Consciousness, Kundalini Yoga & Body Development
Short Description
In this paper I hypothesize that the so-called "practices" of sahaja ("innately-arising") Kundalini ...
Description
Consciousness, Kundalini Yoga & Body Development by Stuart Sovatsky, PhD California nstitute of ntegral Studies, San !rancisco, C" Presented at Brain, Consciousness, Neuroscience Conference Chennai, India, March 9, 2001 (this scholar's work was sponsored ! the Infinit! "oundation, Princeton, N#$ %hat is called &oic de)elop*ental+ action of the od! in which reason takes no part and which does not oriinate as an idea sprinin in the *ind %o speak si*pl!, !ois perfor* actions with their odies, like the *o)e*ents of children #nanesh)ar, 19-., p102 "bstract In this paper I hypothesize that the so-called "practices" of sahaja ("innately-arising") Kundalini ("ultimate creatrix" originating at the spine's sacral base) Yoga (and cross-tradition similars e!g! udaic da##ening $ibetan tumo heat %hinese tai chi Islamic zi&r ua&er "ua&ing" the hirling of the *er#ish etc!) constitute auto-de#elopmental mo#ements and bodily maturations consistent ith those of intrauterine gestation infant mo#ements and teen-aged puberty! +lthough these "practices' are typically learned by rote mimicry of "standard" Yoga poses breathing exercises moral guidances or meditation techniues according to the tradition and contemporary clinical reports they can emerge endogenously-animated by prana or Kundalini as it ere--as the ,th century adept nanesh#ar notes abo#e! I assert that these Yogic &riyas or "de#elopmental actions" (and cross-tradition similars) constitute hat might credibly be termed "postgenital puberties" of the neuroendocrine system and thus the matured embodiment of citta the "light" of consciousness consciousness itself in #arious yogically-defined yogically-defined energies and secretions. ojas #irya auras amrita!-soma (the substance of primary orship in the /ig 0eda) among them! +s such Kundalini Kundalini Yoga Yoga pro#ides pro#ides another another context context in hich to consider consider consciousness-bo consciousness-body dy interacti#ity interacti#ity through future 12/ studies of the acti#ated spine and perhaps e#en the biochemical analysis of body fluids of Kundalini yogis in &eeping ith those already underta&en by 3c%lelland 4 Kirshnit ,5678 /ein 4 3c%raty ,5598 /ein 3c%raty 4 +t&inson ,55: on sali#ary immunoglobin + as ell as "reju#enation" melatonin studies by ;ierpaoli (Klatz 4 1oldman ,55ational Institute on +ging (?2) ">un 2tudy" on reduced incidence of +lzheimer's and other degenerati#e diseases attributed to the spiritual lifestyle of this population! population! ntroduction +ccording to the theory theory of human de#elopme de#elopment nt proposed proposed in Kundalini Kundalini Yoga Yoga Kundalini is the the name for the guiding impetus in embryological de#elopment that uic&ens its acti#ity as the neural groo#e forms the rudiments rudiments of the spinal cord as blastulization blastulization and gastrulization of the fertilized egg manifest! In contemporary terms it might be termed a "meta-*>+!" @hen the fetus is fully-formed Kundalini--hich is traditionally gi#en a "mothering" appellation--seuesters Aerself at the posterior node of the fetal spine (the muladhara cha&ra the "root center") and becomes dormant! $hereafter the more general life energy of prana is said to guide human physiology and maintenance-le#el groth! @hen groth is especially rapid prana enters a heightened condition called pranotthana ("uplifted intensified life-energy") as is #isible in the glo of infants pregnant omen the purported glo of saints and during genital puberty as pranot-thana matures the indi#idual into his or her on fertility and thus "adulthood" in the biological sense! Yet Kundalini Yoga claims that further stages of human de#elopment affecting the neuroendocrine system (and consciousness) in particular are our natural birthright but ill only manifest hen the indi#idual's life acti#ities-his or her ays of expending bodily energies-are in alignment ith "dharma!" In this so-empirical of body-inclusi#e spiritual traditions the positi#e results of one's Yogic practice implies that one has been li#ing a "dharmic" ay of life! Yet as e shall see such positi#e results li&e pregnancy or teenaged puberty engender difficult maturational challenges as part of one's progress! +s physician and yogi Bee 2annella noted in his boo& Kundalini. ;sychosis or $ranscendenceC
