Sahaj Nath

Jox, you, sir, are a puzzle. such beautiful openness to possibility in this regard; why then such a conventional attitude against something like shaking practice?

think of it like sex. when the intensity's real, you're not putting on a pretty face for your partner or the cameras. when you really let go, nothing is contrived. there are plenty of other practices that don't involve spontaneous natural flow. however, when the kundalini is awake and kicking during practice, it might look like this whether you like it or not. *shrugs*

it's basically just this. at 2:30. as the energy increases the session becomes more and more spontaneous so that the energy is moving me rather than the other way around. EDIT: okay, she made it look all pretty and nice, but when it gets real, it's more like this:

shaking, chanting, and singing. those are probably my favorites.

the poll doesn't interest me. you already stated what you believe to be the one correct answer. but about equating Karma Yoga with Wu Wei... i'd like to get your take on that. could you elaborate?

we are not Ramana Maharshi. he awakened within a matter of minutes of applying self-inquiry. this is one of the most difficult paths with a tremendously HIGH rate of failure. it takes a very special quality of mind to awaken via self-inquiry. and we here in the west have a HUGE problem with believing we're special. self deception is so easy. false consciousness is so easy. the real genius of the Matrix is in how it has everyone believing that they can be Neo. that they ARE Neo, in fact. the truth of the matter is, there's no question to ask, and there's nothing to look for. to ask any question is to ask the wrong question. it may very well be different within the Indian culture, but here in the West, this is the truth. meditating on koans of another culture is just as ridiculous. so many people will waste entire lifetimes engaged in what they've determined to be a shortcut.

great sharing! i'm sure this will be of benefit to many people starting out and facing the daunting tasking of choosing where to begin without wasting a lot of time and money. welcome to TDB.

it wasn't my intention to come off as adversarial or condescending to you, but your response is pretty heavy-handed. can you really not see how your initial post that started this conversation might make someone wonder if you were open to another way of seeing things? somehow you've interpreted our exchange as jockeying for superiority. you can have it. "Then they're not fully healed. The cancer is gone, but the bad balance isn't. Is that hard to understand?" nope, not hard to understand at all. someone is cured of a terminal condition, and your attitude is, "yeah, but their balance is still off. how can that be considered healed?" this is a reasonable position to you. i've got nothing.

Oops. about that "unfair" statement i made above: i was unclear. i wasn't saying i thought you were unfair to post it or to offer it; i was trying to express that i thought it would be unfair for ME to criticize his words as a general argument removed from its context. sorry about that if it came across like i was calling you unfair, Jetsun. for example, i or any number of K-yogis could make counter-arguments that he was never intending to address, and i feel like it would be intellectually dishonest to seize on something like that. context matters. had he been talking to me or a gathering of K-yogis, i'm sure he would have been more thorough, measured, and nuanced. he would have considered the multitude of approaches just like you did in giving me the benefit of the doubt. yeah, i just wanted to clear that up.

damn good points! this is pretty much why i incorporate so many different types of spontaneous, natural flow practices. i do believe that they are the fast track to an organic, uncontrived conditon. i'm not going to criticize Ramana Maharshi's perspective because i said i wouldn't express apprehensions about your teachers. but i think it's fair to say that context is important here. he's talking to some person who had some specific beliefs about how realization works. what he said to this guy was appropriate, especially given that the guy is asking for instructions which have NOTHING to do with what or how Ramana teaches. i kind of feel like it's unfair to take his words as a solid commentary on all yogic systems that use K activation instead of what it actually is: a conversation with a student who came to him with all the wrong ideas about what Ramana Maharshi does as a master. Ramana Maharshi is speaking the truth of his system. his response was the correct response for his knowledge community addressing that particular person asking the question.

