Sahaja Yoga and the Mother

[Warrior Spirit]

I have recently joined a Yoga known as "Sahaja Yoga" This is a unique form of Yoga, as its focus is predominantly on energy work and raising Kundalini. We also have workshops where we sit and meditate, and somebody whose been working in the energy work for a time, comes behind you and starts making certain hand gestures and stuff. The main philosophy is to feel the "cool breeze" because that is the Kundalini energy according to them; it is a cooling energy. They are against the "Hot" kind of energy work, citing Reiki in particular.

They are very big on such things like "vibrational awareness" The guy I am currently working with, always tells me to check the vibrations of something to know whether it is true or false. They feel the vibrations mostly in the finger tips of their hands. Each finger tip representing a certain chakra, with the centre of the hand representing the crown chakra. According to them, if you put your hand over the picture over their Guru - "The Mother" you will feel an incredibe amount of positive energy emanate from it, and sometimes the picture alone is enough to raise the Kundalini. For this reason they recommend everybody keep a picture of the "Mother" and look at the picture at the end of each meditation.

Now as somebody who has little to no vibrational awareness, I cannot verify whether what they are saying is true or false. So I want to get the opinion of people here, most of whom I would imagine have very good vibrational awareness, to tell me what they feel when they put their hand over the picture of the Mother.

http://www.banet.free-online.co.uk/108/pics/shrimataji_frontpage.jpg

If there is anyone involved in Sahaja Yoga here, please post and share your experiences with them here :)

[Tom]

For what its worth I have had hundreds of reiki attunements and I still feel the cool breeze effect when I put my receptive hand over my head.

[CFTraveler]

You may be interested in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4335&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=cold+kundalini (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4335&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=cold+kundalini)

BTW Warrior Spirit, are you a student of Eric Pearl?

[Warrior Spirit]

Yes, it sort of does make sense why the Kundalini would be a cooling energy, as opposed to a hot energy. According to the Eastern system there are three channels: Ida, Pingala and Sushmuna, right, left and centre.
The Kundalini energy travels up the central channel, and is experienced as a cool breeze. I think I have a few experiences, where I have felt surges of cool energy going up and down my spine. They are called spine chills right?

I don't know who Eric Pearl is, CFT.

Anyway did either of you feel the energy from the picture of the mother?

[Tom]

The thing about it is that I feel conflicted about Sahaja Yoga and its Founder. I can't give an objective evaluation of either.

[CFTraveler]

Yes, but I'll admit that I feel energy from everything, at this point in my life.

[Warrior Spirit]

Well, can you describe how this energy feels please.

[CFTraveler]

A cool breeze.
Aunt Clair would describe it as 'cold blue air'.

However, I did it again and felt nothing. So it could have been a literal air, or suggestion. Go figure.

[Warrior Spirit]

You see this is my problem with "vibrational awareness" The sensations are so subtle, you can't actually be sure whether you really are feeling anything. It could be suggestion, it could be just blood rushing to your hands because of the way you have positioned it, it could be air around the hand - it could be just about anything. This makes me very skeptical of people who claim to "feel energy" because I cannot be sure what they are really feeling. The sensation has to be very clear and distinct for me to say I am feeling anything. An energy surge going up and down the spine is definitely clear and distinct.

[Tom]

Print out the picture and test it in a variety of places and under various conditions. You can't rule out environmental influences, but you can keep changing them until you are sure that what you are looking for is consistently present. Even your circulation is going to change depending on activity level, temperature, mood, and what you've eaten.

