1

BODY AWARENESS AND "SUBTLE ENERGIES" IN SPIRITUAL

DEVELOPMENT

Something has been left out in my theoretical account of

meditation thus far: the body. For real meditation, in contrast to

mere imagination (that is to say, meditation in which there is

some measure of spiritual experience and of ego-dissolution)

involves the body. Indeed, the more advanced spiritual schools

emphasize a domain of subtle semsory awareness usually conceived

as a "higher" or "inner" body constituted of fine "energy"

channels. For while in its early stages spiritual practice affects

our emotional life and changes in our understanding of things, it

seems that the process of liberation from ego's conditioning is

not complete until the bodily ego has not been penetrated through

a sort of a "descent into the grave." In this grave of the body,

it may be said, lies buried that intrinsic divine essence or that

some call "soul" and others "Buddha nature."

According to legend, king Gesar -- before his rainbow-body

ascension to heaven at the end of his incarnation as a warrior

king in Medieval Tibet -- led his family and friends up a mountain

and then guided them there through a long retreat devoted to "the

play of air in the arteries." So translates Mme.David-Neel the

Tibetan expression za-lung emphasized in the annutara and anu-yoga

tantras of the vajrayana (Buddhist equivalent of the "kundalini

yoga" of Indian transtrism and of the Taoist yoga associated to

the "Religion of the Golden Elixir of Life").

Though I have refrained from using the word "Kundalini" in this

chapter's heading so as to emphasize that its chapter constitutes

a universal aspect of spiritual evolution (and, conversely, to de-

emphasize its association with both Indian culture and American

charlatanism) I cannot fail to point out the appropriateness of

the meaning indicated by the expression "kundalini shakti": "the

serpent (and/or serpentine) power."

Not only is the gliding of the serpent a natural association and

at times a synesthetic concomitant of felt serpentine flow-paths

in the body, but the slow and continuous process of subtle body

transformation that goes hand-in-hand with spiritual development

in time has been described by Indian yoga as the "awakening" of a

dormant "inner snake" (at the base of the trunk) followed by its

uncoiling and rising to the crown of the head.

2

It is likely that the "snake power" has been known since the pre-

historic beginnings of religions life, as the giant snake

printings in the ceiling of caves at Rouffignac1 and other places

suggest it.

1Men & Snakes, by Ramona&Desmond Morris, McGraw-Hill Book

Company, New York, San Francisco, 1965 (page 10).

3

If the animal paintings of the neolithic have served as supports

for a communion with nature spirits, it is likely that the giant

serpents were designed to invoke not simply an animal spirit among

others, but something akin to a spirit of nature -- a great mother

spirit, both outer and inner, who is both life and life's guiding

principle.

Very early clay tablets from the Mohenjodaro culture in India

showing the motive of a serpent by a sitting yogi bespeak the

antiquity of both yoga and its tantric dimension. Also, the

association of snake and tree is a widespread feature of the

conception of paradise in ancient cultures.

Though after the rise of patriarchal culture in the bronze age,

the snake -- along with the body -- was demonized, there is reason

to interpret the original association of serpent and tree in

Paradise as indicative of a sacralization of the natural order,

and to believe that before the arising of its role as tempter it

served a completely different mythical function. In the scene

depicted in the Egyptian stone engraving below, in which the

serpent is seen presenting a fruit to the first man, it appears as

wholly beneficent.

Alain Danielou's contention that the Dionysian religion of the

European mysteries was not different from Shiva religion in

India2, not only throws light on the identification between

Dionysius and the snake but is coherent with the sense of a

tantric awareness pervading Greek mythology in general. Let us

only bring to mind how the Delphic Oracle that presided over Greek

culture in antiquity was originally belonged to the snake goddess.

According to myth Apollo conquered Python and took possession of

her Oracle just as Zeus slayed the mythological Typhon at the dawn

of Olympian patriarchy.

What, then, is this "Great Snake" of most ancient antiquity?

In the words of Ichazo, through whom I was practically introduced

to the subject, "Kundalini is God." Yet this is a statement that

takes for granted the experience of kundalini as something

physical. A more complete statement, thus, is that the Serpent

2Shiva y Dionisos/La Religion de la Naturaleza y del Eros,

Alain Danielou, ed. Kairos, Barcelona, Spain, 1987.

4

Goddess is the individual's body itself when sacralized or

divinized through a subtle transformation.

Before addressing this transformation of the body, which is but a

facet of the more comprehensive transformation in the individual

(what could be called the "kundalini process") let us consider the

"kundalini phenomenon," as it manifests at any given moment. For

it would be a mistake to define it in purely spiritual or physical

terms: along with spiritual states and with a continuously ongoing

pranic process in time, comparable to the weaving of a subtle body

through the circulation of something variously designated as

light, energy or a precious substance, the "kundalini phenomenon"

involves other aspects, typically including a visionary dimension

-- both literally, in reference to visions, and in the wider sense

of "contemplation."

Further, still, there seems to be at work in visionary life a

factor of inspiration or inner guidance as constitutes the essence

of shamanism and a possible definition of a Sufi. Among South

American indians that I visited in Colombia3, snake visions are

interpreted as the expression of contact with a guiding principle,

and it will be noted that the Greek God of guidance -- Hermes --

holds the snake entwined caduceus as emblem. Yet the snake is not

only a guide, an oracle or a source of wisdom: it is also a healer

-- as we are reminded by the widespread professional medical

emblem. The snake power's inspiration would seem to be

beneficiently geared to our sickness and need.