i'm happy to have a real conversation with you, but if there's no openness on your part to consider another way, then there's no point. no, you didn't learn differently. you learned the EXACT same way that i did, too, which is why i was such a nazi about it for so long. but what i've been able to learn over the years, from the testimony of students here on the boards as well as direct witnessing of sick people healing themselves, is that the way you and i were taught is extremely limited, and unnecessarily so. maybe you'll come around in time, and maybe you won't. but consider this: an obese guy needs to change eating habits and to shift into a more physically active lifestyle. what guys like me and you have been saying all these years (essentially) is that he needs a nutrition expert and an Olympic caliber athlete in order to really accomplish anything. that's just not true. the guy can exchange the soft drinks in his diet for tea & real juice, and commit to walking around the block every morning, maybe every evening as well. he could do this with a friend or while listening to music or encouraging self-help lectures. regardless, he's going to experience some real benefits. and as his energy increases, he's gonna want to do more. maybe one day he'll want to become a serious athlete, but if not, that's totally fine as well. it's all so much simpler than guys like us tend to make them. more directly, i've watched dozens of patients put their cancer into remission of the past... 5 years, let's say. many of them still have bad balance and never wrapped their heads around the internal body mechanics of tai chi or qigong. and yet they show up daily, sincerely, and surrender to the process in a way that has nothing to do with mastering body mechanics. you can pull up videos right now of cancer patients in china or san francisco who are now in remission from terminal cancer. they've been at it for years, and they don't move anything like masters. they're still gettin' it done. this is why i consider myself a student of principles rather than systems. in the beginning i excelled in the area of body mechanics, and it enabled me to pick up other styles very easily. but as a healer, i never limited myself to chinese gong fu. i learned about the shakers of Bali and the Kalahari shamans, and how they related in principle to Yao Feng Bai Liu (Flowing Breeze, Swaying Willows). i saw the miraculous power of spontaneous movement and free expression in a way that i hadn't learned even when studying a form that even emphasizes relaxing into randomness and chaos (Wuji Hundun). it's a bit of a paradigm shift to realize that we don't need to micro-manage every inch of our bodies to experience healing and transformation. i'm still a lover of excellence and precision in movement, but i no longer see it as the necessity i once did.

i know you meant well, but sometimes it's exhausting to share anything around here. that's all. it's a judgement call. you say aquifers and mountain spirngs are the best. well, i have trust issues, so i'm happy to go with second best where i know for certain the water is pure. if there's an issue with minerals being leeched from my body, i can add clean and healthy minerals to my water. or, i can simply accept the "risks" of really clean water and see how it goes. sorry. i'm just tired. i should maybe unplug again for a while.

haven't read through the suggestions already shared, but here's how i get down: reverse-osmosis purified water for the entire house so that you're drinking and bathing in the minimum possible amount of fluoride. black seed as a dietary supplement. breathing exercises that incorporate the 3rd eye. that's it.

well, then it's a good thing i don't work with those people then, eh? LOL! seriously, though. pick a path. they'll all have their pitch for why their way is great and why some others fall short. none of that moves me, though. one thing that i know to be true is that the qualities we bring to the table are far more important than the schools we ultimately commit to. (assuming, of course, that we're talking about well-established, legit systems) so i have no arguments against the people you're working with. if they are the knowledge holders in your life, then you should believe in them, trust them. no good will come from me expressing apprehensions about them. you can take refuge in the satisfaction that you have a superior path. and you should. and i can do the same.

Magick, Book 4 by Aleister Crowley. which is technically 4 books in one, but still. Liber Aleph by Crowley and i still have the 10-volume Equinox series to get through. some day i will finish them. unless i don't.