[CFTraveler]

You see this is my problem with "vibrational awareness" The sensations are so subtle, you can't actually be sure whether you really are feeling anything. It could be suggestion, it could be just blood rushing to your hands because of the way you have positioned it, it could be air around the hand - it could be just about anything. This makes me very skeptical of people who claim to "feel energy" because I cannot be sure what they are really feeling. The sensation has to be very clear and distinct for me to say I am feeling anything. An energy surge going up and down the spine is definitely clear and distinct. When it comes to energy awareness (I won't call it 'vibrational awareness', because it's too specific) remember that there have been studies done that at least show some correlation with increase in circulation when awareness is directed at a specific target of the body. So there is no 'belief' necessary for this exercise, it's ok to think that your endorphins are causing the sensation- the important thing is to have the sensations.
So if you don't want to call it 'energy' don't; it's irrelevant.
Like Tom said, it doesn't matter whether this specific example ( a picture of a Guru) has an effect- if you feel energy (or tingle, or buzzing, or whatever) and you can manipulate it, you're golden.

[Tom]

I know that by a lot of ways of defining the word they are a cult, but I'd jump at the chance to receive initiation from them and to learn their methods. Their path seems to center around Shaktipat, the ability to activate Kundalini or to speed up Her progress in other people. Most groups have a limited number of people authorized to share this initiation / empowerment / attunement, but with Sahaja Yoga - and keep in mind that I"m not even a member - I think that everyone gains the ability and the knowledge to pass it along. I am really curious about their methods and would like to know how it is that they can do things so differently than everyone else. There must be a lot of safety mechanisms built in to make this possible. Either that or it just plain doesn't work now that the group has grown from the original people. I feel conflicted about them, but mainly that is just because they won't teach me at a distance and they won't look for someone where I live who happens to be one of them to teach me in person. Maybe privacy is very important to them. I just thought that the whole point of joining was to become a teacher.

[Warrior Spirit]

CFT, I am not really disputing the existence of the energy body. I know it exists and I can feel it. I just need to direct my awareness to x part of my body, and I can feel the energy move there. My main problem is with feeling the energy of the "other" Such as a photograph, from an object, from another person. How can you tell you are really feeling it? In the example I gave placing your hand over a picture will lead to some sensations anyway because of blood rushing to the hands, suggestion, air around you and other factors. If the sensation is not clear and dinstinct, it is really difficult to feel it.

I kind of think many people who claim to feel energy sensations etc are not really feeling them, but are being tricked into thinking they are feeling them. I see it all the time at the Yoga place. As soon as you put them on the spot, "So are you feeling the energy" they are inclined to say "Yes, I can feel it" but not feeling would be seen as a failure. Few people are honest enough to say, "No, I can't feel it"

New Anna, And? You're saying it is a cult as if it is a bad thing. I have been a member of few of these "cults" and learned quite a lot. You will find any spiritual grouping is called a "cult" the word is meaningless.

[Aunt Clair]

I think that RB is right when he says every yin will have its yang. I feel that Kundalini is not just the mother cobra coming through the male element of earth up the spine as the male element of fire . I feel that Father Kundalini comes through the female element of air and feels like cool air , damp breezes or cool water . Whenever we see Father God in this universe we must know that Mother is there also . The Tree of life has Ama and Abba. The Human Energy Body has 4 primary elements and 2 superior elements as well as countless tertiary elements.
These are ;
hot dry male fire
cold wet female water
warm moist male earth
cool damp female air
moon female akasha
sun male "amoris "

When the female nagas of Mother Kundalini first come to the body they come through Ida Pingala and Sushumna as Father Sun , Mother Moon and the Prince of Earth finally after much time the fourth illusive kundalini event occurs called the princess .These then are fire , water , earth , and air again . But it does not stop there K will come up the spine opening all channels with fire and then it will come down the spine from the crown . And then it will come down the back of the spine as cool water and up the spine as fire . The stages of water and air Kundalini are Father Kundalini the female teachers are more sensitive to this energy just as the time of men came to history so the time of women has come but what we wait for still , is the time of the daughter the illusive princess .

