Daily Lessons from
Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's
Master Course Trilogy

Quelling the Kuṇḍalinī

As it is said, “What goes up must come down.” This is especially true with the kuṇḍalinī śakti moving through either of the other of the two wrong channels, where it can produce “dis-ease”—discomfort, physically, emotionally, intellectually and astrally—that no doctor’s effort can fathom the cause of or effect a cure. At various junctures, as it rises, the kuṇḍalinī śakti, or serpent power, attacks the organs in the vicinity of the chakra it is passing through, biting and poisoning them on the astral level. As it climbs, each one of the astral organs is hurt and felt as a physical ailment. This often reflects as a symptomatic problem in the kidneys, then stomach problems and later heart problems and thyroid difficulties. At each juncture, the doctor would be perplexed by the ailment, unable to find a medical cause, then doubly perplexed when that problem leaves and the next one arises. Though treatments and multiple tests are more than often given, the source of the problems is usually undetected.

A devotee going through this experience often challenges the will of his satguru, whereupon he is left to his own devices, as it lies beyond even the guru’s ability to help or guide him further. For the rule is: the guru takes nine steps toward the seeker for each humble, cooperative, eager step the devotee takes toward him. When the devotee balks, begins to argue and challenge the guru’s will, this is the guru’s signal to withdraw, a mystical sign that his ninth step had been taken. Should he take the tenth, he enters without a welcome, and tangles when steps eleven and twelve are taken. To withdraw then would cause an unwanted karma of hurt, pain and anguish. So, the wisdom of the ancients is “For every one step taken toward the guru, the guru takes nine toward the devotee.”

Then Śrī Śrī Śrī Viśvaguru Mahā-Mahārāj-ji steps in and takes over, and the failed aspirant either is corrected by the forces of circumstance to give up spiritual pursuits for financial or other reasons, or he spins off the spiritual path into Viśvaguru’s āśrama, called Bhogabhūmi, place of pleasure (another name for Earth). It is the biggest āśrama of all. Here followers learn by their own mistakes and make fresh new karmas to be experienced in yet another life.

To avoid these problems, and worse, the kuṇḍalinī śakti has to be brought down all the way—slowly, not abruptly, lest the person become suicidal—all the way to the base, to the mūlādhāra chakra, and then redirected up the proper channel. As pride comes before a fall, the fall of the spiritual pride is again another hurt, a final bite from the serpent, and as the poison flows through all organs, temporary physical, mental and emotional suffering is the consequence.

Kuṇḍalinī Out of Control

There are three channels through which the spiritual energies of the kuṇḍalinī can rise. The one recommended is the sushumṇā. The other two are to be avoided. When the kuṇḍalinī śakti flows outside of the sushumṇā nāḍī into and through the iḍā nāḍī on the left side of the spine, which corresponds to the left sympathetic nerve system, it is fragmented into other smaller and more sensitive nerve currents connected to the organs of the physical body. It produces heat within this formerly cool nāḍī network. The person becomes overly emotional, feminine in nature, talks a lot, often has hurt feelings, cries at the least provocation and engages in other emotional behavior patterns that center around the personal I-ness. Such persons always want to help others, but rarely actually do. This heat, though astral, is felt in the physical body in the solar plexus. When provoked, the person angers and is always quick to defend the personal ego in saving face. Similarly, when the serpent power flows up through the piṅgalā nāḍī and into the sympathetic nerve network on the right side of the body, the person becomes overly intellectual, very masculine in nature, talks little, has steel nerves and patterns centering around the conquest of others through intellectual debate. He is prone to long silences, holding in emotions, and to secret patterns of behavior to stimulate or satisfy base desires. In other words, he is not open, smiling, friendly, companionable. In either case, the kuṇḍalinī śakti rising through the iḍā or piṅgalā can move upward only to the viśuddha chakra and no farther. This is the impasse.

The misdirection of the kuṇḍalinī happens most often to the less disciplined, those more eager for attainments on the fast track, those not under the watchful eye of the satguru. Nevertheless, the novice feels a dynamic awakening of power. This heat, produced by the kuṇḍalinī śakti flowing through either of these two nāḍīs of the sympathetic nerve system, can and often does produce jerking in the body, spine and neck.

More often than not, the jerking body, twisting neck and the “I now know it all” attitude are taken for a highly spiritual experience and even validated as such by certain teachers. But it is as if we were driving on a rocky road, thinking it to be a smooth highway. It is an unusual experience, to be sure, building the personal ego into something it was never intended to be. When this happens to a devotee, the wise guru or swāmī recommends that all spiritual practices be immediately stopped. Japa should be stopped. All prāṇāyāma except the simplest regulation of the breath should be stopped. Reading scripture should be stopped, worship of all kinds should be stopped. Anything other than wholesome, humbling karma yoga, such as cleaning bathrooms, should be stopped. Growing food should be encouraged. Bare feet on the ground and at the same time hands in the dirt is the best way to bring the rampant kuṇḍalinī down to the mūlādhāra chakra. Once it is down, it can be directed up through the right current, but only when the devotee does not have conflicting patterns in his life.

