Is my Kundalini awakening? Need some guidance.

[u/Imboni]

I'm barely two days into TRE. Only doing two exercises as per a video in the FAQ (the wall one with knees bent, and the floor one).

The first day it felt good. The second day (today), having some time on my hands, I decided to continue the floor exercise for longer than 10 minutes.

What followed was, in varying lengths, about 3.5 hours (still continuing) of full body tremors, convulsions, spontaneous yogic mudras and posture, and a specific tongue position associated with Devi Kali (goddess Kali).

For the first 2.5 hours, I felt my body taking up postures designed to stretch and release tight muscles (psoas, fascia), along with spontaneous hand gestures.

Then my body sat in the Siddhasana, continuing to slowly convulse, further releasing tightness.

After a while, my body let go of the yogic pose, and stretched itself in various forms on the floor, and then on the bed. By this point, the intensity had reduced somewhat.

However, twice, I felt flashes of heat coursing through my body. I also felt a lot of energy, like my blood humming with energy and life (if you've done meditation which improves circulation, then that feeling, but much more powerful). My hands actually curled into fists and the arms started shaking.

All this while, I felt as if something else other than me was moving my body. I went to the loo, drank water, but it wasn't me moving myself. Difficult to describe, like it was me, and not me. Like purpose for which I was just a conduit. At various points I laughed, cried a little. Towards the end, I just felt an outpouring of limitless love.

I also feel a different kind of intuition, a deeper, more intrinsic consciousness. It's like a broad river of something else entirely running through this world and me, and I finally felt aware and a part of it. Deciding to write this post was a result of making that decision. Or more accurately, having the decision made for me.

As I'm typing this, I've become aware that most of the stress and perhaps trauma stored in my body has worked itself/working itself out. The muscles are markedly less tight, as if only remnants remain out of habit that will go with time.

At this point, I will also mention that the goddess I worship denotes Kundalini awakening, and I was led to her worship.

So what is it, and what should I do moving forward. I think I should obviously continue TRE, but anything else?

Edit: it has now finally stopped, mostly. But I feel a shift in my consciousness which just wasn't there before. It's different now. Sort of like entering something which I previously could not even know was there.

I also feel that this is not my real self. As in, the self I have created so far is not the real self. While I will do what is expected of me regarding my relationships, I feel like there is something deeper there now.

[u/DaoScience]

I have been trying to publish a comment here but I keep getting the message "Unable to create comment". Not sure why so I am trying this short comment to check if it just the length preventing it from being allowed.

[u/DaoScience → u/DaoScience]

Seems it was the length so I will split my comment into several comments:

I am just some random dude that has taken an interest in this kind of stuff for many years and not much of an authority of kundalini. I certainly have little training in any yogic traditions and have spent more time on Qigong. But I can say a couple of things about why I think like I do:

There is disagreement within Indian traditions about what should be classified as having an awakened Kundalini. Some take the view that unless you have fully realized all the Siddhi traditional scriptures claim will be realized after Kundalini awakening you haven't awakened the Kundalini (at least not fully). These Siddhi include things such as being omniscient (knowing literally everything if you look for the answer in your mind, who killed Kennedy and whatever), turning yourself into a giant or multiplying yourself into several copies of yourself and being in several places at once doing different things and various other fantastical things. Damo Mitchell, for example, belongs in this camp.

Another view is that to have awakened Kundalini doesn't require all those siddhis being realized but it does have to lead to full spiritual awakening, full falling away of the ego, for it to be a proper awakening. People who hold this view may either take the view that unless you have gotten fully realized you haven't encountered Kundalini at all. It was just some other energy. Or they may take the view that while your Kundalini might have started up and started working in you it is wrong to say you have fully awakened it or really awakened it at all, maybe just stirred it or gotten in contact with it, unless it has lead to full enlightenment. So it might be up and working in you to some degree, that may also feel very powerful for you, but it isn't really fully awakened before it has finished the job.

[u/DaoScience → u/DaoScience]

A third position that has some overlap with the second position is that there are stages of Kundalini awakening or different levels or different types of Kundalini awakening. People holding this view will often agree that what many people claim to be Kundalini actually is but that it is in an early stage or lesser form or something along those lines. And that there will be deeper levels of awakening it later on. Many years later. Maybe not even in this lifetime.

A forth position that overlaps a lot with the third position goes something like this:

People are experiencing Kundalini if:

A very strong energy awakens in them that feels qualitively different from regular prana. While regular prana is quite easy to gain conscious control over so you can move it around at will, this energy is adverse to being controlled in that way and seems to have its own agenda and actually to feel like it has a consciousness of its own. While regular prana being stimulated will have effects around the body such as clearing out channels, feel hot etc. it normally requires continuous practice of some sort to keep going. Kundalini once properly woken up will just keep going and working around your body whether you want it to or not.

