u/josefskye5

Today I’d like to discuss the spiritual phenomena, that sometimes manifest when kundalini is awakened. And as always, this only reflects my own experience and observations, and as such is not any sort of absolute truth.

I have a suspicion that at the beginning of our awakening journey, it is not uncommon to experience all sorts of spiritual phenomena. You may have exalted visions of goddesses or deities, spontaneous movements (known as kriyas) may occur, spiritual centers in the body (chakras) may suddenly and temporarily burst open, or even psychic abilities may appear. And of course this is especially true if your awakening occurred during plant medicine journeys.

I view these as a gift, like a kiss from the future. At the same time, they can be a sort of trap, a shiny object that will ultimately be a distraction if we become attached to them. For the goal of kundalini work is complete freedom, and a surrender/merging with the Divine. And I am not convinced, after observing many kundalini or spiritual teachers, that possessing particular abilities ( called siddhis) is any indication of true spiritual attainments.

So friend, my takeaway is this: Don’t be too distracted by any “supernatural” phenomena that may arise from your practice. Just watch it, and let it go.

This world will give you things,
and then take them away.
What is it that lasts?

There is a light that you cannot
gain or lose, have you seen it yet?

There is also a love that you cannot
gain or lose, have you felt it yet?

You will have to find that market,
where such things can be acquired.

Perhaps you will be shown the way,
during a time when all seems lost.

And again a warning: you will be asked
to pay in advance, and the price will
never be cheap, but you will understand
why, at a later time.

The other thing is that later, as you progress, you may go for years and years without experiencing any more visions or overt “spiritual” phenomena. Need I say that this requires tremendous patience and discipline? Kundalini is NOT an easy path, and it will vary from being very intense to what seems at times like walking through an endless desert, often for years. Maybe this is how our desire for our inner growth is tested….

Another effect of practicing for a long time is a curious sense of both openness and sensitivity, and a subtle sense of an all-pervading sense of detachment. But maybe I’ll write about that in my next post.

How can You not have
compassion for us? We live and
breathe in darkness near absolute, –
there is little that we can
accurately understand.

Our past and future lives
are a complete mystery;
we don’t even understand our
present one, making the same
errors over and over.

You say “Don’t be afraid
in this inverted dream,
for I have saved the best for last:
there are many invisible companions
who will aid you, and in the end,
everything will be all right,
though you may not
understand that now.”

As always, feel free to ask any questions...

Today I’d like to discuss the spiritual phenomena that sometimes manifest when kundalini is awakened. And as always, this only reflects my own experience and observations, and as such is not any sort of absolute truth.

I have a suspicion that at the beginning of our awakening journey, it is not uncommon to experience all sorts of spiritual phenomena. You may have exalted visions of goddesses or deities, spontaneous movements (known as kriyas) may occur, spiritual centers in the body (chakras) may suddenly and temporarily burst open, or even psychic abilities may appear. And of course this is especially true if your awakening occurred during plant medicine journeys.

I view these as a gift, like a kiss from the future. At the same time, they can be a sort of trap, a shiny object that will ultimately be a distraction if we become attached to them. For the goal of kundalini work is complete freedom, and a surrender/merging with the Divine. And I am not convinced, after observing many kundalini or spiritual teachers, that possessing particular abilities ( called siddhis) is any indication of true spiritual attainments.

So friend, my takeaway is this: Don’t be too distracted by any “supernatural” phenomena that may arise from your practice. Just watch it, and let it go.

This world will give you things,
and then take them away.
What is it that lasts?

There is a light that you cannot
gain or lose, have you seen it yet?

There is also a love that you cannot
gain or lose, have you felt it yet?

You will have to find that market,
where such things can be acquired.

Perhaps you will be shown the way,
during a time when all seems lost.

And again a warning: you will be asked
to pay in advance, and the price will
never be cheap, but you will understand
why, at a later time.

The other thing is that later, as you progress, you may go for years and years without experiencing any more visions or overt “spiritual” phenomena. Need I say that this requires tremendous patience and discipline? Kundalini is NOT an easy path, and it will vary from being very intense to what seems at times like walking through an endless desert, often for years. Maybe this is how our desire for our inner growth is tested….

Another effect of practicing for a long time is a curious sense of both openness and sensitivity, and a subtle sense of an all-pervading sense of detachment. But maybe I’ll write about that in my next post.

How can You not have
compassion for us? We live and
breathe in darkness near absolute, –
there is little that we can
accurately understand.

