Awakened Living Newsletter Vol 9 3/1/2021

Connecting worldwide as a resource for people in kundalini and spiritual awakening processes

Mar 02, 2021

Energy and Awakening

Kundalini arising is an invitation, a doorway, into knowing what you are, and realizing or remembering the true nature of existence. This is why in yogic literature the energy is called divine. It is the energy of the source of life that enabled you to exist as part of creation, and when it rises from the base of your spine and moves through the chakras it initiates a clearing process. This ultimately makes it possible for consciousness to shift in such a way that it recognizes its true nature, and you are momentarily released from thoughts and compulsive patterns – simply resting in an open state of being. This has been called in Buddhism knowing “ Your face before you were born.”

This glimpse of the infinite nature of consciousness sometimes occurs spontaneously before a kundalini arising, but more often the energy gradually works its way through the body before impacting the brain and facilitating realization. When an “awakening” glimpse spontaneously occurs, kundalini follows later to release any stressors or blockages in the system so that the simplicity of being can become more stable.

Involuntary movements, vibrations and shaking can raise anxiety, especially if there is no understanding of this process. As our familiar orientation to self is challenged it shakes us mentally as well as physically. This internal eruption sometimes makes you feel as if you are losing your mind and your understanding of who you are. It disrupts and reorganizes your energy field, and it may even cause physical discomfort as it moves through areas of your body that have latent physical issues or stored emotional content. It can look and feel "weird" and if the body has experienced physical or sexual abuse or traumatic emotional and physical events, it can cause the release of the old memories held in the contracted energy field. So for some people this awakening is a more challenging event than for others.

You might think of kundalini awakening as a clearing process that is designed to enable an open, clear and compassionate perspective of life and death, and to feel the essential bliss and connectedness of all things. For this to happen all the thoughts, points of view, memories and stored traumas in the body need to be released. You cannot do this yourself. It is done through you by the energy, in its own timing. If you have done clearing through therapy or body work in the past this can be useful, because there is less "stuckness" in the old conditions and more acceptance of letting things go. And usually with therapy one learns to release self-judgement, which is an important prerequisite in this process of awakening to what you really are. The clarity that eventually arises in awakened consciousness is that there is no one to be judged and no one who cares to judge. There was simply a movement of experiences that the mind collected and held to create identity. Freedom is stepping out of this mental box.

Our true nature has no judgment and no resistance to life. Waking up is not an abandonment of life as it is, but an expansion, so that consciousness sees the inner-connectedness, the oneness, underneath all the diversity of expression in the world.

Without judgment there is still a responsiveness, a deep feeling can move through related to compassion for the suffering in the human condition, and action can emerge spontaneously, the form having great variations among different people.

Great laughter and joy can arise in seeing clearing how we have missed the truth for so many years, and ignored the clear evidence of our own eternal consciousness. Even in the joy we can still feel strong compassion for the confusion that all humanity shares.

Book of the Month:

When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities

by Stanislav Grof

I met Stan Grof in the late 1980’s when I was in graduate school and beginning to explore altered states of consciousness through meditation and transpersonal therapies. I helped with moving the offices of the Spiritual Emergence Network, which Stan and his wife Christina had founded, from Esalen Institute along the Big Sur coast of California to the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Menlo Park, CA. (I was intrigued at Esalen to see the Grofs slept in an outdoor bed nestled in the grassy dunes on a cliff overlooking the ocean.)

Later, I returned for a month-long program with the Grofs and other transpersonal pioneers they brought together for seminars at Esalen. It was a mind-opening experience doing Holotropic Breathwork there, and listening to Stan’s stories about the further reaches of consciousness. He struck me as a man who was not afraid of anything. This made him immanently trustable, even though the experiences I had there were so out of my frame of reference at the time. He helped me enter and deeply value a new paradigm of human consciousness, greatly broadening my capacity as a psychotherapist. He taught me and thousands of others to face our traumas fearlessly and through this willingness, to heal and transform. It was radical at a time when most psychiatrists gave pills to suppress traumatic memories and emotional distress. Instead, we participated in large groups laying on a floor breathing rapidly to intense music, screaming and writhing and getting untold amounts of ancient memories out of our energy systems.

A few years ago I met Stan again at a Science and Nonduality Conference and discovered this fascinating book that describes his own journey from traditional psychology training in Czechoslovakia, to becoming a pioneer in psychedelic and consciousness research, the inventor of Holotropic Breathwork, and a co-founder of the Transpersonal Psychology movement. A chance lab experience with LSD as a young psychiatrist blew open his perspective of the nature of consciousness, his friendship with Swami Muktananda revealed similarities between mystical and transcendent experiences in Kashmir Shavism and psychedelic experiences, and 50 years of meeting and working with remarkable people brought him an understanding of the diverse potentials of the human psyche.