hey, i'll be the first to say that it's good that you're satified with your path. it's a beautiful one. i just happen to be in the midst of this one, and i trust the revelations that i've had so far that indicate the masters before me were on to something. and, just to be clear, it's NOT just the arising of temporary states. that would be a waste of time. the end result once everything gets cleared out is realization. those prior states are no more the point in this path than they are in yours. plus, many sincere students in this type of path DO also look for that which is ever-present, that which is untouched, unmoving, and unchanging in the midst of all the phenomena that comes and goes. that's not missing from this path. it's not a requirement of this path, as it will arise as a natural result of sadhana and the K process reaching completion, but it's not completely absent. besides, if the energies open up anyway, as you say, then you're not going to just by-pass all the cleansing experiences that result prior to the complete opening. so you'll contend with any number of temporary states as well. i honestly don't see a whole lot of difference.

good question! maybe i do take for granted that we all have a general working knowledge of what Kundalini is and what it's characteristics are. but you're right about people wanting to claim kundalini as a sort of status or acheivement, and that's gonna inevitably generate confusion and misunderstanding. the first question is, what is Kundalini? Kundalini is a specific energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine. Awakened Kundalini is when that energy becomes active in the body and begins working it's way through the entire system, but most significantly through the spine and up to the crown of the head. there is almost unanimous agreement on this definition. now, that being said, what are the defining characteristics of Kundalini? this is a bit trickier because the awakened K has an impact on just about EVERYTHING in the body at one point or another. so some characteristics, though they may indeed be a result of K activity, just aren't definitive enough to be worth including. i as a general and incomplete template, i'm gonna defer to my late friend El Collie, and i'm gonna go ahead and eliminate a couple like headaches and digestive problems. as i said above, this is far from exaustive, but these are among the most common PARTICULAR experiences. i would say that you need have experienced a minimum of 6 of this symptoms to even bother with consideration, but 10 or more would be pretty conclusive. i've experienced every single one of these except for one. so that's kind of a technical assessment of determining if the K is truly active. but there's another definition that i like, a definition that underscores why shaktipat traditions are considered practitioners of Kundalini Maha-yoga. and it's this: an awakened Kundalini will trigger spontaneous and continuous yogic processes in the body. that's it. you can forget about everything else. if this isn't true, it's not Kundalini. that's my preferred frame of reference for how to know if the K is awake, and it's fairly definitive when you think about it. it's as close to solid definition that we're going to get, i think. thoughts?

good stuff, phore! we have a similar understanding of how it all functions. at least to some degree. couple of things, and i only point them out because i feel that they're significant: this is a problematic inference. the fact that the girl lying a few feet away experienced nothing CANNOT be extrapolated to all kundalini occasions. plenty of instances defy this inference, so much so that some schools offer warnings to students who have partners that don't practice because the K activity can be contagious. yes, K can and eventually does awaken in an individual's mind, but the process is NOT mere a mental one. it's very much physiological. additionally, plenty of people don't have that kind of vivid mental imagery at all. dramatic imagery and archetypal symbolism are not definitive of kundalini. now, the other points you make based on this premise are still good and interesting points. it just doesn't all fit quite so neatly into a little box is all. again, no. the reverse is true. the mind experiences are a result of the physiological changes. this type of reasoning is just too reductionist, and the evidence you laid out to get here is not nearly as supportive as you'd like it to be. this would have been a much better post had you posed exciting and interesting questions rather than try to declare all these things to be true or fact-based. is that fair? i don't mean to come down too harshly because you do have some interesting stuff here; it's just the way you presented it as true and/or factual was just not the best means. if DMT is IN ANY WAY involved, then there are some interesting things worth considering. but it DOESN'T mean that DMT explains all Kundalini phenomena. okay, i'm running out of steam here. kind of a long post you made. you've got some good ideas, and i like what they make me think. but you're pushing so hard for the answers that you're not appreciating the questions. you've gotta stop taking one or two cases and then trying to extrapolate to all of humanity. it just doesn't work. picking out isolated pieces of info or limited interpretations to support a very specific conclusion doesn't work either. i'm sorry. because i really did like your post. i just see a lot of problems with how you presented everything. people in my real life tend to have their feelings hurt when i do this kind of thing, so i'll back off.

