Songtsan

I think people are a lot like fractal patterns. There is a seed program at the center which influences how the macroscopic view of the pattern turns out, and when two fractal patterns interact, who knows how it will turn out? Habits of personality (including morals, beliefs, chemistry, EVERYTHING) have a lot to do with what the seed program at the center is, and this program changes slowly over time. They say that enlightened people dwell from a seed 'non-program' of emptiness, where all things could arise, but there is no fabrications at the center. Enlightenment is a combination of wisdom and means. The right actions occur without fabricating. Fabrications being synonymous with methods, ways, programs, etc. Actionless action. Wu wei. It just happens spontaneously without thought or pretense. They say an enlightened person is outside the bounds of karma. I imagine that an enlightened person could kill someone if it was the natural way, or could even kill themself. I dont know for sure, but living a life without 'shoulds' and 'ought to' sounds healthier than any contrived path. I hope I get to that point one day, because that sounds like the least stressful way.

There is actually merit in this suggestion, as I have discovered for myself. I think it needs to be expanded upon to make better sense...'go crazy' in my view was helpful because it helped me to break out of old patterns. When it feels like life has you hemmed in, when it feels like all your old ways of being produce no feelings of happiness, then 'going crazy' can unlock hidden rooms that make you feel alive again. A western psychology equivalent of this is 'catharsis': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis and an eastern equivalent might be 'crazy wisdom': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_wisdom How does this work? Well if you feel blocked from feeling life with your normal ways of attaining that 'peak feeling,' then you start searching in your subconscious/unconscious for buried desires and reactions that will enable you to find peak experiences again. Kundalini facilitates this process, and in fact this may be one of the major ways that kundalini evolves us...by blocking our normal channels of emotional expression so that we have to dig deep to find out those buried parts of ourselves which we have been ignorant of. Hidden desires may be related to fantasy and simply need to be explored in the real world to free up the trapped energy that has crystallized within the trapped desire. Maybe you have a hidden desire to dance and you have never danced, or you could have some other kind of artistic expression which has been stuffed in your psyche somewhere, or maybe sexual identity or preference issues that have never come to life, or even darker aspects of yourself like hatred, envy, dark lusts, or what have you. Its important to use your wisdom facilities to know what is not a good idea to explore in the real world, one can work around that through visualization and contemplation... Basically its a search for avenues that lead to passion, whether its good or bad passion...you will learn yourself and eventually transcend those desires. Its very transpersonal. I spent almost three years in prison for going too 'crazy' I let myself go to far and now I can't even find work - I have been out for 3 months...I spent literally hundreds of hours planning my own death when I got out of prison, so yes there is a down side to allowing oneself free reign in going crazy - but sometimes one can lose all sense of caring what happens - its a 'little suicide' in itself. So only go crazy in a controlled manner. It can be useful, but it also can lead to further harm down the road. Go crazy in a wise way - 'crazy wisdom' I know what it is like...like I said I just got out of prison and I was dead bent on killing myself when I got out...had an action plan in place and even experimented with bags over my head, scouting out bridges and finding out how high they were (found the perfect place to jump). My view on this is that the ends justify the means when it gets this bad, so I chose the 'better living through chemistry' route...anything to get a step up... Try this visualization: imagine that for whatever reason, you have a guaranteed income of enough to support yourself without having to worry (it could be that you've won the lottery, your on disability, whatever). Convince yourself that you are safe and secure. Make it an almost meditation like focus on convincing yourself that this is real. Does that make you feel less stressed? If it does then that proves to you that your problem isn't all internal, that in fact it is also situational. Do other visualizations - imagine that you have a girlfriend, killer physique, you live where you want to live in a place you like, anything that you desire...If you prove to yourself that some of your unhappiness is due to situational characteristics, then this will at least also prove that making improvements in life will help. Start making action plans that lead to a better situation. It also shows you that you have room to remove stress by stopping the constant internal reminders in your thought-loops which are basically describing your current situation over and over to yourself all day long. That is why I recommend mindfulness meditation - it helps to remove your mind from those loops. I can almost guarantee that you are experiencing some anhedonia (lack of ability to feel pleasure/passion). There is one simple thing you can do which will help you a lot and its backed by both eastern spirituality and western science: stop orgasming/ejaculating. This will help increase the amount of dopamine in your brain, and will upregulate your testosterone receptors...Try it for even 10 days and you will notice a difference.

