Kundalini is power (energy), but it is predominately consciousness. It is not the energy which forms the external world, but the primal power from which that creative energy emanates. This is very important, because awakening of kundalini is primarily the awakening of consciousness. There are all kinds of pathological manifestations of bodily energies that are mistaken for kundalini, and the yogi must be aware of this fact.
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Kundalini is awakened and oriented upward by pranayama since prana/breath is a permutation of kundalini. The pranayama recommended by yoga siddhas for this is Soham Pranayama, the mental intoning of So when inhaling and Ham (pronounced “hum”) when exhaling with the mouth closed. (See Soham Yoga, The Yoga of the Self.)
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Although we usually speak of our awakening kundalini, it is really kundalini that awakens us. And when that awakening is complete it is liberation (moksha).
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Because of all sorts of books on the subject, we think of the action of kundalini as a kind of cataclysmic shaking, a psychic typhoon, but that is a neurological aberration, a herald of abnormal and even psychotic states in the individual. The true action of kundalini is the awakening of the perception of spirit-consciousness in the individual. When kundalini becomes operative in the Sahasrara–for that is where it is, not in the Muladhara–ultimate consciousness awakens in the yogi.
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Nearly all descriptions of kundalini are totally physical and neurological, and therefore pathological and delusional. Kundalini is Primal Consciousness, and its workings take place in the most subtle manner. It is not cataclysmic, it is transformative in the most direct and practical manner. Therefore only those whose buddhi is both purified and refined can have any true experience of kundalini and experience the changes its ascent and awakening of the subtle bodies produces.
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