Risks and Precautions

The awakening of kundalini is a very important, pleasant and historical experience in the life of man. If you can see and experience something more than what you can generally see and experience through your senses, you are indeed fortunate. But at the same time, if you have such experiences without adequate preparation, you may be startled, frightened and confused. Therefore, before the actual awakening of kundalini occurs, it is better to experience some mild awakenings in the chakras first. Nowadays, if you travel by motor car at a very high speed, you do not really feel anything unusual, but if a man did it a hundred years ago when there was no adaptation to speed, he would have felt very giddy. Similarly, if a sudden awakening takes place and you are not used to the experience, you may become disoriented. You will not be able to cope with the radical changes in perception or with the contents of the unconscious mind welling up into the consciousness. But if you have been practising hatha yoga and meditation, and have experienced slight awakenings previously, you will be better able to cope with it.

When the body in totality is purified by the practices of shatkarmas and hatha yoga, when the mind is purified by mantra, when the pranas are brought under control through the practices of pranayama and the diet is pure and yogic, at that time, awakening of kundalini takes place without any danger or accident. But with those who are in a hurry to awaken kundalini and who take to any practice in a haphazard manner without going through the preliminaries, and who do not take care of their diet, there will be some problems because they do not know how to control and utilize the fantastic energy they are unleashing.

The question of risk

There are so many whispers about the dangers of awakening and dark hints about people going crazy or developing disturbing powers. But everything in life is risky and there are far more dangers in ordinary daily life than you will encounter on the path of kundalini. Every time you walk across the street or travel by car or plane, you take a risk. In the pursuit of desires, passions and ambitions, people take great risks every day without thinking twice about it. Yet they allow the relatively minor risks of kundalini to deter them from pursuing the supreme goal of higher consciousness. When a woman discovers she is pregnant, does she think it might be dangerous for her to have a child? She might die! She may have to have a cesarian! She may lose her figure for life! She may become seriously ill! Does a woman think like this and decide she doesn’t want a child at all? No. Then why to think like this about kundalini? Awakening of kundalini is the birth of Christ, Krishna, Buddha or Mohammed. It is one of the greatest events of human life, just as for a mother, to have a baby is one of the major and happiest events of her life, no matter what the consequences. In the same way, awakening of kundalini is one of the greatest events in the life of a yogi. It is the destiny of mankind, so why not go ahead with it?

