A few years back I was taking out books from the library on psychology for a school paper when I noticed a leaflet stuck in some of the books. It was a warning against the dangers of Kundalini yoga. Intrigued (being that I had been practicing meditation daily at that point in my life and was quite interested in this type of thing) I did some web browsing and found many pages about Kundalini and most of them came with a severe warning abount the dangers of awakening the Kundalini energy when not sufficiently prepared. I read that Kundalini was a source of energy that reside in all humans’s spines and when awakened can have powerful effects, driving some insane.
Jung had a book about the psychology of Kundalini yoga, but I never was able to get my hands on it.
So what’s up with Kundalini? Anyone have any info on it from an objective, scientific perspective?
Don’t know about that kind. But when people start talking about overloads of chakra energy and new agey stuff like that, take it with a grain of salt.
When people talk about pulling muscles or torn ligaments from being over-agressive with Yoga, listen well. I hurt my back doing the plow and holding it a little too long. Unlike what many say about yoga, caution should be used.
Cool,
I see your point with those very general concepts using all that new age spiritual jargon, but what I’ve read about experiences with Kundalini are very specific. Most describe an extremely intense sensation of energy running through your spine, thus requiring your posture to be completely straight. Apparently, this feeling can be overwhelming, twisting you in all sorts of ways if you fight it.
“I feel just as reduced being called a system as I do a clock; life’s just not condensible…healing the world is an inside job.” - Thomas Harryman, Mindwalk.
Anyone?
I am tempted to simply label this drivel, but if the people who post and believe these things are all practitioners of kundalini yoga then it might actually be true.
Ooooo – pradox, anyone?
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Your body is what? 4 watts? Okay connect with thatt energy & you are connecting with everyone else, so 4 watts X 6 billion people = gazillions watts. That could throw some people.
Seems to me that you could easily find a lot more dangerous things to do with your time and body than this yoga thing. I would expect that the percentage of K-Yoga practioners injured or killed as a result of doing their thing is much less than the percentage of commuters killed or injured while commuting.
Of course, as we say in the South, if someone starts doing anything by saying “Hey, Y’all, watch this…”, then you’d best get out of the way because imminent bodily harm is likely. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine someone starting off their K-Yoga session with that.
But he’s not worried about things like pulled muscles or torn ligaments. He’s worried about unleashing his kundalini energy; the prana, the ch’i, the chakra, the orgone, the great serpent that lies coiled at the base of the spine.
Don’t worry. This “energy” would have to exist before it could hurt you.
Further reading:
From A Dictionary of Alternative-Medicine Methods: kundalini yoga (Shakti Yoga, tantra yoga): A purported means of activating kundalini (also called ahamkara and kundalini shakti). This, allegedly, is a “dormant infinite force,” “potential cosmic power,” or “spiritual power” that, in most people, is asleep, without self-awareness, in a chakra at the coccyx. The Sanskrit word “kundal” means “coiled up.” Supposedly, when kundalini is awake, it enriches human lives emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually. Moreover, its arousal purportedly contributes to the cure of many intractable diseases. Kundalini yoga includes bhuta shuddhi.
Ch’i
orgone
Urine therapy to unleash the Kundalini
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy