Join the Awakening Community

Support for Kundalini & Spiritual Emergence

Would you like to find a community of people who understand your awakening experience? For many people the spiritual awakening process is lonely because you feel detached from former relationships and professions and unsure where this new and sometimes challenging process is headed. Many who consult with me have never met anyone else who can relate to their experiences. In addition to providing basic orientation and guidance the intention of this newsletter is to help you find community.

This bi-weekly newsletter is created to inform you of events, books, programs and connections that may be helpful to you now. When you subscribe you will receive it in your email box the first and third Mondays of each month.

Much information comes my way that I’d to pass along so that those of you experiencing kundalini or other dynamics related to the spiritual awakening process can find resources and meet others. Although I provide essays on my websites and blog I hope to connect more directly through my email list with many people who have had assessments or other contacts with me through the years. This newsletter will provide:

· Connection with people throughout the world who have had awakenings of kundalini energy or radical shifts of consciousness.

· Book recommendations helpful for learning to stay awake and aware and in touch with your true nature.

· Suggestions for dealing with typical kundalini issues

· Information on organizations related to spiritual awakening & training in spiritual competency for therapists.

· Availability of webinars and retreats of interest to awakening people.

· Helpful guidance for managing the impact of awakening energy and consciousness

· Information on people who have completed trainings with me and who now offer unique programs relevant to the awakening process.

· Invitations to future webinars I will be offering.

· Essays on awakening and excerpts from my forthcoming book “Being Awake”

· Links to recommended webinars and you-tube interviews

· Opportunity to send in questions that I will address about the awakening process

· Your suggestions of therapists or programs you have found supportive during the awakening process.

If you would like to offer for future newsletters your suggestions of events, services, books or helpful practices you have found to support your own process, please email me the relevant information.

Free until further notice.

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BOOK OF THE MONTH

Each month this newsletter will highlight a book that may be helpful in navigating your spiritual awakening. Today my selection is Chakra Healing Therapy: Awaken Spiritual Energies and Heal Emotional Wounds by Glen Park, published by Destiny Books in Vermont.

This recently released book focuses on the relationship of chakras to health, mental, well-being and spiritual unfolding. I recently wrote an endorsement for this book because of its clarity; its beautiful charts and design; the inclusion of solid references related to research, psychology and transpersonal theories of development; and specific practices for balancing and grounding, many based on the Alexander Technique. The author shows the relationship of chakras to the endocrine system and neurology, suggests causes and solutions for chakra imbalances and provides studies demonstrating the impact of body therapy on chakras, all based on many years of study, private practice and offering workshops in the Alexander Technique and chakra healing for over 30 years. She offers insight on opening the heart and crown chakras, bring the possibility for profound transformation. This book is scholarly, readable, relatable, inspiring and extremely useful for experiencers and therapists.

GUIDELINES FOR KUNDALINI SUPPORT

Solutions for Kundalini Imbalances

This section of the newsletter will focus on specific issues that arise for those experiencing kundalini activation. Feel free to add comments or questions on topics you would like to see covered in this newsletter. Today I offer some general guidelines reported in previous blog post of mine for getting in right relationship with your energy.

1. The energy may feel coarse and intense at times. But it is rarely painful. Usually it is the fear and the attempt to stop it that causes pain. If you are having lots of body movement, lay down once or twice a day on the bed, and invite the energy to move through you and clear out whatever doesn't belong to you, and whatever is in your best interest to release at that moment. Usually it will run for a few minutes — maybe up to 20 — and then stop, and you will feel more relaxed. You especially need to do this if you work in an environment where you may be picking up negative energy or the pain of others such as healing or therapeutic work, or in places where there is a lot of alcohol use, or in hospitals. If you are having persistent physical pain in this process you should have a medical evaluation.

2. Discover what your body really wants to eat. Often people need to make major dietary changes such as giving up alcohol and recreational drug use, avoiding red meat, eating smaller and more simple meals. If you have a persistent problem with energy that is too intense do detective work to see what might be triggering the problem. How long since you ate and what did you eat? Would a small piece of bread or some protein calm it down? Perhaps chamomile or burdock root tea? To calm energy and heat yogis sometimes recommend a drink of warm milk, with ghee (clarified butter) and sugar (not honey, which raises heat). Often stress and emotional issues make the energy overly strong, as it is trying to release all stressors from the body.

Another option is to have a good analysis done with an Ayurvedic practitioner, who can assess your body type and balance, and recommend the optimal diet and herbs for you. There is much variation in dietary needs, and sometimes people have long periods with no appetite at all, or long periods with a voracious appetite. Usually a diet focused on rice and vegetables is most useful, but proteins are also important. I tend not to eat much meat so I take a powdered protein and mineral supplement in juice every day and it makes a great difference in how I feel. Be good to yourself.