Without involving yourself in a risk, nothing great in life can be achieved. Every great yogi, scientist, explorer and adventurer has faced risks. And so he has invented, discovered or made progress. Those people who are thinking and talking about risks are cowards, and such people should not even practise yoga. It is better that they eat, drink, be merry and die unenlightened. Kundalini practices are certainly no more dangerous than many of the activities people engage in for the sake of thrills, sport or altered states of consciousness. The risks are not nearly as great as those associated with LSD, hashish, marijuana and alcohol, which are commonly used by many people in their everyday life. Those who practise kundalini yoga are assured of attaining states of expanded consciousness which are safer, smoother, more comprehensible and longer lasting than anything that can be obtained through the use of psychedelics. The science of kundalini yoga has its own inbuilt safety mechanisms. If you perform asanas or pranayama incorrectly, nature will immediately send a warning and compel you to stop practising. In the same way, when kundalini awakening takes place and you are not prepared to face it, nature puts obstacles in your way. If ever you become scared and want to stop the process of kundalini awakening, all you have to do is revert to a gross lifestyle. Just revise all your passions, dreams and worldly ambitions. Unless you are an extremely introverted person, you can proceed along the path of kundalini yoga without fear. If you are hypersensitive, have difficulty communicating with others and live within a sort of fantasy world, you will find kundalini yoga upsetting and even dangerous. Such people should not practise kundalini yoga or any techniques for exploring the inner world until they have developed the ability to strike fearlessly and confidently through the outer world. This also applies to timid and dependent people. For all these individuals, karma yoga is the way. They should lead a life of unselfish service in the world and develop non-attachment and maximum awareness. Fear of mistakes Some people worry about kundalini ascending through the wrong nadi, but there is no danger here, because if kundalini enters through any other nadi, the whole circuit will fuse. If kundalini has awakened but a chakra is blocked, say swadhisthana, then kundalini will only roam about in mooladhara and all the instincts of that chakra will develop. You will become a high class animal for a while and may develop some siddhis. If there is any obstruction in the chakras beyond that, the energy will be blocked for a long time, affecting the psychological constitution. And if kundalini enters into the pranic nadi, pingala, it could set the whole brain into turmoil. However, this doesn’t usually happen. Nature intervenes, and unless sushumna is clear, the chakra will not open and the energy will not be able to move further. Mistakes do occur, but not in average individuals, because they are scared of something wrong happening somewhere. If they are practising and suddenly they feel they’re going crazy, they will discontinue their practices immediately. So, every individual possesses a sort of fear. Before anything wrong can happen totally, man takes care of himself. However, there are some blockheads and very stuffy people who plod on no matter what happens. They don’t care about the consequences and these are the people who generally get themselves into trouble. Kundalini awakening and illness If you take care of all the requirements, then no illness will come to you. However, many people are very hasty and impatient. When they want to make money, they want to make it overnight, quickly, and the same psychology is transferred into spiritual life; quick money and quick realization. With this impatience, sometimes we overstep the necessary prerequisites. Some people develop weakness of the lower limbs because they have not trained their body through hatha yoga. Some people develop digestive disorders because they have not understood the relationship between food and the temperature of the body. Therefore, the prerequisites have to be observed. Those who suffer do so not because of the kundalini awakening, but because they have not harmonized the nervous system. Through hatha yoga you must create a balance between the two forces in the physical body, the pranic and the mental. Even in modern times we say that a balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems is absolutely essential to develop the higher faculties of the brain. When there is an imbalance between these two forces, that is, if one is predominant, the other is subservient, then you are supplying one energy in excess and the other energy is deficient. This inevitably leads to sickness. Airing the unconscious In the course of your practices there may be isolated awakenings in ajna chakra, in which the awareness enters the realms of the unconscious mind and you see figures, symbols and even monsters or benevolent beings. You may hear or experience many inexplicable things, but they are all simply products of your own unconscious mind and should be regarded as nothing more. With the awakening of psychic consciousness, the symbols belonging to your own personality come out. When this happens you may have a problem understanding, but just remember, these kinds of expressions are simply parts of your being which have been lying in reserve and they have to ‘come out for airing’. You should not be afraid of kundalini awakening but you must be prepared for the events that may occur. Otherwise, if you have a weak mind and are confronted by fear, it could lead to mental derangement. So, before you attempt kundalini awakening you should undergo a process of thought purification and develop understanding of your way of thinking. When the prerequisites for kundalini awakening are followed properly, psychological and psycho-emotional symptoms do not occur. In fact, all these things happen before the actual event of kundalini awakening. But of