There is also a feeling dimension to the kundalini phenomenon. It

is traditionally recognized that just as a kind of drunkenness

arises from an excessive narcissistic excitement before spiritual

experience in one not pure or healthy enough for the "snake-

journey," it is also well known that great pain and states of

despair may supervene in which the person is keenly aware of his

pathology and in consequence of a felt absence of spiritual

experience, feels damned or hopelessly demonized.

Not long after R.D.Laing and others in the sixties pointed out the

spiritual potential of psychotic experience (all too easy to abort

in an authoritarian demand of health) and particularly after

Esalen Institute's initiative in bringing together various experts

3 The Sibundoy.

5

interested in the subject4, it was suggested that psychotic

experience in some cases might constitute a "kundalini accident."

In the late seventies, for instance, Sannela published Kundalini,

Psychosis or Transcendence5, the Grofs created "The Spiritual

Emergency Network"6 and at least one "kundalini clinic" opened in

San Francisco.

I think that it is valid to speak of complications of the

individual's psycho-physical development, yet a measure of

"complication" is the rule rather than the exception, for the

healing process involves the opening of old wounds and a glimpsing

of more truth than many can bear confortably. Since the severity

of pre-existing pathology may lead to a tragic dead-end, however,

the dangers of esoteric teachings to the unprepared have been

stressed in different cultures.

Besides a spiritual dimension, the physical, the cognitive and the

emotional aspects described above, there is a facet of the

kundalini phenomenon that may or not be obviously apparent and yet

is, I think, not only intrinsic to it but, in a subtle sense, the

most characteristic: possession.

Possession states have been known in all cultures and all times,

but it is the most problematic form of possession -- what might be

called pathological possession -- that has mainly come to the

attention of West.

Typical expressions of non-pathological possession in the high

religions are the experiences of prophecy in the Old Testament and

the Pentecostal experience of the Apostles, while contemporary

expressions are prominent in the more shamanistic Sufi lineages,

the Afro-Christian-Brazilian religion and the Subud movement.

We also know that all shamanism revolves around non-pathological

and valuable experiences of trance and of possession. While these

4Various recordings distributed by Big Sur tapes document

these meetings from the sixties, including talks by Dabrowsky,

Silverman, Harner, Laing and others -- including myself.

5ref.

6 Now Spiritual Emergence Network.

6

two -- trance and possession -- constitute alternative vehicles of

shamanic development, it might be argued that they constitute

alternative manifestations of a single phenomenon resulting from

deep surrender: alternative forms of spontaneous mental operation

in which there is a sense that it is not the habitual mind but an

inspiration beyond the scope of ordinary consciousness that is at

work. Trance is no less inwardly guided as the possession

experience in which a person lends his body and mind to a

spiritual entity and the influence of the entity "channeled" is

manifest through action and words. Whether inspiration is in the

sphere of doing or in that of the imaginal activity of visionary

states, it is equally the case that the ordinary mind is in

abeyance and something trans-personal takes over. The same is the

case of "energy flows" -- a subtle somatic alternative to the

mental-visionary domain and the verbal-motor domains of inspired

spontaneity, so that pranic flow, creative imagination and

spiritual possession proper may all three be interpreted as

expressions of surrender to trans-personal or trans-egoic

promptings.

But possession and visionary trance are not only specific internal

states and paths that may be explicitly cultivated. A subtle form

of possession may be said part of all meditation, for a factor of

inspired self-direction makes of meditation a sort of creative

inner navigation, in which the meditator intuitively knows how to

best meditate moment after moment with a subtlety that far

transcends the verbal formulation of any standard exercise. Thus,

meditation may begin by a practice modeled according to some

traditional technique, but it will henceforth be greatly enhanced

by a factor of intuition where the individual knows how to

understand that particular technique with the help of his own

inspiration. The point has been explained through a story about an

early Sufi -- the Egyptian Dhul Nun, reported to have unearthed a

treasure from an Egyptian tomb. While everybody had sought the

treasure behind the spot where the hand of a sculpted figure was

pointing, nobody had thought that it was the shadow of the hand

that provided the true indication. By analogy, exercises are only

hinted at by their fixed formulation, and "how to meditate" is

something a person learns from experience and a subtle inner

guidance along the path of his journey through inner space.

I have by now addressed the question as to what the experiential

referent of the mythical snake may be. This description needs to

be complemented by an account of a temporal unfoldment -- a

7

"kundalini process" that begins with a first "kundalini

awakening," climaxes and is then followed by a sort of gradual

"kundalinization" of the body from head to feet while the

individual's visionary stage is followed by an experience of

"spiritual contraction."

The old metaphor of a snake that sheds its skin is appropriate in

reference to simultaneous regeneration and shedding of old

structure throughout this process. In time, then, the kundalini is

no other than the ongoing birthing and dying that takes place at

both the psychospiritual and the physical levels.