This book is rich with descriptions and insights about synchronicities, and transformative psychedelic, UFO, shamanic, ESP, Astral projection, birth trauma, kundalini awakening and past-life memory experiences. It covers many variations of non-ordinary or transcendent events experienced by spiritual seekers and others engaged in psychological healing. He writes of his own adventures and gives many examples of life-altering experiences he has seen in his clients over the years. Because of all of these discoveries the Grofs coined the term spiritual emergency, and founded the first Spiritual Emergence Network at Esalen.

If you have used psychedelics or breathwork, or for other reasons (i.e. spiritual awakening) have disconcerting encounters with changes in consciousness this book will help you realize there is a natural potential for such events that has been unseen, rejected or misdiagnosed in western psychology, and through Stan Grof and others like him a new acceptance, and even encouragement for exploration, has emerged in the last decades that validates the transformative value of your experience. If you just like a good storyteller this book is also an engaging read.

EVENTS OF INTEREST in March

Each month I collect items from emails, facebook and other sources about programs, events and websites of interest to those in a spiritual awakening process. Some are by teachers I know personally and others I know of as reliable guides in the awakening process. This month I am a featured speaker in a monthly series offered by Spiritual Awakenings International, a new organization that is bringing together people who report spiritual openings in many various ways and hold a variety of perspectives about life after death. This group was founded by my friend, Dr. Yvonne Kason, with whom I started the Kundalini Research Network back in the 90’s. She was inspired to create this organization following a recent NDE and awakening experience. Here is info about my talk, which is free to attend, but you must register on the SAI website to receive the zoom link. Spiritual Awakenings International

Topic: The Impact of Kundalini Activation and Consciousness Shifts in Spiritual Awakening

Saturday, March 20, 2021 1:00 pm EDT on zoom

Kundalini energy activates profound changes in the body, mind and spirit. It triggers the reorganization of our energy field, and as it evolves it disrupts our sense of self. When we are able to develop a positive relationship with our awakened energy field, old patterns and beliefs are cleared away and a new openness and quality of presence becomes possible. When we are aligned with the internal process of transformation, we may experience radical changes in our lives and our world. This talk will focus on the changes in consciousness that one moves through as kundalini energy transforms our perspective and brings us into awakened consciousness.

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Breathing Under Water: A Spiritual Study of the Twelve Steps

March 24 to July 6: 15 weeks of receiving videos, articles, participating in group discussion, and spiritual practices

Here is a program with Richard Rohr, Catholic theologian and mystic that drew my attention. He asks”What void are you trying to fill?” It is aimed at the healing of addictions. He says “There’s a gap—an emptiness, a yearning, a fear, an unsatisfied need…. We all feel this way from time to time, and sometimes we get stuck.” This program is designed to fill the existential void that many experience. Rooted in the principles of the Twelve Steps and the work of this best-selling author and Franciscan teacher this online course can help you develop the insight and ability to move through that ache, learn from it, and let go, moving into freedom and wholeness.

This course does not require AA involvement and is for anyone who is seeking freedom and empowerment by working through issues that keep them stuck in old patterns .

The fee is $120 but financial help is available if you apply a week before the course begins. You will also need to purchase Rohr’s book “Breathing Under Water”

Here is a link to learn more about his organization. The Center for Action and Contemplation, and under events you can register for this program.

Richard Rohr Info

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Tai Chi and Qigong on Zoom

If you are interested in exploring Tai Chi or Qigong practices, an interesting set of classes are available on zoom.us. Email contact to register is taichi.gigong.haven@gmail.com.

Program fees are set in euros and the class comes from Dublin, Ireland, so you will need to adjust for USA time if you are elsewhere.

T'ai Chi: Tuesday Evenings from 23rd February 6pm-7.15pm.

We are working on the Yang Style Form, a beautiful flowing set. Suitable for beginners. Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZwsdO6przsvHdFGudGlO6A6iWBUV...

Qigong: Friday mornings from 26th February 10am-11.15am

A gentle meditative class. We will explore Qigong practices for health and wellbeing, including traditional health Qigong forms.

Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZctcuGprzkqHdKt3ZgSZFCvUPGEw...

Cost: €60/dana for 6-week series (Please see note below on costs)

Qigong Early Riser Class - Fridays 7am starting 5th March 2021.

