I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

deliberately intensifies, from an esoteric perspective, the magician can
recognize a hidden awareness of operant shakti initiation.
A complete analysis of the sometimes maddeningly inconsistent
approaches to Kundalini that exist would take us far afield from our task of
describing the basics of left-hand path sexual initiation. Furthermore, no
book could possibly transmit a valid comprehension of kundalini, which must
ultimately be experienced within the physical organism rather than read about
through the strictly rational screen of the left brain. Like all suprarational
events, those who claim to have undergone the uncoiling of the fire serpent
have returned with conflicting reports of how it was done, and what exactly
occurred to them.
Some Tantrikas, at one extreme, teach that sexual ecstasy is the single
most important trigger for the kundalini experience, while right-hand path
adherents insist that only conditions of strictest celibacy will permit its
arousal. Traditional teachers maintain that kundalini always draws its energy
from semen, literally transmogrified into ojas, a fiery elixir absorbed from
the genitals into the spinal column and into the brain, where it supposedly
revivifies the entire body. Female initiates who have been transformed by
kundalini disagree with this semen-oriented theory, for obvious physiological
reasons. Others prefer a less literal school of thought altogether, describing
the energies involved as being entirely non-physical manifestations of the
subtle, or etheric, body.
The chakras, the energy centers through which the kundalini force
are said to rise, are grounds for other controversies. Many modern kundalini
yogis consider the chakras as little more than subjective, symbolic reference
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points with no physical reality, while the more conservative practitioners
insist that they are absolutely objective realities. Customarily, a system of
seven chakras is widely accepted but other sects recognize as few as six, and
as many as thirteen.
Uncanny auditory phenomena are often heard by those who have
undergone Kundalini, sometimes taking the form of ethereal music. The
crashing of cymbals and bells, the piercing tones of a flute, an incessant
droning sometimes compared to a hive of bees: these are only some of the
sonic sensations accompanying the rising of the serpent.
Although the awakening of Kundalini can lead to altered states of
joyful consciousness, the signs of its physical manifestation can also be
initially disturbing to the unprepared. Frequent symptoms of the Kundalini
phenomenon include extremes of bodily heat and cold, and a peculiar
"fluttering" in the abdomen and heart area, sometimes accompanied by a
general tingling sensation in the limbs. Involuntary twitching, difficulties
with breathing, and an illusory sensation of expansion, as if one is actually
growing larger, have also been known to attend the phases of transformation.
Headaches, and other physiological pains, are not at all uncommon. All of the
senses can become almost painfully acute when Kundalini stirs.
But the most commonly reported feature of the Kundalini experience
is the physical sensation – sometimes painful, sometimes blissful – of a
burning electricity channeling up the spine. This distinct vertebral stimulation
has been described even by individuals with no prior awareness of the Tantric
"fire serpent" symbolism. Pandit Gopi Krishna, in his classic Kundalini: Path
To Higher Consciousness, gave this account of his own spontaneous
awakening of kundalini:
"Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light
entering my brain through the spinal cord ... The illumination grew brighter
and brighter, the roaring louder ... [I] felt myself slipping out of my body,
entirely enveloped in a halo of light ... the point of consciousness that was
myself growing wider, surrounded by waves of light ... the body, normally
the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the