Gopi Krishna -- whose kundalini "Big-Bang" came about through

disciplined concentration that he pursued not with a spiritual aim

but for success in his studies as a school boy -- wrote decades

ago the story of the long odyssey that followed his oceanic

experience, and emphasized the view of kundalini as "The

Evolutionary Energy in Man." This notion of an "evolutionary

energy" reflects the acknowledgement that the process of a

kundalini awakening is inseparable from what might be called the

advanced spiritual path -- that stage of spiritual evolution in

which, so to say, the pilgrim that has walked on foot, boards a

spontaneously advancing vehicle.

The metaphor of a snake uncoiling-arising is wholly appropriate

for the "kundalini process" in time if only not taken too

literally. The sequence of the stages in the transformative

process has a structure to it that suggests an organic unfolding,

like the order of the seasons or the stages of metamorphosis, in

which each stage is the perfect antecedent of the next and yet the

process is eminently creative and individual.

To tell the story of the unfolding "serpent" in time it is

appropriate, of course, to begin by the beginning -- which is

sometimes referred to as a "kundalini arousal." It then seems that

for the first time something "other" has come into one's person's

body and mind, which seems to have a life of its own. It is as if

a spiritual seed has fallen into the person's ordinary mind to be

incubated until it takes full root and produces full blooming. Yet

I do not believe that necessarily a person who is spiritually

inseminated (for this is a time of spiritual conception) is

necessarily aware of the physical aspect of the experience. While

sometimes impressive sensations in the spine, belly, forehead or

other parts of the body may be prominent, at other times it is the

8

visionary aspect that may be more predominant: there may be a

perception of light, for instance, a sense of sacredness, or

perhaps a condition that cannot be described.

My own kundalini awakening occured in a gestalt session with Jim

Simkin and did not involve the experience of any of the chakras --

though prana was striking part of it. He indicated that I needed

to work on my breath, and invited me to pay attention to it, which

led first to hyperventilation, later to a new level of acceptance

of my ongoing experience in the present and finally a "satori"

lasting some two hours as I drove back to Berkeley from Esalen. I

felt this experience had involved a worldless contagion, and

contagion in general may be said one of the most important factors

in kundalini awakening. This may be the deliberate transmission of

a formal initiation, the spontaneous contagion of spiritually

evolved beings or group contagion -- particularly in the situation

of groups conducted by a spiritual teacher who inspires a

willingness to surrender.

I once was consulted by a guitarist that had studied with a Vina

master in India. He was alarmed by jerky involuntary movements of

his legs as he played. Sometimes "kundalini possession" may be

like this: a kind of disordered manifestation; at other times,

involuntary movements are harmonious, as is frequently the case

among Siddha yoga practitioners who on entering a certain region

of experience develop spontaneous mudras and asanas.

Another possible stimulus for kundalini arousal is that of

psychedelics. Dr.Grof and I had a public discussion on this

subject in the late seventies since (at least then) he believed

psychedelics only activated transient kundalini states. I am, in

turn, convinced that for many a single psychedelic experience has

been an initiation: a true ascent of launching of a person to a

higher life. Ayahuasca, in particular, deserves to be regarded a

"kundalini activator," as I have elaborated upon elsewhere.7

Aside from contagion and psychedelics, the most usual stimulus to

a kundalini awakening is meditation of one sort or another. Not

only the surrender of body and mind to non-egoic-control leads to

7 Ayahuasca visions in "Ayahuasca Imagery and the Therapeutic

Property of the Harmala Alkaloids," by Claudio Naranjo, in

"Journal of Mental Imagery," 1987, 11(2), 131-136.

9

this arousing, but tarditional yoga, inasmuch as the pursuit of

calm involves a contest with the ego's passional stirrings which

in time undermines egoic interference and is bound to prepare

ground for a greater spontaneity. Indeed, the tantric traditions

pre-supposes the mastery of concentration. The pedagogy of Laya

yoga or other tantric systems is such that after working hard on

getting out of the way, the person comes to a sort of spiritual

harvest, where it is not a matter of working hard, anymore, but

learning to not work.

Aside from an outburst of spontaneous phenomena of the body or the

mind and a sense of subtle guidance, the mobilization of the

"serpent power" usually brings understanding -- of both

traditional teachings and everyday events. Myths and story-telling

are full of spiritual insight, of course, and they could not fail

to document the entry into the spontaneous vehicle of the inner

snake.

Here are the first paragraphs from the tale of "The White Snake"

in the Grimm's collection8:

"A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom

through all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed

as if news of the most secret things was brought to him through

the air. But he had a strange custom; every day after dinner, when

the table was cleared, and no one else was present, a trusty

servant had to bring him one more dish. It was covered, however,

and even the servand did not know what was in it, neither did

anyone know, for the King never took off the cover to eat of it

until he was quite alone.

This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who

took away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could

not help carrying the dish into his room. Whe he had carefully

locked the door, he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake

lying on the dish. But when he saw it he could not deny himself

the pleasure of tasting it, so he cut off a little bit and put it

into his mouth. No sooner had it touched his tongue than he heard

a strange whispering of little voices outside his window. He went

and listened, and then noticed that it was the sparrows who were

8The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Pantheon Books, New York,

1972 (page 98).

10

shattering together, and telling one another of all kinds of

things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating the

snake had given him power of understanding the language of

animals."