Our past and future lives
are a complete mystery;
we don’t even understand our
present one, making the same
errors over and over.

You say “Don’t be afraid
in this inverted dream,
for I have saved the best for last:
there are many invisible companions
who will aid you, and in the end,
everything will be all right,
though you may not
understand that now.”

As always, feel free to ask any questions...

Today I’d like to discuss the spiritual phenomena, that sometimes manifest when kundalini is awakened. And as always, this only reflects my own experience and observations, and as such is not any sort of absolute truth.

I have a suspicion that at the beginning of our awakening journey, it is not uncommon to experience all sorts of spiritual phenomena. You may have exalted visions of goddesses or deities, spontaneous movements (known as kriyas) may occur, spiritual centers in the body (chakras) may suddenly and temporarily burst open, or even psychic abilities may appear. And of course this is especially true if your awakening occurred during plant medicine journeys.

I view these as a gift, like a kiss from the future. At the same time, they can be a sort of trap, a shiny object that will ultimately be a distraction if we become attached to them. For the goal of kundalini work is complete freedom, and a surrender/merging with the Divine. And I am not convinced, after observing many kundalini or spiritual teachers, that possessing particular abilities ( called siddhis) is any indication of true spiritual attainments.

So friend, my takeaway is this: Don’t be too distracted by any “supernatural” phenomena that may arise from your practice. Just watch it, and let it go.

This world will give you things,
and then take them away.
What is it that lasts?

There is a light that you cannot
gain or lose, have you seen it yet?

There is also a love that you cannot
gain or lose, have you felt it yet?

You will have to find that market,
where such things can be acquired.

Perhaps you will be shown the way,
during a time when all seems lost.

And again a warning: you will be asked
to pay in advance, and the price will
never be cheap, but you will understand
why, at a later time.

The other thing is that later, as you progress, you may go for years and years without experiencing any more visions or overt “spiritual” phenomena. Need I say that this requires tremendous patience and discipline? Kundalini is NOT an easy path, and it will vary from being very intense to what seems at times like walking through an endless desert, often for years. Maybe this is how our desire for our inner growth is tested….

Another effect of practicing for a long time is a curious sense of both openness and sensitivity, and a subtle sense of an all-pervading sense of detachment. But maybe I’ll write about that in my next post.

How can You not have
compassion for us? We live and
breathe in darkness near absolute, –
there is little that we can
accurately understand.

Our past and future lives
are a complete mystery;
we don’t even understand our
present one, making the same
errors over and over.

You say “Don’t be afraid
in this inverted dream,
for I have saved the best for last:
there are many invisible companions
who will aid you, and in the end,
everything will be all right,
though you may not
understand that now.”

As always, feel free to ask any questions...

First, a thank you to everyone who responded to my previous 2 posts, it was very gratifying, as I have never posted about my experience before.

I hold my hands
like this, ready to
receive

I touch my fingers together

The moon rises in one hand
The sun sets in another

In between, one life
one death, over and over

I think there may
be more to say
about all of this…

I remember a long time ago, when Ram Das was very popular, he would talk about the journey of awakening using the analogy of the hands of a clock face. 

From 12-6 on the clock, we descend into the world of form, experiencing myriad lifetimes being outer-directed, having all kinds of experiences. The shift occurs at 6:00, when we start to sense that there is more to life than the focus on the exterior, physical reality. As the clock hands move upward back towards 12, our “spiritual awakening” matures. 

To use another admittedly simplistic analogy, we begin to swim against the current. It is not easy to rely on an often tenuous inner knowing that there is more to our life than what is presented as “society’s” authority. The church, religions, politics, advertising, family and friends, schooling, and consumerism; the list of forces that want to keep you unconscious are legion. Many of the brothers and sisters of this forum have had some type of spiritual experience, often spontaneously, and find that it doesn’t fit into the prevailing worldview of society at large. At the same time there are also forces, largely invisible, that will aid you as you make the commitment to your inner awakening. And if we are lucky, we may receive unmistakable visions, or synchronicities here and there, that will inspire us to keep growing in our new understanding, 

We are all drawn to different paths up the mountain, like our preferences for different styles of clothing. And in our current time, where the riches of the ages are available easily, we can mine the disciplines that speak to us. Many of these paths merge at the top - as Rumi so beautifully said-

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.”

The real work is in bringing our vision and experiences back down into this mundane earthly plane. 

