Kundalini: Arousal Failure
A student inquired recently as to the cause of kundalini not rising through the spine even after doing breath infusion using kapalabhati or bhastrika pranayama. There may be several causes for this, either one reason or more than one reason combined.
Assuming that one does breath infusion properly, anyone who compacts sufficient fresh air into the lungs and who holds the muscular locks and mental constraints should have kundalini arise unless there is not enough hormonal energy in the lower trunk of the physical body. Here are some reasons why one may not experience a kundalini rise after doing bhastrika aggressively:
- · lack of mental focus
- · lack of emotional containment
- · mental focus on cultural activities of oneself or others
- · being mentally splayed out where one cannot group the mental energy and focus it
- · excessive sexual expression
- · bad diet
The only good reason for kundalini not coursing through the spine when one does sufficient breath infusion with the proper technique, is that kundalini rises in the cells in various organs or parts of the body instead of rising through the sushumna central passage.
The above reasons for kundalini not to rise through the spine are explained:
- · lack of mental focus
This occurs because of weakness of mental resolve. The yogi does the practice as instructed but he cannot focus mentally. His attention is scattered. It indulges in thinking of images, sounds and ideas which are unrelated to or counterproductive towards the practice. To correct this, the yogi should reduce or totally avoid the people who cause his resolve to weaken by their association. He must also restrain himself from literature or media which shatters will power and concentration.
- · lack of emotional containment
Emotional containment where the yogi conserves emotions is required. To achieve this a yogi has to limit association with persons who consume his attention in a way which is hostile to yoga. This may occur even with people who do yoga but it is mostly done with persons who are hostile to the practice.
- · mental focus on cultural activities of oneself or others
If a yogi finds that during practice his mental focus always resumes thinking of mundane activities he should study the process of how he ingested the related ideas. How is his mind exposed? How does the mind store related impressions? How does the mind illustrate memories? What is the force which forces the core self to view and become absorbed in these memories and related imagination.
- · being mentally splayed out where one cannot group the mental energy and focus it
If a yogi finds that despite his doing a rigorous session of breath infusion, still his mental energy remains splattered or splayed, he should investigate to the reason for this. He must track the cause and take steps to restrict the mind from being exposed to whatever caused the degradation.
- · excessive sexual expression
Excessive sexual expression may cause the yogi to fail to arouse kundalini. The reason for this is that the sexual energy is required for rising spinal kundalini. In fact to some extent even cell kundalini rises use hormonal energy. If the yogi was involved in excessive sexual expression, he will not have enough hormonal energy to mix with the breath infused into the body. The infused breath energy will not have a strong charge, and without that it will not leap over from the sex organ chakra (not sex chakra on the spine) to the muladhar base chakra. This will result in no response from the kundalini.
It requires both diet and time to develop sex hormonal energy. If within twenty four hours the yogi is involved in excessive sexual expression, he may consume whatever sex hormones are stored in his body. This will exhaust the supply of energy. The yogi will have to wait until the system accumulates new hormones, which take time. In the meantime if the yogi again indulges sexually in an excessive way, that will further discourage the rise of kundalini because of the lack of energy required.
To understand this further we may consider males who frequently masturbate. The male and female sexual expression systems are different. In this article, I address the male only. This is because a male requested the explanation. A male who frequently masturbates, soon discover that eventually after one or several masturbations, the body fails to respond with a sexual climax. The male must wait for a time, for some hours or even days for the system to again accumulate enough sexual hormonal energy for another sexual climax experience.
This applies as well to those who do not masturbate but who have sexual intercourse in excess where their sexual reserve energy is consumed in excessive intercourse. It is not incidental that sex indulgence is discouraged in many yoga sects. One reason is that the energy consumed in intercourse may drastically affect the progress of the yogi because that energy may be required for other uses, as for instance, helping to raise kundalini.
· bad diet
Bad diet can cause kundalini not to be aroused. This is because the quality of food directly affect the hormonal energy production in the body.
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If the yogi must endure any one or all of the negative actions which contribute to a lack of kundalini arousal, he should still practice and should not be discouraged because of the failure to motivate kundalini through the sushumna nadi central passage. The main instruction is to continue the practice of breath infusion regardless. In time, as permitted by fate, that yogi will resume kundalini arousal and for the time being he would have reinforced the practice habit.