This will be a 40 minute class, and will be an enlivening, yet centering class, setting us up for a strongly embodied and balanced start to the day ahead. We will explore traditional Health Qigong. Cost €5/dana or register for March (4 classes €20/dana).

Click here to register for the Early Riser Friday 7am class:

https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZwrcOCqqDIsGNV79sBMBvbvuIA5u...

Note on Costs/Dana: Please note these are extraordinary times and many people may have been financially affected due to Covid-19, unemployment etc. It is intended that these classes are available to all who feel drawn. Please feel free to donate/offer dana as you feel able to afford.

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TIME AND SPACE WITH RUPERT SPIRA

Here is a link to an interesting talk on youtube by non-dual teacher Rupert Spira on the nature of time and space. Rupert also offers short at-home retreats you might want to check out if you find yourself drawn to his style of teaching.

Rupert on Time & Space

Correction for Kundalini Collective website in the UK

I mentioned last time a meet-up group in London of people who have had consultations with me that was established by Sameer Patel. They now have a website open to all with an interest in kundalini. The correct web address is

Kundalini Collective

Detours, Cul-de-sacs & Finding Truth

Art by Wil Nolan 2017

Unfortunately, not everyone who awakens kundalini will awaken to Truth. There are many cul-de-sacs in the process caused by cultural and community biases and ignorance of the process, fear of the unknown (which one must enter without reservation at some point), the tendency to regress into self-doubt, or attachment to old patterns of being that are not released. Sometimes the detour happens because the mind is inflated, notices the impact the rising energy has on other people and uses it for ego gratification.

We need to learn to listen to our deepest inner truth, to take care of our physical and emotional needs, to surrender completely to the energy flow, to be willing to love unconditionally -- we are invited into many experiences the mind might resist. Some people have moments of thinking they may be losing their sanity or even their life.

There are many fear-based stories about kundalini which sometimes amplify these doubts and fears. And there are risks to health if one is pushing the process, continues using recreational drugs, or ignores basic health habits. It helps to have some objective support and guidance in case you become inflated, disoriented or overwhelmed by emotional shifts. (all of which may happen for limited periods of time). It helps to have a spiritual orientation and basic self-respect and love.

Some people are concerned because their financial situation does not support them and they feel unable to work. It is helpful if one has a lifestyle and workstyle that are compatible for their spiritual life, that sustains them through these transitional times. If this is not available they can only seek inner wisdom to find a way through life support by using available food pantries and community dinners, volunteering service in a meaningful way, living in yogic communities, or returning to families for help. In most cases if one is unable to hold their regular job, a small amount of work that feels aligned with one's true capacity is helpful. The body/mind will benefit from some kind of focus and balance during this awakening. It is grounding. This is not about abandoning the body/mind or the personal life you have been given, only giving up identification with it as "all" you are. You are still obligated to care for it.

Poverty during a kundalini process may be no worse than poverty for a myriad of other reasons. For hundreds of years Zen monks who sought awakening chose poverty, although they were in a community that respected this option and helped to feed them. I cannot say why one person is thrown into this situation and others are not -- some might say it was a choice from a previous life, or a piece of karma to be finished, or a teaching about a certain perspective of life, or a pattern or belief that needs to be relinquished. It may be caused by apparent outside circumstances, (all of us can find societal reasons), but it is your mind that attaches a personal meaning to it.

I was once in a workshop with a nurse who reported a very traumatic childhood including early rape and pregnancy, prostitution, drug addiction and living on the streets before her world shifted in her twenties and she was able to get clean, and move into school and a career. As I felt into the trauma of that life and youth what I felt was that she went through that so that I would not have to. Each of us fills a spot in a massive and eternal mosaic of life experience. There is no ultimate reason or why explaining why some have such difficulties -- it is just so. Humanity is still in an evolutionary stage, and has not yet embraced unilateral kindness and health. There is suffering and we all are part of it. Waking up will only make life better. Kundalini arising, and its greatest gift, a clear perception of the nature of existence and the releasing of our identification with thoughts that cause suffering, will, as the Buddha said, wake up the world (a piece at a time).

I have seen some cases in young people who, following an initial opening, experience a pause-- a period of quiescence and regrouping when the energy gives up its activity -- and then months or years later the process is reinitiated when they are better prepared. Often we seem to have unfinished karma to complete before we are ready for this opening to the infinite. But if you have been touched by its invitation to awaken you will eventually want to return.

Once you are fully in this process you will find it continues pushing to open up the body, mind and spirit despite any resistance offered, and keeps inviting you into your deepest potential for knowing Truth. Eventually you will find insight, synchronicity and flow in your life and feel aligned in a way that feels natural to you.

Awakened Living