3. Focus more in the heart and the belly than in the head. Look for practices that center you more deeply into the present moment. A devotional practice such as chanting or doing a heart-centered meditation can help the energy open you to an experience of the deeper part of yourself, the eternal part. Moving outward into more loving connections with others, possibly trying simple volunteer work with nature or animal, may help the awakening become more balanced. Some have found it comforting to invite the presence of a divine image as an ally at this time (i.e. a god, goddess, spiritual teacher, saint, symbol). Others imagine light surrounding them. Kundalini has been imaged as a Goddess in India, and some people report success in speaking to her and asking her to ease the experience. These are powerful archetypal energies that help the psyche when it is moving through challenging changes.

4. Do something to help your body be more open such as yoga, Tai Chi, dance, acupressure, movement processes, long walks in nature, or whatever you are drawn to. If you don't know what is best for you try several things and stick with what feels the best. The physical body is the vehicle that will carry and ground your spirit, your awakening, in the end. No matter how deep your realization you will ultimately be living in a human body for a few more years. The better it is cared for, the more options you have to express realization when it occurs.

5. Wake up each day expecting not to know what will happen, and looking with curiosity for the events to unfold. Instead of worrying and controlling, simply be present to whatever arises with the intention of meeting it with your best effort. Whatever happens in the process of spiritual awakening will be unpredictable and will move on, if you are simply the one noticing it, and not doing battle or making a big project out of it.

6. You may have emotional swings, energetic swings, psychic openings, and other undesired shifts that feel unfamiliar to your personality as you knew it. Be the observer. Don't feel you have to fix or change anything. It will pass.

7. If you have serious trauma in your history and have never had therapy it could be very useful in releasing the pains of the memories that come up around the events. Therapy teaches you to express, to witness, to release and to move on. Your therapist does not have to know much about kundalini as long as he or she does not discount that part of your process. What you want to focus on is releasing issues related to the trauma, and you want a therapist that is experienced and compassionate and sees your spiritual orientation as a motivation and a support for the process of healing.

8. This process is your opportunity to wake up to your true nature. Some people wake up first, and then experience a kundalini arising; others have the kundalini process moving through as a preparation for the arising. The arising occurs to do the clearing out work so is part of either model.

Some spiritual teachings such as Advaita Vedanta and Zen go directly for the realization, while others see it as a gradual path accomplished through years of spiritual practices. Either way the end is the same. When you know who you are the world becomes as Shakespeare said, a stage, and you the player, and life is more light, thoughts less intrusive, and the kundalini process settles down into a mellow pleasantness.

9. Give up going places and being with people who cause you pain. Sometimes people seem to be more acutely sensitive when kundalini arises. They can't tolerate the energy of large discount warehouses, or smoky nightclubs, or the kind of family gatherings that are tense and competitive. It's okay to take care of yourself and find more quiet time, more intimate friends, and even a new job, if the old one is overly stressful. Rediscover what is comfortable naturally for you to do and to be. Live more authentically. In this process you may also find a new creative urge, which is a wonderful opportunity to express what is happening. Draw, write, dance, work with clay, paint, garden — all of these are great ways of nurturing yourself through the deep psychic changes you are experiencing.

10. Find an awakened teacher to hang out with. For many people with spiritual awakenings meditation is an intrinsic part of their lives. An awakened teacher will bring you a transmission of peace, and an opportunity to sit deeply in the silence of your true nature. An awakened teacher can be of any spiritual persuasion or none, can understand kundalini or not be interested in it, and will demonstrate tolerance and compassion for all who pass their way.

ALL TOGETHER NOW —

ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

When I began my work with kundalini and spiritual awakening in 1990 there were few places where one could go to communicate with others about their awakening process.

Fortunately SEN, the Spiritual Emergence Network established by Dr. Stan and Christina Grof had begun its work and through a conference focused on kundalini that was held in Asilomar the year my first book was published (1990), a group of like-minded researchers formed the Kundalini Research Network, and began a series of annual events for the next 6 years bringing together people wanting to learn more about this esoteric topic, known at that time only in the East. That organization is no longer active and over the intervening years it seemed to me that primarily only transpersonal associations discussed spiritual themes.

This has changed since www.scienceandnonduality.com entered the scene with its expansive and joyful conferences, bringing together scientists and spiritual teachers to discuss the nature of consciousness and bring to the forefront remarkable experiences and discoveries in this field. Since then, many new groups have formed and this section will feature various groups each month for those of you seeking new connections. I have many remarkable organizations I want to tell you about over the coming months, and I hope to encourage you to find your home with one of them.

Two groups I have recently associated with are ASI (The Association for Spiritual Integrity), and SAI (Spiritual Awakenings International), who have invited me to join their advisory board.

ASI was established by a group of spiritual leaders, teachers and guides concerned about unethical behavior in some who are recognized teachers in various traditions. They have made a commitment to integrity in their relationships with students, and created a code of ethics that believe anyone should follow who is working in this intimate and impactful way with others. To read their code of honor and see who belongs and join if you are teaching, go to www.spiritual-integrity.org.