When I place my awareness over this image of Mother , I feel love and cool shivers on the back of my elbows then I feel cool trickles of water coming down the left side of the back of my spine and this wraps around slowly around and around down to my abdomen and there seems to open the right side ovary as it twists again around and down . Then I feel shivers and a trickle begins down the right side that is icier still and it hurts my right jaw as it passes through a blockage then it rests heavy as it passes over my heart and it feels like pressure on my chest as it lies there exhausted . The head of this serpent of energy is the size of a child's palm it is not a fully mature event but it is still profound. . I feel it end in the left ovary which it pierces without pain and then it feels like it leaves the body . The event is slow undulating cold the energy is like a thin silver marine eel it feels
like a fish swam through me lol .

1.
behind left side of neck
front of right chest
behind the right side of abdomen
front of left hip
out back through right ovary
2.
behind right side of neck
front of left chest
behind the left side of abdomen
front of right hip
out back through left ovary

[heartgasm]

There will always be male in female and vice versa but intellectualizing things too much will only mislead you in my opinion. Ma Kundalini does have her man as Shiva(the atma) in the head, he is her goal.

Aunt Clair, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. You can definitely feel kundalini energy that will feel very wild and caress you all around your body. A lot of people feel this to a very small degree in the spine while listening to music. When kundalini raises she goes vertically and, regardless of the channel you raise her through, it will feel HOT, just like fire. You won't believe you're not being burned by it and, if you raised it up pingala(sun channel), your body will feel as if it were on fire and you will not be happy. Risings up the sun channel are the cause of spontaneous combustion.

RAISING KUNDALINI IS DANGEROUS ♥♥♥♥. You can be totally successful and raise her to the head and have a brain aneurism. You can even raise her to the crown and, if your root chakra is not rooted, flop, your time with this body is over.

You might think you want to do this but once you do, there is no turning back. Mental institutions are full of people who've had it happen to them and the streets are full of crazy people with malfunctioning kundalini. Check some forums like this one kundalini-support.com/bb/index.php (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=186#p31270) . A lot of these people are scared to death and many have committed suicide. If you live through a kundalini awakening, she begins dismantling a person's reality and if it happens too quickly for the person, you might REALLY regret it. You might not sleep for days and days on end and, more than likely, your nervous system may be permanently damaged. If your body's constitution isn't agreeable for a rising your nervous system can easily short out and you can die that way too.

Raising kundalini is like passing 1 million volts of electricity through a circuit meant to handle 110 volts TOPS. People who have actually had risings will not speak on the subject lightly. Fire breathing and meditations/yoga from anything but a teacher who REALLY knows about these things will get you in a LOT of trouble FAST. I know most people on this forum worship Robert Bruce and he may be very competent and experienced with the dream body, but if you read his writing on kundalini, it is obvious that he doesn't really know what he is talking about.

The hard part is finding a teacher who isn't going to get you killed or very severely ♥♥♥♥ed up(mentally and physically). Whoever your teacher, they will have needed to have fully raised kundalini and MAKE SURE they LOVE you. Trust me, you want this person to care about you as if you were their own child and a true guru does anyways. The good news is that kundalini will raise by herself when you are ready. As you work on your ego and transcend your less desirable traits, eventually it will happen and if it doesn't: it might be because you would have died and this was not the right lifetime.

You're going to do what you Will, there is nothing I can say to stop you and I wouldn't have it any other way. Please do take away whatever you can from my words though. I write this because I've seen how bad it can be.

Check out Gopi Krishna's books on Kundalini. He very nearly died, nearly went insane, and spent two different years in bed after having a full rising.

[Tom]

Some people would rather die or go insane than continue their lives the way they are. They don't enjoy their lives and warning them that they might lose everything they have is more a sales pitch.

[heartgasm]

Some people would rather die or go insane than continue their lives the way they are. They don't enjoy their lives and warning them that they might lose everything they have is more a sales pitch.

I understand and my heart goes out to everyone who feels like that from the deepest level. From age 11 to age 23 I went through every form of self destruction from smoking heroin to engaging in violence, mostly because I wanted to be hurt more than I wanted to hurt people. I didn't want to live during most of that time, I thought the only reason I hadn't killed myself was because I was afraid to.

