Integrating a Kundalini Awakening: Difficulties and Complications
A lot is said about the initial Kundalini Awakening
experience, but to the best of my knowledge not much support is available
to those that have been through the initial stages, and have residual
complications in their lives as a result.
I would like to firstly state that I do not believe the Kundalini is
malevolent in any way, however the awakening and the passage of Kundalini
Shakti through your body is going to open up the experiencer to a lot
of unprocessed stuff from their life, and possibly from past lives.
It is this aspect of the process that drives people to say that Kundalini
is evil, but really it is just clearing the Karmic record in you.
If you can come through this either with the strength to face your past,
or perhaps if you have lead an innocent life, where it is will pass
with ease, then there is a new world awaiting you. It is not all roses
afterwards as I will demonstrate, but it is definitely growth like puberty,
or maybe you could call it evolution, and I would now never choose to
go back to how things were before.
Gopi Krishna wrote about some very hard times following
his Awakening and found that stopping meditation all together was the
only way to manage his symptoms. I found that meditation and pranayama
did not bring me any further complications, but it did seem to stop
working altogether for me.
It has been 3 years now since my Awakening and mostly I am able to carry
on with my life, and so I assume I have integrated Kundalini Shakti
into my life, but it hasn’t been a smooth ride. However I am now able
to verbalise what has happened to me.
I can sum up my after effects in two classes. The first being physical,
and the second mental.
The physical symptoms I experienced were: increased heartbeat, insomnia,
and food allergies.
The mental symptoms are harder to pin down and explain, but they can
be generalised as: anxiety, altered perception of the world, mental
disturbance with illness, and inhabiting a mind that no longer feels
like my own.
I will discuss each and how I coped, with the aim of helping those starting
out to know what they are getting into, and those who do not know how
to deal with their new environment after an awakening.
Heartbeat
Following my awakening I have had an elevated heartbeat, all the time,
for years, and it’s even quicker if I now get stressed or worried about
something. No amount of meditation or breathing will calm it and despite
going to a doctor and getting an all clear report on my heart muscle
it is something that I cannot get used to. It’s like my metabolism has
speeded up, and a year ago I lost a lot of weight I think principally
due to this. It was apparent to me by taking my pulse, and by having
a higher body temperature, as well as feeling my heart more strongly
beating than I have ever been used to. My heart also seems to beat non-uniformly
and I get feelings occasionally that it has stopped altogether. I gasp
as some kind of mechanism to get it going again, or at least that’s
how it feels.
Over time I have had lessening symptoms but it has taken years. I’ve
done nothing to improve my situation, and I just had to wait it out.
Moderate exercise seemed to help a little later in the day, but in truth
I never exhausted myself regularly to see if it made any more of a difference.
Simply the passage of time has helped.
Insomnia
The most difficult part of existing over the last few years has been
a constant insomnia. It really takes the wind out of your sails when
you don’t sleep all night and have to go to work, day after day after
day. Typically I would have no trouble getting off to sleep, but would
wake some time later and then not be able to sleep the rest of the night.
I would suffer a racing mind, and a lot of heat in my system causing
me to take of my t-shirt and throw of my covers. During those nights
I ended up passing the time listening to the radio on my headphones,
and it’s a habit that I carry on today.
I have found that sleep drugs can help and for many months beyond the
recommended period of medication I binged on Nytol, which is diphenhydramine
hydro chloride. Unfortunately the effect wears off with time and I had
eventually to seek prescription medication in the form of Zopiclone.
Many months later I am now mostly over the worst of my insomnia, and
again it was simply a case of waiting for the energy to subside. I can
now sleep most nights without assistance, although the next symptom
on my list can catch me out still and cause an upset night for me.
Allergies
Since my awakening I found that certain things I ate for dinner contributed
to poor sleep later that night. My stomach seemed unusually upset and
it would rumble all night long. I tried antacids, milk, and paracetamol,
but nothing would stop the problem. I wouldn’t say that I’ve had a cast
iron constitution before, but I never had the problems I do now. I’ve
tried manipulating my guts with my fingers, and resorted to lying on
my front and on a rolled up pillow to try and aid my digestion, but
this didn’t really help. I got some relief when I spontaneously threw
a Kriya while lying in bed. It was like a Vriksasana and I breathed
deeply into my stomach which felt better, and I began to sleep in this
position for a time, but only to wake an hour or so later.
Over time I began to identify which foods were causing me trouble, and
I began to cut them out. Why these things caused me digestive and mental
problems I do not know, however from experimentation with foods I was
able to determine what would wake me up about midnight and prevent me
from getting back to sleep.
Principally I discovered that potatoes, and in particular potato skin
would cause me great intestinal discomfort hours after consuming them.
Similarly Bell pepper would do the same thing. I tried to research why
these were causing me problems and largely failed, but there was a potential
link to the pesticides used on these foods, and I wonder if I have actually
become sensitive to pesticides rather than the vegetables themselves.
