Let Kundalini be Your Guide
When we’re going through a kundalini awakening process, it’s important to seek guidance. It’s important to seek guidance in spiritual community from spiritual friends, peer mentors, and teachers. This is necessary and indispensable. It is also important to seek guidance from within, from Kundalini herself. Remember that Kundalini is your own awakening power. I don’t mean you as the dis-integrated separate self. I mean you as consciousness-energy or Shiva-Shakti. When I say let Kundalini be your guide, it’s another way of saying let the The Divine be your guide.
Kundalini is the self-organizing, evolutionary impulse of creation. This cannot be overstated. You are not the one guiding kundalini. Kundalini is guiding you. She knows how to find her way into your central channel, she knows how to transform and integrate all your limiting karma and trauma, she knows how to make you luminous, subtle, and expanded. It’s kind of like saying that the ocean knows how to make waves. The ocean doesn’t need you to guide it. Let the ocean make the waves, all you need to do is learn how to surf them. And, of course, even this analogy is imperfect because who is doing the surfing anyways? But before a non-dual pointer like that is helpful, it feels like we’re the one doing the surfing, which is quite alright. We don’t need to pretend to be somewhere that we’re not. We can be right where we are, as we are. Cowabunga dude.
In another video I talked about the second person or relational perspective of Kundalini. This is especially helpful here. It’s important to know that kundalini is a patient, wise, loving, and strong guide. My Dad was a rock climbing guide for several decades. Early in his guiding career, he led people up large rock faces in Yosemite national park. These are the kinds of climbs that if something goes wrong, people can be severely injured or die. People were literally putting their life in my Father’s hands. It’s important to know that those hands are trustworthy. But there’s another, equally important side to this. I remember speaking with my Dad about guiding and him telling me that, without the trust of the people he was guiding, he couldn’t help them and they could put themselves and other people in danger. He was saying that when people tried to take control in moments of stress or crisis, instead of listening to him, they compromised themselves and others. Can you imagine being on a large cliff, 1000 ft up in the air, feeling like you’re about to slip and kundalini reaching over and saying, “take my hand.”
Often, we feel like kundalini is imposed on us. We feel like she is the giant rock face we are trying to climb. No, that climb was already present. Kundalini is like an expert guide, bringing you up the climb in record time. She’s always reaching over and saying “take my hand.” When you swat it away and insist on climbing yourself, she doesn’t even blink. She keeps her hand steadily present for when you’re ready to receive assistance. In this climb, there’s no falling, only stalling. You can stall for days, weeks, months, years, or lifetimes. It’s no matter because time is not an obstacle either. For kundalini, there are no limitations. She’s all of it and can steward you through lifetimes until you’re ready to surrender to her absolute care and expert guidance.
What does surrendering to kundalini really mean? It means going inward and with an openness and willingness to be malleable saying, “I know you’re here Ma, show me the way.” That’s the sunlit path as The Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s partner, would say. Most of us aren’t so gracious. You may be where I often find myself, speaking with kundalini or The Divine from a confused and angry place, wondering why the path has to be so hard. Do you know, even that’s a type of surrender? Because even when you’re depressed or angry with kundalini or The Divine and you’re throwing a tantrum, at least you’re staying in connection. You’re angry with Her. She delights in any way that you stay in connection with her. So surrender is simple and, if you’ll let her, she will show you how to do that too.
Kundalini awakening can be harrowing. Healing and awakening is hard for so many parts of us and, while we’re identified with those parts, it’s hard for us too. As we get a little farther along the path, it feels a little bit like the parable, “Footprints in the Sand.” We’re walking along the beach with kundalini and everything is sunshine, cool breeze, and soft sand beneath our feet. While we walk there’s two pairs of footprints, one is ours and the other comes from the invisible kundalini. A massive storm rolls in and suddenly we’re being battered by harsh winds and freezing rain; we can barely see anything at all. We look down for a sign of companionship and comfort and only see a single set of footprints, our own. We are grief-stricken and enraged. How, in our moment of greatest need, could kundalini abandon us? As we are crying and raging against the sky, a faint, but clear whisper comes, “Why are you so angry my child?” We respond, “You abandoned me! I looked down and I only saw my footprints. How could you?!” Kundalini replies, with the gentleness of a parent, “The reason there is only one pair of footprints is because I’m carrying you.”
Truth be told, if you’re having a kundalini awakening, she’s guiding you whether you like it or not. She’s the boss. And thank goodness, she knows much better than any part of us because she is the overflowing, self-organizing intelligence of the cosmos that gives birth to us. Let her make the waves and show you how to surf them with increasing skill and enjoyment. As you climb the rockface and she extends her hand, take it and let her elevate you to greater heights. In the midst of the storm, feeling alone and angry, remember that as you look down and see one pair of footprints, she is carrying you. She has always been carrying you.