1
$issues are torn blood #essels se#eredDthe heart racesDthere is moaning cryingD+ se#ere injuryC >o only a relati#ely normal birth! $he description sounds pathological because the symptoms ere not understood in relation to the outcome. a ne human being! E+ man'sF body is sept by muscular spasms! Indescribable sensations and Ee#enF pain run from his feet up his legs and o#er his bac& and nec&DInside his head he hears roaring soundsD suddenly a sunburst floods his inner beingDAe laughs and is o#ercome ith bliss! + psychotic episodeC >o this is a psycho-physiological transformation EKundaliniF a rebirth process as natural as physical birth Ethis timeF the outcome Eis hoe#erF an enlightened human being! (2annella ,57o one &nos Emy emphasisF for sure hy the first half of this journey Eegoic maturityF is completed by almost e#eryone and the second half Eego transcendence and spiritual-poer embodimentF by only a fe!!!! $he path of transcendence may be a path that is still "under construction!" It may that is represent the future of the species a future into hich only a minority of indi#iduals ha#e #entured! (@ashburn ,559 p! ,6) 2
+ uic& sampling of those commonly belie#ed to ha#e al&ed the "second half" of this path including. Huddha 3aha#ira Huddhaghosa %hrist $hirumoolar >agaarjuna 2ocrates ;ythagoras ;lato Jc&hart ohn of the %ross 2t! Grancis $heresa of +#ila Aildegard of Hingen /umi 1andhi Bao-tzu 3irabai ;atanjali /amana 3aharsi /ama&rishna +nanda-maya-ma Irina $eedie *alai Bama 2hri +urobindo and $he 3other and innumerable yogis and yoginis re#eals one commonality. they ha#e each achie#ed a transformed sexuality a "postgenital puberty" as I term it! Hut try to mo#e "full maturity" much beyond the "ground" of the fifth and final psychoanalytic stage of genital puberty as many transpersonalists do and psychoanalysis (and the #ast majority of all people) arns e al& onto thin air! Jxtend the physical ground synthetically and the psychedelic mysticisms of 3cKenna Beary and the shamanic and Yogic alchemists ta&e root perhaps e#en ;rozac! 3a&e of them hat you ill! %onsider Yoga (or for example tai chi) as merely healthy exercises lac&ing in de#elopmental import and much is lost! If seen as credibly endogenous hoe#er the #ast range of Kundalini Yoga bodily phenomena re#eals the gradually steepening physical ground of the "more spiritual" stages of de#elopment thus finishing the "construction" of @ashburn's path and adding flesh to the more meditati#e spiritualities and archetypal psychologies hich ha#e underritten the transpersonalist's ad#ances thus far! Gurthermore if these slo-de#eloping Yogic maturations are innate yet unaccounted for the conseuences could radiate throughout our current model of the de#elopmental span and its entire hermeneutic economy and not just pertain to some eccentric "transpersonal le#el!" Gor example gaining "bac&bone" a metaphor for gaining character might no be considered the literal physio-spiritual maturation of the spine part of its "puberty!" +nd perhaps as 1opi Krishna author of numerous popular boo&s on this subject maintains Kundalini is on an e#olutionary de#elopmental scale! Gurthermore as +urobindo >ietzsche $eilhard >eumann 1ebser @ilber and others described such e#olution might be far more of a spiritual nature than mere *arinian adaptation ould permit! Yet e#en ithin *arinism e#olutionary theorist *onald 2ymons conjectured the folloing regarding the origins of ho genital puberty sexuality as first decoupled from fertility cycles for early homo sapiens. If one #ies the matter in terms of ultimate causation and assumes that permanent group-li#ing is adapti#e for some reason then all other things being eual selection E*arinian natural electionF can be expected to fa#or the most economical of the a#ailable mechanisms that results in perma-nent sociality! ne possible mechanism is for a formerly episodic reard to become permanent but in terms of time energy and ris& this seems to be a #ery expensi#e solution if the reard is sexual acti#ity! It is Eould ha#e been but still isCF much more economical Efrom a biological perspecti#eF to alter the reard mechanism of the brain itself so that the sight sound or smell of familiar conspecifics Emembers of the same speciesF come to be experienced as pleasurable! (2ymons ,575 p! ,L=) +s e shall see the hypothalamus (hich monitors hunger thirst sexual desire aggressi#e urges