Kundalini can bring about experiences which are beyond words and they can help to heal you on the deepest level imaginable. It can also be the most terrifying experience of your life and this torture can go on for every hour of every day for years making things worse rather than better- it can ALWAYS get worse. There are safer and smarter ways to go about awakening kundalini than rushing into something your mind and body might not be prepared for. Find a truly impeccable teacher who loves you, I can't emphasize that enough. It may be preferable that they come from a lineage of masters etc. but the most important thing is that they love about you and would never even think of doing something that might compromise your safety. This relationship needs to exist for many reasons, but a true guru feels this for a disciple automatically and it is an unconditional love like the one a mother feels for her child. You will feel it in the same way you feel your mother loves you(supposing your mother didn't leave you in a trash can or something else awful).

While I don't necessarily advocate it, I don't advise against it but la purga [removed drug ref. please see the forum rules]

Awakening kundalini has been a blessing and a curse but I was definitely not prepared for it. Much of this lack of preparation had to do with the fact that, like many people, I was still holding onto a lot of pain which I had been unable to let go of. My root chakra was also unrooted and, had I raised it a little higher than I did, I wouldn't be speaking to you now. Seeking to awaken kundalini as a way to escape the reality we create for ourselves is definitely not an auspicious flag to fly on your way to meet Ma. Start healing and letting go now. Learning how to let go is a BIG part of it and letting go NOW will move you towards waking up kundalini if it is your karma. If you already have the sincere desire to heal yourself, you've come a long way as a human being.

Suitable births are NOT easy to come across. Who knows how long it might take you to get another body and if you do, how long will you lose yourself to worldly attachments and desire before you want to heal yourself again? My advice: Use this opportunity to start healing yourself now and find a realized teacher who loves you and who you love also. Do whatever you can do to connect with the feeling of unconditional love and walk away from anything lacking that unconditional love. This WILL lead you to awakening kundalini quickly and in a much safer way than trying to force it. Do everything you can to connect and hold onto that feeling of unconditional love and watch the limits of your ego expand while pain is replaced by orgasmic light.

Take care of yourself Tom. If you or someone you know feels that way and you are unable to connect with real love, start by showing forgiveness and kindness towards yourself. Or if you know someone like that: love them. For me, true love(unconditional/non sexual) felt like burning fire on my body. I was disgusted with anyone who felt that way towards me because my heart chakra had closed itself when I was still a kid. The only thing that helped me to connect with it were animals: innocence.

[Tom]

There are all kinds of books on how to wake up Kundalini, but I have seen extremely little material out there on what to do after waking Her up. I have had several clairvoyants tell me that my Kundalini is awake and my third eye, too. Just to make certain, I have had several people give me third eye openings and Kundalini activations (Shaktipat) over the years, but it seems that the one I received first in 1999 truly did the job my getting the ball rolling. I would like to work with Sahaja Yoga people to better understand how they give Shaktipat, and it would be a lot of fun to receive it from them a few times.

Currently my goal is to be aware 24/7, by merging with the awareness that is already present by identifying with it, so that it will not be possible to completely lose awareness even in deep sleep ever again. At that point sleep is transformed into meditation and dreams only arise when consciously chosen.

[heartgasm]

Kundalini might be uncoiled in you which does mean she is awake technically, but if she hasn't raised, the upward pranic flow won't be reaching past the first few chakras and your ego won't be forced to change much. She will sit at the root chakra uncoiled and just hang out there. Avoid excessive indulgences(sex, anger, alcohol/drugs/food) as you might be drawn to them. People's third eyes open and close, opening it definitely does not mean it will remain open. Most real teachers will tell their students to forget abilities and third eye meditation as its just more attachment and stimulation for a mind which is already out of control. Awareness doesn't care about yogic abilities or siddhis, awareness is beyond all of that and the human being who holds onto awareness is not even there anymore.

