Chapter 17 Kundalini - A Graced Filled Moment

What about experiences of kundalini in the other great branch of the world’s religions --the Judeo-Christian/Islam branch?  To be sure, these religions take a very different approach to salvation.  Where Eastern religions begin with human beings reaching out to the divine, Western religions begin with the divine reaching out to humans.  Eastern religions emphasize practices that transform the human to a divine being.  Western religions emphasize divine grace as the transforming energy, without which human beings remain little more than beasts.  The East offers sophisticated spiritual “technologies”, specifically designed to divinize the person; the West offers very little in the way of “how to” spirituality, emphasizing instead faith and love.  The East regards the Ego as an obstacle to the experience of God; the West sees grace working in and through the Ego to bring about transformation.  

Phillip St. Romain – Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality

Several years ago, while reading “Awakening The Buddha Within” by Lama Surya Das, I was quite impressed by the Lama’s two page commentary on the transformation process that accompanies the discipline of the eight fold path, the subject of his book.  The question that arose in my mind was: “How does this differ from the Christian experience?”  I then typed out this commentary on my word processor, changed all the Buddhist’s words to Christian words (such as Buddha to Christ, Dharma to Scripture, and Sangha to community) and presented the results to the Pastor at my church to get his impressions. 

He said that he really liked it, but one thing he noted was missing – the Sacrament of Baptism. 

Therein, we discover one of the main differences between the East and the West in regards to an approach to salvation as outlined by Phillip St. Romain above.  “Sacrament”, which is instilled in the minds and hearts of Christians at an early age, is understood to be an outward sign, instituted by Christ, to give grace.”  In Christianity, the focus and emphasis lies on divine grace as the sole and underlining source of transformation at the spiritual level. And it is largely understood as a source or power that exists outside of oneself.  To acknowledge or believe otherwise borders on heretical.

This created a “big question” that I would have to confront and am confronting as a result of kundalini rising.  How is it possible to reconcile a life time of indoctrination on Western Christian Spirituality and its particular focus on “saved through Grace” with the transforming experience of kundalini that could only be understood (at least by me) based on an Eastern archetypal model of the subtle body?  And this archetypal model offers what Phillip Romain above called the "sophisticated spiritual technologies” specifically designed to divinize the person. 

And further, the kundalini experience itself did not leave me with a strong basis for discernment since, once released, it moved with its mission to collapse all the constructs that I had built over the years that created the illusion of this separate or false “self” we call ego. So a lifetime of these constructs that related to my Christian religion and God were dismantled with all the others.

Although I don't pretend to have an answer to this "big question", I have been able to reconcile this difference in my own mind so as to not only appreciate the gift of this spiritually transforming experiences, but also to remain committed to my own Christian faith practice.    

For me, new life begins as we die to our false selves in order to enter more fully into this mystery we call God. Thomas Merton's words have resonated with me for some time:  "The greatest joy on earth is to be freed from the prisons of our own false self, and to enter with love in union with the One who dwells and sings in the essence of every creature and the core of our souls".  As we surrender all that is false within ourselves to God through Grace (a dying to oneself), then we discover our true selves in union with God.  During the course of my retreat, this is what I earnestly prayed for. 

Through Grace, this was accomplished through this process called kundalini rising. Creative life energies, originating for reproduction purposes, are available to be used to give rebirth to the living organism in which they are contained. 

Surrender, as I had posted previously, cannot be made to any known object, but only to God.  To surrender to an object is only furthering one's own self-definition and self-importance, the ego.  Surrendering is the giving of our own mysterious self to the ultimate Mystery we call God who creates, energizes, sustains and called us forth. 

For me, through God's grace, Kundalini became the instrument of change, to draw my whole being into greater relatedness with God by freeing me from the prisons of my own false self, and for that, I am eternally grateful.