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KUNDALINI TANTRA
The awakening of Kundalini is a preliminary step on a long, often arduous evolutionary journey. Rewards may come and go, and some such as heightened mental abilities, increased empathy, healthy powers, in positive realizations, may become stabilized as spontaneously appearing skills.
WHAT IS KUNDALINI ?
Kundalini is the essential consciousness power motivating all life functions and manifesting in personal developments; non-ordinary states, and spiritual transformations. Gopi Krishna calls Kundalini as: “The biological basis of genius.” The world’s great spiritual traditions provide practices designed to release the sacred power called Kundalini and safely manage its progress to self-realization.
The awakening of Kundalini is a preliminary step on a long, often arduous evolutionary journey. Rewards may come and go, and some such as heightened mental abilities, increased empathy, healthy powers, in positive realizations, may become stabilized as spontaneously appearing skills. Yet, these gifts are like so many souvenir’s or the trip. Ultimately, one will not receive the benefits of Kundalini if one under-takes the journey for the sake of personal gain or self-realization.
The subtle psychology postulated by Kundalini Yoga may be just a roadmap of the territory, a particular system for viewing and understanding the human psychicterrain that is no more or less real than score of other mystical systems.
Kundalini literally means a coiled-up energy or the power that dwells in a cave (Kunda). For any transformation to be possible, energy is needed to bring it about. For the transformation of consciousness, a special and powerful energy is needed. This is Kundalini.
The word Kundalini actually comes from the word Kunda, meaning, a deeper place, pit or cavity. The fire used in the ceremony of initiation is kindled in a pit called Kunda. Similarly, the place where a dead body is burned is Kunda. Kunda refers to be concave cavity in which the brain, resembling a coiled and sleeping serpent, nestless. This is the true meaning of Kundalini.
The Kundalini remains in its shrunken form in an ordinary person. It is symbolically represented as a sleeping serpent. In the tantric texts, Kundalini is conceived of as the primal power or energy. The Kundalini is entwined three and a half times around svayambhu linga at the base of the spinal cord. The entwining Kundalini around svayambhu linga three times represents Satta (light principle), Rajas (dynamic principle) and Tamas (restricting principle), which are the primordial substances of nature. The half coil represents the state of transcendence, where there is neither walking, sleeping nor dreaming. So, the tree and half coils signify the total experience of the universe and the experience of transcendence. The slumbering Kundalini is called, Adho Kundalini; and its head is bent downwards with the tip of its tail in its mouth.
The Kundalini has the potentiality in human beings for ascending vertically snd transcending the framework of empirical space and time. The ascent of Kundalini beyond empirical space and time is known as “Urdha kundalini”.
The coiled energy of Kundalini is conscious. It is of the nature of light. The rising Kundalini is like a flash of lightening and the fully ascendent Kundalini is like a straight column of light. Electrical energy functions in a mechanical manner. The activity of the Kundalini, on the other hand, is conscious and autonomous. The ascending Kundalini rises beyond the four dimensions of empirical space and time and drinks the nectar (amrit) which flows profusely from the thousand-petalled lotus which blooms in the transcendent space and time, and finally gets united with sadasiva and perfect equipose. The union of the ascending Kundalini with Siv-Shakti is the supreme aim of Kundalini Yoga.
KUNDALINI TANTRA
The word ‘Tantra’ is a composition of two words ‘tanoti’ and ‘trayati’. Tanoti represents expansion and trayati stands for liberation. Therefore, Tantra means expansion of mind and liberation of energy. Shakti is liberated from the mind. Here liberation does not attend to denote a religious state, liberation should be understood in the light of modern science. Energy is liberated from matter in the same way as butter is separated from milk. This is Tantra.
In Tantra, there are two importent poles of energy known as Shiva and Shakti. In fact, Shiva and Shaktihave various spheres of existence and operation in the cosmos and in the individual. In the ordinary human society, man and woman represent Shiva and Shakti respectively. In the universal mind, time and space represent Shiva and Shakti aspects. In spiritual life, mind and pran represent Shiva and Shakti. In Hatha yogic text, these two Shaktis are known as ‘Ida’ and’ Pingla’. Ida represents the consciousness and Pingla represents the life force or prana.
Tantra presents a whole yogic science for developing Kundalini. Tantra is a kind of science, a way of knowledge both for understanding the outer world and inner psyche. Tantra is based on and closely allied with the various traditional sciences of India.
Ayurveda uses tantric practices as part of its treatment for mental health, as well as for rejuvenation.