then we'll just have to agree to disagree then. *shrugs* you like to keep the differences in. i don't. you acknowledge they're dealing with the same system, which is the basic point that i was making. the rest isn't very significant to me. when he talks of bliss merging with emptiness to attain buddhahood, it's no different from shakti merging with shiva to attain realization. the names are different. the techniques to get there are different. the reference points for the techniques to get there are different. yet they are the same thing. the same system of the body. spiritual evolution is an organic process for which the body is naturally designed. sages of different cultures finding and using different reference points and different techniques to achieve the same ends only makes sense. i'm far more interested in the similarities than the differences for that reason. my interest in the differences comes only when i think combining aspects of one with another can produce greater effectiveness. and as per CT's question, i didn't assume that he was quibbling over details. i thought he was asking about specific traditions that focus directly on the mechanics of the body's energy system as a means to enlightenment, as there are many effective traditions that don't waste any time with it, like Theravada and Zen. i could be wrong, but that's where i thought he was coming from.

kind of a perplexing question coming from you. you're one of more well-read people around here, so it makes me think.... "IT'S A TRAP!" every single tantric school where shaktipat is a thing teaches that kundalini is essential to awakening. and wouldn't the taoist equivalent be the Kan and Li and the Buddhist equivalent be Tummo? i'm willing to bet that the differences are mostly just academic. but Lakshamjoo, Muktananda, the Nath Siddhas, whoever originally wrote the Guru Gita, Dhyanyogi Madusudandas,... from the Arcane Archive: Da Free John (Adi Da Samraj) received shaktipat from Rudrananda and Muktananda, and while he may not have focused on Kundalini per se, a key element of his method was INTENSE darshan. so again, the distinction is only academic. EDIT: **just looked up Adi Da's take on Kundalini. he DID, in fact, offer shaktipat to his devotees. he referred to it a Ruchira Shaktipat which he believed was superior to all other shaktipats. well, his ego aside, he was definitely a proponent of the Psycho-physical anatomy (kundalini) as a necessary path to realization.** he's drawing distinctions without a difference. EDIT: Clear Light of Bliss by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. how did i leave that book out. it talks all about the various winds, channels, and channel wheels. his union of great bliss and emptiness to attain buddhahood is the same thing as the union of Shakti and Shiva.

i read your words and i'm left wondering if English is your first language. that's not intended to be mean; it's just that it's difficult to follow your thoughts when some of the same words are shifting meaning in different contexts. i find that to be a common point of misunderstanding with people for whom english is not their first language. it's understandable if you find this tiresome. there's been a lot of sniping in this thread. a lot of bickering just for the sake of bickering. so i DO appreciate that you bothered to respond at all. and i promise you that my only motive is understanding. i'm not trolling you or anyone else. the word "choiceless" i find a bit cumbersome, but i'm basically in agreement with this. so is everyone else who has debated with you so far in this thread. see, THIS "selflessness" is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the "i want to serve humanity with no regard for myself" type of selflessness. the one you describe here is clinical, whereas the other is moral/dogmatic. aw, don't worry about me, i'm doing fine. in my view there's only one spirituality, and every culture's wisdom regarding it has a place at the table. the Siddhas of ancient and present time are known for their heretical, ecclectic, and often unique approaches to spirituality. it's not for everyone, but it does work for some. i think if anything, the opposite is true like i said earlier. it would not be difficult for us to agree on what kundalini is. it's a tangible phenomenon that triggers various processes in the individual. it's been pretty well-documented at this point. the concept of ego-death is trickier. the clinical definition of ego doesn't always match up with the spiritual definition, and different spiritual groups may disagree with each other as well. but in this instance i can understand what your meaning is. the problem, i say again, is that you can interchange "ego death" with "selflessness," but "selflessness" does not always mean "ego death" in the way that you've used it at different times. makes it difficult to follow your thinking. and yet there are folks here telling you that their Kundalini IS awakened, and you've just dismissed them. that runs completely contrary to this point, doesn't it? i could spend pages describing what i have undergone and what yogic processes are still spontaneously unfolding within me, but you don't seem prepared to accept any of that as legitimate. nonduality is the natural condition that is always already the case. when you define it as "dissolution of the ego," it doesn't really make sense. there's a lot of confusion of terms there. and i'm not sure what your point is about siddhis. i think you're assuming people just want to awaken kundalini for magic powers or something. i honestly don't think anyone has stated that. and if they have, they are in the minority. but be careful not to create a false dichotomy of people who are either seeking power or egolessness. that's a false contruct and a gross oversimplification of the views being shared here. i think this pretty much responds to everything else you wrote as well, so i'll just leave it here. EDIT: it occurrs to me that you didn't exactly respond to my comment. you just kind of abandoned all the moralizing language of compassion and service and stuff. but that's precisely the stuff i was taking issue with. *shrugs*

