Your Energetic Body: Kundalini Rising
“So many people are afraid to awaken to their truth. Staying limited to only what they know, rather than what they are capable of. A spiritual breakthrough is the only way to connect to your higher self and experience a truly authentic life.” – Melanie Koulouris
A serpent lies in the rust colored earth of Muladhara.
The root chakra.
Her body twisted around and around, folding in, over and under itself, making a tight coil.
She keeps perfectly still, albeit aware. Her dark eyes taking in everything around, holding onto the information she sees, storing it, saving it.
Waiting to be awoken, to be activated.
She hears the subconscious calling out for her.
Summoning her power.
The call fills every cell in her serpentine body and the dormancy that was holding her down bursts within her!
At once she begins to move.
Uncoiling her strong body, she glides upward in a circular rotating motion. She stays close to the midline, winding her body around the spinal column, back and forth, side to side.
She meets the soft orange glow of Svadhisthana, the sacral chakra.
As she wraps her body around it, the energy of creativity surges with power. The soft glow transforming into a beacon of orange light.
She moves upward still, and enters into Manipura, the solar plexus chakra. Activating it and it bursts with yellow light.
Onward she travels through Anahata, the heart, Vishuddha the Throat and Ajna, the third eye. As she touches each space, they awaken, transforming into powerful green, blue and violet light.
Finally, she reaches Sahasrara, the crown. She joins her feminine energy with the crown’s masculinity.
These two energies; feminine and masculine, yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti, they converge and absorb into one another creating one perfectly balanced being.
Opening the door to enlightenment.
This is Kundalini.
In Hindu tradition, Kundalini is the body-based energy that activates the chakras and enables spiritual growth and ultimately enlightenment.
It is Shakti, a feminine energy that’s represented in the form of a serpent.
In Sanskrit Kundalini directly translates to, “life energy”.
When each part of the word is dissected and studied it blossoms into the phrase, “Feminine coiled energy that begins in a little pot of earth, and when blessed by the Bestower awakens us to perpetual consciousness.”
This phrase describes the essence of Kundalini perfectly. This energy sits dormant within us, lying in wait at the bottom of our root chakra. Coiled around our coccyx, waiting for us to activate it.
Once activated, our serpent awakens and starts moving, traveling in a spiral upwards into each of our chakras, through our nadis. Ultimately joining Shiva at the crown chakra.
The nadis are the channels that deliver subtle energy to the chakras and are linked to the nervous system.
Just like we have thousands of nerves, we also have thousands of nadis moving our energy, not only through our chakras, but to every single part of our body.
There are three main nadis lines that are essential to kundalini rising.
The first is called Sushumna and is the central energy channel.
This is the primary pathway for kundalini to rise as it follows the central nervous system of the spinal cord; traveling from the tip of the coccyx up the spinal column and into the skull.
The second and third are called, Ida and Pingala. These channels also begin at the base of the spine, but split and move up the midline in a crisscross pattern.
Ida is considered to be the channel of femininity and is associated with receptive, loving and intuitive energy.
Pingala is the channel of masculinity and is associated with demonstrative, dominating and active energy.
These two channels allow us to incorporate both Shiva and Shakti into our being. It provides us with a balance of both the masculine and the feminine.
What is the symbolism of Shiva and Shakti?
In Hinduism tantra is the practice of providing a path to unite spirituality with physicality through the practice of mantras, mudras, meditation, yoga and other ritual.
When looking at tantric philosophy, Shiva and Shakti ARE kundalini.
They are gods and giants.
Shiva is consciousness itself and Shakti, his consort, is the manifestation of all physical reality.
She is power.
She is life.
The folklore says that Shiva and Shakti were once conjoined. They were one, and during that time there was bliss.
In order for us to experience reality and a place for spiritual growth, they separated from one another.
Shakti is the creator of everything that we see and have in this physical life. Shiva is the essence behind the physical.
Kundalini activation is the pathway to merge those two parts of ourselves together once more. Our physical spirit as we experience our reality today with our higher selves, our true essence.
But, the road to our higher self is not always an easy one.
I’d like you to think of a caterpillar. It has long been a symbol of transformation as it encapsulates itself within a protective casing.
Inside the safety of its cocoon it transforms into a beautiful butterfly.
But what is really happening inside that chrysalis?
Hormones within the insect that have been dormant its entire life up until this point are now being activated.
These hormones tell the cells of the caterpillar to self-destruct with the help of a newly activated enzyme.
The enzyme tears through the physical body leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
But, that’s not all it leaves.
It also leaves a new hormone that instructs the damaged cells to reform.
To come back together, to be born into something better.
Just like our caterpillar, Kundalini is often activated through destruction of the old.
As she awakens and begins her ascent upward, she will bring to light every unresolved issue or emotion within us.
You may recall from the last article that chakras store every memory of every encounter we have in life.
Any trauma that vibrates at the same level of the chakra she is passing through will be unearthed.
This happens so that we can destruct the energy of trauma that we have been living with so that we can construct a better version of ourselves from the debris.
This is our path.
Kundalini rises so that we can become the people that we are meant to be.