The same theme is the issue when Sigfried, after slaying the

dragon and bathing in its blood understands the language of the

birds. In one case "serpentification" has arisen through vicinity

to the king and his food, in the second, "dragonification" has

been the outcome of a heroic struggle against the passions, for

here the dragon (according to patriarchal convention) personifies

the ego or entity that has appropriated life energies, as well as

the potential of a higher life.

In many myths or stories the encounter with the dragon (or sphinx,

in the case of Oedipus) takes the form of a testing situation, if

not in which the mighty power may be conquered through knowledge.

In this we may see a reference to the inseparability of awareness

and kundalini ripening. Indeed, when the intensity of the release

manifestations that come about in surrender is not matched by

awareness and wisdom, the individual's journey may get

complicated.

Idries Shah's version of a story from The Arabian Nights makes

explicit the rationale for tantric esoterism: "The Fisherman and

the Genie"9 revolves around the idea that "man can use only what

he has learned to use."

Whatever the prominence of its physical aspect, once the inwardly

guided self-organizing experiential process has been triggered,

the individual's progress might be described as an ongoing

conquest of territory, an experiential deepening and a

purification from ego. But it would be a mistake to think that the

process that will naturally culminate in a mystical climax (an

"oceanic experience") necessarily follows the blueprint of the

hindu tantra shastras or any particular teaching system. It is

true that specific systems utilize the activation of the lowermost

chakra through sexual arousal and use visualization focused on the

raising of "energy" to the frontal region and eventually the crown

of the head; it is also true that the activation of chakras (or,

9Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shah, E.P.Dutton, New York,

1970 (pages 117-120).

11

in other words, the sense of vibratory activity at different

levels of the body) may to some extent be manipulated through

intentional shifts in attention and visualization. Yet it would be

too narrow to think that the raising of the instinctual energies

to the spiritual level through the support of visualization and

breathing has to be accomplished according to the specific

sequence of body energy shifts and vizualizations implied in the

now popular Indian descriptions of the chakras.

It is noteworthy, however, that for the Eastern energy yoga

systems share a strategy for bringing the prana to rest in the

central "channel" through a sort of reciprocal activation of the

upper and lower centers. Thus, just as in Taoism the circulation

of the light proceeds between the lower couldron (in the pelvis)

and the heavenly yellow castle (between the eye-brows) also in

Tibetan tumo the fire of the belly region is kindled by the

dripping of soma from the cranial region, and this soma, in turn,

is melted through the rising flames.

Whatever the path followed, some of those in whom the inner-power

has been awakened come to a sort of "Mount Meru summit" in which a

deep relaxation of the crown region coincides with a sense of

inner melting in which the ordinary mind seems to dissolve in

undifferentiated yet blissful spaciousness.

Though a new beginning, this experience of union at the time

appears as an end, for nothing could be more impressive. In the

symbolic account of spiritual evolution contained in the

Pentateuch, this is Sinai -- the time of contact with the divine

on top of the thundering mountain. And as lightening precedes

thunder, the purest and most subtle and condensed manifestation of

the kundalini at the very beginning of its "Big-Bang" may be

equated with the bardo of the clear light in the Tibetan account

of the after-death journey. After that the individual's mental

development will seem to go a descending ladder as the internal

vibratory phenomenon initiates a slow descent into the body.

The stage of revelation and grace -- "the illuminative stage" --

will be then followed by years in the desert, a seeming

impoverishment -- as described by Al Ghazali through a parable of

seven valleys that need to be crossed along one's quest.

The first of these he calls the Valley of Knowledge, and the

following ones get worse and worse before the final one. The

12

second is the Valley of Repentance; the third, the Valley of

Stumbling Blocks (the tempting world, the attracting people, the

old enemy Satan and the inordinate Self). There follows the Valley

of Tribulations, in which it is necessary to seek protection

through dependence on God, patience in sufferings and joyous

submission to His service, and after that the Thundering Valley,

where he finds that service is uninteresting and prayers

mechanical and in which he is afraid and understands the history

of human responsibility. With a light heart now he advances, only

to find himself suddenly in the Abysmal Valley, where looking into

the nature of his actions he discovers that those which seemed

good were the outcome of vainglory. He finds here the Angel of

Sincerity, however, who takes him to the Valley of Hymns -- where

the invisible Hand of Divine Mercy opens for him the door of the

Garden of Love.

However final the experience of spiritual climax may seem, then,

it only marks the beginning of still another stage of what will be

subject of a higher spiritual life. And if "birth" is an

appropriate word in view of an earlier conception, it is still in

the nature of a spiritual insemination, for -- this crowning

experience will be followed by an increasing integration into

further layers of the person's mind and life.

Just as a seed dies so that the tree may be born, however, the

after-effect of this spiritual experience will seem to diminish

progressively, and the present stage of spiritual expansion will

be followed by one of spiritual contraction.

According to the oldest of myths, the Sumerian Innana (Babylonian

Ishtar) takes a human shepherd (Dumuzi or Tammuz) for husband, and

then slays him, though he is in the end reborn. So it is with one

who attains divine union at the top of the body's Tree of Life.

As Osiris, whose days of glorious and culture-creating kingship

are followed by a journey in death -- throughout which he is

missed and mourned, so for the individual traveller after the time

of an oceanic dissolution and an expansive visionary stage there

comes also a time of "poverty" at which spiritual experiences fade

away; yet this walking in the valley of the "shadow of death" (as

King David calls it) is at the same time an incubation.