Real shaktipat is an INTENSE experience. There are different types of shaktipat and only one who has self realized can give it. You will only get shaktipat from, at the very lowest level, an actual adept, and no adept or master will run around giving shaktipats. If you get true shaktipat it will be because you are ready(and you might be Tom, I have no idea) otherwise no one would perform shaktipat unless they wanted to obliterate you. If you receive it, there will be no question as to whether you did or not. A master can gaze at you with love and you will explode internally or an adept can hit you in the chest. There is also a kind of shaktipat where the teacher can actually hook up to you and take you on something of an elevator ride.

Tom, my lineage says there is never anything to do but surrender to the present moment. If you are awareness, you are the spontaneous present moment in which all is simply "happening". This is the high level teaching of no mind and is also the true meaning of the word sahaja. Be as a child, always, this is the goal. To kill the seeker, to let go of all your desires and reside in the spontaneous and natural state, this is sahaja and it is yours to access whenever you want. Just give up. Stop identifying with the mind, stop identifying with the body, their goals and attainments are not yours. Awareness is NOW, it is the changeless background. You can't identify with awareness, you can only stop identifying with what you are not and this will leave you with what you truly are: I'd rather not call it anything.

I wouldn't conceptualize what its like too much because this is just more mental masturbation when we definitely do that enough. You can tell me all day about what the ocean is like, but until I've seen the ocean I can only draw false pictures in my mind about something big and blue, it doesn't serve me to do this. This is true for most things, especially dreamless sleep. Having a full kundalini rising and self realizing will not keep you from unconsciousness. Self realized men work their entire lives to achieve a state like this and the closer you get, the less of "you" there is.

After waking Her up(and definitely after raising Her) you're gonna need a real teacher, there just isn't any other way because this is a spoken esoteric tradition. Much of the key information is deliberately left out of texts to keep people from accidentally destroying themselves. If you haven't done the requisite work and you raised her before you should have, if you live through it, you will mostly have to do the same work and it will just be less enjoyable/more stressful.

You sound really committed to this Tom, and your goal is the best goal(in my opinion). If merging with awareness is your goal, then dying is your goal. If you want to die, just give up Tom. Realize that you are not Tom, his problems and habits have nothing to do with YOU. Act in a way that feels natural, let go of repulsions, attractions, and most importantly, desire.

If you want to raise kundalini: find a teacher you have a mutual love with and want to devote yourself to, it needs to be an unquestionable devotion and an unconditional love. Find a real teacher and they will lead you to where you want to go, but you WILL have to give up your desire to go there if it is to happen. Its a funny thing.

Love & Blessings

[Tom]

My teacher was never actually given Shaktipat to anyone else - just me. He did not want to do it, but it was necessary to have a common frame of reference. It felt like I had fallen into an ocean and my body was filled with the cold water. Everything is cold with me; even inner fire (tummo) meditation. Even just sitting and meditating can make me so cold that my teeth start clicking together. Actually I'm cold most of the time, and I am a bit chilly right now. This year I received reiki attunements for InnerSun Reiki and gTumo and they were cold. When I visualize hot red energy filling my body again I become very cold. Being cold tends to make me drowsy. The combination makes it difficult for me to meditate.

It feels like the process of letting my personality die is going on extremely gradually. Things just don't seem to be there anymore, as the emotional and mental energy seems to stop feeding them. It used to be painful, I think, but now it is hard to remember why. Now it just seems to make me happier and lighter. It is different than being simply ungrounded, too. If anything I feel better grounded than ever before. There are some subliminals I have been listening to with suggestions like "I am deeply grateful for my life.", "I enjoy my life", and "I am open to experience miracles". For the last few months I have heard these suggestions for at least 50 hours per week. Often closer to 70.

Something is close to happening in my path. It feels like it will be really interesting.

[Hegemony]

It sounds to me like their distaste is simply a symptom of "my school > their school" - not that this is the focus or even the core of that yoga's teaching, but my response would be to accept the teachings for what they are and allow myself to learn what I can. Everything is a new experience and I would not argue that any energy work is "right."