Chapter 8 Help in Unexpected Places

During the course of growth in prayer, I began to experience phenomena that I now understand to be associated with the kundalini process.  I knew nothing about kundalini when these symptoms began in the spring of 1986; it was not until the fall of 1988 that I began to learn about chakras and kundalini energy.  What is most unique about this process, in comparison to other spiritual experiences, is its holistic nature.  Kundalini is an energy that is at once physiological, psychological, and spiritual.
Phillip St. Romain: Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality

The above book made available to me by Phillip St. Romain was perhaps one of my most valuable resources as I proceeded through this rather extraordinary phenomenon during the months following our six week retreat in Tucson Arizona. More importantly, this book was written from the perspective of a person rooted in a Christian faith tradition. Being a professional writer, Phillip, in the first chapter of his book provides considerable detail of his experience unfolding over a rather lengthy period of time from early 1986 to the end of 1989.

Upon re-reading this chapter, I was amazed at the similarity of his experience to mine. The description he used to describe physiological, psychological and spiritual changes resulting from this process resonates deeply with my own experience but with some minor differences.

My kundalini experience took place over a much shorter period of time. At the time of my Arizona retreat, I had been meditating for at least twenty five years on a consistent basis. Through my many retreat experiences, particularly in the preceding ten years, I had grown use to surrendering to that “still point” within where I was absorbed into a light that seemed much like a shimmering lake. With this absorption came the bliss-like experience of being united with an ineffable Mystery, which for me was Christ. As I had learned through experience, surrender could not in any way be a means of furthering my own self-definition or importance. Surrender required that I direct my attention towards that Mystery lying within my own Spirit, beyond images and concepts. Surrender was the giving over of my own self to this ineffable Mystery that created, energized and sustained me, and called me forth.

Although I continue, to this day, to experience kundalini’s slow transformation process as part of the natural flow of my life, the experience which Phillip describes in chapter 1 of his book between early 1986 to late 1989 had taken place within me during a period of not more than six to eight months.

The second major difference between our experiences is that I did not have the physical pain which he describes as happening periodically as the kundalini energy was breaking through the various chakras. There were times that I did experience some discomfort. At the beginning, when the energy flow was moving rapidly from my pelvic and lower abdomen region up into my brain, I experienced my greatest discomfort from the pressure in my head that build up over-night that caused my mind to be very disoriented and confused. My brain felt overloaded, and if I moved into any intellectual stimulation, I had the experience of being overtaxed. I had to stop and rest. Also, it was during this time of overloading that I began to have the bazaar psychotic experiences which, if not scary to me, were certainly scary to my wife. All of these side effects took no more than a month to normalize. After returning home from the retreat, there was a period of several weeks that I experienced sensitive burning sensations in areas when this energy, which was raging through my body at that time, would be temporarily blocked. After a short period of time, never exceeding a few days, this burning sensation would disappear with no further side effects. Three weeks after returning home on January 7, 2006, I made the following entry in my journal.

"My sleep patterns have been greatly affected. One night, I was awake all night, sitting through cyclical breathing, areas opening up as electrical charges moved through my body. This has affected my eyes, nose, ears, solar plexus, pelvic, lower abdomen, heart, into my throat and gums. Also, it has run through my back and shoulders, and over my skin like a suit of armour. It appears to be opening up energy paths everywhere. I worry about the lack of sleep. My body is often going through contortions, twists, and other movements, I suspect from the release of energy to open pathways. Energy released from pelvic area seems to be travelling up my spine to the crown of my head and down again, particularly at night when I am most relaxed and trying to sleep. It is a very sensual and blissful internal experience, and hard to resist. "

In late January, I began to take yoga classed, and speak to

my yoga instructor about some of the things that were happening. Her exercise program, which I fully embraced, caused a rapid improvement in many of the physical symptoms that I was experiencing, but the internal emotional, psychological and spiritual effects would continue to escalate until it seemed that the person I was before no longer existed. I found all of the changes enlightening and beneficial, and I looked forward to further developments with anticipation as I shifted my full attention to this unfolding process of transformation.