Something I have noticed about my own Kundalini work in particular, is that it tends to go in cycles, often in conjunction with the seasons or even astrological events. In the winter, it seems like I am working endlessly inside with little to show for my efforts; then in the spring things start popping. Often in the fall situations in my outer life change like a harvest time for my inner efforts.

There is another point I’d like to discuss. Our physical bodies, as well as our inner mechanisms that carry the kundalini energy, are continually adapting to the increasing flow of energy. We get so used to this that we don’t even notice it, as it becomes our new normal state of being. I really only notice this when I am meeting someone, and I can observe a heightened sensitivity in myself, manifesting as an almost “psychic” ability to sense where the person is at. 

At the same time, if we are working by ourselves for a long period of time, it is easy to lose any objective sense of our own development, and we have to accept that our life is giving us exactly what we need, at exactly the right time.  

I could lie and piously say
I don’t need very much,
my tea and coffee, simple food
and clothes, a warm place to live.

The truth is my desires
are many, my yearnings
have no limits.

This battle has raged in me
for a very long time;
I want to have nothing,
I want everything.

In the end, I know that
everything is a gift,
and I can only say
the words of a simple man,
‘Thank you.’

I'd like to share a bit more about my 1/2 century of kundalini work, in the hopes it may aid others traveling this unusual road. 

And as I said in my first post, everyone’s kundalini awakening is different and unique to their karma; I can only speak to what I have seen or witnessed myself. 

Each day now, I want
to say this –
I am here, in the eye of the world,
in the great wind in the pines
on our nearby mountain.

Each day now, I await
signals,
is it the stories the birds tell?

All of my stories have an end,
a middle, and a beginning,
but yours have none of these.

In your story, where do I place myself?

I take three things, and create
a fourth, – incense, breath, scraps
of ink on paper.

And all this time, I
am being hurled through space,
under a vast sky;
dreaming a life.

I believe it is not uncommon to have, at the beginning, some fantastical, otherworldly, or even blissful experiences, often of an obviously divine nature. It is almost as if we are given these gifts to sustain us through the long journeys of darkness through our interior self. 

Our unconscious is a luminous darkness, and our enlightenments exist on a continuum of slowly making the unconscious conscious. 

For some, it can be a lonely and dark journey, oftentimes stretching for years, decades, or even lifetimes. Our story is vast, and the glimpses of the Divine that we are given serve as our secret, inner talismans that we hold onto in order to give us the courage to persevere. 

In response to my first post, some folks asked what are the changes that I experienced after so long a practice. One of the primary changes is a development of inner detachment and non-reactivity to many events. As kundalini dissolves our inner tensions, we have less “buttons” to be pressed; we do not get triggered by things anymore. 

First I see you, then
I don’t.
You play hide-and-seek so beautifully
I forget we have been playing for
such a long time – I cannot even
remember when we started.

Here, the winter snows come
and go,
people always arriving and
departing.

I wait patiently for the Spring;
climbing up, the mountains are very
silent.

If you are not careful, you can easily
get lost in their white luminescence.

Another major outcome is a subtle sense of an expansion of reality. Things take on, (when our mind is not preoccupied,) a new depth. A very poor analogy is like when I was a hippie in my 20’s, we used to get stoned and sit around and listen to music, or go places, reveling in being high. Slowly, slowly that becomes our natural state, but it is not unusual anymore, our bodies and mind adapt, and it becomes a normal state of openness. Looking inside ourselves reveals an infinite depth, sometimes dark, sometimes light. 

Your ability to be present increases enormously, and we practice becoming an empty vessel, through which this creative and holy energy flows. This becomes a merging of ourselves and this vibrating energy, as we surrender ourselves to this inner flow. 

Your life will take on added dimension, and changes naturally occur as situations that no longer serve your growth fall away, and you will attract new ones. 

This is another way to say that your sensitivity will increase, and your life will appear both infinitely more precious and precarious. For the truth is that we live in an abyss of unknowing, and our only recourse is to live more consciously in the present.

Feel free to ask questions….

 When I close my eyes
your light is still there,
in fact, it’s even brighter

Can you see it now?

It tells me many things;
it tells me that all is
never lost,
that there are no errors,
and that one can have
only what one has given

Come, let me make you
some tea

We can converse about
these and many other things.

You can talk all
you want, I’ll just
listen

"At some point, you may endure

a relentless and inconceivable force,

that is not of this world.

