During periods of accelerated spiritual growth when there is a rapid shift in the sense of self the main adjustments we need to make are adaptation to the:

• Loss of a rigid sense of the known
• Loss of the sense of sure identity
• The sense of infinity, space, groundlessness and emptiness
• Loss of routine habits
• Amplification of sensory acuity
• Magnification of or loss of appetites
• Increased psychic and subtle abilities
• Greater range and depth of emotion and feeling
• Changes in one's sense of energy and embodiment
• Distortions in the sense of time

Kundalini scares the shit out of the safety addicted conditioned self because there is no place to hide from truth, for the brightened eye of God is within us. Depending on ones ability to let go of the past, and to be restructured in each moment (cellular forgiveness) this determines ones progress via substantiation. However the irony is that, supersensory ability withstanding, one has to become megaadapted to a spiritually corrupt world--this is the challenge, to not react negatively to negativity, or in other words to fear no evil. If we listen very carefully Kundalini teaches us how to do this, but we have to be willing to experience earth shattering bliss and the full implications of our higher purpose and place in the whole.

Unfortunately kundalini has been associated with symbols such as the serpent and so non-awakeners might relegate it to the mere physical domain. But one is never so close to Spirit than during a kundalini awakening. Kundalini is an amplification of Spirit in flesh. This is one of the reasons why post-awakening life seems so lack luster for the tide of Spirit has nearly returned to the socially conditioned acceptable level. And the individual still feels the echo of the calling to a sense of humanity that is beyond our wildest dreams, but there is nowhere to put this in our consensus "fallen" world. On feeling the depths of ones fear and helplessness there is less need to prevent these in others, one realizes that it's all good and it's all ok.

To the degree that we get rid of the parasite of the defense system (the safety addicted conditioned self) that we created from day zero, this is the degree to which we can access our higher self. Kundalini is involuntary parasite killing, for it dissolves our pupael defensive self, yet it doesn't automatically mean that we suddenly have the skills to deal with our world in a higher fashion, we essentially have to grow those through deeper insight.

"To not be identified with our egoity is not about existing in some impersonal state bereft of idiosyncrasy and individuality, but rather is about being present both as our unique somebody-ness and as self-transcending Being. Even at the same time. The point is not to negate or minimize our selfhood - which is less a noun than a verb (selfing) - but to permit it such rich transparency relative to our fundamental nature that it cannot help but colorfully and fittingly represent us, however superficially.

However, when we let "I" do the driving, we usually end up wandering like hungry ghosts through the I-gotta-be-me malls of distorted or overfed desire, shopping until we're broke, sated, or diverted elsewhere. Even so, it's crucial to not prematurely cease such wanderings. It's so easy - as when we are in the spineless throes of spiritual correctness - to make an ideal out of being "good" or "spiritual" and a villain or scapegoat out of our darker impulses. To transcend yourself, be yourself." Ð Robert Augustus Masters, Darkness Shining Wild, p. 179

We can endure anything if there is a goal and a reason. This belief in a larger purpose is the most important factor in people keeping it together under crisis. In the dissolution of the ego, bliss too is sensed as a kind of hell. Kundalini awakenings are the burning away of the pain-body and the creation of a new template. What we do with that template constitutes our spiritual attainment or not. With kundalini we get a second birth, a second chance. But without skillful means, we could very well just create another pain-body in replace of the old.

During the flux of kundalini the holy Presence (witness) rises up and the little ego would like to pop in and give running commentary and inane musings. And we notice the drop in energy as we put on the ego's cloak for a sentence or two, just to see if our old self is still there, and we feel the loss of the Beloved that we are, when we stoop down that way. We can't get rid of thought, getting rid of thought is not what is called for. It's becoming an observer of one's thought, master of one's thought, and pointing one's thought in a larger direction than self-defense and ego-survival that is really the key to spiritual attainment.

The spiritual gains of equanimity, detachment and disidentification resulting from a kundalini awakening, comes about through years of being strung all over the emotional map, having ones archetypal images and psychic material blown up billboard size and in ones face. By having our interiors so radically heightened and exposed and having to live intimately with our projections, obsessions and demons. After about 3 years of this, when the chemistry starts backing off, the suspicious, mythic, grasping bodymind is clearly transparent to us. The risen lifeforce of kundalini creates an amplification and heightened sensitivity to both our interiors and our external world. Thus we have no choice but to face into our condition because to avoid doing so is tantamount to spiritual suicide. The bliss and Grace of kundalini make it almost impossible to deny consciousness and love and forfeit our existence.

CHANGES IN SELF-ORIENTATION

DISSOLUTION: Mental confusion. Difficulty concentrating. Old anchors and safety nets no longer hold. Freefall in surreal limbo. Disorientation in sense of self. Sense of fading, of not really being here. Loss of coordination and motor control during the shock and inner-conjunctions. Loss of affective memory, a flattening of memory. Loss of egoic self-continuity and focus. Preoccupation with symbols, archetypes and myth. Panic in those with no meditation experience who feel they need to control rather than surrender. Emotional outbursts, rapid mood swings, unprovoked episodes of grief, fear, rage or depression, all within a background of bliss. Desire for quiet, meditation, baths and solitude in nature. The symptoms and experience of kundalini are also so preoccupying as to make all else disappear in one's perception.

Leading up and during the peak there is a sense of one's life coming to a nexus; a convergence of dream and daily experience by breaking through of the walls of one's conscious "I" to experience more of the sub and super conscious levels as well.

SUBSTANTIATION: Eventual loss of cyclic reactive mental patterns that dissolve along with the body armor. That is the mind becomes more silent. The body holds less tension and is calm and relaxed. Loss of compulsive and self destructive habits. After the blocks are cleared and the structures changed to convey more prana flow there is a permanent equanimity of the transcendental state. Less ambivalence, more centered. More single-mindedness of purpose. Clearer, deeper perception of reality. Distance from symbols, myths, stories and superstitions. Increased ability to embrace paradox, concreteness with abstractness. Able to unify focal and peripheral perception. Sense of seeing with an inner eye. More spontaneity and openness to experience. Increased gratitude and appreciation. Increased integration and wholeness. Increased autonomy and uniqueness. Increased detachment, objectivity and transcendence. Increased diplomacy and sensitivity. Impervious to enculturation. Establishment of true moral intuition rather than mere abeyance to law. Ability to love, improved relationships. Oneness with the world. Detachment, objective witnessing, separation from thought and emotion.

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