Z2 - Riding the Kundalini Dragon: Integrating Altered States!

I was on self-selected sabbatical from zaadz during Z1 and am very glad to be back in the thick of things to keep abreast of Z2….. This subject is of particular interest to me, given my own personal experiences of riding the Kundalini dragon (my ride is probably a lot like Gopi Krishna's, but in a completely different cultural context; perhaps a more accurate metaphor would be akin to the first task of the Triwizard's Tournament).

Thank you, Julian, for taking the initiative to organize such a forum and I look forward to partaking of the richness to ensue…

I'm here! I will be posting something on July 27. What an expression! Riding the Kundalini Dragon…. To tell you the truth, i am a little intimidated. I am a bit afriad of sharing a deep experience and having it ripped apart, disected, analysed, projected upon, by the crowd. Its kinda like standing in front of a crowd naked, and then asking the crowd, what do ya think? Anyhow, I'm happy to participate. Just…be gentle… :0)

oh, i hear ya, christiana…i hear ya… :)

here's the thing, however…

people benefit by realizing they are not alone in this experience, no matter the shape or form. we benefit by realizing we are not alone.

we benefit by appreciating all of our developmental, spiritual and transformative experiences no matter the warp or woof or shadow.

we benefit.

i am certain your experience is a beautiful one, christiana…else, you would not hold it so close and dear.

i am looking forward to your contribution to the symposium. :)


and hey…thanks for perservering in coordinating this symposium, Julian.
you've put a lot of heart into this one, and I'm really looking forward to it.

:)

Thanks Julian for initiating this.
As a topic Kundalini has all the moving parts of a block buster movie: sex, visions, shadow, inflation, ecstasy, siddhis, madness and more. Yum.

Christiana, welcome to the sacred circle. I look forward to hearing your story/experience.

Welcome to all those who will be writing and commenting.

easy there lad, some of us actually have to attend other functions on occasion.  In my case, I was writing all day, but I was thinking of you off and on if that helps.  “hmmm, Julian.  I wonder if he likes spumoni or neapolitan?” and, “hmmm, why is it that Julian looks totally different in every photograph of him that I have ever seen?”  I am rubbing my hands together and getting my secret palm chakras all shaped up so that my all-seeing force fingers will know just what to do on the final edit and will guide me to my most righteous sharing and bubbly commentary.

furthermore, you are dead right J.  This is where the spiritual rubber meets the road and, flippant as I can be some times, this particular subject is as serious as it gets for me.  I used to scoff at all the warning labels that came with kundalini yoga practice.  As you will soon read in my commentary, what Jana Dixon says about 5 months of dragon riding requiring 5 years of rehabilitation has been an understatement for me.  Thanks for pulling this opportunity together again pal.

Hi Julian and all!

Julian, thanks for putting this symposium together and for inviting me to participate. I look forward to joining in the discussion.

Hi Christiana. I resonate with what you say about being afraid to share a deep experience only to have it ripped apart, but as Delia says (hi Delia), we benefit by realizing that we are not alone in this type of experience.

I look forward to exploring this topic with you all.

Jim :-)

hey christiana—want to echo a note of support for you there….i'm feeling intimidated too, but the last symposium was such a wonderful experiment in honesty and in open sharing….and since this one is significantly more directly experiential (i think so anyway) i would assume that readers understand that these are huge experiences happening to us, that they are often beyond our scope of comprehension when they happen and that the integration process afterward is often when we begin to understand what happened…..and i think the beauty of sharing that, of standing in wonder at this process ourselves, will touch deep places in readers as well…..so don't worry! i'm excited too…..

Dear ones,

I am beginning to feel some real heat here.  When I first began to consider the what/how of my commentary, I thought that I would take a more conservative, loftier approach, but as I wrote, something kept pulling me in, and down, where its turbid and dark.  I have to say that, as a result of what seems like a collaborative permission rising here, that I intend to go back and let gravity have its way with me.

Julian, Spumoni is an ice cream like Neapolitan only, instead of the strawberry component of Neapolitan, Spumoni has pistachio.  (green)

It appears that Jana is going to “lead us off” with her reflections.  I imagine Julian, you will also provide some deep tech on the nature of Kundalini.  I will probably not spend much time trying to add to the scholarship on Kundalini except to place myself in its “context” as I have experienced it.   Oh boy!  more room for the nitty muddy gritty.

hi all, looking forward to sharing on this particular segment of the ride!

julian: it's been some years now of sharing my story with you. thanks now for this medium to share more. definitely keep batman / bruce wayne in mind for your iconically dichotomous contemporary literary figure collection ;)

this is gonna be fun…naked, scary, juicy, fun.

Hmmmm… .multiple alter egos - no doubt about it.  I wonder if there is a separate ego for each perspective?

hey nishtha—didn't catch the harry potter reference at first!!! lol. am currently sequestered away reading the last book….not that that has anything to do with matters at hand. anyway, can't wait to participate.

I am really looking forward to this…have had a couple of these kinds of experiences and am feeling that more work with altered states, particularly regressive ones such as via holotropic breathwork (as one example only), might be really helpful for me.  So I'll be really interested to follow this discussion.  Thanks for organizing Julian.

no, nishtha was referring to the fourth book in the series. the seventh and last just came out…..and yes, reading it is an altered, albeit stepping-out-of-time and jumbled state….maybe i oughta do my whole piece on harry potter, just so jk rowling will have infiltrated zaadz as well……

:)

Other than the fact that you didn't invite any Americans of Scottish ancestry who are also TSK practitioners and married to Asian women to participate in this Symposium – and I really am annoyed at your exclusivity – I think this sounds like a great event.  I have not thought a great deal about kundalini, so I'm looking forward to reading everyone's perspectives.