They say it will remake you, in

the image of the Other, but in truth

you have no idea of what

you will become, when it is finished

with you.

And after years of heartbreaking

struggle, it may take only one

moment of real love to

forever change your life."

A little about myself - I have been practicing my kundalini meditation since about 1970. My kundalini was awakened after a great internal effort about 1971, and my teacher was a guru based in NYC known as Rudi (Swami Rudrananda.) He died in a plane crash in 1973; I only knew him for about a year and a half, but his energy had taken root in me over a long period of time. His teaching was simplicity itself, and he believed in "depth over time" - working in greater and greater depth over a long period of time. I lived in the ashrams for a year in NY, and then 9 years in Indiana, where we worked physically hard, and had many hours of meditation everyday. I have both observed and experienced many things, a very long story...

My first 10 years were in a supportive setting, so most issues that came up were dealt with in that context.

I never was looking for "Kundalini" specifically back then, with hindsight I understand that coming across this work was my "destiny" - a response by sosmething greater than myself to my inner hunger. Having been a hippie, and having had a couple of transcendental psychedelic experiences that opened my soul to a cosmic reality, I sought meditation as a path to free myself. Looking back, I can see how buried within myself I was, like a mole underground, digging his way to the sunlight.

I have some understandings I'd like to present. The first is that kundalini is a very specific energy. Many folks write asking about chakras opening, energy moving in their bodies, etc. A kundalini awakening is when the Shakti, or sleeping/dormant energy located at the base of the spine rises up the spinal coumn to the top of the head and beyond. It may rise as a trickle of light and warmth, as in my case back then, or it may rise in a fuller expression. But it is a very specific energy, sometimes confused with Chi practices, and the like.

Kundalini experiences are varied according to an individual's karma, desire, or destiny. Comparison is a waste of time. Everyone is different. Once awakened, the kundalini energy, which I experience as a sort of God-Force, does what it needs to in you, as it is supremely intelligent. I have a saying that helps me sometimes - "Resistance equals Pain" as I endeavor to surrender inside to this force. I may have been blessed, as it has been a gradual unfolding over many years. For people that have it blast quickly through them, it is different, and all you can do is follow the guidance in the wiki, and practice surrendering. But for many years, and especially now, I wake up in the morning feeling like, well, shit, as this energy flow is strong now and is very active at night. Lifetimes of tensions are being washed away, and it is not a blissful experience.

 "If you undertake this journey

there will be years of darkness –

that is a certainty. A very long

time to plod along, carefully

avoiding lengthy detours.

And sometimes, if you are lucky,

you may receive a small gift

or two at just the right time,

in an unexpected way.

A gift to remind you not

to lose heart, no matter how

it might seem in that moment."

Another observation I'd like to mention is that folks sometimes talk about a "full awakening." Forgive my bluntness, but if you had a full awakening of kundalini you would either be dead from the power of the force, or you would not be on Reddit posting. The saints who had a full awakening were people like Maharaji (Ram Das's guru, who just owned a blanket, and wherever he went temples would be built, miracles happening around him all the time), Nityananda, Ramakrishna, or Meher Baba. They were fully immersed in God-Consciousness, what we call Samadhi. These God-men are gone now. It is an indescribable state of being. It is why many ancient statues of the Buddha have a cobra rising behind his head. A full awakening of Kundalini is awesome in its majesty.

Kundalini is an evolutionary force, and I now believe that it may take more than one lifetime for it to finish its work in us. It is a bigger and longer picture than you ordinarily imagine, for the mountain we are climbing is very very steep and high.

"When my road ends, is that

where you will begin?

When there is nothing at all left,

is that where your story will start?

I watch myself fall away,

piece by piece, word by word,

breath by breath.

One day there will be

nothing left,

only the witness, sitting there,

immovable, inviolate,

smiling."

I have 2 more points I'd like to bring up. It has been said that once kundalini is activated in a person, there is no way to alter it, to put the genie back in the bottle if it is too unpleasant or strong. And I would say - It depends -. That may be true for some people, but based on my experience over a half a century of practice and observation, it might not be true for everyone. If not consciously fed and surrendered to, sometimes the experience may fade over time, and kundalini may go back to its natural dormant state. I have both seen this, and experienced it myself. I can discuss this more if desired.

"You cannot know in advance

how long it will take until you 

are fully cooked, and pleasing

in the sight of the One. 

And sometimes, when you have 

given up all hope of progress, 

a sign may come to you, a little 

kiss from the Divine, to remind

you that you were never forgotten."

