Kundalini means coiled, and the image is of a serpent asleep at the base of the spine, wrapped three and a half times around itself, holding energy that is present in everyone and active in almost no one. The tantric and hatha traditions describe its awakening and ascent through the central channel as the mechanism underlying every significant contemplative attainment, and treat the ordinary human condition as one in which this energy is simply lying dormant.
The ascent is described in stages. The energy rises through the sushumna, the central channel, piercing each chakra in turn, and the classical accounts attach specific effects to each piercing. When it reaches the crown, the union of Shakti with Shiva is said to occur, which is the point of the whole exercise: the individual energy rejoining the consciousness it was never actually separate from. This is why kundalini is explicitly identified with Shakti in her most immediate and personal form.
The literature is also full of warnings, which is worth noting in a tradition not otherwise prone to caution. Forcing the process through aggressive pranayama without preparation is described as producing heat, instability, disturbances of sleep and mood, and in the more dramatic accounts, lasting damage. The consistent instruction is that the nadis must be cleared and the ethical and postural groundwork laid before the energy is invited upward, and that the process should be undertaken under someone who has been through it. The enthusiasm and the caution come from the same texts.
Kundalini is the tradition’s account of dormant capacity, delivered with an unusual amount of hazard warning. To see the energy it is identified with, explore more of The Living Sanatan Timeline.
Part 87 of 100 — Series II: To the Eternal
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