and blood oxygen le#els)--the 2ymonsian "reard mechanism of the brain"--is the loci of se#eral Yogic puberties! Golloing from 2ymons these puberties could be on an e#olutionary scale and congruent ith *arinian principles hereby a "sense perception sexuality" emerges as described in many religious traditions and in great detail in $antra-Kundalini Yogas! ;erhaps e#en Kundalini Yoga itself must be rested from its on indigenous tangle of competing #ies hich ha#e come to depicting it too as a system of mere techniues more than as aesome phenomena of >ature (or "2upernature" for those ho prefer superlati#e but confusing differentiations) that they are! Gor in spiritually-preoccupied India (and #arious other mysticisms) the descent further into the body has held mixed interest ith the recent exception of 2hri +urobindo and the 3other's image of both descending and ascending de#elopmental forces and the nondualistic yogis hose esoteric interpretations I no approach! #ecovering the Saha$a%ndogenously "rising Yoga In order to #ie Yoga and meditation as just as endogenous to our de#elopment (and as aesome) as gestation once as as ta&ing one's first post-umbilical breath as adolescent puberty e must deconstruct the o#er-formalized pedagogical edifices that ha#e gron around it! Hoth indigenously o#er the ages and in their translation and importation into the @est the "innately- arising" (sahaja) panentheistic "dionysian" (in the >ietzschean sense) origins of Yoga and meditation ha#e been shaped and o#er-shaped into "apollonian" pedagogical constructs cosmeticized or le#eled for mass appeal 3
sterilized for upper-class gentilities or otherise tamed and o#er-tamed to a#oid real or imagined dangers! $he moral sentiments (yama and niyama) and their mercies often became mere rules of the rigidmandatory or lip-ser#ice #arieties! $he grace of seuence and conseuence of &arma as typically mechanicalized into an arch-la in contrast to more merciful teachings regarding a "grace" that is independent of "&armic las!" $he mysterious flo of lineage stiffened into the rigidities of caste also in contrast to the dionysian rejection of caste prejudice and the "crazy isdom" traditions that ridicule it! $he re#erentially ecstatic "*ance of 2i#a Bord of Yogis" became stylized in public rituals "classical" music and dance and in the Yogic asanas themsel#es or ithered in the se#ere asceticisms of the fa&ir! Hy the second century +!*! ;atanjali's dualistic "classical" Yoga-sutra had formalized an o#erseparation beteen >ature (pra&riti) and ?ltimate 2ubjecti#ity (purusha) thus "rejecting the idea that the orld is an aspect of the *i#ine" (Geuerstein ,56= p! 9,=)! $hus the shamanic or dionysian Yoga and its bond ith mystical phenomenology maintained in the li#ing moment through oral transmission in the hoary past (and still ith all manner of attendant difficulties) arose and then fell into e#ermore secularized scriptural fundamentalisms and dilutions! $he seuence of its fall from "only-happening-no" time and in-the-moment-utterances into formalized theories and "histories of e#ents" might be as follos. (,) the spirit-in-time re#ealed as a superlati#e pri#ate bodily experience (ecstasy or enstasy) (=) emergent publically as pre-semantic ecstatic-catalytic utterances and dancing-saying mo#ements then () languaged orally as sheer descriptions of the experience then (9) memorized and scriptured into an orthodox text or externalized liturgical commemoration (Yoga and meditation as teachings8 the mo#ements classicalized as ritual forms) (:) its lessons fableized for charm (the ancient myths) then (a&ulisha") as the =6th incarnation of this immortal embodiment &non first as 2hi#a Bord of Yoga! $he upright club or staff he carries (for hich he is also named) represents urdh#a-retas the full e#olutionary maturation of homo erectus #ia his spinal floing Kundalini! +ccording to the ;ashupata 2utra and the 1ana&ari&a 2utra (%ollins ,566 p! ,7-6) the Ba&ulisha sect practiced an ecstatic ritual including ild laughter sacred singing "dancing consisting of Eall possibleF motions of the hands and feet. upard donard inard outard and sha&ing motion" a sacred "sound produced by the contact of the tongue-tip ith the palate!!!after the dance hen the de#otee has again sat don and is still meditating on 2i#a" an "inner orship" and prayer! $he ;ashupata sect hich spread throughout Aindu Huddhist and ain India for some
View more...
Comments
