52 facts you probably didn’t know about Kundalini

Kundalini is a Sanscrit term from ancient India that identifies the arising of energy and consciousness.

It has been coiled at the base of the spine since birth and is the source of the life force (pranic energy, chi, bioenergy) that everybody knows.

So, let’s find out more about this awakening state, practice and philosophy.

1. Kundalini in Hinduism is a form of divine energy (or shakti) believed to be located at the base of the spine (muladhara).
2. It is an important concept in Śaiva Tantra, where it is believed to be a force or power associated with the divine feminine.
3. This energy, when cultivated and awakened through tantric practice, is believed to lead to spiritual liberation.
4. Yogic science suggests that this energy triggered the formation of the child in the womb, and then coils 3 ½ times at the base of the spine to hold the energy field in stasis until we die when it uncoils and returns to its source.
5. Kundalini is associated with Paradevi or Adi Parashakti, the supreme being in Shaktism, and with the goddesses Bhairavi and Kubjika.
6. The term, along with practices associated with it, was adopted into Hatha yoga in the 11th century.
7. It has since then been adopted into other forms of Hinduism as well as modern spirituality and New Age thought.
8. The use of kuṇḍalī as a name for Goddess Durga (a form of Shakti) appears often in Tantrism and Shaktism from as early as the 11th century in the Śaradatilaka.
9. It was adopted as a technical term in Hatha yoga during the 15th century and became widely used in the Yoga Upanishads by the 16th century.
10. Eknath Easwaran has paraphrased the term as “the coiled power”, a force which ordinarily rests at the base of the spine, described as being “coiled there like a serpent”.
11. Kundalini awakenings have been described as occurring by means of a variety of methods.
12. Kundalini awakening may also offer a profound opportunity for those called to follow a spiritual path.
13. It gradually releases many patterns, conditions, and delusions of the separate self.
14. It can be threatening to the ego-structure, because a person may feel a loss of interest in their old life and identity, and consciousness may go into unfamiliar expansive or empty states that are disorienting.
15. It also makes people who are unfamiliar with it afraid they are ill or losing their minds. So, understanding is important.
16. Many systems of yoga focus on awakening Kundalini through Meditation, pranayama breathing, the practice of asana and chanting of mantras.
17. Kundalini Yoga is influenced by Shaktism and Tantra schools of Hinduism.
18. It derives its name through a focus on awakening kundalini energy through regular practice of Mantra, Tantra, Yantra, Asanas or Meditation.
19. The Kundalini experience is frequently reported to be a distinct feeling of electric current running along the spine.
20. Kundalini may unravel and arise from the base of the spine (or sometimes from the feet) due to spiritual practices, or in response to life events.
21. When this happens, it may move gradually, uncoiling like a snake, or quickly and explosively, into the gut, the heart or the head.
22. This event can be startling and chaotic, frightening or blissful, and it usually triggers months and years of new sensations and changes in the person who awakens it.
23. It may feel like the body’s wiring has moved from 110 to 220, and it takes time to adapt to it.
24. It is understood in the eastern tradition to be a significant adjunct to spiritual realization, but it is rarely recognized as such in western traditions, although Christian mystics have often been said to have intense energetic or physical problems.
25. It is possible to find acknowledgment of this spiritual movement in many yogic and tantric traditions, Tantric Buddhism, Taoism, gnostic mystical tradition and some Native American teachings, and indigenous societies.
26. Kundalini awakening can trigger a wide range of phenomena, both positive and negative.
27. It can cause significant changes in the physical, emotional, sensate and psychic capacities, cause stress in vulnerable areas of the body, open the heart and mind to major shifts in perspective, and cause many unique and unfamiliar sensations including shaking, vibrating, spontaneous movement, visions, and many other phenomena.
28. Like any energy of creation (prana, electricity, atoms) this energy can be activated and misused by those who are not spiritually motivated or have not completed this process and are therefore not free of personal patterns.
29. It is very helpful to understand the process and the intention of your own life force as it awakens you so that you may discover wisdom, love and authentic direction in your own life.
30. Kundalini references may be found in a number of New Age presentations and is a word that has been adopted by many new religious movements.
31. According to William F. Williams, Kundalini is a type of religious experience within the Hindu tradition, within which it is held to be a kind of “cosmic energy” that accumulates at the base of the spine.
32. When awakened, Kundalini is described as rising up from the muladhara chakra, through the central nadi (called sushumna) inside or alongside the spine reaching the top of the head.
33. The progress of Kundalini through the different chakras is believed to achieve different levels of awakening and a mystical experience.
34. Until Kundalini finally reaches the top of the head, Sahasrara or crown chakra, it may produce an extremely profound transformation of consciousness.
35. Swami Sivananda Saraswati of the Divine Life Society stated in his book Kundalini Yoga that “Supersensual visions appear before the mental eye of the aspirant, new worlds with indescribable wonders and charms unfold themselves before the Yogi, planes after planes reveal their existence and grandeur to the practitioner and the Yogi gets divine knowledge, power and bliss, in increasing degrees, when Kundalini passes through Chakra after Chakra, making them to bloom in all their glory…”.
36. Reports about the Sahaja Yoga technique of Kundalini awakening state that the practice can result in a cool breeze felt on the fingertips as well as the fontanel bone area.
37. Western awareness of kundalini was strengthened by the interest of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung (1875–1961).
38. Jung’s seminar on Kundalini yoga presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932 was widely regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner experience.
39. Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness, and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation, with sensitivity towards a new generation’s interest in alternative religions and psychological exploration.
40. According to Carl Jung “… the concept of Kundalini has for us only one use, that is, to describe our own experiences with the unconscious…”
41. Carl Jung used the Kundalini system symbolically as a means of understanding the dynamic movement between conscious and unconscious processes.
42. Jung cautioned that all forms of yoga, when used by Westerners, can be attempts at domination of the body and unconscious through the ideal of ascending into higher chakras.
43. According to Shamdasani, Jung claimed that the symbolism of Kundalini yoga suggested that the bizarre symptomatology that patients at times presented, actually resulted from the awakening of the Kundalini.
44. He argued that knowledge of such symbolism enabled much that would otherwise be seen as the meaningless by-products of a disease process to be understood as meaningful symbolic processes and explicated the often peculiar physical localizations of symptoms.
45. The popularization of eastern spiritual practices has been associated with psychological problems in the west.
46. Psychiatric literature notes that “since the influx of eastern spiritual practices and the rising popularity of meditation starting in the 1960s, many people have experienced a variety of psychological difficulties, either while engaged in intensive spiritual practice or spontaneously”.
47. Among the psychological difficulties associated with intensive spiritual practice, we find “Kundalini awakening”, “a complex physio-psychospiritual transformative process described in the yogic tradition”.
48. Researchers in the fields of Transpersonal Psychology, and Near-death studies have described a complex pattern of sensory, motor, mental and affective symptoms associated with the concept of Kundalini, sometimes called the Kundalini syndrome.
49. The differentiation between spiritual emergency associated with Kundalini awakening may be viewed as an acute psychotic episode by psychiatrists who are not conversant with the culture.
50. The biological changes of increased P300 amplitudes that occur with certain yogic practices may lead to acute psychosis.
51. Biological alterations by Yogic techniques may be used to warn people against such reactions.
52. Some modern experimental research seeks to establish links between Kundalini practice and the ideas of Wilhelm Reich and his followers.