My final point is this...and I'd like to stress that this was a unique, once in many lifetimes event, it was my own personal destiny and not to be replicated by anyone else. I had been working my meditation on my own for many years, and I had no teachers anymore, but an active kundalini. I had added Rebirthing to my practice, and became a Rebirther, during the course of which over a few years I had about 60 sessions on myself, which I think now was a great clearing process. In 1987 I attended the Harmonic Convergence in the Great Kiva at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. In all innocence, I had taken some local plant medicine for the first time, and sat in the Kiva. Sacred Ceremonies of all kinds took place all day long, and I didn't move for 8 hours as the entire Kundalini Force rose over and over within me, catapulting me into indescribable samadhi. I understood all the prophecies, and saw how every event in my life had led to that moment. And then I went even beyond that, beyond Space and Time. Of course I came back down eventually but I spent the next 25 years digesting that experience, living the straight and narrow. But my point is this, it gave me the understanding of where kundalini will take us in the end, to the culmination of human existence. And it is worthy beyond words, it will answer every hope and desire we have, every tear we shed, every struggle we experience. The great Sufi poets like Rumi touch on this in accessible language for us, the language of the ecstatic divine, next to which my verse offerings here are meager.

"This world will give you things,

and then take them away.

What is it that lasts?

There is a light that you cannot

gain or lose, have you seen it yet?

There is also a love that you cannot

gain or lose, have you felt it yet?

You will have to find that market,

where such things can be acquired.

Perhaps you will be shown the way,

during a time when all seems lost.

And again a warning: you will be asked

to pay in advance, and the price will

never be cheap, but you will understand

why, at a later time."

This was its answer.... ChatGPT said:

Alright! How about I show you a quick, original mini-story blending art and a bit of surreal mystery?

**"The Gallery Between Seconds"**

"Every midnight, for precisely one second, a forgotten art gallery appears between the ticking of clocks. Nestled in the silence between 00:00:00 and 00:00:01, it exists in a sliver of time no human ever notices.

Inside, the walls ripple with living mandalas—each one a fractal memory captured by an artist named Cinta Sinta. They pulse with light, made from moments never witnessed: a tiger’s blink at dusk, the shiver of stars reflected in Arctic ice, a heartbeat underwater.

One night, a visitor slips through. Time, tired of being linear, folds a corner just enough for her to step inside. She sees her entire life braided into a single mandala, and as she reaches out, it shifts—rewriting a regret, softening a goodbye.

When time resumes, she’s back in her bed, tear-streaked but smiling.

She never speaks of it. But every clock in her house now skips a beat at midnight."

BTW, Cinta Sinta is my wife... and made mandalas from her photographs…

"At some point, you may endure

a relentless and inconceivable force,

that is not of this world.

They say it will remake you, in

the image of the Other, but in truth

you have no idea of what

you will become, when it is finished

with you.

And after years of heartbreaking

struggle, it may take only one

moment of real love to

forever change your life."

I have lurked in this sub for a long time, and am now finally making my offering here. A little about myself - I have been practicing my kundalini meditation since about 1970. My kundalini was awakened after a great internal effort about 1971, and my teacher was a guru based in NYC known as Rudi (Swami Rudrananda.) He died in a plane crash in 1973; I only knew him for about a year and a half, but his energy had taken root in me over a long period of time. His teaching was simplicity itself, and he believed in "depth over time" - working in greater and greater depth over a long period of time. I lived in the ashrams for a year in NY, and then 9 years in Indiana, where we worked physically hard, and had many hours of meditation everyday. I have both observed and experienced many things, a very long story...

My first 10 years were in a supportive setting, so most issues that came up were dealt with in that context. Here you can follow the guidance in the Wiki.

I never was looking for "Kundalini" specifically back then, with hindsight I understand that coming across this work was my "destiny" - a response to my inner hunger. Having been a hippie, and having had a couple of transcendental psychedelic experiences that opened my soul to a cosmic reality, I sought meditation as a path to free myself.

I have some understandings I'd like to present. The first is that kundalini is a very specific energy. Many folks write asking about chakras opening, energy moving in their bodies, etc. A kundalini awakening is when the Shakti, or sleeping/dormant energy located at the base of the spine rises up the back to the top of the head and beyond. It may rise as a trickle of light and warmth, as in my case back then, or it may rise in a fuller expression. But it is very specific.

