Awakening the kundalini prematurely can have negative consequences. A slow gradual process is favored. Persevere, be consistent, particularly when facing challenging personal situations. If we let down in our sadhana we'll naturally go backwards and have to build back up to the same attainment; we're not progressing. Try and avoid that.

Master Course, Merging with Siva, Lessons 265, 266.

Unedited Transcript:

Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Mahesvara, Guru Sakshat, Parabrahma, Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha.

Good morning everyone.

This is from today's Merging with Siva Lesson, 265.

"Kundalini, the Spiritual Force.

"Spiritual force.

"Hatha yoga balances the two forces, the ida and the pingala. The straight, erect spine releases the actinodic flow of the sushumna current. The mind centered in the contemplative atmosphere, cognizing timelessness, causelessness, spacelessness while sitting in the lotus position, awakens the pineal and pituitary centers, and the door of Brahman at the top of the head.

"The force of the actinodic causal body, the sheath of cognition, vijnanamaya kosha, a pure actinic force running through the sushumna current, is called the kundalini. As this kundalini force becomes activated, the sushumna power begins to grow, or the actinodic causal body begins to grow, and the higher chakras of cognition and universal love begin to spin. Once kundalini power has been activated, its force expands or contracts consciousness. As man's consciousness expands into actinic spheres, more kundalini power is used. This power is lessened as his consciousness emerges into the limited fields of the odic world.

"Often known as the serpent power, the kundalini is coiled at the base of the spine in the instinctive man who resides mostly in the force fields of memory and fear. When this power becomes uncoiled, the serpent, or kundalini, luminously raises its head, and finally, after nirvikalpa samadhi, it lifts its power to the top of the head."

As you know, Gurudeva's approach to the kundalini force is a conservative one. He didn't go around giving shaktipat, touching people on the head and awakening their kundalini. He didn't give weekend seminars in kundalini yoga.

Why? Well, because awakening the kundalini prematurely can have negative consequences.

Every few years, not that often, someone will write in on email and share that they're having some real problems with the kundalini force. It's too strong and is causing pain in the body and all kinds of problems. So that can happen, can cause serious physical and mental problems.

That's one of the reasons Gurudeva is very conservative. He just gives you simple practices. They don't cause the kundalini to rise up in a day. Rather they cause it to move over a number of years. The practices can cause it to move up gently. But it's slow gradual process. That's the path that he favored. But it is an important inner attainment to achieve because that, as Gurudeva explains here, it energizes the higher chakras when the kundalini rises. And that's what we want to do, we want, as he mentions here: "As this kundalini force becomes activated, the sushumna power begins to grow, or the actinodic causal body begins to grow, and the higher chakras of cognition and universal love begin to spin faster."

So that's what we're striving for. Very slow change over time but it does cause these two chakras, cognition and universal love, to spin faster. Or to, it spins faster it means the faculty is more present in our - we don't want to say thinking - but the faculty is more present in how we perceive the world, people, so forth. We are utilizing those faculties. Not just the lower faculties of reason and memory.

One other paragraph I wanted to read, that's why I brought the book, cause it's in tomorrow's lesson. So I can't take it out of e-mail. This is in Lesson 266, the next lesson which comes in tomorrow's e-mail.

"Never allow yourself to be complacent in your spiritual attainments. Always continue to strive. Even rishis, swamis and yogis who have totally realized Parasiva continue to work on themselves from within themselves. They don't let down, because if they did it would be many years before they had the next experience of the timelessness, formlessness, spacelessness of the unspeakable Parasiva experience. The message, therefore, is, at the beginning of meditation and at the end, keep striving. Don't turn back, but proceed with confidence."

The reason I read it is it applies to everyone. As Gurudeva says, the beginning and at the end, continue to strive. Don't let down. Because it will take you a while to get back there, longer than you think. But there's a tendency to let down, in other words: We go along fine because our karmas are fairly smooth and we're striving, we're meditating, we're going within. We reach a certain attainment and then our karmas in life get a bit bumpy. We start facing some challenges in the external world and that can cause us to let down in our sadhana.

And if we let down seriously, you know six months, for example, without doing much, then it can take quite a while to get back to the point we were at. So Gurudeva's encouraging us not to let down, just to keep at it. And as I say, particularly, it can be difficult when we're facing challenging situations in our personal life. But we want to persevere, be consistent and not achieve something and stop and then go backwards.

Gurudeva used to compare spiritual practices to dance because he was a dancer before he became, before he took up the spiritual path full time. And he would use the example: If a dancer, a very advanced dancer stops dancing for even just a few months you have to go back to the beginner's class because the body loses it's flexibility. If you didn't go back to the beginner's class and you'd try to do what you were doing you could hurt yourself. So you have to, if you stop, you have to go backwards and build back up.

So the same applies to the spiritual path. If we stop then we'll naturally go backwards and have to build back up. And the goal is to minimize that process. Cause otherwise we're reaching an attainment, we're stoping our practice, we're building back up the same attainment. We stop our practice, we build back up to the same attainment. Obviously, we're not progressing. So, we want to try and avoid that.

Have a wonderful day. Thank you very much.