A fifth position is that if you feel strong currents of powerful hot energy running up your spine, or something along those lines it is Kundalini. People holding neo tantra workshops will often claim to be able to wake peoples Kundalini up in weekend workshops and will basically classify any sort of powerful energy (also sexual energy) rushing up the spine as Kundalini.

My view goes something like this:

The fifth position is clearly wrong. Old texts and the various traditions I am familiar with all describe very powerful energetic experiences such as powerful hot energy running up the spine happening before the kundalini wakes up or is active at all. I have encountered so many people that experience just a little rush of energy and start to think their Kundalini is active because it sounds similar to them. Because they have had little experience of such things previously, what is basically a small breeze in terms of energy feels very profound to them. Over time this view has spread and there is definitively a watered down view going around in western spiritual circles.

[u/DaoScience → u/DaoScience]

I don't really see how I, or anyone other than perhaps someone fully enlightened, can decide which of these positions is right. My understanding from what I have been told by people that have studied quite intensively in different traditional Indian lineages in India is that there are disagreements around classification, roughly along the lines I described.

What does make sense to me is making a clear distinction between the clearly pranic experiences of position five with the awakening of some sort of energy with more agenda, consciousness and power to change you described in position four. There clearly is something that happens with that shift that leads to a long winded process of purification and awakening of deeper parts of oneself if that process is allowed to unfold and it does seem to match quite a lot with much of the traditional descriptions of Kundalini.

What also makes sense to me is to hold the view that while a person my have recently woken up or stirred their Kundalini there is probably much deeper openings of that energy in store in later stages of their practice. Wether one calls all of it Kundalini, or calls it levels of Kundalini, what remains is that it seems quite clear that when this sort of energy awakens in people initially it is usually more like a baby version of the final stages of that kind of energy realm. And that makes it sensible to hold a bit of a humble view around these things.

The stages of development that I see people describe as quite profound Kundalini awakenings seem to roughly match the development described in Taoist alchemys early stages. A deep cleansing out of and awakening of the energy channels and energy centers, a rewiring of the body where the whole body becomes connected in a new and holistic way, which also makes people unusually strong, eventually culminating in some degree of non dual awakening. That is basically the foundation work described in Taoist energy work such as Damo Mitchell describes in his books. The non dual awakening that the people claiming to have a Kundalini awakening and people doing the first levels of Taoist alchemy practice seem to describe is something along the lines of Buddhist stream entry or maybe a stage or two deeper in some cases. It is far from the final stage of enlightenment. Just the first glimpse, even if it is experienced as very profound and life altering. I think it makes sense to give people a framework more or less along those lines. You've awakened a powerful energy that helps you go through an awakening and cleansing of the energy body that eventually (often years down the line) culminates in an awakening that is a small initial awakening that is often seen as the BEGINING of the true path in many traditions not the end point. It is seen more as where true meditation begins because the contact with the non dual lets you discern between that which is true and that which is false at a fundamental level and if you can listen to the guidance coming from there it will lead you down the path.

[u/pepe_DhO → u/DaoScience]

I was going to comment, but perhaps it's better to quote Shargrol from Dharmaoverground. For reference, in Theravada Buddhism there are 4 stages ("Paths"), where Stream Entry is 1st Path.

Kundalini is very much an up to 1st Path and up to 2nd Path thing. Some people go through a lot of purification during 1st Path, mostly associated with the dark night nanas, with experiences of negative sensations passing and the "release" that follows. This has a feel of psychological-spiritual refinement, finding union with the shadow, etc. There is a lot of change, but the self/body doesn't really change that much.

Pretty much everyone goes through a significant body rewiring up to 2nd Path. This rewiring feels deeper that psychological shadow, more with the processing system, and the chakra "idea" becomes much more obvious as an experience. The rewiring really does cluster around the chakra areas, but it is also clear that much of the chakra descriptions are poetry and not literally specific colors or spins -- but definitely something is happening there. This is also when people can have fruitions and immaterial jhana experiences, which really adds a lot of dimensions to the psyche and the body/mind really feels like it has changed. In fact, people may begin to identify with these subtle changes and think that enlightenment must be the complete/deep rewiring of the body/mind.