Hopin' for some wild kunda pops,

Balder

Julian,
A technical question. I assume that you write offline and then cut’n paste when you are ready to post. Is that true? When I did that with MS Word my text had all sorts of annoying print control characters that took a lot of time and effort to clean up. Is there a trick I’m missing or a simple mac program that helps with this stuff? Anyone else who reads this forum have suggestions for me?

Really, really looking forward to this creative exchange.

Hey CoyoteYogi,

The problems you are encountering are likely due to the fact that you are using Safari as your web program. I switched to Firefox (it's free!), and have absolutely no issues whatsoever now. Just google Firefox to download it and install…ought to take you no more than about 15 minutes. When cutting and pasting, you may have to do italicizing, bolding and underlining over again…yet you won't have those annoying characters you've mentioned…that's a Safari thing.

And hey J, really looking forward to you written piece mañana! I'll be starting on mine today in advance.

:)

A N T I C I P A T I O N …  :-)

wow J~ thanks for organizing this one; and Zym Team:  looking forward to your sharings, I'm an adoring audience <3

don't worry julian, i had no real plans to weasle harry potter into any of this….though i thought it was pretty funny that you thought i might….

feeling you on the anticipation dakini…

i look forward to getting started on this one…so much to share, and even more to learn!

quivering…S.

Hey, Julian, my comments were totally tongue-in-cheek.  I will be reading this zymposium as a student, since I really know very little about kundalini.  I couldn't have been a main contributor even if you'd asked….

Looking forward to this.

B.

All right, I've had plenty of time to think about this but never thought that I would have to REALLY think about it, in the present I mean - after all, my big ride was years ago, right?  Past history, nothing but reflections now - easy to write about - ummmmm, this has not turned out to be the case.  The more that I think about it, the more I see what I wrote earlier was mostly shit and now I am lost, LOST I tell ya!

I know me though, I'll pull something together.  Plus, (thank you Julian) I have the terrific advantage of being in the middle, right after the weekend where I can think, think, think some more, more, more.

hey michael—i hear ya, and fyi, it doesn't have to be perfect, although the perfectionist in me gets the idea of wanting to pull something spectacular together—but i gotta say that with the last symposium, what i liked best was the honesty and transparency of the contributors and the spontaneous responses to posts, not just the “big initial piece.” several people were extremely honest about their process and that's all you can ask for, right?—i think that's what benefits people anyway.

Delia, Julian and community,
  Thank you for the tip. It was as easy as described.

Off topic_ has anyone on this thread ever worked with Michael Brown's The Presence Process ? I finally got my loaned out copy back and plan to commit again to the process in the fall. I love how connected breathing is the core practice.
 
 Julian, only been on Zaadz a few weeks but I've been enjoying going back over your blog posts from the past year. Psyche and shadow, how rich it is. I think of some of the cult leaders demonstrate the dangers of a partial awakening. I know that there has been speculation that Hitler utilized kundalini energies in some of the cultish aspects of Nazism. His power over people was extraordinary. Rambling. 'til tomorrow….

the more i am thinking about what to write…the more i feel eluded…so, michael, i totally hear you…i am finding it hard to write about something that feels like it is in constant motion, ya know?…which is why i find myself curious as to what will actually come out of me when i sit down to write this…i know there will be some powerful writers to start the momentum before me that will hopefully help me to organize my own thoughts…nice ordering of the chaos sir julian…

Julian, I can't wait to enage in Z2!  I had a blast interacting with you and others on the recent Bush/Cheney blog.  Thanks a lot for putting this together.  I know it can be a real bitch organizing things like this especially when people complain about this or that.  You always handle all of the energy well though. 

Julian,

“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the right stimulus, and at a touch they are there is all their completeness…

No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.  How to regard them is the question…”

I loved this quote from James and I especially appreciate that you started with it and emphasized his caveat, “How to regard them is the question …”

“…the right stimulus … the right touch …”  It seems that you have taken this quite literally in your life, Julian and for that, at least, you deserve commendation. 

Baker Roshi's comment ”Enlightenment is an accident, but meditation makes you accident  prone.” seems to say something different than your interpretation, with which, frankly, I am more in agreement: “…  are not guaranteed by meditation - but meditation does set up the conditions within which that process can occur.”

I utterly agree with you about the vitality of a yoga practice accompanying meditation.  A person can no doubt meditate without doing yoga, but advanced meditation is dependent upon advanced posture and posture cannot be secured without yoga. Period.  Kundalini, in the classic sense, resonates best in the well-tuned temple.

Julian, what you say below echoes back to times when I have recognized a part of you that I find most appealing - your willingness to see, like Eckhart below, that attitude, rather than ideology, is what really rules.

“What seems most important  in the creation of  intelligent and supportive LR infrastructure/institutions  is an integration of both the mind-body spiritual/energetic  awareness of what may be occurring for the individual and it's possible value - as well as the cold-eyed realism of DSM-based psychological assessment. After all, in the words of Meister Eckhart ” The madman is drowning in the same waters that the Holy man swims in…”

In other words a good starting point is this:  all kundalini is not psychosis and all mental illness is not kundalini.”  Amen in particular to this although some Kundalini in action looks like psychosis on parade.

That's it for now, more soon,

Yer pal,

i'm here…. games have begun and i'm fashionably late ;-p
xo stacy