Difficult Spiritual Awakenings, Perceptions, Related Topics

[Palehorse Redivivus]

It just seems like sometimes people who talk about their kundalini describe it almost like a brutal hazing and that they are proud to have endured so that they can now have a nice big ultimate spiritual merit badge.Does being able to endure psychosis really need to be an intrinsic value in anyone attempting to raise kundalini?

In a word: no.

I've had some bizarre experiences while working with mine (I don't even call it K; I prefer something like "serpent power" if anything) -- long story short, I defined my own experience and mostly had it as I planned; did a lot of work beforehand to detach from the religious baggage that has made something completely grandiose out of it. Unfortunately I didn't go far enough with this apparently -- I had my raising experience, but separately I also actually had religious thoughtforms, entities and such showing up off and on attempting to do things like crack my crown center. This led to a running inside joke -- "oh, they're back to play another round of 'blame the snake' again..." Throughout, the sense that someone thought I was intruding upon their territory was very prevalent. Obviously this is nonsense; to deal with one's own serpent is to work with a part of one's own anatomy, and there is nobody on earth who has the authority to intrude on that process or define one's own personal experience. The fact remains that there are a few groups on earth who seem to believe they own the damn thing, and have a definite vested interest in keeping the process artificially traumatic, thereby validating their ideology and keeping themselves in business.

Thus for any westerners who plan on opening up this set of capabilities I would say that inner preparation is important, but doing work to separate the whole thing out from anything eastern and making sure one's lower centers are free from any such ties, would be much moreso.

[ButterflyWoman]

Some interesting ideas/thoughts/concepts have made their way into my awareness of late, regarding the ego and its function, ego collapse, psychosis, etc. I wasn't actively looking for this information, nor was I even particularly thinking of it. It just came to me and sort of fit in to the whole of my understanding in an interesting way.

It is my direct experience that the mind and the ego are not the same, although they are related. The purpose of the ego (and it DOES have a purpose, no matter what "kill the ego" rhetoric is going around out there) is to provide contrast, context, difference, etc. The ego says "This is ME, and that is YOU" or "These are my private thoughts, and that is the voice of a newscaster reading a story about someone in Indonesia". It also generates things like "this is good, this is bad, I like this, I don't like this, I think this, I am like this and not like that" and so forth.

Without this kind of contrast, boundaries, filtering, etc., you end up being unable to differentiate your thoughts from things you hear on the radio, just as one possible example. You may think everyone is listening to your thoughts, or you may think that everything you see or hear is some sort of encoded message for you, and so on. It's essentially psychosis, where everything is all tossed in together in one big soup, and you can't tell where the bowl ends and the soup begins... (Note: This is a VERY simplified explanation, and this may or may not apply to all forms of psychosis; I'm only speaking of the kind of psychosis, or maybe you could say pseudo-psychosis, that happens when the ego isn't functioning in a way that allows you to experience appropriate contrast, context, etc.)

What SHOULD happen with spiritual awakening is that your point of reference/conscious awareness shifts into a position that is not seated right inside the self that the ego has built. Then it's possible to view the ego for what it is, and while it may take some time to really detach from the ego's self-definitions and created persona, when Awareness is elsewhere, it's much easier to do and a good deal less traumatic, as these things go.

When/if the ego collapses while the main point-of-reference is WITHIN that ego-created self, it's extremely messy, to say the least. I have experienced this, though at the time I had no idea what was actually happening. I was terrified that I would lose my "self", that "I" would die, and that's a pretty classic symptom of ego disintegration, when experienced from within the ego-self. I was "borderline psychotic" some of the time, and I did end up in the psych ward for a while (I had violent mood swings and got a diagnosis of Bipolar I, but that has completely and utterly gone, so I have to question that diagnosis; either it miraculously healed completely leaving no trace or I never had it to begin with).

DISCLAIMER: This is a line of understanding which is still evolving. I make ZERO claims as to "truth" or "rightness" or anything of that sort. This is simply what I understand at this point in space and time, based on my own direct experience and observations and input from other people.

[farewell2arms]

When/if the ego collapses while the main point-of-reference is WITHIN that ego-created self, it's extremely messy, to say the least. I have experienced this, though at the time I had no idea what was actually happening. I was terrified that I would lose my "self", that "I" would die, and that's a pretty classic symptom of ego disintegration, when experienced from within the ego-self.

I guess this is the main process for anyone new to K awakening, in many cases. I actually see it as co-creation: the point isn't to dissolve the ego, it is to transmute it. The darkness experienced is transmuted into light, metaphorically speaking. So, you need to go through these things to grow; or rather, growth can't happen if you do not go through these experiences. The larger the ego, the more lessons learned on the path. Of course, it's just a theory and a belief, but it works for me.

This could be supported by your theory of the ego as a necessity for discernment, contrast and variation in life. Perhaps the final result of such a co-creation is a new type of being, a creator with a healthy, fully functional ego, to be used as a tool for creating, instead of experiencing distortion in life.


John

[ButterflyWoman]

I actually see it as co-creation: the point isn't to dissolve the ego, it is to transmute it.