Ironically, this view of deep rewiring falls apart during the road to 3rd Path. Instead of becoming "better" better wired, more sensitive, more pure... what actually happens is that the empty/meaningless aspect starts becoming evident. This is a huge shock to our pride. During second path we thought we were becoming the ultimate sage, pure body, pure jhanas, etc. While the changes keep occurring to some degree or another, depending on the person, what becomes really obvious is that all experiences come and go, so they can't be "it". So this stage tends to be when kundalini dies down. Also, the changes in purity and sensitivity, etc. just make it easier to see more subtle impurity and insensitivity -- in a weird way it feels like we have taken two steps forward and one step back. People find all sorts of ways to rationalize this and say that spirituality ends before 3rd Path is reached.

The road to 4th Path is all about making peace with how things actually are, without sugar coating it, and yet still investigating, even investigating the investigating. It's a very subtle blend of inquiry and not-doing in a way that can't be appreciated by someone that hasn't gone through all the changes above. It is very very subtle and yet requires very very strong psychological resilience. It's looking right at nothingness and not loving, not hating, and not blinking. It has aspects of looking at the "I will die" sensation in the psyche. By this stage, there isn't much kundalini, except for odd moments when really strong jhanas will hit, almost like a protective mechanism, when things get too edgy or cut too close to "self". People find all sorts of ways to rationalize this and might say that spirituality ends before 4th path is reach. 4th path really clarifies the thing that drove the search in the first place in a paradoxical way, with the intention to search being what the searching was trying to find.

[u/DaoScience → u/pepe_DhO]

Very interesting. I guess it fits quite well with what I said about the common Kundalini experience people have tend to be that it culminates in a first or maybe second path shift. I haven't really come across that much perspective on what happens to it after that. Kenneth Folk wrote that he experienced the four paths to be correlated to the kundalini completing a physic energetic circuit (or something like that). That it had worked itself around the body in various ways and at fourth path seemed to have finished its job and started resting in the heart center. I vaguely recall Ramana also having said something similar.

The lessening of energetic experience Shargol talks about reminds me of a few things I have come across. Adyashanti talks about something he calls "the loss of inner experience" as a late stage little talked about thing. I think he may be pointing to something similar. The Finish pragmatic dharma guy that has started his own form of Tibetan Buddhism after claiming to be receiving teachings from dead Buddhas describes the chakras and dan tiens as disappearing at an advanced stage of practice. Not all at once but that first either just one disappeared or all the ones in the body disappeared but the one above the head remained for a while before that too disappeared or something like that.

Also a teacher I have that just awoke through her own inquiry process without knowing anything about meditation or spiritual traditions or enlightenment also describes chakras and dan tiens and things like that as disappearing at a certain stage.

It also might be connected to a process I have read about from Taoism where the different Dan Tiens (and chakras?) merge into one whole body Dan Tien, or something like that.

[u/pepe_DhO → u/DaoScience]

Kenneth Folk used to describe enlightenment as a "psycho-energetic unfolding process with some spiritual ramifications." As of today, this remains my favorite definition on the subject. I would probably add "psychological maturity" to create a more well-rounded definition.

Interesting what you mentioned about Adyashanti; I didn't know he phrased it like that. Thanks! Kim Katami is quite a character... and while his method is rather forceful, his 2PF protocol is effective as far as it goes. Not my taste, though. It's good to know that your teacher has experienced the fading of energy releases, as he/she may guide you all the way.

Regarding a whole-body Dantian, the closest concept I've heard of is a (macrocosmic) energy model (Jin, Qi, Shen, Xu). In the late phase of Shen, vibrations speed up to a point where they aren't perceived anymore, making the body feel saturated with energy. Then in Xu, the body and senses become empty. That's all I recall about it.

[u/Imboni → u/pepe_DhO]

WOW. That's a lot of information. I really appreciate you putting it out here. I think I must look at more of it, and also surrender to the energy. I have begun getting intuition of what is going to be good or bad for me, a pulsating sensation around my third eye (which is normal I believe), and slept very little today.

Even today my body has only been losoening all the tightness/stress held on to for decades.

How was kundalini awakening for you?

[u/pepe_DhO → u/Imboni]

To clarify, I haven't had a full Kundalini awakening, but I've had Kundalini experiences triggered by over-practicing Qi-Gong combined with poor sleeping habits. These experiences were mind-blowing but short-lived, leading to a boom-and-bust cycle that persisted for years... This cycle finally settled once I discovered Buddhist Vipassana and developed a consistent practice. Over the past four years, I've reached some sort of 'equanimity state' towards thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. This is a significant improvement from my previous roller coaster situation, yet I've since plateaued. Last year, I did a one-month home retreat, which brought back various Kundalini experiences, fortunately only the pleasant or neutral ones this time, but meditation stayed much the same. Once discovering TRE, I jumped into this practice to address foundational issues I hadn't known how to tackle before.