Dark Side of Kundalini Awakening
Experiences of spiritual awakening, whether gradual or sudden, intentionally induced or spontaneous, typically evoke an ineffable sense of deep inner knowing, understanding, “remembering,” or “unveiling” of one's true nature, as well as experiences of peace and equanimity, bliss, ecstasy and aliveness, feelings of awe, sacredness, gratitude and reverence, and of abundant, unconditional love.
These profound experiences may also trigger a sense of transcendence of time and space, as well as an increase in physical and mental sensitivity to internal and external stimuli, including sensitivity to color, light, touch, sounds, and smells Generally, this beautiful life force is awakened through physical yoga postures, meditation techniques, kriya, and pranayama breathing exercises. When Kundalini awakens, many people experience a dancing feeling from this dormant energy up the spine, like when Shakti awoke Shiva from his state of meditation after thousands of years. It’s not actual dancing, but like an awakening of subtle energy that is deep within. It’s quite beautiful, to be honest.
Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference.
This is what leads to what many refer to as Dark Kundalini of the soul.
While this sounds pretty scary, don’t let those fear-mongering headlines freak you out. Instead, take a minute to understand what Dark Kundalini of the soul is all about and then help yourself prepare for it.
So awakening is a shift of consciousness, often accompanied by energy experiences. Yogis refer to awakening as Kundalini Awakening, and it can be accompanied by all kinds of physical, emotional, mental and energetic phenomena–not all of which are pleasant.
Kundalini Awakening
These awakening experiences are often referred to as Kundalini Awakening full Kundalini Awakening is a specific experience that means all of the knots and samskaras of the psyche have been resolved.
Traditionally, an aspirant would spend years, or lifetimes, methodically working through the knots and issues of the psyche through the cleansing practices of yoga before finally having an awakening experience. Now however, there are all kinds of people having various types of awakenings and these awakenings are often lumped under the phrase ‘Kundalini Awakening.’
However, this is far away from being a spiritual experience. When people have these kinds of physical experiences, they often confuse it with awakening the Kundalini.
A lot of energy experiences aren’t Kundalini Awakening but all energy is Kundalini-based whether it is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. People are having an energy shift and they can awaken levels of perception that activate the chakras for a while. They can move into some strange modes of behavior.
The real full-on Kundalini Awakening experience is a surge of energy coming from Mulhadara up the back of the spine, over the top of the head and culminating in the forehead. The whole system has awakened. This can be very strong if people aren’t prepared for it they can become quite schizophrenic or paranoid or have serious so-called mental sicknesses. However, the whole experience can be dealt with successfully through yoga and through associating with someone who’s aware of what is going on.
It is possible to raise Kundalini energy by accident and/or without being ready. "Most of us have chakras that are very congested," people should be careful of trying to go about waking up their Kundalini. "You can raise your Kundalini by accident, but it doesn't raise your consciousness."
Kundalini awakenings will be different for everyone, and some say it can feel like a bad drug trip or psychosis. In a body that does not have clear chakras, unpleasant physical symptoms can also arise, like body spasms and feeling hot. Without prior cleansing of the nādī system, raising the serpent power (kundalinī-shakti) along the axial pathway is not only impossible but also very dangerous to attempt, for instead of entering the central channel (sushumnā-nādī) it is likely to force itself into the idā- or the pingalā-nādī, on either side of the central channel, causing immense havoc in the body and mind.
It's not always possible to know if our Kundalini energy is rising or we're going through a different kind of spiritual experience. "We can have the instances of Kundalini awakening, and then we can also have instances of upper chakras opening, They don't have to be related but can be."
Upper chakras opening can manifest in sudden realizations, visions, insights, connecting with spirits, psychic insights, experiences of a sudden feeling of love out of nowhere, and more—but that doesn't necessarily mean it's Kundalini.
Attempting to "achieve" a Kundalini awakening should not be the goal. The "goal," so to speak, should merely be to become a whole, self-actualized person. If your Kundalini energy rises, it rises—but if not, you're still doing yourself a service by cultivating your spirituality.
“ there can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were” Hazrat Inavat Khan
Negative Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening
Yet, there is a darker side to this experience. Sometimes all of the shadow aspects of ones psyche, everything a person has been avoiding and denying for years of who, what am I, sex and relationships crowded into your awareness and consciousness. Too much energy, too much insight and too much connection can be really hard to deal with and can break a person down instead of uplifting them to enlightenment.
two sides of us that need to develop at a similar pace during yoga and meditation practice so we can stay balanced and sane–awareness and equanimity. At our peril, we focus all of our effort on cultivating awareness, often ignoring the vast repertoire of self-building and equanimity practices that are meant to go hand-in-hand with building insight. In fact, the preliminary practices of yoga are almost all about building the calmly abiding self.
What’s happening is you’re seeing how the external things didn’t heal you. Your illusions about what really matters are breaking down. The part of you that is still chasing outside things to make you happy is dying. Once it does, you can begin actually doing things that make you whole.
