Jay: Originally eight years ago I took shaktipat to start a kundalini journey. These days I don’t feel the kundalini much but it is active. I have no idea why it has become stagnant. Can I ask if completing the kundalini via it reaching the crown equal non-duality?
As the kundalini seems like it won’t move that’s why I started with the inquiry. Now right in this moment, the mind can be still and the silence I can feel and witness is always here and is peaceful.
I can rest in this silent awareness very easily it is always here at all times. Here comes the but, but the thought of “I” and the self-consciousness is also still here. The “I” which suffers is here in a sense it feels like a contraction in the chest throat and head.
Lastly, just a few weeks ago whilst eating my dinner. I was eating and watching non-dual videos as usual. Just for 2-3 seconds my hands were moving and picking up food by itself “No me” just moving and eating.
After a few seconds, the thought raised “Wow what was that it was cool.” Then again the sense of me doing the eating came back. Did I have a glimpse of non-duality? I cannot be sure but was really interesting.
Jagjot: That is the point that precisely gets missed by the majority of people. The culmination of kundalini is awakening the crown which is nothing but the dissolution of the sense of personal identification. Then what remains is the pure awareness or presence.
While the lower chakras deal with the material, psychological, and emotional aspects of the individual, the higher chakras like the third eye chakra and the Sahasrara are related to the dissolution of the contracted energy. Which is the final realization.
That is why it is said that the third eye of Shiva destroys the world. It is not that it destroys the physical world. What is destroyed is the illusion of the contracted energy. Contracted energy is the sense of “I” or “me” that thinks itself to be the doer of its actions.
So all paths, Jnana (knowledge), karma, or devotion, lead to the same destination. Energy (Shakti), by itself, is not the reality. It is a movement that happens in Consciousness. Shiva is Consciousness. And Shiva and Shakti are one.
Therefore, kundalini and the chakras, by themselves, are not the ultimate reality. Energy is a movement, and movement is an appearance in consciousness. You can go through my free online book – Bitten by the energy serpent which elaborates on this point in detail.
All practices and methods are just to create psychological and emotional comfort for the individual seeker to cultivate a still mind. Only with a harmonious mind does one get a glimpse (figuratively speaking) into the nature of ultimate reality.
Though I can’t say for sure, in your case, it might be that the understanding has reached a high level where your sense of personal identification as the mind-body complex is low.
And perhaps, that is why you don’t feel the effects of kundalini that much. Kundalini plays havoc on people where the identifications are strong. Where the mind is in a state of constant confusion and conflict.
Some of the masters don’t even get to know about Kundalini because they are born with clear channels.
Now regarding your “but” in the email. Please note that till we are alive and operating in duality, this sense of “l” will remain. The “I” is a deliberate design of the source to facilitate inter-human interactions or life as we know it.
It may disappear temporarily in samadhi (in meditation or any other practice) but it always comes back as it has a role to play.
Therefore, the ego, in and of itself, is not the cause of our misery. For example, you require your sense of personal identification to seek answers. How can there be any contemplation or reflection without the intellect?
The real cause of our misery is the strong binding of this “I” or “me” with the objects of illusion (thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, dogmas, etc.) When you bind yourself to a belief it is bound to cause pain and suffering. Suffering is pain extended horizontally (in time) as the thinking mind.
A very common question is that “I understand the concept intellectually but when it comes to practical life I get sucked back into involvement.” Isn’t it? Let me elaborate on this with an analogy that was given by Ramana Maharshi.
He said that there comes a stage (in spiritual seeking) where the mind is like a bucket lying at the bottom of a well tied to a rope that is attached to a pulley outside the well. The bucket lives there peacefully until it is pulled by someone standing outside the well. What pulls the rope? Life!
This is one of the most common scenarios where the spiritual awakening has happened but the final deliverance of the non-dual message still remains to happen.
When the final deliverance happens the rope is cut off and the bucket remains peacefully submerged at the bottom of the well. Do you get this?
What I’m implying is that even after a spiritual awakening the mind continues to function in duality. What changes is the perception. Once the reality is “seen” it cannot be unseen.
It’s something like the experience of a lucid dream. We know it’s not real so we enjoy it. All the dream suffering disappears because the illusion is seen for what it is. We still can’t control the dream, but nothing bothers us, and we can get up any moment we want.
Earlier the perception happened through the filter of an image and now it is directly witnessing the phenomenon or What-Is. In other words, what dissolves is not the ego that allows us to function in daily living, but the image that was created by the ego. It is the image that causes suffering.
You, as the individual, can never know non-dual truth as an object of your experience. Pure awareness cannot be objectified. And that’s because YOU ALREADY ARE IT. You can only know what you’re not. You are the “presence” or the “pure being” dreaming to be in this limited or contracted dimension. You are Shiva.
Latest book release: Bitten By The Energy Serpent – A New Perspective on Kundalini Awakening