What C T said about people mistaking what Kundalini is is true in almost every case of K-awakening. The less you expect of it the better. The less you project on it the better. That's why I recommend 'ignoring' it per se, as other avenues often lead to leading a spiritual fantasy, which will inevitably end in wasted time, going on a psychological/spiritual goose-chase, and result in short-term or even long-term disaster. If you hear voices, don't focus on them or interact with them in any way, if you are feeling weird emotions that you think didn't come from your own mind, then they probably didn't, and again ignore them. If you feel weird body sensations, forget about them. Note their passage, just as if you are meditating. The only type of meditation you should be doing is mindfulness type meditation, google vipassana, or shikantaza- to find calmness and rootedness. Involve yourself in being active during the day, even if you are just walking. As far as taking something for depression, I wont push you on that much, but I did want to say that trying one kind isn't trying them all, and also that there is always a period of time, of between 4-8 weeks when you start them where you feel weird and then that goes away and you feel functional and even-minded. It sort of sounds like you have been experiencing some unstable moods- have you had times where you felt your thoughts racing, as if you were a mad genius and you couldn't sleep? Thoughts sounded 'louder' and more frantic? What physiological effects have you felt - anything funny in the chest area? stomach? excessive rumination, obsessive thinking? This wouldn't be as bad as you think - you'd probably just end up the mental hospital for a short period of time....you'd get a thorough diagnosis, they'd put you on meds, then release you eventually and you'd see someone outpatient. It wouldn't cost you anything. It would be better than what happened to me, going to prison because I was psychotic and manic...I mean you get treatment in prison too, but its not as good. My point is don't worry - you aren't going to die, the worst that could happen is that you end up institutionalized for a short stretch. It won't kill you. There is no force which is going to so overwhelm you that you will freak out and do something dangerous. Kundalini is an intelligent force and it won't go that far. You won't really go crazy, you won't starve, you won't freeze to death...there are systems in place to make sure none of this happens. So just do your best to climb out of your pit, an inch at a time. Eat the best food you can, get good sleep, get exercise, work on your mind by avoiding 'think-traps' that just wear you out. If you aren't willing to do meds, consider taking some basic vitamins if you can afford them: multi-vitamin, fish oil with high EPA, vitamin D, Calcium/magnesium....

I went through the whole kundalini awakening, the prison thing, and many ups and downs mentally/emotionally...What you describe is severe depression and anhedonia, maybe even some derealization and depersonalization, possibly bipolar related. This is serious and in my experience, there is a time for medication, and this is such a time. If you dont have health insurance, you are eligible for medicaid since you don't make any money....go to your department of social services, start the process, and schedule an appointment to see a mental health provider right away (one that takes medicaid)...you can see these people even before you get approved for medicaid, as long as you've started the process. When you see these people be up front and tell them the truth about how things are going. Yes this can happen to people with kundalini events and often does...it can last years. Going on meds won't interfere with kundalini. I recommend you pay no attention to kundalini, and only practice grounding exercises, practice things which bring you into the 'real moment,' meaning paying attention to external things, internal body awareness-basically anything you can sense in the actual moment, not mental things that have nothing to do with reality (such as the past, the future, hypothetical scenarios, or spiritual fantasies). Focus on your health and finding work. Some people who have never experienced real depression, the kind where your body almost feels like you aren't inhabiting it, as if you have no willpower left, might tell you to try to stick it out without meds, that you should be a tough guy, some kind of ninja and master it naturally, forget that!....if its so bad that you feel like there is a weight on your chest and you dont even have enough energy to breathe, then its time to get help.

