Kundalini, Kali, Shaktipat, Deeksha, Indra Jaal
Q. Does anyone one of the gurus in your gathering know how to raise Kali and other deities on people? Also, do they know the art of the Indra Jaal? Can they raise the kundalini?
Kundalini, Karma, and Shaktipat
For those of you who are beginners, Kundalini is a form of one’s primal life force typically envisioned as a serpent wound around the base of the spine- in the coccygeal / sacrum (sacred bone) area. Kundalini in most normal people is usually spoken of as dormant. It’s not, of course. If your Kundalini were inactive, you would be dead. The energy is just at a low level due to our physical and emotional resistance, our fears and our defensive reaction to our fears. Waking our Kundalini necessitates a certain amount of freeing ourselves from this resistance. As our resistance decreases, our life force increases. The life force can then be enrolled in further eliminating resistances e.g., fear, pain, anger. Various Taoist and Yogic practices are helpful in this process, some being more efficient than others for individual ego types.
Chakras and Kundalini
There are some teachers who purport to be able to awaken one’s Kundalini and burn or liberate one from one’s karma, one’s patterns of limited perception, and negative emotional states and behaviors. This is both true and not true.
The practice of energy transference is usually taught or experienced in a “healing” context, such as “laying on of hands,” which has been around for millennia. Once again becoming popular, there are schools that teach various forms of the transfer of subtle energy, usually with some kind of “healing” intention. My own experience with this is that the energy, at the hands of a TRUE master, is anything but subtle.
As a young man, I consented to receive shaktipat ( sometimes known as deeksha, diksha ) from a Yogic saint. I had been doing yogic, qigong, T’ai chi, and Bioenergetic practices daily for some years and felt that I might be prepared enough to receive this blessing. I kind of expected it to be subtle, most yogis and meditators talking about it in these terms. Upon physical contact with my guru, and within seconds, I was transported into another realm, so I have to say that for me, shaktipat was about a subtle as a freight train.
Now, in my opinion, many unscrupulous “teachers” will then interject some self-promotion and tell you they are burning your karma for you. This sort of “teacher” or “priest,” no matter what tradition they are involved with, is looking to create a dependency in you. This codependency is antithetical to freedom. There is a spectrum of malformed intent here, from the subconscious to the consciously manipulative. In my experience, this is very common, more so than the opposite - the purely altruistic avatar.
Of course, the true masters never say this, because, well, it is not true, not possible. The state of shaktipat transference is much like a psychotropic. It is like a preview of coming attractions. Just like a movie trailer, it is a little taste of spiritual ecstasy. If you want to see, to live, to be the whole movie of liberation, of divine bliss, you have to earn your spiritual currency. You need to get your butt out and buy the ticket and sit yourself down in the cosmic cinema yourself. No one can do this for you. Everyone is responsible for their own inner work.
There are no shortcuts. You can’t skip any steps anymore than one could build a house and start with the roof. It just won’t work safely. A foundation and walls are a good idea. That said, it IS possible to speed up the process if you are committed to living a more joyous, liberated, and conscious life.
Tantra and a visit from Kali
For those choosing to live in the world, Taoist Tantra is perhaps the fastest path to enlightenment. Not necessarily the easiest, but definitely fast and interesting. Kundalini that is activated is to a normal person’s consciousness as fire is to cold wood. Tantra is to Kundalini as gasoline is to fire. In other words, if you are practicing TRUE Tantra, i.e., Tantric Kundalini activation, your are going to have one toasty campfire, one speedy route to liberation!
Among dedicated Tantrikas, Kali is a favorite energy to invoke. Known as the Dark Goddess of Destruction, Kali’s function is to quickly separate one from one’s ego. Often depicted with one or more swords, Kali wears a necklace of severed heads. These “dead heads” represent the self-limiting aspects of the ego. Fear, pain, hatred, envy, judgment, violence, and so forth. Like the Phoenix, Kali slashes and burns every aspect of the limited self. From the ashes, the Tumo fire of destruction, rebirth into the higher self occurs. Awakening and freedom is the result.
Aspects of Kali
Some years ago I participated in an advanced Tantric ritual where we did various Tantric practices and purifications for a couple of weeks prior to the Puja to prepare ourselves. Everyone there had some years of experience and were fairly comfortable with the various Tantric energies. This temple we were at was out in the jungle, light years from the normal American reality.
The Puja was scheduled to run all day, counting preparation and sanctification of the space, maybe 18 hours. About 12 hours into the process, one of the other teachers decided to invoke Kali.
This did cause me to pause. Kali can really be a bit pushy, a bit of a drama queen. Part of me considered leaving, just walking out the door into the jungle. Of course the mosquitoes in that area were truly impressive. They had a really voracious bloodlust, not at all like our timid American variety. Local rumor had it that they were like vampires, you would swoon from blood loss before you were aware of what was happening.
So, there I was, caught between Kali and Dracula, between exsanguination and enlightenment. What’s a poor Shiva to do? Well, I took a deep breath and decided to hang in there. After all, some years before, I had worked extensively with the Kali energy and dancing with Kali in her most alluring form might be better than a night alone in the jungle dodging vampires. Of course, my previous Kali sadhana was a grounded, well-structured daily practice during which we were Brahmacharya. This was a “puja on fire” at this point, and the Tantric “gasoline” was being poured on.
As the Puja progressed into the wee hours, I noticed successive layers of fear and resistance melting away. My body became light and highly energized. My expectations relaxed, my heart opened. I experienced layer upon layer of ecstasy, building to an almost out of body, highly energized bliss state, resulting finally in a deep serene sense of union, a transpersonal state of awareness beyond the sense of time or place. Bliss rolled over me like a great river, deep and abiding. I was so transformed by this that I wouldn’t go back to the states, just couldn’t bear coming back our culture’s vibration of acquisition and competition, of fear and anger. For the next month I wandered through the jungle, integrating my experience, meditating, practicing Tantric qigong, visiting temples, and sleeping on beaches like some Tantric Dharma bum.
In a sense, Kali is the most assertive personification of the Kundalini energy, the initial agenda of which is to cleanse that which is not pure from the psyche and soma. Fear, pain, anger, judgment, these patterns must be released before spiritual rebirth can occur. For the world in which we currently live, it is best to activate Kundalini gradually while increasing one’s ability to let go of the past fearlessly, to integrate, and to be grounded. So, I would say, be careful with Kali, she might chop off your “death head” and force you to experience timeless Bliss! Don’t try this on your own at home, boys and girls. Be prepared and have teachers who know what they are doing. Copyright 2006, Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.
Part2: Indra Jaal, Magic, and Siddhis
Instruction & Coaching