The Jesus myth, of course, constitutes a reiteration of the

Babylonian-Egyptian rebirth mystery. As those in the Middle Ages

13

knew well, the birth of the inner Christ in the individual is

bound to be followed by a passion and a death before the human

metamorphosis ends in resurrection.

The illuminative stage itself has sub-stages, and thus Attar, in

his The Conference of the Birds10 thus speaks of how the valley of

seeking is followed by the valley of love, then by the valley of

understanding, followed in turn by the valley of detachment and

the valley of unity, before the seekers come to the stages of

contraction proper: a valley of bewilderment and a valley of

deprivation and eath after which lies the goal of their quest.

Though some rabbis may feel unconfortable at the comparison (just

as Jewish scholars may affirm that judaism doesn't recognize a

"dark night of the soul") all this is coherent with the account of

the inner journey in Padmasambhava's Bardo Todol, widely known in

the West today as The Tibetan Book of the Dead.11 This account may

be taken, at an inner level, as a map of an after-death journey in

life according to which the ultimate experience of the "clear

light of the void" or dharmakaya is followed by the visionary

state of shambogakaya and lastly by a re-incarnation process that

amounts to the completion of a "diamond body" in which the wisdom

of non-attachment is brought to bear of successive regions of the

body and an integration is accomplished between the subtlest

spiritual perception and embodied existence (nirmanakaya).

Before this, according to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the

individual journeys through all the worlds or lokas, as his

consciousness shifts from the experience of a God realm to the

realm of the titans or jealous demi-gods, and then to that of

thirsty hungry ghosts, filled with spiritual hunger but

impoverished. Next come hell states, in which the person

experiences despair along with a disintegration of mind and life,

and an animal-like condition of de-spiritualization before he can

regain the human condition and is ready to "re-incarnate." Re-

incarnation, for one who has "died before dying," is of course a

"re-incarnation in life," a return after the long bardo

10by Farid ud-Din Attar The Conference of the Birds, Shambhala,

1993.

11A modern English translation (by Freimantle and Trungpa) was

published by Shambhala in 1975.

14

pilgrimage.

According to the Tibetan teachings that embody the experience of

The Tibetan Book of the Dead,the downward progression through the

bardos and into rebirth is echoed in a downward progression of the

prana through the nadis, in which the last stage is the opening of

the region of the coccix. The pratitioner at this stage invokes

and surrenders to the wrathful Buddha manifestation, visualized as

vajrakilaya -- with a lower body in the form of a downward

pointing ceremonial dagger that suggests the destruction of the

ego and evokes the downward flow of prana to the tips of the toes

in one whose energy system has been fully opened.

With this ends my descriptive account of the kundalini -- first in

its aspect of a kundalini-phenomenon or syndrome, then as a

kundalini-process. But have I fully answered my initial question

as to what the legendary kundalini shakti may be? A descriptive

answer, of course, fails to address the nature of the "serpent

power."

One way of answering could be to say that our "inner serpent" is

no other than our more archaic (reptilian) brain-mind. Yet it is

equally valid to say that this archaic energy, in the end is "us"

-- i.e. the integrity of our central nervous system when cleansed

of karmic interference; for in the end the awakening and

unification of our archaic instinctual mind will bring about the

awakening and unification of our total and threefold brain-mind --

comprising, along with our human neocortex and our reptilian

metencephalon, the emotional brain that we have inherited from our

mammalian ancestors.

It would seem that (mostly through the mid-brain reticular

activating system) our reptilian brain not only influences arousal

or wakefulness, but controls internal coherence -- self-regulation

-- and that our "fall from Eden" (as Koestler suggested in the

sixties) has entailed a disconnection of our reptilian brain from

the neocortex. Once our reptilian brain begins to influence the

rest of our brain and mind, conversely, we may benefit from the

wisdom of its instinctual regulation, which begins to bring order

and health into our whole body-mind system.

To think of "instinct" in terms of sex and aggression arenas

misses the point of the most important meaning of the instinctive

15

function, which is precisely organismic wisdom -- the self-

regulatory function basic to life at all its levels. Since the

study of instinct in lower animals caused psychologists to use the

term less than they used to at the time of Freud's life, the

concept of "organismic self-regulation," more coherent with our

cybernetic age, has come into prominence in contemporary

discussions of therapy. It may be taken to be an abbreviated

expression of a somewhat wider concept involving not only self-

regulation but creativity and homeostasis; thus, more exactly,

adaptive and creative self-regulation. We may envision organismic

self-regulation as the modus operandi of our whole body-mind

system when the whole of our organism controls the whole.

In contrast to the condition of full humanness in which the psyche

has become unified through an internal transparency that allows

for omni-directional access, the ordinary human condition may be

described as one in which a part seeks to control the whole

through a pretense to representing the whole -- as it insulates

itself from our psycho-physical totality.

What I am suggesting, then, is that kundalini is no other than the

long transition between the original egoic insular state to the

completeness that is the goal of all wisdom teachings. This

transition is not only a mental event, however, but, as I have

suggested, a physical one, involving a subtle physiology and a

progressive transformation of the body.

It is now time that we turn our attention to the nature of this

transformation. First of all, it is necessary to ask: what are the

subtle energy channels that constitute the subtle body? And what

is it that flows in our body when we feel "energy" flowing?

