I recently got into a discussion with someone about the use of psychedelics for awakening kundalini and I was curious to what other think on the matter.
For one…can a person awaken kundalini via drugs?
And is it anyway shape or form safe? (I.E Under a shamans guidance)
I believe the prerequisite question is
why does one want to awaken Kundalini?
One of the definite results of kundalini awakening is that you start to attain knowledge of your true nature. If the individual starts to forget about his own Self through the ego, he will ultimately fall. Drugs unfortunately is associated with ego and as such will awaken other forces as well, which should have been left alone in that state. Drugs in most cases stimulates the ego to take the forground and not the true nature of the Self and as such holds many potholes for the inexperienced.
The knowledge about kindalini awakening at the moment is so partial that I would not trust anyone who tells me that they can fascilitate it through drugs.
But then again one accepts a guru according to ones own nature.
[quote=InnerAthlete;19074]I believe the prerequisite question is
why does one want to awaken Kundalini?[/quote]
It’s not so much a matter of “want” in this context. I have heard from numerous people that they have had a kundalini awakening via drugs with no intention of doing so. I dont dismiss there accounts as false or fact. I would never be able to say to someone…oh that wasn?t a kundalini awakening. For one I have never felt (although I’ve gotten IMMENSE highs off asana practices sometimes)it and understand it is dangerous without a teacher. But “could” someone awaken kundalini via drugs. I’m not looking for advice on how to awaken it I’m more curious from an educational perspective.
I am certain that Kundalini could be awakened by the use of LSD. I am of the belief that experimentation with harmful drugs or drugs that we know that there exists no supervisory control over (any street LSD is potentially leathal) is a tremendous risk to the risk taker.
PS. I read recently about the demise of Marsha Moore (a great yoga teacher) who experimented with Ketamine, wrote a book on it http://www.futurehi.net/docs/journeys/JourneysBrightWorld.html A gifted spirit who perished one winters day possibly probably high on ketamine.
This is why this forum is so much fun. Now I know what Kundalini is.
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/k/kundalini.html
As a former LSD user and one-time latent hippie of the 70s I can state emphatically that the drug will not awaken anything within you. In fact, the opposite is true. All you experience with drugs or alcohol is the illusion you have had some pyschic experience or revelation.
I can remember being in the midst of the drug culture actually buying the idea that mushrooms can enhance a vision quest experience. I have done vision quests both stoned and sober. From my experience, the cleaner the mind the clearer the revelation - and the longer it remains relevant to my life.
So, have a toke once in a while, or drop a hit with a friend in a safe place. It does evoke interesting ideas and allows you to float through many dreams. You may find some useful information to take with you when you are pursue releasing your kundalini with clarity of purpose.
Since I’ve already written on marijuana use and yoga (For High Times two years ago) I don’t want to comment further as it would, at very least, be repetitive.
I will however make a general statement re: the context of this post which is awakening Kundalini.
As human beings are unique there is no ONE experience. Ergo there’s nothing sound in saying it can or it cannot be done this way or that way. My experience FOR ME may very well be that such drug use is not opening while a neighbor may have a diametrically opposing experience.
Until we can grasp this concept no true peace is possible.
There are many behaviors which allow us as human beings to hide from our true selves, hide from life’s experience, rob the soul of it’s mission for being here, now, in the physical body. Some of the hiding manifests in foods, some in thought, some in action, some in housing, clothing, automobiles…et al. Yoga is not, inherently, a path of hiding. There is nothing wrong with YOU hiding. But it would clearly impede growth on the path of yoga. So if you’re on a path of hiding, then hide, and enjoy. Just do not call it yoga as that is grossly dishonest with yourself.
Kundalini can be accidentally awakened or purposefully awakened. Both can be incredibly dangerous. It is likely pursued by those who do not have the slightest idea of it’s force or those who have a practice of many decades guided by a true seer.
The concerns are two-fold. That it is pursued from a place of craving, and desire, and ego AND that when awakened in a malaligned student the movement of the energy can go into places in the body and do severe damage.