The term Tantra first appeared about two thousand years ago and became prominent in techniques over the last 1500 years. There are not only Hindu Tantras, but also Jain and Buddhist Tantras. There are not only tantric teachings for liberation but for the ordinary goals of life. Tantra has a universal approach that uses all available methods and rejects nothing. It includes methods that may be rejected in other teachings as “unspiritual.”
Tantra is more commonly divided into two paths-
(l) Right-handed path, Dakshinachara,
(2) Left-handed path, Vamachara.
The Right-handed path emphasizes meditational and spiritual disciplines and insists on a high degree of purity in conduct and action. The Left-handed path employs various sexual practices or the use of meat and intoxicants which are not approved along the Right-handed path.
The Right-handed and the Left- handed paths relate to the two main tantric lineages, the Samaya and the Kaula. Samaya means “according to the rule” which refers to following strict dharmic (spiritual) principle, kaula means “relating to kula” or “according to the family”, meaning that it allows local variations. However, the Kaula path also mainly follows meditational approaches, and it would be wrong to equate it with what is commonly thought of as Left-handed Tantra. Left-handed Tantra prescribes use of five forbidden things. They are also called the five ‘M-s’ or ‘Makaras’. They are: maithuna (sexual union), mada (wine or other intoxicants), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (parched grains or money). Partaking of these items is forbidden or restricted in the codes of conduct followed by most yoga traditions in India, as such things are considered to have a long term Tamasic or dulling effect upon the mind.
Left-handed Tantra is itself divided into two traditions, the “symbolic” versus the “literal” tradition, depending on whether the forbidden substances partaken of ale actually physical or mere metaphors. The symbolic tradition uses the five forbidden things only as symbols. Intercourse is the union of Shiva and Shakti, the cosmic male and female forces within the psyche. Intoxication is partaking of the bliss of pure consciousness. The meat and wine to the conquering of the senses. Some tantric teachers consider that forbidden things have their place when used occasionally in order to break through attachments, particularly the attachment to purity. In the yogic tradition, there are three gunas or qualities that bind the soul. Attachment to Tamas, which is darkness and dullness, includes attachment to sex or intoxicants. Attachment to Rajas, which is activity and turbulence, includes attachment to willful spiritual practices or to self- expression like art and music Attachment to Sattva, which is purity, consists in attachment to the idea of being holy and a lifestyle of purity.
The Tantric approach is very practical. The methods of Tantra, though form-oriented or ritualistic, have the same goal of self- realization as direct meditation approaches, and serve to lead us to these higher practices.
Tantra aims at a personal relationship between ourselves and cosmic reality, which is to directly experience truth in our daily lives. Tantra teaches that consciousness is the sole reality in the universe.
Tantra is worshipped as Shakti, generally translated as ‘power’, whereas the God or cosmic masculine force is worshipped as Shiva, meaning “peace”. In the Shiva- Shakti concept, the male is passive and the female is active. Shakti is the power of wisdom and devotion, Shiva is the passivity of the will, which accomplishes all things without itself moving. Shakti is the descent of Divine grace, which is the power of peace. Woman has the power and potency to create new life. She has energy of beauty, delight and creativity.
Thus, transformative power of the Divine Mother is the Shakti that works behind all great changes in the universe, and brings the human being to the greatest transformation, which is enlightenment. The purpose of Tantra is to energise that Shakti dormant within us by unfolding all the different levels and rhythms of her movement, as she naturally seeks her natural abode in the supreme.
Tantra prescribes the discipline which sublimates the physical union of man and woman into a creative union of Shiva-Shakti. Among themost important tantric practices undertaken to awaken Kundalini are those of Dakshina Marga, the “Right- handed path”, and Vama Marga, the “left-handed path”. The followers of the Left-handed path practice the Panchamakara rites. The ritual of collective sexual union performed in a circle is known as Chakra-Puja.
The fundamental principle of the Left-handed path is that spiritual progress is not to be achieved by shunning or avoiding our desires and passions, but only by transforming those very elements which make us fall, as means of liberation.
In Kundalini- yoga, the kinetic flow of Kundalini Shakti, which in the ordinary course is in a downward direction, is made to reverse to an upward flow, finally to unite it with Shiva, cosmic consciousness. To this end, the physiological function of the body also undergoes progressive transformation. Gandha (Smell, Rasa (Taste), Rupa (Sight), Sparsha , (Touch), Shabda (Sound), Ahamkara (Ego), Buddhi (Intelligence).
 Deenanath Rai
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