I prefer to use the word "energy" (in quotation marks) rather than

to adopt the now widespread word "bio-energy" introduced by the

neo-Reichians, since I take the expression to be mostly

metaphoric. I am well aware that some may interpret the metaphor

literally, and I would not want to dissuade them, since literal

interpretation of metaphors is the best way to benefit from

certain teachings: while we remain detached observers of the

symbolic nature of a spiritual symbol, we fail to put it to work,

and thus poetic and phenomenologic language is from an evocative

point of view the most appropriate. From the strictly scientific

point of view, however, we might begin by considering that

"energy" is something that we project onto the reality of a world

16

in which we only observe masses and velocities. Yet "energy,"

which is mathematically a coeficient of proportionality between

masses and accelerations, appeals to us as an entity on its own

since it matches our felt sense that, just as we will or intend,

there is also in nature a power and a will that is the agent of

what happens. If already at the physical and cosmological levels

there are some questions concerning the primacy of energy (in

contrast to action, movement or change), the concept is much more

questionable when it is appplied to the phenomenon of perceived

"body flow."

What is it, then, that flows?

Traditional answers aside from "bio-energy" and "spiritual energy"

are "light" and an elixir or nectar with qualities akin to semen

or blood. We might add "electricity," and even distinguish between

kinds of "energy" or "substance," according to experiential

qualities suggesting air, fire, water or inner shifts in body

tissues as in the formation of an embryo.

Before proposing a scientific answer in terms of present day

anatomy and physiology, let us dwell further on the phenomenology

of prana, which not only is perceived as flowing but progressing

along pre-established channels and orbits of a highly complex

system that might be called a flow-tree.

Contemplated as whole, this pranic system of channels might be

described as an egg-like cocoon, going a little beyond the top of

the head and the soles of the feet, and organized around a central

axis. The tree has a bi-lateral organization in terms of

contrasting qualities, so left and right are not properly

symmetrical but also opposites.

Though the flow of prana (Chi,Lung)in the nadis or channels is

experienced as a sort of cocoon, the whole cocoon seems to be

specially connected to the abdominal region, much as the embryo is

connected to the mother's womb by the umbilical cord. Yet not only

in the mesenteric region, but also at other regions along the

vertical axis there seem to be "energy nodes," "centers,"

"circles" of spontaneous focus, so that the vertical flow takes

place in a structure resembling a bamboo shaft. From each of these

"energy centers" or "chakras" the serpentine process seems to flow

most strikingly to an associated territory; thus, just as the

mesenteric territory seems to relax as consciousness can be

17

focused upon a felt abdominal depth (concomitant with the

relaxation of the deep muscles of the lumber region), so also the

perineal region (connected to the coccix) the pelvic (connected to

the sacral region) the dorsal region (centered on the heart) the

neck region (with the neck and the lower face as associated

territory) may each be activated as well as the area of the upper

face, which constitutes a distinct unity that would seem to be

subtly "innervated" from the forehead, and lastly the area of the

cranium proper, revolving experientially around the summit of the

head.

Systems differ in the location of the chakras and in the selection

of chakras that constitute the primary focus of the discipline.

Yet there cannot be doubt that all those enumerated thus far are

quite distinct, as was re-discovered independently in modern times

by Wilhelm Reich, and is acknowledged by both Reichians and bio-

energetic practitioners today. In the Tibetan tradition additional

emphasis is given to the knees, the feet (thus the "lotus feet" of

the Enlightened) and the palms of the hands. Despite an overall

"subtle anatomy" to which images such as that of cocoon, tree or

bamboo may be applied, it is usually the case that one region or

another is more present to awareness in relation with ongoing

shifts in vibratory sensations.

Though attributions of color, mantra elements and deities vary

from system to system, it may be said in general that all these

are employed as supports for the body concentration, and that the

activation of given chakras, conversely, evokes specific domains

of experience, psychological processes and spiritual qualities.

Characteristic of the physical experiences of "energy yoga" --

whatever the system -- is the experience of "chakra opennings,"

around which revolves the endeavor, and nothing could convey

better the experience of such openings as the image of blossoming.

There is opening and more opening and further opening in an ever

widening concentric circles, so to say, as may be evoked by the

many petals of the rose. As the deep spinal muscles relax -- a

feat possible to one not constrained by a "muscle armour" in the

corresponding region, a sort of filling of the body takes place

from the center to the periphery, so that a melting, or dissolving

quality at the center precedes the sense of flow into the body

periphery.

18

It would seem that the opening of a chakra is like a fountain

that, after filling, can overflow, and thus chakras activate each

other through vicinity. In the activation of the total pranic tree

two centers in particular constitute classical points of entry:

the frontal center, and the center variously called "the lower tan

t'ien" or the hara. Yet every chakra is a point of entry into the

energy system and a distinct innervation sector suscetible of deep

relaxation and the "activation" that the relaxation brings about.

But before the prana may come to rest at this subtlest of centers

(in the heart region) a long journey must have taken place

involving both an upward and a downward stage.

The upward stage of the spiritual journey comprising the

preliminary via purgativa and the early visionary stage

corresponds to an upward progression of the kundalini that

culminates in the sahasrar; conversely, the "dark night of the

soul" and the more advanced tantric stages correspond to the

descent to the energy, until it eventually reaches the extremities

and fills all nadis.

