| Kundilini is a type of "corporal energy" which in Sanskrit | | | | model and was accepted and adopted by most |
| literally means "coiled up" at the base of the spine | | | | schools of yoga. It is this model where chakras are six |
| which made many English writers address it with | | | | in number and placed one above the other. Kundilini is |
| terms such as serpent power. It is the power which | | | | understood to rise upwards while piercing the various |
| lays latent at the base of the spine until it is awakened. | | | | chakras until it reaches the crown of the head |
| There has been much debate as to why it lays | | | | culminating in the union with the divine. It has been said |
| suppressed and why and how it should be awakened. | | | | that spiritual development requires that kundilini rises |
| I would try to explain it as simply and as succinctly as | | | | and as it rises, higher states of awakening is achieved. |
| possible without going into much jargon used by the | | | | It can either rise partially or completely spontaneously |
| learned. | | | | through passionate and intense love making or during |
| It has been widely agreed that through social | | | | the pangs of childbirth or gradually through meditation, |
| conditioning and emotional trauma, this life force is | | | | kundilini yoga or with the help and intervention of a |
| suppressed and blocked in chronic subconscious | | | | teacher. When it rises spontaneously in the form of |
| muscles tension which have their psychological | | | | 'Shakti' it rises in the conduits of the subtle (etheric) |
| counterpart in emotional blocks and ego- defences. | | | | body, it opens and clears the seven spiritual chakras. |
| When this muscle armour is softened or broken and | | | | There are certain feelings and experiences that |
| live energy is amplified by strong emotions or by life | | | | accompany the rising of kundilini like violent shivering, |
| endangering conditions, the body begins to shake and | | | | rushes of energy, extreme emotions and 'speaking in |
| vibrate involuntarily, and kundilini energy starts | | | | tongues' and other paranormal phenomenon. The |
| reanimating formerly repressed psychosomatic areas. | | | | prominent feeling is almost always of energy travelling |
| The resulting kundilini rising will bring old physical and | | | | along the spine or progressing upwards in the body. |
| psychological traumas to the surface as part of natural | | | | Other symptoms may include tremors, impulsive or |
| healing process- partly very intense as well as radically | | | | involuntary movements and change in respiratory |
| changing. Usually this cleansing phase of extreme | | | | functions. This kundilini rising is also some time referred |
| emotions, experiences of subconscious material and | | | | as 'pranic awakening'. Prana can be described as the |
| may be illness resulting from it would last for about 2-4 | | | | vital life sustaining force present in the body and |
| years. After that time, in a seamless and slow | | | | uplifted or intensified life energy is called 'pranotthana' |
| transition, kundilini begins to be available in the whole | | | | and it originates from a reservoir of subtle bio-energy |
| body and psyche for further qualitative growth of the | | | | at the base of the spine. Pranic awakening or kundilini |
| individual. The whole process is said to last about 15 to | | | | rising is considered to be a natural rebalancing of body |
| 20 years. | | | | and psyche but it is advised that it should be wakened |
| There are a number of models of kundilini in ancient | | | | under the guidance of competent and experienced |
| texts, but over the time the model of six or seven | | | | teacher. |
| chakras along the body's axis became the dominant | | | | |