QUOTE: "The effects, so far, would be summarised as...Enhanced abdominal muscles (nice for the summer )" Now do you mean your abdominal strength/tone increased, or that you lost fat from around the stomach area...either could lead to the appearance of enhanced abs...just curious.. EDIT: saw you said something more about this is a post above...but generally a muscle will not lengthen for no reason, and in a postural muscle like the abs, unless your actual torso lengthened, I doubt your abdominal muscles would lengthen...that would mean they got weaker.

I am part Taoist, Buddhist, Vedantist, Sufi, and a few other things. I dont what to call myself. Well anyways, hello.

I am trying an experiment to find out something I have been wondering about for a while. I can hear the voice of some kind of entity, which I have self-described as my 'spirit guide' or 'kundalini'. What I am trying to determine is whether these voices that people channel are all from the same source, or even if they are from different sources, can they relay messages to other people's spirit guides, kundalini, etc. So I have instructed the entity that I can talk to pass along a phrase to any other spirits, aliens, angels, etc. of other people who can channel to see if it can be done. Obviously this needs the participation of both the sender, the receiver, the sender's angel, spirit, etc. and the receiver's angel, alien, voices, etc. So it needs the participation of 3-4 entities (2 being human). So anyways, if you can channel, please ask for the phrase from your source and post the simple phrase if you get anything. Thank you for your participation. I am running this experiment on multiple websites fyi.

Okay...I'll check that out. Thanks!

I'll say it has a sense of humor - it changes with the times...its very cunning and adaptable. I'd say it reacts less to the form of the thoughts one has and more to the feeling behind the thoughts. Personally I am not in agreement with the theory that it 'awakes' in the muladhara chakra...I think it simply and directly integrates with the brain. I don't think that it is endemic to each and every human being - I think of it as an external entity that seeks out specific individuals to integrate with...like an attaching spirit. My view has been formed over the past 14 years. My experience was of the 'top down' type. I wrote what follows on another forum recently and it is what makes the most sense to me: "Kundalini "comes in" through the brain only and stays in the brain...the reason I put 'comes in' in quotes is because there really is no actual entry, there is no barrier to kundalini from touching ones nervous system. Matter presents no barrier. The reason that you feel various effects within the body is because kundalini is moving through various areas of the brain that control these areas and integrating with them. When you start having spontaneous movements, this is because the kundalini is getting access to the pre-motor and motor cortex areas, which control all sensation of kinesthesis and all voluntary movement respectively. Kundalini is an intelligent entity, perhaps electromagnetically based. The brain is an bioelectromagnetic powerhouse. Skin, muscle, bones, organs (i.e. gross matter) present no obstacle to kundalini as matter is 99% space. It has no need to enter at a specific point. More to the point it simply attaches, makes contact, or 'gloms on' to your bioelectric nervous system as easily as you would reach out and touch someone. Its main area of influence, as stated above, is the brain...it goes there directly....I use a technique called 'Occam's Razor' see: [link to en.wikipedia.org]....The problem with mysticism is that it relies too much on anthropomorphism. Kundalini is clearly a noncorporeal intelligence, thus it has no gender, no form, and no limitations by the physical laws as we know them. So like I said, it would not be limited by our physical structure...just as radio waves, x-rays and other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum can pass through our body as if it isn't even there, I am quite sure that the kundalini can too...The problem with kundalini is that it increases emotionality which can lead to false belief systems which much resemble schizophrenia-like hyper-perception of synchronicities. One becomes very sensitive to stimuli and notes things that other people wouldn't see and one can read too much into them. The Kundalini will not disavow us of our belief, it will leave us alone to form our own opinion, or even support us in a false opinion. That is why it often called, 'the great masquerador' or 'the great trickster' - in a way it plays games, but not really - all it does is take our own belief system and send it back to us magnified until we burn through it....years later, in retrospect, I saw that the kundalini had been with me almost all my life - influencing my dreams and perceptions from a young age....Just a quick explanation about the pre-motor and motor cortex - all movement is initiated from here. When you decide to move something, a rapid relay of information travels back and forth to/from the area you are moving to the corresponding areas of the motor cortex. The pre-motor cortex area senses/receives, and the motor cortex stimulates/sends the commands to the body part. When you feel something touch you, in essence you are not really feeling it at that body part, you are actually feeling it in the brain, specifically in a kind of kinesthetic map which is called the 'homunculus' which is like a miniature model of your body. Even intense feelings like orgasms are actually 100% experienced in the brain in the appropriate area of the homunculus. If you don't believe me google it. Nothing is actually experienced in the body itself. The signals are sent from the corresponding area of the body and then experienced in the homunculus. I have experimented heavily with dissasociative drugs like DXM and ketamine and they can easily alter your sense of shape. I have felt as small as an atom, and as large as a mountain. I have felt my body seemingly morph into different shapes, such as my hand become a mallet. One time in a lucid dream the kundalini changed my entire perception of myself - it made me into a shape of a ficus tree. I felt like my body was shaped like a ficus tree. So you see, kinesthetic sensations are malleable...and they all happen in the brain. Think of the phantom limb effect when someone has one amputated. It would make the most logical sense that the kundalini does all this through the brain. Even if you feel a certain 'chakra' being stimulated, it is my belief that the kundalini never actually leaves the brain, as it doesn't have to. Occam's Razor leads me to this belief. Yes, maybe it could modulate the signals coming from a body part at the source, I am sure it could actually...but it makes so much more sense to go to the sources of perception and signal relay and affect it there. As far as tests and experiments - I don't see myself being cruel. It messes with me, I mess with it - we have an understanding...and an almost lover like relationship - playfully irreverant. Also, if it didn't want to participate in the experiment I cant force it....I am pretty sure it not a deity - I think its just a noncorporeal intelligence. No better than anyone else.

