The Kundalini serpent and other stories

spiritualityyoga
Written By Oriana Angelucci

Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash.

Once upon a time there was a snake, shining with blinding white light, coiled at the bottom of every human’s spine. That snake was actually a she-snake, called Kundalini. In her slumber, her presence was not perceived by human beings and she could go for an entire lifetime without waking. In times so ancient that we cannot fathom, some sages understood that if Kundalini were to awaken, it would enhance greatly our experience of life, unlocking powers and energies beyond human comprehension.

So, like the snake charmers in Persian fairytales, these sages started to devise tricks to enchant Kundalini our of her sleep. To entice her to uncoil and climb up their spine, bringing her powerful energy all the way up to the crown of the head, waking every cell of their being and finally merging with the ultimate energy vortex that connects us to the infinite. Oh such wonder that experience brought the sages! And they gained such powers, over life itself! Until Kundalini, still awake but sated, descended back down to the bottom of the spine, laying in wait for her next rising but leaving them forever changed.

Some of the stories about Kundalini, like the one I made up above, have a kernel of truth but are, at best, an oversimplification of a very complex and worthy-of-respect topic.

Other stories being shared in a slightly less fairytale-ish, and therefore more insidious way, are unfortunately, complete bollocks!

I’m nowhere near an expert on Kundalini, yogic practices, mystical powers and subtle realms of experience. However I’ve reached a point where the scale balancing my (perceived and factual) ignorance on this topic is severely outweighed by the sheer (hopefully mostly unconscious) misinformation on the subject found online.

So, to the best of my ability, knowledge and comprehension, let’s clear up some confusion!

What is Kundalini?

As I described in the previous little fairytale, Kundalini is the name of a potential form of (female/dynamic) energy that lies dormant in coiled form at the base of the spine. The (hopefully gradual) process of forcing this energy to rise up, climbing the central energy channel, which corresponds more or less to the spine, until it reaches the crown of the head (crown chakra, Sahasrara) is called kundalini awakening. Having completed this process, a full transformation of the physical, mental, emotional, energetic body is going to happen to the practitioner. The representation of Kundalini as a snake is just for illustrative purposes.

Photo by Maddalena Brugnaro (@mb_lifeframer) taken at Wild Sisters United festival, June 2023 (@wildsistersunited).

Why do people want to “awaken” their Kundalini?

Mostly ego I guess? Or at least this was the assumption my mum used to hold when I first decided to take a training in Kundalini yoga (as taught by Yogi Bhajan - more on that on the next post). Kundalini awakening allows for 2 things to happen: 1) to develop siddhis, or magical powers to influence ourselves, others and the material world surrounding us 2) to experience communion of our individual consciousness with the universal consciousness, for instance feeling profoundly connected to plants, animals and other people, as different parts of the same entity. You could reach both aims through other practices, however is purported that kundalini practices are a highway to reaching that.

Are there any dangers in practicing Kundalini yoga?

According to most yogic traditions (separate from Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan), and also according to most everybody you ask this question to in India, you don’t play around with the Kundalini energy! As you would not go at 180km/hour on the highway with a car whose brakes don’t work, whose oil hasn’t been changed in forever and whose steering wheel has a distinct penchant to veer to one side, you would not get into kundalini-focused practiced without appropriate preparation. And guidance.

Why do you keep saying Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan?

If you’ve ever practiced Kundalini yoga, I’m 99.8% sure that you were taught the practices brought to the West in the 60s by Harbhajan Singh Puri, known as Yogi Bhajan. Let’s do a quick quiz:

  1. Did the teacher wear a (likely white) turban?

  2. Did the teacher begin the class chanting “Ong Namo Gurudev Namo”?

  3. Did the teacher close the class by chanting “Sat Nam”?

Bonus question:

  1. Did the teacher at any point in the class chant OM (different from ONG)?

If you answered “yes” to the first 3 questions and “no” to the third one, you were practicing Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.

Now, the story you listened to during class is that kundalini yoga is an ancient technology that was passed on secretly until Yogi Bhajan decided to make it more widely available (in the West). This is true and also not true. In the entire yogic science, there are many lineages of teachings: teachings shared from master to disciples and, yes, mostly secretive. There are Himalayan lineages of kundalini yoga practices, and likely many others which I’m not aware of. The practices shared by Yogi Bhajan are part of one such lineages but by no means the only one. Point in case, the mantras used in Kundalini (as taught by Yogi Bhajan) classes are mostly in Gurbani, a language used in the main Sikh sacred texts from which mantras in this lineage are derived. Gurbani is written in the Gurmukhi script (developed starting from Sanskrit in the 15th and 16th century in current Punjab). Additionally, lectures on Kundalini yoga given by Yogi Bhajan and its practices do indeed make reference to sacred texts and philosophical teachings, which come however from the Sikh dharma, not other (maybe more widely known in the West) “typical” yogic texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, to name a few.

Why were the kundalini (or other) practices secret?

Same reason as above: you don’t play around with certain energies and forces that could prove dangerous (for oneself and for others) if used by unprepared practitioners or not well-meaning individuals. Hence the idea of secrecy of the teachings. From my (partial) understanding, Yogi Bhajan never specifically talked about the dangers of practicing kundalini yoga, however the kriyas (sequences practiced in Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan) are very rigid and each exercise can be performed for up to a certain amount of minutes, not beyond that. Maybe that’s the way that the supposed dangers are going to be offset?

So what is the real Kundalini yoga?

This question plagued me for a long time. And to a certain degree still plagues me now. I have my personal thoughts and reservations, which I don’t feel ready to share in a public venue. What I can and will say though, is that there are various ways of getting to the true, real practices. One is through understanding, research and painfully sifting the falsehood and manipulations from the real teachings. Following the breadcrumbs of teachers, scholars, and original texts.

On the other hand, there is truth in clear-headed, clear-eyed introspection and self-experimentation. If you try a specific practice and, to the best of your judgment, without tricking yourself into believing what you’d like to be true, this practice had some positive effects for you, then that practice is true. You might not understand exactly how that worked, but it did work. That’s a truth that comes, beyond texts and scriptures, because of direct experience and it’s equally valid.

Whatever path to truth you decide to pursue, or even a mix of the two, please at least do one thing: be cautious in your words so that you share out of a place of humbleness, respect and honesty. Nobody asks you to know everything before expressing your views and opinions, but be aware that whatever you do or say will become the knowledge-basis for someone else, so if you are not completely sure, or your views are partial, mention it so that the listener will know how to approach them. In the yoga world we already have too much self-aggrandising, poorly-informed, ego-driven sharing to last us multiple lifetimes. Please don’t add to the confusion and the misinformation!

Some additional resources

Avoiding, more in depth historical debates, I tried here to give an overview of the themes which I feel required some urgent demystification. At the same time I highly encourage you to do your own research and view critically what I exposed here.

Depending on how deep you want to first-hand get into this rabbit hole, here are some resources that could give you, if not more clarity, at least a variety of points of view on the topic so that you will be able to place any new information you get within a broader logical framework. And hopefully just not fall easy prey to some of the blatant misrepresentation and false information that’s been thrown around social media and coffee-table conversations.

As someone who’s still neck deep into it and has some difficulties not drowning, I would not necessarily recommend you to join me…but to each their own poison.

Oriana Angelucci
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