You start having “purge” symptoms For some people, it’s gravitating toward healthier foods, feeling unexplainable chills, heaviness or lightness, wanting to sweat more, or de-clutter your home and social life.
You realize that there are two ways of interacting with people: trying to get their approval by being “better” than them, or trying to connect with them genuinely. Trying to impress people into liking you will always leave you feeling empty. It’s a very pervasive mechanism the ego uses to soothe itself when the fear of truly being seen by another person arises.
You’re having random and intense memories and dreams of past partners, forgotten childhood experiences, and so on. This is because all of the emotions attached to those experiences are bubbling up to the surface. The energy that you have been ignoring all of this time is beginning to diffuse, and you are beginning to open yourself back up to the parts of your subconscious mind you “forgot” about while you were suppressing other memories.
The feeling of being “stuck” usually comes up when we’re beginning to recognize all of the limitations that we place on ourselves. Feeling “lost” just means you are no longer living by the script you made up for yourself – you’re opening up to a completely new way of living, and a totally new life… of course it feels like you don’t know where you’re headed.
You experience intense, involuntary shaking of the body that can be alarming, Your nervous system becomes hypersensitive to external stressors (bright light, TV violence, loud noises) and shuts down or craves total solitude. You struggle to sleep properly, You experience sudden and shocking moments of ego death, You have visual disturbances that can feel alarming (e.g., objects seeming to vibrate), You experience intense heat, vibrations, or electricity surge through your body, It feels like you’re having a bad drug trip while sober, You struggle to distinguish what is real from imagined (psychosis) and feel like you’re going crazy, Feeling shattered (fragmented) or like you have no center, Dreaming of snakes or seeing snakes everywhere (this is an alert from your subconscious mind), Feeling raw and extremely vulnerable, like a newborn child, Manic and exuberant energy or the opposite, chronic fatigue (sometimes alternating), Frequent lucid dreams or vivid dreams, Seeing lights or hearing music that isn’t there, Tapping into your past life experiences (or other people’s) , Entering spontaneous yoga poses (known as kriyas), mudras (hand poses), or pranayama (yogic breathing), Developing a Savior Complex or feelings of grandiosity, Feeling intense grief for the planet and all suffering beings, Out of body experiences where you (may/may not) connect with your Higher Self, Visual and hearing changes, Panic attacks and feelings of terror, Strange food cravings or aversions, Spontaneous orgasms, Developing strange, undiagnosable physical symptoms that may manifest as autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, nausea, etc.
Dark Kundalini awakening is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the Divine. Those who experience the Dark kundalini feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy. The Dark kundalini of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression and the experience of losing touch with God/Creator and being plunged into the abyss of godless emptiness. The modern understanding of having a Dark kundalini of the Soul, however, is not exclusively a religious one, but can often mean losing all meaning in life, feeling out-of-touch with the Divine, feeling betrayed or forsaken by Life, and having no solid or stable ground to stand on.
Some of the heaviest questions we ask during this period include for example, “Why am I alive?” “Why do good people suffer?” “What is truth?” “Is there a god or afterlife?” and “What is the point of living?”
Finding away through the darkness.
The ‘dark night of the soul’ is a term that goes back a long time. Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life… an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event—some disaster perhaps. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death—Or the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.
There are many examples of men and women who endured unimaginable ordeals and yet contributed in a striking way to humanity’s progress. Don’t waste time in illusions and wishes. Take it on. Keep your sense of worth and power. Keep your vision intact. Let your darkness speak and give its tone to your bearing and expression.
It’s important to live through the dark night, acknowledge it, notice its qualities, and be affected by it. At the same time, it is not useful to be too attached to it or to let it dominate. You don’t want to be the hero who slays dragons and tries to obliterate the darkness, but you do need all the strength of heart you can muster.
While giving a dark night its due, you can also cultivate a love of life and joy in living that doesn’t contradict the darkness. You can be dedicated to your work and your vision for humanity and also feel overwhelmed by the suffering in the world. To do this it helps to have a philosophy of life that understands the creative coming together of conflicting moods. The rule is simple: Human beings can do more than one thing at a time. You can acknowledge your darkness and still find some joy.
Quite often, we fight the idea of change, to the point of exhaustion before collapsing in what defeat. When we stop fighting, we allow ourselves to be overtaken by something that was better for us all along. We hear people talking about surrendering and it sounds like giving in to the enemy. In this instance, it means to stop fighting against it, accept it, and let it happen. Trust in the Universe and the process.
Trust that the dark night will turn to a new dawn. The night does not last forever. Upon completing this journey, you will become enlightened. You will then be able to help others also find their way, through their darkness and see the light of their new dawn.
Not everyone travels this journey. It is generally only bestowed upon the lucky few that have a strong spiritual path ahead of them. Although when you are going through it you may feel anything but lucky.
