I've been inclined towards Kundalini since over seven years now. It has always been a step more to understand some of the books on the subject. Finally, I spent some time and made mental notes. I doubt if I can say I agree completely with any one person's views from the many I've read. Various people have opined all sorts of things just to get onto the Kundalini bandwagon!
The most famous among the experimenter lots was Shri Gopi Krishna. He was not in agreement that complete celibacy is important for a Kundalini seeker! What he maintained was that it is against nature to be a celibate. With such an expression, I wonder if he knew that everything that there is, is against nature then! Why would he feel different about his own Kundalini research institutions that quite didn't agree with nature? What is Prakriti/nature that is different from Purusha? While discriminating between things such as celibacy against nature, one has to say that prakriti itself goes against purusha, so to say. In one's search for purusha from the Sankhya philosophy, it is important to distinguish and give up longings towards prakriti. This would essentially mean giving up *natural* instincts too and being a celibate.
Coming back to what Gopi Krishna said... he also insisted though, that celibacy needs to be maintained (only) during the first phases of awakening the Kundalini. There, he seems to be in unison with the view that the Kundalini practice needs such a *discipline* and to quote him, "during this period, even one emission can be fatal. This has also been mentioned by Arthur Avalon in The Serpent Power".
Swami Sivananda Radha says, about the sect of Kundalini practitioners that believe in "anything goes" path, that most of the ancient views that suggest such things have been from the perspective of the male, while the female has to "bear the brunt" if there is a resulting offspring. Then she goes on to express that it seems contradictory to the aim for the female and it is difficult to believe that it would lead to a higher goal when the mother and child are ignored!
There is another interesting point that I would like to bring in here and that is of Osho! Osho started his research on death in his childhood. He had convinced himself that a person reaches an orgasm while dying! His findings are (supposedly) based on numerous visits that he lovingly made to deathbeds of many a people. Now, considering that semen gives life to an offspring, is it so difficult to agree that the loss of semen is exactly opposite, that is... death? I would prefer to say it is! Even Gopi Krishna said that during such time that Kundalini is awakened, what rises up the spine is sexual energy! How could losing of energy in acts of sex, then, be a means to raise the Kundalini?
This is precisely the reason why Kundalini, the one that raises the *consciousness* of a person, needs celibacy.
om tat sat
The most famous among the experimenter lots was Shri Gopi Krishna. He was not in agreement that complete celibacy is important for a Kundalini seeker! What he maintained was that it is against nature to be a celibate. With such an expression, I wonder if he knew that everything that there is, is against nature then! Why would he feel different about his own Kundalini research institutions that quite didn't agree with nature? What is Prakriti/nature that is different from Purusha? While discriminating between things such as celibacy against nature, one has to say that prakriti itself goes against purusha, so to say. In one's search for purusha from the Sankhya philosophy, it is important to distinguish and give up longings towards prakriti. This would essentially mean giving up *natural* instincts too and being a celibate.
Coming back to what Gopi Krishna said... he also insisted though, that celibacy needs to be maintained (only) during the first phases of awakening the Kundalini. There, he seems to be in unison with the view that the Kundalini practice needs such a *discipline* and to quote him, "during this period, even one emission can be fatal. This has also been mentioned by Arthur Avalon in The Serpent Power".
Swami Sivananda Radha says, about the sect of Kundalini practitioners that believe in "anything goes" path, that most of the ancient views that suggest such things have been from the perspective of the male, while the female has to "bear the brunt" if there is a resulting offspring. Then she goes on to express that it seems contradictory to the aim for the female and it is difficult to believe that it would lead to a higher goal when the mother and child are ignored!
There is another interesting point that I would like to bring in here and that is of Osho! Osho started his research on death in his childhood. He had convinced himself that a person reaches an orgasm while dying! His findings are (supposedly) based on numerous visits that he lovingly made to deathbeds of many a people. Now, considering that semen gives life to an offspring, is it so difficult to agree that the loss of semen is exactly opposite, that is... death? I would prefer to say it is! Even Gopi Krishna said that during such time that Kundalini is awakened, what rises up the spine is sexual energy! How could losing of energy in acts of sex, then, be a means to raise the Kundalini?
This is precisely the reason why Kundalini, the one that raises the *consciousness* of a person, needs celibacy.
om tat sat
5 comments:
You are right.
But, as regards celibacy, a word derived from celibate, it means a state of unmarriedness. We distinguish bachelor from celibate. Bachelor is eligible while celibate is against. Bachelor is a passing phase, celibate is a passed state. Westerners do not have equivalent of Brahmacharya which again means much more than celibacy: it is a positive and not a negative concept.
Praveen... you are perfectly right in assuming that practice of absolute celibacy is a prerequisite to full awakening of kundalini Shakti... the coiled serpentine energy lying dormant in the base of spine! But understanding meaning of celibacy is difficult! Most human beings treat celibacy as abstention from a sexual relationship!
Practice of absolute celibacy demands more! A complete negation of negative thoughts is what absolute celibacy is all about! The moment human beings invoked only pure thoughts... one finally reached upper bracket of kundalini awakening... the stage just prior to Nirvikalpa Samadhi... the stage of nothingness!
Physical abstention from sex constitutes hardly 10% of practice of celibacy! 90% celibacy is practiced mentally... negating invocation of negative thoughts all the time! Easily said than done... practice of absolute celibacy demands highest level of perfection that can ever be practiced by human beings!
Swami Vivekananda was one who practiced absolute celibacy still... did not reach stage of enlightenment (kaivalya jnana)! Why? Swami Vivekananda never desired gaining enlightenment in his lifetime! The goal of life for Swami Vivekananda always was community service at its best... in which Swami Vivekananda totally excelled!
For full awakening of Kundalini Shakti... practice of absolute celibacy for a minimum period of 12 years in continuation is an absolute must! The prime reason why Acharya Rajneesh failed to gain enlightenment in his lifetime! Acharya Rajneesh (nee Osho) mixed sex with yoga... his experiment was a bitter failure to the extent that he was turned out of USA in the end!
For full awakening of kundalini Shakti... indulgence in sex is a taboo!
Thx for your comments. I agree with you completely. Actually the term celibacy itself doesn't do justice as translation to brahmacarya. Brahmacarya is much more than that. I've written some thoughts on brahmacharya here as well.
.. I am asking for help here - I agree that a complete cessation of negative thoughts is a must - but how to deal with a conflicting thoughts that spring out of past experiences? for example - miss-understandings with people who turned away from us? and then you see them once in awhile - and you know that they hate you by their attitude - even you believe that what happened in the past was a misunderstanding, but they will never accept your explanation etc. My consience often bothers me.. and i am in need to "purify" it.. but i am not certain how.. to ignore the past? To approach those people and confront them, to bring out the past? ... not sure how to do it though.
@vlado: Your comment is quite unrelated to this post and I don't know how I can be of any help. For what its worth, if things in the past were a misunderstanding and you've tried making amends, your conscience has no reason to bother you! You ought to be clear about this. If you're convinced that it was a misunderstanding, no purification is needed.
There are only two ways to clear out past misunderstandings: one through a common friend and another directly. IMHO, if you tried both, just be happy you tried and move on. I would.
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