If there’s one area of spiritual practice that has gotten a questionable rap, it’s Kundalini. In this article, I’ll do my best to clarify the topic of awakening Kundalini Shakti and answer the question, should you awaken your Kundalini? I want to make this a practical article, so I’ll focus mostly on practical issues relating to awakening Kundalini and will just touch on theory to give necessary background.

What Is Shakti?

In the world of Tantra and Yoga, Shiva is silent, infinite pure consciousness, and Shakti is the active principle of that silent consciousness–pure, cosmic energy, that gives rise to the apparent expression of this universe. Shiva is conceived of as masculine and Shakti as feminine, the Goddess.

Though this is an accurate but brief description of the traditional understanding, it misleads in a couple of important ways:

• The assignment of gender and anthropomorphic form to consciousness and cosmic energy is for the purpose of devotional practice. That is a very high, practical, and worthwhile purpose. Yet, the Absolute Reality that is the basis of this universe is beyond gender and form. The mature practitioner, even an enlightened one, can fully recognize that Absolute and yet still worship the divine form of deity with no sense of contradiction.
• Consciousness and cosmic energy are not two, but one. It is like saying there is gasoline and there is the explosive power of gasoline. You can’t separate the explosive power of gasoline from gasoline. That power is inherent in gasoline. Similarly, Cosmic energy, Shakti, is inherent in Consciousness, Shiva–and vice versa–Shiva is inherent in Shakti. They truly are one.

And Kundalini Shakti?

Kundalini Shakti refers to that cosmic energy, Shakti, as it manifests in the human body, particularly in the context of spiritual practice. In the human body, Shakti can be conceived of as virtually unlimited potential cosmic energy coiled in the muladhara or root chakra. Kundal means coiled, like a snake, to convey the state of potential energy, ready to awaken. This is the source of the term Kundalini Shakti. As a seminal text on Hatha Yoga, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika written in the 15^th century says:

As one opens a door with a key, so the yogi should open the gate to liberation with the kundalini…He who knows kundalini, knows yoga. The kundalini, it is said, is coiled like a serpent. He who can induce her to move is liberated. – Chapter 3: verse 105 – 111

Again, this text is all about spiritual practice. The truth is that Shakti, like consciousness, is omnipresent throughout the universe and throughout the human body. It’s not limited to residing in the muladhara chakra. Kundalini Shakti is coiled within every atom of your being, as unlimited potential energy/consciousness that can be awakened, experienced, and lived. However, for spiritual practitioners, the conception of Kundalini Shakti coiled in the muladhara is descriptive of how Shakti can be readily experienced. It’s like saying oxygen resides in the lungs, which is the common experience of breathing. So if you want to easily experience oxygen, focus on your lungs and breathing. In fact, oxygen exists throughout the body in the blood. Likewise, it’s not the whole story to say Shakti resides in the root chakra, but the description provides a focus for practice to powerfully awaken Shakti.

Finally, coiled like a snake is a metaphor. Kundalini is not a snake. It’s energy. Again, the metaphor conveys the immense potential energy that is ready to awaken in a moment through practice.

What Are the Benefits of Awakening Kundalini?

According to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and other texts, awakening Kundalini Shakti leads directly to liberation. This is the ultimate benefit of awakening Kundalini. However, not only does the yogi who awakens Kundalini gain liberation, he partakes of the 5 fundamental powers of Shakti as manifested in Shiva. These are:

• Chit Shakti, the power of consciousness, the highest expression of which is enlightenment, seeing all as consciousness, one’s own Self.
• Ananda Shakti, the power of bliss, realizing the truth that you are an ocean of divine bliss and all this world is an expression of divine bliss.
• Icca Shakti, the power of will, experienced fully when your individual will aligns with the indominable will of the Divine. Then your will meets no resistance to its purpose, and the result inevitably manifests.
• Jnana Shakti, the power of knowledge that illumines and dispels all ignorance and bestows insight, wisdom, all-knowingness, and ultimately, the knowledge of Brahman.
• Kriya Shakti, the power of action, expressed fully when action is aligned with Cosmic purpose so it is spontaneously right action in the most profound sense. As it is aligned with cosmic purpose, such action is easy, because it is performed by nature itself and meets little resistance, so you can accomplish great things.

You can experience these five powers to a lesser or greater degree, depending on the degree to which you’ve awakened Kundalini Shakti. 

Awakening Kundalini Is Not All or Nothing

This raises an important point about awakening Kundalini Shakti: It is not an all or nothing affair. In fact, if you’ve been practicing a deep meditation for some years, you’ve likely already awakened Kundalini Shakti to some degree without even knowing it.

Every time you transcend to a subtle state in meditation where you experience thought as a subtle flow of powerful energy or even abide as pure awareness, some trickle of Kundalini Shakti awakens. Shakti travels up the nadis and begins to open and clear your chakras. As a result, during meditation you may experience bliss, light, a sense of expansion and wholeness. You may also feel tangible energy flowing or building in the body. Upon opening your eyes after meditation, you may experience unusual clarity and joy. Insights can come to you, or spontaneous waves of love or compassion. Maybe you feel more inspired to practice more regularly or to go on retreat. Guess what? You’ve just had a bit of Kundalini awakening. You could not have such an experience or enjoy such benefits except by the power of Shakti–the creative potency of consciousness that recreates you.