Can you get more detailed about this? Do you mean the perception of 'I'? Or the sense of Self? If one is directly thinking the thought 'I' or 'I am,' and one is just feeling bodily sensations with very little abstract thought, maybe there is just a feeling of 'me-ness' is the I-thought still a good thing to hold onto?

That's good to know - how common it is I mean...any noticeable patterns are very interesting to me....thanks!

I agree - I am simply researching and not really assuming much about what this is. These types of things are very common from what I have researched. I ended up with this thing from practicing meditation in a way. My goal isn't meditation at this time, though I do practice a type of Vipassana. It's research into entities, kundalini, spirit guides, etc. People have been channeling for tens of thousands of years. Its a verifiable subject and I have spent over 14 years intensely researching it. It's real and it's widespread. In Zen Buddhism they might call what I experience a 'makyo,' but it is my professional opinion that it is definitely coming from outside my own nervous system. It has been proven to me hundreds of times. I am of the belief that what people commonly call kundalini, i.e. energy, muladhara chakra, base of spine, etc. is in fact an external intelligent entity. Not your higher self at all. I won't argue with you, just stating my beliefs...even Swami Muktananda, one of the greatest 'vectors' of the kundalini shakti, stated that it was an intelligent thing. I have had interpersonal experiences already that have proven to me that it spans multiple people. For example, I had a friend that I hadn't spoken with in over year. I was at work and a notification came up that I had an email. I wondered in my head who it was, and my kundalini told me the name of my friend who I wasn't even thinking about and low and behold it actually was her. She was a Christian who could speak in tongues...which is basically channeling. There were other things that have happened I could tell about them if you are interested... Yes, this is exactly like schizophrenia...but maybe schizophrenia isn't a disease as people think...perhaps it is nearly always due to playful or tricky spirits? If you look at a comparison between kundalini and schizophrenia you can see that they very nearly exactly resemble eachother. FYI I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which is a subcategory of schizophrenia, when I discussed this with a psychiatrist. this wasn't the phrase, but this is exactly the kind of thing my kundalini friend would do, i.e. say a single word that I didn't know that I would have to look up the definition of.

In my Kundalini awakening (which if you are interested you can read here as letter #4 about 1/5th of the way down the page: http://www.elcollie.com/st/letters.html), I experienced it as an entity gaining access to my nervous system. Many others have had this experience. Just google 'kundalini' and 'voices' and you will see hundreds of people who have had kundalini awakenings who can talk with voices in their head.