE, experiencing itself in multiplicity and as uncomfortable as it may feel, this includes the Reptilians too.

  • https://allaboutheaven.org/observations/von-stuck-franz-1892-medusa-019634/124/main

    I stood outside a room. I knew She was in there. I opened the door and set Medusa free. As I ran, I could hear her following me, singing like a siren. Then, I saw a man killing her savagely, using a broken mirror. But Medusa wasn’t dead. She rose up and began doing the same to him. Suddenly everything froze. Medusa and the man were still and in the air between them, thousands of tiny mirror shards, were suspended, glistening.

    I walked out into a garden. Looking up, I saw a sky, completely filled with white doves.

    I was told,

    Medusa, has always loved you.

  • I’m in a small town. The mad cat lady comes up to me, clutches my arm and says intently,

    you know, there are people here, only pretending, to be humans.

    Continuing on, I come to a hole, broken into the wall of a run-down house. Looking in, I see a cave system, it’s full of demons.

    A young woman walks by, I try to tell her, the demons are coming but she can’t process the information.

    So, I just walk on, seeking higher ground.