Kundalini experiences are varied according to an individual's karma, desire, or destiny. Comparison is a waste of time. Everyone is different. Once awakened, the kundalini energy, which I experience as a sort of God-Force, does what it needs to in you, as it is supremely intelligent. I have a saying that helps me sometimes - "Resistance equals Pain" as I endeavor to surrender inside to this force. I may have been blessed, as it has been a gradual unfolding over many years. For people that have it blast quickly through them, it is different, and all you can do is follow the guidance in the wiki, and practice surrendering. But for many years, and especially now, I wake up in the morning feeling like, well, shit, as this energy flow is strong now and is very active at night. Lifetimes of tensions are being washed away, and it is not a blissful experience.

 "If you undertake this journey

there will be years of darkness –

that is a certainty. A very long

time to plod along, carefully

avoiding lengthy detours.

And sometimes, if you are lucky,

you may receive a small gift

or two at just the right time,

in an unexpected way.

A gift to remind you not

to lose heart, no matter how

it might seem in that moment."

Another observation I'd like to mention is that folks sometimes talk about a "full awakening." Forgive my bluntness, but if you had a full awakening of kundalini you would either be dead from the power of the force, or you would not be on Reddit posting. The saints who had a full awakening were people like Maharaji (Ram Das's guru, who just owned a blanket, and wherever he went temples would be built, miracles happening around him all the time), Nityananda, Ramakrishna, or Meher Baba. They were fully immersed in God-Consciousness, what we call Samadhi. These God-men are gone now. It is an indescribable state of being. It is why many ancient statues of the Buddha have a cobra rising behind his head.

Kundalini is an evolutionary force, and I now believe that it may take more than one lifetime for it to finish its work in us. It is a bigger and longer picture than you ordinarily imagine, for the mountain we are climbing is very very steep and high.

"When my road ends, is that

where you will begin?

When there is nothing at all left,

is that where your story will start?

I watch myself fall away,

piece by piece, word by word,

breath by breath.

One day there will be

nothing left,

only the witness, sitting there,

immovable, inviolate,

smiling."

I have 2 more points I'd like to bring up. It has been said that once kundalini is activated in a person, there is no way to alter it, to put the genie back in the bottle if it is too unpleasant or strong. And I would say - It depends -. That may be true for some people, but based on my experience over a half a century of practice and observation, it might not be true for everyone. If not consciously fed and surrendered to, sometimes the experience may fade over time, and kundalini may go back to its natural dormant state. I have both seen this, and experienced it myself. I can discuss this more if desired.

"You cannot know in advance

how long it will take until you 

are fully cooked, and pleasing

in the sight of the One. 

And sometimes, when you have 

given up all hope of progress, 

a sign may come to you, a little 

kiss from the Divine, to remind

you that you were never forgotten."

My final point is this...and I'd like to stress that this was a unique, once in many lifetimes event, it was my own personal destiny and not to be replicated by anyone else. I had been working my meditation on my own for many years, and I had no teachers anymore, but an active kundalini. I had added Rebirthing to my practice, and became a Rebirther, during the course of which over a few years I had about 60 sessions on myself, which I think now was a great clearing process. In 1987 I attended the Harmonic Convergence in the Great Kiva at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. In all innocence, I had taken some local plant medicine for the first time, and sat in the Kiva. Sacred Ceremonies of all kinds took place all day long, and I didn't move for 8 hours as the entire Kundalini Force rose over and over within me, catapulting me into indescribable samadhi. I understood all the prophecies, and saw how every event in my life had led to that moment. And then I went even beyond that, beyond Space and Time. Of course I came back down eventually but I spent the next 25 years digesting that experience, living the straight and narrow. But my point is this, it gave me the understanding of where kundalini will take us in the end, to the culmination of human existence. And it is worthy beyond words, it will answer every hope and desire we have, every tear we shed, every struggle we experience. The great Sufi poets like Rumi touch on this in accessible language for us, the language of the ecstatic divine, next to which my offerings here are meager.

"This world will give you things,

and then take them away.

What is it that lasts?

There is a light that you cannot

gain or lose, have you seen it yet?

There is also a love that you cannot

gain or lose, have you felt it yet?

You will have to find that market,

where such things can be acquired.

Perhaps you will be shown the way,

during a time when all seems lost.

And again a warning: you will be asked

to pay in advance, and the price will

never be cheap, but you will understand

why, at a later time."

-Josef Skye Tornick