Anxiety
Since my awakening I have had bouts of anxiety that last anything from
a few minutes to a few hours. 3 years later these are mostly over, but
I still occasionally get a PTSD like flashback of some of the more difficult
parts of my awakening. Over time I have learnt to just sit out these
bouts, and my fears are never realised, but this is difficult and I’ve
had to be very controlled and strong not to run from them, both figuratively
and literally.
Surrender has become a by-word of my everyday life and of my thinking.
For the most part my anxiety was over either stupid little things that
I would blow up to mean something else, or it was over fantastical unreal
things. And unfortunately Kundalini did not assist in alleviating my
anxiety in the relm of fantasy as it kept throwing new fantastical positive
things at me.
Today I have a different relationship with my anxiety. It is as if the
now lesser force is there to motivate me into action. When I haven’t
done what I should have, or if I have done something I shouldn’t have,
it is there to remind me of how to be moral and right thinking.
Altered perception of the world
Immediately after my awakening I realised the world we can experience
was a lot bigger, and far deeper than I had realised. I looked back
on my previous years and realised that I had been waiting for judgement,
in Gods waiting room perhaps. I must have sat there for years, just
waiting to be seen, and then I was put through a test, the biggest test
of my life. Thankfully I passed and I stepped into a new reality. This
reality was one where my shields were gone, I guess you could say my
ignorance was lost.
The world was no longer simply a rock on which intelligent life lived,
it was intelligence itself, and was conscious. I could talk to it using
a rudimentary for of Kundalini communication. I could also talk to other
consciousness’s both alive and dead. These consciousness’s knew no respect
for my routine and interrupted when they wanted to, whether I was awake
or asleep at the time. I began to understand what mystics called vibrations
and felt them within me. I was now fearful of one of my previously favourite
movie genres, Horror. If I watched one I now knew that rather than harmless
fun, these things I saw could actually really happen. I had experienced
them, and wasn’t too happy about being reminded of the possibilities.
In all I would say that my perception has matured, I am no longer a
boy, protected by mother earth from the reality of consciousness, but
rather I am now a man. It’s like the Christians say, when God thinks
you are ready he will not only reveal himself, but he will introduce
you to the devil.
Mental disturbance with illness
Now when I catch a cold, or get the flu I do not just get physical symptoms,
I also get mental ones. I feel like I am losing my mind and I have to
suffer not only the dilapidating effects of headaches, bunged up nose,
aches and pains, but enhanced anxiety, confused thinking, feelings of
the world changing from what it should be, and fear of the unknown as
well.
I simply need to retire to bed, and sleep it off but this is not always
an option and I may need to work, deal with my kids, pretend to be enjoying
my time with friends, or finish the weekly shop.
I’ve not read anywhere about this symptom of Kundalini, nor have I heard
anyone talk about it, so I’m on my own here. I’m not sure I can offer
any advice to you other than it will pass with the illness, and good
mental health will return.
Inhabiting a mind that no longer feels like my own
I have had three major Kundalini episodes including my awakening. My
mind would be incorrectly described as expanded, and rather it has been
shattered and reformed. I have been trying to regain a sense of normality
while being subject to such feelings as sensations outside of my skull
that are rather halo like, feelings like around every corner there is
another world, the fear from knowing that evil is real and can pay me
a visit, to test me over and over, and conversely that good is also
a force that can be manifest by me.
This is an alien experience for me, I was always so grounded and boring
and now I experience crazy spiritually tainted moments like a prophet
of old. When I have been in the middle of a major Kundalini episode
my mind has been perceiving all sorts of additional input and at its
peak I felt like I was perceiving something like psychic ability, and
that evil was talking directly to me through my friends and family,
rather like can be seen in the movie Fallen with Denzel Washington.
You may be wondering if I sought medical help. Well I did only on a
promise to my wife, if it were not for her pushing me and my seeing
the fear in her eyes, I wouldn’t have. It did not help me however, and
all the mental health people wanted to say was that I had an acute psychotic
break (three in total), despite me telling them of my yoga practise
and of Kundalini energy, and they said I needed medicating. The pharmaceutical
treatment I received did nothing to help, and it was basically down
to me to come to terms with my new mind, and 3 years on and off any
meds I think I have the measure of it.
I cannot offer medical advice, however if I had my time over again I
would refuse the Olazapine I was offered in favour of counselling, reading
about the Kundalini condition and seeking out others who have shared
the experience. This last point is easier today than ever before in
history, I think without the internet I would not have been able to
reign myself in and understand that what I was going through was a recognised
process.
Are there any good symptoms
In short, yes there are. The experience has been amazing, and I am very
grateful for having been through it. It’s changed my life and I have
seen things I would never have believed were possible. You remember
that scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens her fallen house’s
door, and the black and white world becomes technicolour.
That is my experience.