*nod* Yes, that's well-put.

So, you need to go through these things to grow; or rather, growth can't happen if you do not go through these experiences.

I don't know if it's a requirement. I think it CAN happen any way it's possible to imagine it happening, and probably a few ways that nobody is likely to imagine. But a suddenly transformation, with no transition and no story in between is.... well, abrupt. It is completely true to say that I am emphatically NOT the same person I was then. If the "I" that I am now were to suddenly wake up back then as that person.... Well. Let's just say, it would be... messy, to the point of possibly destroying the mind as well as the ego, I guess you could say. (Honestly, I haven't puzzled this out. I'm writing as I'm thinking and looking. So don't take any of this as some sort of wisdom or anything, it's just this mind trying to look at the situation from different angles.)

The larger the ego, the more lessons learned on the path. Of course, it's just a theory and a belief, but it works for me.

I don't know about larger. I suspect it's more about patterns of stubborn habit and some of the very, very early beliefs some of us carry around and which form the basis of our reality (for example, the belief that you have to do everything yourself because you can't count on anyone else or any outside force or entity to take care of you).

Perhaps the final result of such a co-creation is a new type of being, a creator with a healthy, fully functional ego, to be used as a tool for creating, instead of experiencing distortion in life.

Yes. This is what I've been seeing lately, actually. I haven't really put it into words, but there you go.

[psionickx]

Hi psionickx,

In these cases, is it known why people included in this faction reached k-awakened with no or minimal emotional/psychological suffering or discomfort?

Common Sense.

Well me and members in my clique (maybe I ought write the word posse instead - goes easier on most egos ) did a lot of pre-K-activation prep.

If youre going to start flirting with potent forces the least most common denominator stands out to be being prepared beforehand.

Like I said ...common sense ...dont you think?

[psionickx]

I think the term "spiritually elite" is something you have in your own psyche, hence the notion that this is something that could bear exploring. Where is that coming from, and why?

[farewell2arms]

I don't know if it's a requirement. I think it CAN happen any way it's possible to imagine it happening, and probably a few ways that nobody is likely to imagine. But a suddenly transformation, with no transition and no story in between is.... well, abrupt. It is completely true to say that I am emphatically NOT the same person I was then. If the "I" that I am now were to suddenly wake up back then as that person.... Well. Let's just say, it would be... messy, to the point of possibly destroying the mind as well as the ego, I guess you could say. (Honestly, I haven't puzzled this out. I'm writing as I'm thinking and looking. So don't take any of this as some sort of wisdom or anything, it's just this mind trying to look at the situation from different angles.)

Don't really have any kind of experience of anything like that, so I can't comment...

Though perhaps there are different laws or parameters for what is allowed/possible depending on what universe you are in... just speculating, or course...

I still haven't got a clue what the differences between Uraeus and the "normal" K are. Perhaps it's got something to do with this, I mean, changing the underlying mechanisms of transformation of self in some way or something.

I don't know about larger. I suspect it's more about patterns of stubborn habit and some of the very, very early beliefs some of us carry around and which form the basis of our reality (for example, the belief that you have to do everything yourself because you can't count on anyone else or any outside force or entity to take care of you).

Yeah, that's probably a better way to put it.

[ButterflyWoman]

Though perhaps there are different laws or parameters for what is allowed/possible depending on what universe you are in...

What you are able to allow in your reality generates the limits. The "me" I am now isn't easily fazed by "weird stuff" happening, reality going wobbly, sudden insights that cause the bottom to drop out on existing belief structures, etc. I could probably even cope if I were to go to bed tonight and wake up in a different reality, depending on what that reality was and how different it was from the reality I now live. But if the self who was semi-insane, lived below the poverty line in a bad neighborhood and was living with a guy who turned into non-newtonian fluid at the slightest sign of ruffles in his idea of how things should be were to wake up and find she lived in Australia with this weird chubby science guy and had some weird kids with him and drove a station wagon around the suburbs every day, I'm not so sure how she'd take it. She might have lost her mind, entirely, as opposed to temporarily.

It is also the case that she/I BELIEVED that there was something seriously wrong with her/myself, and that healing would be lengthy and painful. Reality couldn't flow any other way, given the limits of that belief.

I suspect that rather a lot of people have similar limiting beliefs about the difficulty and rarity of spiritual awakening. Stuff about "being worthy" and "earning" it and "working" for it and so on. And so, for them, there are questions of worthiness and working hard to earn it, etc.

If there is one thing I am seeing more and more, and with greater and greater clarity, it's that our beliefs, even (and maybe especially) the ones of which we are not consciously aware, affect the flow of infinite possibilities and force reality to flow the way it does for us.

Or... well.... maybe it's only MY reality that works that way....

I still haven't got a clue what the differences between Uraeus and the "normal" K are.

Me, either. *shrug*

[Tutor]

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[psionickx]

frankly, I suspect that in a lot of cases, it's not that the person talking about having a difficult Kundalini awakening or other spiritual emergency, so much as the listener's own ego interpreting their own stuff (subconscious fears of inferiority, etc).

Ignore my sporadic interference please .