This is how Kundalini Shakti awakens naturally and organically through spiritual practice. It need not be dramatic or overwhelming. Truth is, you don’t need or want drama on the spiritual path.

That said, you don’t have to leave awakening Kundalini to chance. It does not have to be a rare occurrence. There are Yogic and Tantric means to specifically awaken Kundalini Shakti.

Awakening Kundalini on Purpose

Some think you cannot awaken Kundalini Shakti at will. This is simply wrong. You can awaken Kundalini through specific techniques: some are less effective, some are more effective; some mild, some direct and potentially intense. That’s the point the Hatha Yoga Pradipika makes: “He who can induce Her (Kundalini Shakti) to move is liberated.” This principle is implicit in many Yogic and Tantric techniques.

For years I’ve taught a number of practices that invisibly awaken Kundalini Shakti, and these are so mild that I’ve simply called them “accelerators.” There is really no need to even talk in terms of Kundalini, because like ordinary meditation, the degree of awakening is so gentle as to be invisible. People just find their meditations deepened as if by magic—but it’s actually by Yogic and Tantric science.

More recently, though, I’ve come upon a much more potent practice for awakening Kundalini Shakti. It still allows for incremental awakening, so it need not be dramatic and overwhelming. Yet it is powerful enough that there can be no mistake: It’s not your garden-variety accelerator; it awakens Kundalini Shakti, and it’s up to the good judgement of the practitioner not to overdo it.

A Game Changer

Because of the effectiveness of this practice, the potential benefits are great. You can significantly increase the pace along your spiritual journey to your Goal, be it Self-realization, liberation, or Divine union. Yet, as Spider Man’s uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. You have to set aside spiritual greed and proceed with patience and mindfulness.

In fact, this is one reason for the traditional understanding that you can’t awaken Kundalini by your own efforts. It is often said you need a guru to awaken it for you. Though this is technically untrue, it does contain wisdom. It is not that the guru must awaken your Kundalini Shakti, but that a true guru should be able to judge your readiness for awakening. Then they may help awaken it through spiritual transmission or by teaching you a powerful practice. The point is you should be properly prepared to really enjoy all the benefits of awakening Kundalini.

Still, as mentioned earlier, Shakti is omnipresent. It can awaken spontaneously in anyone at any time—not just through a guru and not just through a technique. It can awaken by grace. Recall Paul’s experience of the burning bush, and countless such awakenings throughout history in cultures around the world. No doubt many reading this have had such experiences.

What Does It Mean to Be Prepared to Awaken Kundalini?

How prepared you should be to Awaken Kundalini depends on how significant an awakening we’re talking about. Again, even an ordinary deep meditation can awaken a bit of Kundalini, as can pranayama, bandhas, mudras, or attention to chakras. These generally require little specific preparation. When we’re talking of a more substantial awakening though, preparation becomes more important.

Proper preparation lays a foundation, a groundwork, for the Shakti to build upon. If the foundation is grossly flawed or incomplete, then a substantial awakening can cause discomfort, excessive purification, and imbalance. Ensuring a student’s readiness and imparting appropriate instruction and guidance is where an expert teacher comes in.

So, what does such preparation entail?

• First, it’s important that you are stable mentally and emotionally and in reasonably good physical health.
• You should be an experienced meditator, so that you are familiar with your internal landscape and can reliably judge how much to open or close the spigot of Shakti. (Yes, this is entirely possible to do in the case of the Awaken Kundalini practice.)
• Through years of regular spiritual practice, you should have begun to purify your pancha kosha, the layers of your being —your body, mind, energetic body, intellect, bliss sheath.
• This purification naturally reduces the kleshas or afflictions: ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and fear. Not that these must have completely disappeared from your life, but they should be thinning.
• You should have developed good character by striving to live ethically with love, mindfully practicing friendliness, compassion, happiness, honesty, patience, ahimsa, devotion, and so on.
• It’s also important to begin to develop the right view, which means starting to have a more enlightened perspective on life. This comes through study of scripture, meditation, and discernment. You begin to develop a sense of the emptiness of phenomena and self, and also an even vision of oneness, so you do not see others as objects but as essentially the same as yourself.

The good news is if you have sincerely been on the spiritual path, meditated regularly, lived mindfully, cultivated devotion and spiritual knowledge, striven to live higher values, then this preparation has already happened. Being prepared to awaken Kundalini does not imply or require perfection. That is not a human trait. We all have our shortcomings and flaws. Besides, expecting to be perfect before awakening Kundalini is like expecting to be in perfect health before going to the doctor. Awakening Kundalini is for the purpose of supporting your spiritual growth and living your highest Self. It’s intended for those of us who are every bit human, with failings, and still on the path.

Conclusion

As Kundalini Shakti incrementally awakens, it purifies, clears, and uplifts your whole being. It opens deeper and more expansive awareness and awakens bliss, love, and divine intelligence. It imbues you with tremendous vitality and inner strength. It awakens subtle perception and enlivens evenness of vision. It supports you seeing that all is consciousness, all is your own Self. In a word, awakening Kundalini Shakti is a huge boon and gift that breathes new life into your practice and path. It is not a goal in itself, but it helps greatly to take you to your Goal, be it the Self, Brahman, or Divine Union. Should you awaken your kundalini? If you’re prepared, that’s a no-brainer.

For more information on learning to awaken your Kundalini, see the Awaken Kundalini page.