Kaivalya Upanishad seems to speak my language. it also emphasizes devotion to the Guru, and i don't have a problem with that, just that it's very old world and perhaps not quite as applicable today and in the West in the same way that it was then and there.

actually, it's very misleading to conflate Kundalini with Dharma. doing so just kills any intelligent discussion. Dharma is just too slippery a concept and opens the door to all kinds of dogma & circular reasoning. when talking about K we can agree that we're generally talking about the same energy and process. it's more clearly defined, i think. plus, "only for themselves" is part of the false notion that i'm arguing against. the very process of spiritual development is a process of ever-expanding the self until it is all-inclusive. from ego-centric, to social-centric, to ethno-centric, to national-centric, to world-centric, to cosmo-centric... each phase being more inclusive, more expansive, until ultimately the self is fully identified with ALL. at the level of the supra-causal, there is no distinction; everyone and everything is always, already everywhere. i just don't believe that this is very meaningful anymore. Kundalini Shakti is here now. established. and there are fools in both the West AND the East who do not know how to channel the K energy and get themselves into trouble. but there are also brilliant, non-traditional minds here in the West who for years have experimented, innovated, and distilled the core principles from old and unnecessarily dogmatic ways. EDIT: and also in India, the Siddhas were legendary for their unique, innovative, non-traditional ways which occasionally their students would later turn into new traditions. this still occurs. it's up to the individual to do their due diligence. but generally speaking, we know and understand more today than we did hundreds of years ago. and we have the ability to lay all the major traditions & systems side-by-side and study them in a way that we never have before. for all of our shortcomings here in the West, this is a real strength that we have. and this is NOT me saying that tradition is wrong or bad; i'm merely arguing that tradition is not the only way, and it never has been.

i agree with basically everything that has been said about Bhakti Yoga so far... but it's STILL not what i was talking about. maybe at this point in the thread it doesn't even matter anymore, but i was trying to make a specific argument for the OP to address, and i don't want that argument to get lost in the suffle. so this time i'll leave GOD/TRUTH out of it, in hopes of making it a little more clear: i am driven by the desire to know things. i want to know them for myself. i wish to take nothing on faith, but to understand the universe directly, not unlike the same motivations that many scientists have. for me nothing is taboo and everything is open to experimentation purely for knowledge's sake. i want to understand the universe in all its dimensions, and i want to understand myself as an integral part of the universe. i feel a deep drive to develop an understanding that is as boundless as the universe itself. it is for these reasons that i have sought to raise kundalini.

eh, that muddies the waters a little too much for me. Bhakti Yoga is about intense love, devotion, and worship of a specific diety. that's not the "desire to know GOD/TRUTH via direct experience" that i was talking about. Bhakti Yoga is a practice; what i'm talking about is a disposition. the language may be similar, but they are very different things. i agree with you that Bhakti Yoga has that quality, but that's just not what i was talking about. surrender, selflessness*, and service might happen as by-products of my desire to know and experience TRUTH/GOD, but they are by-products and not my purpose.