Kundalini or Prana?
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Mar 01, 2018
MiBeloved 5 years ago
From Linked In:
Chiara posted:
Raise kundalini or move it out of the way?
So my Kundalini loving friends....recently I studied that according to one of the oldest Yoga texts, the Yoga Yajnavalkya, kundalini is not an energy, but simply a blockage of prana. There is no special kundalini energy according to this text, we actually need to move it out of the way to allow the free-flow of prana along the nadis.
As you know I am far less 'obsessed' with Kundalini than some people here are, so I thought I would share this and ask if you were aware of this alternative 'theory'?
So ultimately there is probably no real difference in the two perspectives' goals, we need to ensure we remove any blockages to a free-flow of energy, but this other perspective is interesting, more in line with a simpler view of the subtle body in my opinion.
MiBeloved’s Reply:
Who translated the texts from Sanskrit?
Were you able to check the translation?
In each of these animal bodies, at least there has to be some subtle configuration which causes the body to take a set form with an organised system of nerve tissue and muscles. This is why we use the word species. That speaks for itself. Why bother with some spurious translator or text which denies that reality.
The mere idea that you can even make a post indicates an organised and very specialized life force system, so why bother with literature which denies this?
But the main thing is the translator. Where is the translation?
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Chiara Replied:
Hi Michael. I do not have a copy of the Yoga Yajnavalkya and would not be able to check the translation anyway, as I do not know Sanskrit... I have learnt this at my course from my teacher, and this is why I wanted to share it, because I knew this was a different version with respect to the Tantric teachings most people seem to follow..
To be honest though, I do not understand your comment... what has the organised system of nerve tissue and muscle to do with the function of kundalini, that is whether it is a form of energy that we need to train to raise, or an energy block that we need to move out of the way? It would have to be an organised system in any of the two cases anyway, or not?
MiBeloved's Response:
A subtle body is required before there can be a physical body, just as a building plan is required before we can build the physical structure. The system of nerves reflect the chakra systems and the related energy distribution. The energy which courses through the chakras is the kundalini energy.
Kundalini is not a blockage of prana but it is a psychic life force system which consumes (or eats) prana. Just as the physical body consumes fresh air, the kundalini consumes subtle energy which is called prana. Kundalini also expresses itself in a big way as sexual pleasure experience. It is the electric dynamo in the physical and subtle bodies. It controls the sleep/wake cycle of the body. It brings on drowsiness. It keeps the physical body alive during astral projections of the subtle body.
Kundalini is so important to physical that if it is removed from the physical body, the body is pronounced as dead. Even if the soul hangs around a body, if the kundalini leaves that body, the soul, for all it is cannot use that body.
Now if you say that there is no kundalini and I accepted that at face value, just because I trusted you or trusted your guru, then there is still come hazy area in the proposal because you would have to explain what organised the psychic system which runs the physical body.
If you say it is prana, then that explanation is superficial only. That would be like a biologist saying that the physical body is organised through blood. Yes, there is blood in every part of the body, but there is a nervous system which supervises the distribution and use of that blood. So you would have to come up with some other explanation.
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The subtle body can be there without a kundalini life force operating in it, but only for great, very great yogins. Then it is called a siddha yoga body. The average person or mammal does not have such a body and must have a kundalini life force to operate the involuntary functions of the body.
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Chiara wrote:
From what I understand, the text does not say that there is no kundalini, but that it is not a special energy. All energy relates to prana in its different forms, no need for special energy according to this view. That's why I think that in the end the meaning is the same, just explained differently.
I knew I was going to provoke some unrest with this post...
MiBeloved's Response:
I think that it was a good post but even more, I feel that you need to get an experience of kundalini so that you can know what it is. Because then you can really get into a discussion about it.
Kundalini being not a special energy?
Okay then the central nervous system, the heart muscle which regulates heart beat and the brain are not special cells. They are just like any other cell in the body.
Whatever!!!!
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Chiara wrote:
Michael, I have had experience of the energy raising through the spine, whatever we want to call it, so I know what we are talking about.
According to Desikachar, what Kundalini actually is, is Avidya, and here in this blog you can find excerpts of one of his books where he comments on the version given in the Yoga Yajnavalkya..
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=804
MiBeloved's Response:
Those conversations are okay but it is still reduced to a person's individual practice and experiences. There is a life force in these bodies which operate the bodies even involuntarily like digesting food, invoking emotions off the bat and so on. This is happening. So if someone wants to use another name for that, this is okay.
But again it will come back to the person's individual practice.
I could care less what everyone is saying unless they are speaking about their individual practice.
B.K.S.Iyengar wrote many authoritative books on yoga but he admitted that he did not do meditation, Patanjali style, initially for many years and he was just doing asanas postures which is only one of the process in the full ashtanga yoga. This means that many teachers may not have done the process but they comment on it anyway and cannot speak from their mastery of certain experiences.
Guruji Iyengar was honest about it and said he did not know about the meditation part for many years and only took it up late in his life. That is fair.
I feel that many other asana specialists mislead people by commenting on kundalini.
I have worked on kundalini yoga for about 40 years now, doing it daily for about at least 35 of those 40 years, raising it daily, using a pranayama method which is failsafe and which raises it every time. If it is not called kundalini, then I have no argument with that. Call it something else but there is a life force in the body.