Unlike the subtle movement of the divine serpent power through its proper channel, the sushumṇā nāḍī within the spine, its misdirection may reflect a dramatic change in the nature, turning the once humble student into an ego giant, either overly emotional and self-centered or intellectually argumentative; both types are not self-reflective in any way. From a perhaps once shy person, we now have a “Come to me, I will fix you, repair you, inspire you, for I am aware,” or worse, “I am enlightened.” Once the spiritual ego has taken over, some even claim to have attained more than their teacher. They don’t need a teacher anymore. For them, the guru is on the inside, and their heated discussions, emotional outbursts and challenging positions eventually take their toll on their own being.

Iḍā, Piṅgalā, Sushumṇā

In mystic cosmology, the seven lokas, or upper worlds, correspond to the seven higher chakras. The seven talas, or lower worlds, correspond to the chakras below the base of the spine. Man is thus a microcosm of the universe, or macrocosm. The spine is the axis of his being, as Mount Meru is the axis of the world, and the fourteen chakras are portals into the fourteen worlds, or regions of consciousness. The actinodic life force within the sushumṇā current runs up and down the spine and becomes very powerful when the iḍā and piṅgalā, or the odic forces, are balanced. Then man becomes completely actinodic. He doesn’t feel, in a sense, that he has a body at that particular time. He feels he is just a being suspended in space, and during those times his anāhata and viśuddha chakras are spinning and vibrating. When, through the practice of very intense, sustained states of contemplation, he merges into pure states of superconsciousness, the iḍā and the piṅgalā form a circle. They meet, and the pituitary and the pineal glands at the top of the head also merge their energies. This produces deep samādhi. The pituitary gland awakens first and through its action stimulates the pineal. The pineal shoots a spark into the pituitary, and the door of Brahman, the Brahmarandhra, is opened, never to close. I once saw the sahasrāra on a long stem above my head when I was in New York in 1953 or ’54.

The sushumṇā force also merges, and the kuṇḍalinī, which is at this time playing up and down the spine like a thermometer, as the fire-heat body of man, rises to the top of the head, and man then goes beyond consciousness and becomes the Self and has his total Self Realization, nirvikalpa samādhi.

The iḍā nāḍī is pink in color. It flows down, is predominantly on the left side of the body and is feminine-passive in nature. The piṅgalā nāḍī is blue in color. It flows up, is predominantly on the right side of the body and is masculine-aggressive in nature. These nerve currents are psychic tubes, shall we say, through which prāṇa flows from the central source, Śiva. The prāṇa is flowing down through the iḍā and up through the piṅgalā, but in a figure eight. The sushumṇā nāḍī is in a straight line from the base of the spine to the top of the head. The iḍā and piṅgalā spiral around the sushumṇā and cross at the third chakra, the maṇipūra, and at the fifth chakra, the viśuddha, and meet at the sahasrāra. This means that there is a greater balance of the iḍā and the piṅgalā in man’s will center, the maṇipūra chakra, and in his universal love center, the viśuddha chakra, and of course at the great saṅga center, the meeting place of the three rivers, the sahasrāra chakra.

The sushumṇā nāḍī, flowing upward, is the channel for the kuṇḍalinī śakti, which is white. It is the cool energy, as white contains all colors. When the kuṇḍalinī rises, which happens almost imperceptibly under the guru’s watchful eye, consciousness slowly expands. The novice only knows of the subtle yet powerful spiritual unfoldment when looking back to the time the practices were begun. Now he sees how life was then and how now his soul’s humility has overtaken the external ego.

Through breathing exercises, meditation and the practice of haṭha yoga, the iḍā and the piṅgalā, the aggressive and passive odic forces, are balanced. When they are balanced, the chakras spin all at the same velocity. When the chakras spin at the same velocity, they no longer bind awareness to the odic world; man’s awareness then is automatically released, and he becomes conscious of the actinodic and actinic worlds.

Those chakras at the crossing of the iḍā and piṅgalā are the more physical of the chakras, whereas those it skips are energized by the sushumṇā itself. When the yogī is really centered within, the iḍā and piṅgalā then blend together in a straight line and merge into the sushumṇā, energizing all seven chakras, and in the older soul slowly, very slowly, slowly begin to energize the seven chakras above the sahasrāra. When this happens, he no longer thinks but sees and observes from the ājñā chakra between the eyes. He is totally consciously alive, or superconscious. It is only when his iḍā and piṅgalā begin functioning normally again that he then begins to think about what he saw.