[quote=FlexPenguin;19130]As a former LSD user and one-time latent hippie of the 70s I can state emphatically that the drug will not awaken anything within you.
So, have a toke once in a while, or drop a hit with a friend in a safe place. It does evoke interesting ideas and allows you to float through many dreams. You may find some useful information to take with you when you are pursue releasing your kundalini with clarity of purpose.[/quote]
Thank you for sharing your experiences with such honesty, I respect that a lot. However, these two statements don’t seem to jive.
“It won’t do anything”.
“It may give you some insight on your path”.
What am I misinterpreting? 
I think those two statements related in context to different points. However, on their own - I do not believe anything of substance or real can be directly awakened or gained by mind-altering drugs (as opposed to health-related treatments). The experience can too easily become confused and indistinct, save for the moments that exist as parabolic structures, like the structures of dreams and fantasies.
I suppose, on extrapolation, any residual revelation gained from the dream may be used during meditation and explored there. For me, any revelation I got using drugs was merely an illusion and found truer clarity when my mind was not messed with outside stimuli.
Dear friends!
Please do not get caught it into the illusion as almost all men and women. Be awake. Chemicals suppress the mind and put it in an extraordinarily dull state. If some drugs can show you the untouchable, then all the living beings can attain time-independent state.
When kundalini is awaken, nature reveals her secrets. Nothing there to learn. But when you speak it with words it become poluted, conditioned … etc. I couldn’t put it in this short para. It is something every one has to go into depth and realize. Cannot be taught by thought/words.
i once read that using drugs to reach higher states is kind of like being in the garden of eden and the gardener comes to throw you out at 5pm. Achieving these higher states without psychadelics but through practise and devotion allows you to be in the garden where no one is ever coming to throw you out!!
I have done a little, and have been meaning to do more research on
psychedelic affects on the brain. A few of us may remember those many
studies they did with monks who were in meditation, how their brains in a
state of concentration showed electrical firings higher than an average
person, in many different areas at the same time. It was thought that these
findings showed that through meditation, they had become capable of using
their brain to a greater capacity - to think with clarity - to not be
distracted or slowed down by the fluctuations of the mind (vrittis?). They
were calm and unshakable, because over a great deal of time their minds had
been diligently trained to fire across random synapses through repetition of
the idea of unity, openness, wholeness and mental silence… (the concept of
neuro-plasticity- defined by Wiki as: “the changing of neurons and the
organization of their networks and so their function by experience” could be
an excellent explanation for how intense dedication to meditation could
rewire the brain to be… well, super-conscious). ANYWAY…
While all psychedelic drugs have a wide range of effects on the brain, they
all catalyze a ton of chemical and electrical signals to go off all over the
brain, connecting areas that usually do not usually have direct paths to one
another. People describe that they have felt conscious of things they have
never experienced, made connections between people and events (sometimes
resolving conflict, sometimes creating conspiracy theories), or perhaps they
feel transcendent-and can see the truth of situations they otherwise could
not. Some people… have bad trips too, hallucinations, getting sick. The
effect is personal and variant. I have a low running theory that these drugs
create misfiring that replicates a state near the same as the monks who have
been practicing for their whole life.
While experiencing such a state creates memories of awareness that have
caused many in the past to strive towards the studies of meditation,
spirituality and God in order to replicate it, it has many disadvantages::
It is hard to control, it cannot be induced without the aid of drugs, and it
is short term with a few lasting effects (many one or two new
neuro-pathways?) that may be inspirational; or may be dangerous to health.
The Kundalini experience is likened to a great awakening of consciousness
and spirit, so I am led to believe, that can only be achieved (or should
only be achieved) when a person is fully prepared, lest it make them crazy
or kill them or… I don’t know much about all of it. I think that many
people strive toward the Kundalini awakening for the same reason that a lot
of people I have met use a variety of drugs, because they think it will make
them highly conscious of God, of everything, that they will be able to see
the truth of life, that it will make them powerful above measure.