ASI

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SAI, formed to spread awareness globally about spiritually transformative experiences, was founded by Yvonne Kason, a Canadian MD and author who has been at the forefront of both kundalini exploration and near-death experiences, and Robert Bare, MPA, a near-death experiencer with extensive organizational background, both of whom were recently on the board of IONS, the International Organization for Near Death Studies (IONS). The organization is designed to be multi-faith, multi-cultural and non-aligned.

The founders left IONS this year to form SAI, which offers free programs on the web related to spiritual awakenings. (I am scheduled to speak on kundalini March 20, 2020!) Anyone can join SAI for free and they have over 500 members already. Learn about them at www.spiritualawakeningsinternational.org. SAI

Other Resources to check out:

Buddha at the Gas Pump (BATGAP) offers hundreds of interviews on youtube with spiritually awakening people. Here is the first interview I did with BATGAP

BATGAP

www.aciste.org offers peer support for those who have had spiritually transformative experiences. This is a non-profit volunteer supported organization by and for experiencers. ACISTE

For an inspiring film about awakening go to Samadhi Part 1 and Part 2 on you-tube.

Many more to come……..

WRITINGS FOR INSPIRATION

Notes on Non-Dual Awakening from Bonnie’s files

Who Are You Without Thought?

An excerpt from my upcoming book Being Awake

Something propelled the person you are into existence. Did you have anything to do with it? Was there a you who was born, and developed and will die? Can you find him or her outside of a thought?

There is an apparent form, you, which appeared in one moment, and changes day-by-day, year-by-year. Did you as a separate person have anything to do with starting this process? Are you in control of the ending of it? There seems to a be a mind that has some influence over how you live your life, but how much control do you have over the thoughts that pop up in it? Can you find who or what it is inside of you that makes decisions for your life?

The foundation of spiritual awakening is the discovery of what it is you are, what it is in you that exists before thoughts clutter up perceptions and wrap themselves around experiences. What has the experience if you do not identify with the form or the thoughts? What is having this experience right here and now? It is nameless: it is that which never leaves you, and the only part of you that never changes. You are fundamentally just being – existence itself.

When you are able to cut off all awareness of form and thought you may go into a samadhi state, where consciousness is simply floating or free-falling or expanding into space or light. But eventually this feels incomplete, because you are transcending out of the form and experience that exists as creation right here now. Many kinds of meditation and spiritual practice have focused on the transcendent experience. But Zen and other non-dual teachings focus on the immediate expression of the infinite through life’s appearance itself. You do not let go of all thoughts, but rather recognize yourself as the ground within which they arise. Seeing this clearly will calm the chatter in the mind. You can’t have this recognition through thought because thought cannot think itself out of existence. You cannot use thought to eliminate thought any more than you could eliminate sunlight by putting more sunlight on it. But conscious awareness can wake itself up and remember the essence of what you are, overcoming the addictive identification with thought.

Ramana Points to the Heart

The Advaita sage Ramana Maharshi said "That from which all thoughts of embodied beings spring is the Heart. Descriptions of the Heart are only mental concepts. In brief, the 'I' thought is the root of all thoughts. The source of the I-thought is the Heart". However, he said this Heart is not the "blood-pumping organ." He called this other heart area Hridayam, which means the center, and stands for the Self. Although it is not a physical organ, he suggested the sense of its location is on the right side of the chest, parallel to the physical heart and a few finger-widths from the sternum. He said that the "light of consciousness flows from the Heart" through sushumna (the central channel in the spine through which our subtle energy runs) and into sahasrara, the point at the crown of the head that opens to cosmic consciousness. [1]

Ramana cited his own awakening experience as the source of this understanding, and said that our sense of an "I" springs from this pivotal point – the Hridayam -- and expands to create the appearance of the mind and the world. So if one will sit with the feeling of "I'' and seek its source without any labeling, freed for a moment from any beliefs or attachments of mind, consciousness may fall into this "cave of the Heart" (as he called it) and realize its True Nature, or Self.

There are many practices that various spiritual communities offer as pathways to awakening. This simple focus suggested by Ramana led me into the deepest Truth I have known, shattering a sense of separateness and giving a vision that described how all of us are trapped by thought-forms, and reaching out to be pulled into the unbounded openness of consciousness. For this to happen we must allow ourselves to "STOP!" and let the chaotic activity of mind sink into a single source, the felt sense of an "I" triggered by a subtle movement of the heart. If your longing is to awaken, seek the source of your longing sensation to know Truth, because it too arises from the Heart, attempting to draw you Home.

[1] (1994)Maharshi, Sri Ramana (transl.by Natarajan) Ramana Gita: Dialogues with Sri Ramana Maharshi, pp 48-50

Coming Soon:

Details of 10 week Living with Kundalini Webinar for anyone who has had an assessment with Bonnie. Program begins January 22. meets every two weeks,

Monthly Consultation Group beginning in January for anyone who has gone through Bonnie’s training program to work with others who have had a kundalini awakening. Meets 2nd Saturday of the month

If you know someone else who would benefit from this newsletter please pass it on along with the link to join.