Kundalini and Qualities of Spiritual Awakening

For a couple of months now I have been pondering the nature of spiritual awakening and its qualities. When I have a thought about something, I use it like a Japanese koan. I think about it constantly, remaining alert and vigilant to anything I hear or read which validates what I have been pondering.

I have been wondering about the variety of spiritual awakening experiences and wondering if they are all the same. Intuitively, I felt they weren't, but didn't have any sources to corroborate my hypothesis. I do this because Truth IS absolute. If what I am thinking is in alignment with Truth then I will find something to back it up, if I don't then no matter how alluring the thought, I won't find anything, so I will drop it.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across the writings and videos of an American living spiritual teacher called Adyashanti who had practiced Zen Buddhism for 15 years. As I watched his YouTube video, Different Qualities of Awakening, I sensed intuitively that he was spiritually awakened.


When my Kundalini rose 14 years ago, it transformed my identity, my egoistic state, and I became more and more self-aware of how my ego had been put together and how kundalini had dismantled it. It is this transformation of identity which distinguishes spiritual awakening from the plethora of spiritual experiences which are possible.

Kundalini affects body, mind, and heart:

• When it affects the body, it triggers neuro-biological cleansing and healing.
• When it affects the mind, it produces the well-documented experiences mystics describe: loss of boundaries, one-ness or non-duality, an emergence into the absolute or formless realm.
• When Kundalini wakes the heart, there is the experience of heart opening — the interconnectedness and non-separation of everything and an outpouring of love and compassion.
  There is the realization that 'the other' is me. Wakening at the level of identity or ego there is the realization that I am not the body-mind and it's a letting go. This is the most challenging of awakenings because it demands a total giving up or letting go of the body-mind which creates a huge amount of fear which must be gone through. 

One can experience awakening at all three levels but this is rare. Awakening at the level of mind can only result in the person taking themselves out of the game of life and dwelling in the formless realm of the absolute, but it is also possible to become lost here and at some point this spiritual honeymoon will end and then re-integrating back into everyday life is difficult.

Awakening at the heart level alone can lead to danger in that the heart is so open and connected that discernment (which is vital both before and after Kundalini rises) is missing. Hypersensitivity and being easily hurt are the hallmarks of an awakening at the level of heart only.

Awakening at the body level only may result in the inability to awaken the mind or heart.

Given how the interest in consciousness is increasing across the world, it is likely that spiritual awakenings will happen much more frequently. What is important is mapping the types of spiritual awakenings and their effect on life after such awakenings.

A spiritual consciousness awakening at all three levels results in the experience of wisdom, love, truth, but these are but a by-product of an awakening. What matters is what the newly awakened state of consciousness provides to the world.