However, these drug inducing people (many of whom coincidentally are also
enthralled with the ideas of Kundalini)… they’re not ready. I can’t say
for sure when a person is ready, but I believe that if there is great power
to be wielded, or if there are lessons of life to be found in a pill, that
to be capable of comprehending the nature of that energy, and using it for
responsible purposes requires discipline, dedication, true knowledge of
self, and the ability to surrender that power (and the ego) fully.
I think of the this awakening as in the 4th chapter of the yoga sutras:
[B]janma osadhi mantra tapah samadhi jah siddhyayah. [/B]
This transformation, powers, awarness can be granted through [B]birth[/B], through the use of sacred herbs ([B]druuuugggss[/B]),[B] mantra[/B], the burning discipline of [B]training the senses[/B], or through deep concentration or [B]meditation[/B].
And then…
[B]Sutra 4.6 [/B]- The transformation born of meditation is the one that is anasaya, without impression, free from karmic influence, it is just as it is. (My favorite).
I’m sure many of you will disagree with these translations and feel free to correct me… I just pulled them off the Swami J and Swami Venkatesananda sites because my YSP books are all downstairs and I’ve already used up at least an hour writing this.
Anyway - If you’re going to become a doctor you go to medical school, residency etc… you build up knowledge and experience so you can do what is right. I think that if you’re going to awaken your kundalini, find God, enter Nirvana… then you should have to do the work - whether it takes you twenty minutes, twenty years or twenty lifetimes, you were mean to put in that time before you were ready to understand it. And if you are not ready, then you probably shouldn’t have it.
It’s fun to note that a few cultures recognize people with seizure
disorders (electrical misfiring again!) to be very close to God, and are
revered (or somethings the cultures think they are possessed and evil. There
are two sides to every coin). My dad had a traumatic brain injury a few years ago and suffered unusual low-grade seizures, almost all the time for three years (they never stopped). When we recently learned it and now they are controlled with medication, he is much calmer and can communicate better… but has developed a previously absent and now unalterable faith that God exists in every aspect of nature, and that we are all here for some great quest. Coincidence? Who cares! It’s beautiful to see!
What does everyone think of AYAHUSCHA?
Why is that after consuming it almost everyone get visited by entities like starting with planta, fungi etc. and than Jaguars, snakes, insects?
Hello Bridgette,
Kundalini is a freight train. It’s a great deal of actual, physical force, that takes an equal amount of strength, control and balance to guide. You might build that kind of strength and control with a lifetime of vigilant hatha/pranayama practice (although personally, I think even then it’s somewhat predetermined).
Yes, it can awaken spontaneously too. If it happens suddenly, without that strength and control, it’s a train wreck, so to speak. Let me state only my opinion here, not to offend anyone who might wish the contrary. [B]The last thing you will gain by taking any drug is strength and control. [/B]And so if you wake up from your high wishing you’ve had a kundalini episode and you’re not sorry you did…then you were only high and lucky you didn’t.
I think there is some benefit to witnessing an altered state of your own conscious (your spirit), drug induced or not, just to jar reality. To help you realize that what you generally sense is not real. That’s a good thing. But it’s also another conversation.
siva
One of your better posts my friend.
I-3: Let us for all-knowing Fire the soma press (Tripura Tapini Upanshad)
To me, Kundalini is like a Bob Dylan song. Nobody’s really sure what it means. On the one hand, kundalini is spoken of as a mystical experience, something that happens during meditation that is outside of normal waking or dreaming experience. But Kundalini is also spoken of as symbolic, presumably symbolic of something that is real, something that we can relate to every day experience.
The ancient Indians were known to ingest substances like soma and herb, so it is tempting to speculate that the so-called kundalini awakening really describes a psychedelic experience. But I’m not aware of any instance in the Hindu literature where kundalini is mentioned in connection with the use of substances. So on an intellectual level, kundalini awakening must be something else.
Does anybody really know?
[quote=Asuri;19657]To me, Kundalini is like a Bob Dylan song.
Does anybody really know?[/quote]
Asuri,
The question may not be “does anybody really know?”…but rather, can we translate another’s knowing into our own experience? The answer is of course, no. And so, does it really matter? Not unless you believe that another can know something you might not.