course, when the awakening takes place, if the aspirant is not maintaining the proper discipline that is required, he is bound to get into some psychological cobwebs. The awakening of kundaiini should never be equated with obsessions or neurosis. When an explosion takes place it brings out whatever was in you. If you have a personality full of obsessions and mental blocks, that’s going to explode. Therefore, before one attempts awakening of kundalini, he must have arrived at a point of purity of consciousness or clarity of mind, chitta shuddhi. Purity of consciousness is not a religious terminology. You may have pure thoughts in your mind but you may not be pure at all. You may be thinking about purity, chastity, compassion, charity and generosity, but in the subterranean plane of your personality there may be conflicts or other unresolved mental problems. When the mind enters into meditation or samadhi, this subterranean level comes up to the surface. You begin to see all the debris and you feel it and enact it. This can happen at any time, when you’re dreaming, when you are in a state of craziness and when kundalini is waking. That is why a relentless effort should be made to render the mind free from all the disturbing archetypes or samskaras before you try to handle this project. An integration of karma, bhakti and raja yoga, tempered with hatha and gyana yoga, must be adopted first. Purity and impurity Although I recommend chitta shuddhi, I know that many people have an obsession about purity and impurity. They keep thinking they are impure and therefore they shouldn’t try to awaken kundalini. But when the sun rises, what happens to the darkness? Purity and impurity are ethical and moral concepts created by society and religion. Awakening of kundalini is awakening of the great light in man. It rises like the sun, and when it can be seen on the horizon there will be no darkness, no pain, suffering, disappointment or impurity. Siddhis and the ego factor When one has been practising kundalini yoga for a couple of years and suddenly he starts having beautiful experiences, he tends to think he is superior to everybody else and may even consider himself as godly. To protect yourself from this, you must place yourself in the caliber of chela or disciple. A disciple remains a disciple, there is no promotion for him. Many people think that after twelve years of discipleship they will be promoted to guruhood, but this is not so. In the path of kundalini yoga it is very important that you live the life of a disciple even after the awakening of kundalini, and not only after that, but even when Shiva and Shakti have united. Kundalini yoga is the means for attaining supreme awareness and enlightenment, but if you get lost in the beauty of kundalini, you may not reach enlightenment. When at a certain stage the mind becomes very efficient and siddhis such as telepathy, clairvoyance, hypnotism, spiritual healing, etc. manifest, some aspirants take that to be a divine accomplishment and begin to think ‘Now I am God.’ Then, in the name of good to everybody, they start doing all sorts of funny magic. This feeds the ego, and in the course of time, their ignorance becomes very great. There is extreme danger here and many aspirants get caught. Their ego becomes tremendously gross and they develop a strong feeling of grandeur. And that’s as far as they get. Although there is nothing really wrong with psychic powers, those who seek them must know that they can completely destroy their spiritual consciousness if they are not disciplined. You can become lost in these powers just as some people get lost in money, beauty, intellect and so on. These parapsychological attainments are momentary; they live with you for only a short period of time and then you lose them. They are only additional properties to be experienced and left behind in the wake of the dawning of supreme awareness. It is important to remember what Patanjali has said in the Yoga Sutras - “All these psychic manifestations are obstacles which block the free flow of consciousness towards samadhi.” Two opposing forces In the realms of higher consciousness, there are both divine and demonical forces. Both these forces can be brought down to earth by the same techniques. Without higher awareness, when the awakening of the chakras begins, the knowledge and destructive energy of the atom bomb might be unleashed rather than the wisdom and spiritual power of the rishis. When kundalini awakens in a person with no dispassion and discrimination, who does not seek liberation and does not know the reality of this world, the consequences can be disastrous. Ultimately, that person will destroy himself, and possibly many others in the process. Therefore, a kimdalini aspirant must constantly work towards the development of higher awareness. To be conscious of the unconscious is very difficult. When your awareness is heavy and burdened with tension and confusion, it cannot survive for long in the unconscious state. But when your consciousness is light and clear, it can penetrate into the unconscious like a sharp and speedy arrow, successfully navigating past all the danger zones and emerging with higher knowledge. Anyone who has the urge to expand his or her awareness is a pioneer. In this we are emerging from the confines of a mental prison in which the human race has been incarcerated for millennia. It is the privilege of each one of us to participate in this historic adventure, and we must be prepared for any eventuality. Kundalini yoga, if practised with dedication, patience and appropriate guidance, is the safest and most pleasant way of awakening that can ever take place in our lives. With the awakening of kundalini, life becomes smooth. Plans and projects become clear, decisions become accurate, and the personality becomes dynamic and powerful. Therefore, do not be afraid of any risk. Once the awakening takes place, all your limitations will be overcome, because darkness can never exist in the face of light and limitations can never exist in the face of kundalini.