As Sri Aurobindo puts it:

"When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from

above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into

the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart

centre ... then into the navel and other wital centres ... then

into the sacral region and below ... It works at the same time for

perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature

part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected,

sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be

created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in

the nature."12

Satprem, reporting on Aurobindo's "Integral Yoga" writes of the

more advanced stages of the process:

"And we approach the real problem. In this physical clearing the

seeker makes another discovery that is quite brutal: all his yogic

powers crumble. He had already conquered disease, conquered the

functioning of the body, perhaps even gravity, he was able to

12 Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness, by Satprem,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, India, 1968, (page 43).

19

swallow poison without suffering; in short, he was the master of

the house, for his consciousness was master. But suddenly from the

day he makes up his mind to transform the body, all his powers

vanish. Diseases fall upon him as on a beginner, the organs

deteriorate, everything functions wrongly. It would seem that the

body has to forget its old false decaying functionings so as to

learn everything according to a new mode. And death interferes.

Between the two functionings, the old and the new which must

replace the symbolic organs by the true Vibration, the line which

separates life from death is often very thin -- perhaps one must

even be capable of crossing the line and returning in order truly

to triumph?13

Just as Aurobindo, adopting the vocabulary of the Vedas, conceives

the process as the work of Agni -- spiritual fire -- his disciples

adopting that of Indian tantrism, speak of the "descending force,"

and this is useful inasmuch the liberation (and consequently,

spiritualization) of the body -- after the perhaps long sought yet

explosively sudden "kundalini rising" -- proceeds from head to

feet. Yet there is a nearly universal confusion between this

meaning of "the descent of the force" and the immediately

perceptible flow of the "body energy" or prana, which is conceived

as a "subtle energy" proceeding in a non-material etheric body. My

personal view concerning this is that, however sacred and

spiritual the core of the kundalini experience may be, the prana

and chakras are physical, and the sensations of "energy flow"

(such as the streamings in Reichian therapy) are not exactly a

flow in spite of their unquestionable subjective character as

such. Yet I don't believe "energy flow" to entail any "subtle

energy" -- or even any flow! Furthermore, I don't believe the seat

of pranic phenomena to be an invisible or "subtle body" different

from that known to anatomists. Blasphemous as it may sound to some

who are used to equating "bioenergy" and grace, I understand the

"energy dance" within the body to be an ever shifting tonus dance

that takes place in our muscle system in the situation of ego-

dissolution, and the subtle nadis individually self-aware muscle

fibers, or bundles thereof.

How can there be apparent flow where there is only a fluctuation

of tonus?

13 op.cit. pages 352, 353.

20

It may be explained through the concentric waves around an object

that has fallen into a body of water. It would seem that there is

a movement from the center to the periphery, yet at any given time

there is only an up and down movement at any specific point in the

moving circle of the water surface. It is the organization of the

up and down movement of individual points that creates the

centrifugal effect, much in the same way that the programmed

pattern of on and off states of many lamps in a billboard or of

the points in a computer's screen give the impression of words

floating across the field, or just as the consecutive

instantaneous images of a film-strip are organized into the flow

of animation.

The prana theory that I propose, then, is one in which the basic

phenomena are localized vibration, and the downward or outward

shifting of maximum vibration intensity according to the metameric

organization of our body. Just as the phenomenon of apparent

movement arises from the successive images in a film strip, we

feel that there is a flow where the anatomical fact is one of

coordinated volleys of nerve impulses that follow pre-established

patterns (according to the organization of our nervous and muscle

systems).

Perhaps clearer than many words can be the simple image of a fish

moving in the water: just as we see an antero-posterior

organization of movement along the body axis, so that a volley of

excitation seems to begin at the tip of the nose and end at the

rear-most tail, we too feel a downpour of "energy," "light" or

grace" when we have simply let go so completely to the spontaneous

activity of our body, that a spontaneous wave of excitation seems

to travel along it as a result of a pre-estabished and yet always

unpredictable pattern that responds to the situation. This is not

to say that grace is not part of the experience in which prana or

"bioenergy" becomes manifest. My point is that in spite of the

spiritual and sometimes mysterious quality of some experiences (as

in siddhi or supernatural powers), the activation of prana and the

chakras that may go along with them is physical and, more

precisely, neuro-muscular. The pranic phenomena, then, are nothing

essentially different, in my view, from verbal and motor

manifestations of possession trance; all these are liberation

phenomena: things that happen spontaneously when "we" are not in

control. And while it is not exactly a spiritual energy that flows

in the body or in the mind, a spiritual state is their condition;

a spiritual field is the context of the mental or physical

21

movement.

On what basis do I formulate such a "kundalini theory"?

Only that of self-observation, I must confess; yet at least I can

say that I only speak after 27 years of a very intense naga life.14

Yet I can hardly call this view "my" theory or even "my"

hipothesis, for I have only developed an idea of Moshe Feldenkrais

that I originally rejected.

Let me just briefly say that after an intensive period of practice

using a technique preparatory to tumo some twenty years ago I

began feeling a buzzing sensation in my palate, which, in turn,

developed, after some time, into a sensation of bone crackling at

the base of my skull. This was accompanied by sounds audible

enough to others that in a meditation retreat a lady once asked me

whether I would mind taking off my watch, which disturbed her.