When you read accounts of kundalini awakening, one thing that may not be rendered for you is the course of time involved between the awakening and its realization. I can say “kundalini awakened and life was never the same again.” But that does not convey that it happened over the course of 10 or 20 years. It happened as slow as the grass grows, although I became aware of it all at once. You see? Not very impressive anymore, but no less true.
Yes. There are those, some, who know kundalini. Of course. How else would we come to learn about it? I also feel many accounts I have read are inadequate to my own experience. They feel conjured (except for those accounts of premature awakenings, which I can relate to, unfortunately). I will however try here to put mine in the most simple terms I can and in a way you might be able to relate your own yoga experience.
Kundalini-force is a constant in your body. It’s been a part of your development from birth and you use it everyday, although it operates in either one side of the body at a time or the other: one side governed by ida, the other by pingala. The force alternates between them freely (or less freely), giving, taking, exchanging. As long as they are getting along, it’s all cool and you are unaware.
The real deal begins when they are no longer willing to alternate their roles. They now want do the the same thing in the same space and time. If they are balanced in strength, control, purity, etc., (because you’ve been hard at work with your hatha and pranayama) and if the mind is able to put two-and-two together, at that critical moment, so as not to interfere with them (because you’ve prepared yourself with meditation)…Voila! You now have both sides of the body working together in synch, in harmony, literally, physically governed now by sushumna, the root of which is the mula. The force and power of it does change the way you see all things. But you still have to pay the bills. You still have responsibilities, etc. So, don’t get too excited.
But in the case of a premature awakening, that is one in where both sides are not yet in synch, their strength, balance, control, etc., are not yet matched, and the mind is not yet ready to such a degree that it cannot comprehend what is happening and cannot keep its cool to watch carefully, to guide the union with the breath and posture, etc., then the system crashes. It’s like the timing of the cylinders in your car being off, or as I said, a runaway freight train. It destroys itself. And because the force is as great as that of gravity, or the ocean, you will not be able to separate them again. They will be bound incongruently forever. And that would really suck.
So. Nothing to worry about, but also nothing to pursue, other than to prepare without attachment to your desires for super-power. Doing yoga is the goal and the only way for ida and pingala to reach a union in sushumna. It’s not an intellectual thing. It’s also not a mystical thing. Nothing you read will prepare you, and certainly no drug will either. It’s between your body, your mind, and gravity (or god).
I hope that demystifies it for you a bit.
peace,
siva
[QUOTE=Asuri;19657]To me, Kundalini is like a Bob Dylan song. Nobody’s really sure what it means. On the one hand, kundalini is spoken of as a mystical experience, something that happens during meditation that is outside of normal waking or dreaming experience. But Kundalini is also spoken of as symbolic, presumably symbolic of something that is real, something that we can relate to every day experience.
The ancient Indians were known to ingest substances like soma and herb, so it is tempting to speculate that the so-called kundalini awakening really describes a psychedelic experience. But I’m not aware of any instance in the Hindu literature where kundalini is mentioned in connection with the use of substances. So on an intellectual level, kundalini awakening must be something else.
Does anybody really know?[/QUOTE]
Native Americans have used marijuana, tobacco, peyote, mushrooms, etc. to enter ‘spiritual’ states for centuries. Many other cultures have done the same with other naturally occuring substances.
Nothing beats the real experience. I still don’t believe licking the back of a cane toad will lead to anything but a big high and belly ache.
Kundalini is not spiritual. It’s purely a physical phenomena.
siva
Pose yet another question not yet addressed. So say you believe drugs DO give a little glimmer of what that altered state of being is like. Using the metaphor of the garden of Eden, you have experienced the garden but not taken part in it fully. Therefor someone who has experienced drug induced altered states of consciousness…do they have more likely hood of achieving a kundalini awakening? I work a lot with individuals who have claimed to have “experiences” mimicking that of an awakening due to past drug use. I’m aware of the dangers of a premature kundalini awakening and I’m more concerned towards the receptivity of my clients with former drug use because of my awareness of the dangers.
And thank you everyone for the insightful responses! Much love!