I consulted Moshe Feldenkrais on my bone crackling sounds, on

occasion of his first visit to Berkeley, asking his opinion of

what this could be -- and I have already implicitly indicated the

answer that he gave me after he had heard them: a tonus

phenomenon, just as is the case with the Reichian "streamings."

Since then the audible crackling has ceased with the downward

migration of the vibratory focus the sensation of internal ticking

or dripping has increased immensely -- much as the minimal

excursions of the water on a beach can increase until they become

enormous waves, or as in the case of the ever increasing

contractions of labor.

I have, thus, had much occasion to observe how this or that

opening and emerging pathway in my felt "energy body" corresponded

to my anatomy, despite the fact that subjective sensations

translate imaginatively into patterns not identical but rather

akin to topological transformations of those seen by our eyes.

Opening of the nadis has proceeded from above toward the soles of

the feet, the palms of the hands and, it would seem, to the tips

of the teeth, evoking at times a body image in which to the fanged

14nagas are mythological water snakes.

22

snake are superimposed attributes of the lion or tiger.

In addition to ascertaining through observation the muscular

origin of the vibratory phenomenon, by the way, I have had

occasion to notice how the patterns of energy flow at different

stages in what has felt like an ongoing metamorphosis have evoked

many different animals, and not only those traditionally

associated with the chakras.

While the snake, which conveys the archaic spirituality of simple

reptilian awareness, is uniquely evocative of both the flow in the

body in any form and the subtlety of a life conducted with

instinctual wisdom, different animals seem to evoke specific

qualities in the unfolding of our own inner animal.

The association of an animal quality to advanced stages of

spiritual development contradict the dualistic opposition of these

in exoteric religiosity and was undoubtedly known to totemistic

cultures, just as it is in present day shamanism. We encounter it

in the remains of Babylonian and Egyptian religions, where it is

conveyed by the animal features in the representations of divine

beings, and is expressed in the Indian tradition through the

conception of animals that are vehicles or companions to different

gods (as the Garuda to Vishnu or the Eagle to Zeus and Apollo) is

an alternative articulation of the natural experience of the body

in transformation.

Birds of prey such as the eagle, vulture and falcon are, like

snakes and tigers, allies of the shaman, and the mythological

motif of the eagle as enemy of the snake should not obscure that

they are emblematic of the early and late stages of self-same

being. While at the beginning of the tantric journey the vertical

energy-flow, suggestive of the snake, is more prominent, later in

the individual's development the lateral expansion of the subtle

body comes increasingly into awareness, and that earlier body-

experience seems to become a part of the more complex

configuration evoked by the bird, with its wings and claws. The

Garuda eating the snake, like the old Mexican motive of an eagle

with a snake in its talons are mainly statements about

transformation, and just as the snake is an appropriate symbol for

the beginning of guidance, the bird of prey is evocative of

completion -- not only in virtue of its association with heaven

but its suitability in reference to specific features of energy

flow which suggest wings through the deep relaxation of scapular

23

muscles and not only claws but a beak, as prana expands toward a

sort of "egg-breaking point" in the subtle channels of the nose

region.

Though serpent, eagle and feline are the most characteristic

animals in shamanism, it is the dragon that constitutes the most

typical reference to the hidden power of the liberated organism,

besides the snake. A composite of serpent, fish tiger and bird,

the dragon (like the phoenix and the sphinx) has been created by

the human mind as an inequivocal reference to the "kundalini"

realm.

Though I know the Tibetan teachings on zalung and tigle enough to

understand that I have not come to the completion of the inner

alchemy another feature of my personal experience coincides with

the Taoist observation that there comes a time when chi penetrates

the bones. I think I can explain this too; only that, just as I

don't believe the chakras and nadis to reside in an etheric body,

I don't believe that the chi penetrates to the bone marrow as the

pre-scientific tradition maintains. It is clear to me, rather,

that an ever increasing bone awareness can be explained from an

"awakening" of deep muscle layers and muscle insertions in the

periostium.

When I first became part of an esoteric school, in my twenties, I

was told that in our spiritual adventure our lance would have to

penetrate first the dragon's skin, next its flesh, at last its

bones. During a long time I only understood this as only an

allusion to how an intellectual understanding deepened into

emotional understanding and psycho-somatic penetration, but today

it seems to me that as the somatic process itself deepens a

skeletal awareness arises, through which it becomes possible to

sense exactly, for instance, the shape of the pelvis or the

lateral projection of the neck vertebrae.

Just as in shamanism the skeleton is not only a symbol of death

but of an awareness that has penetrated "to the bones," I see the

same double reference in the myth of Quetzalcoatl -- the Plumed

Serpent who brought civilization to ancient Mexico. According to

his legend this earliest king and priest immolated himself by

plunging into a volcano, and (under the dog form of Xolotl) not

only descended into hell but had to obtain from the Lord of Death

the bones of the ancestors before he could give birth to the sun

24

and then become the planet Venus. The image below, showing Xolotl

as he gives birth to the sun may be an appropriate end for this

discussion since, not having come to the experience,I can only

point out the agreement of the image from the Codex Borgia with

Tibetan teaching on how, in the end, the subtlest and undying

consciousness arises together with the concentration of the prana

in the heart.