Physio-Kundalini Syndrome and Accelerated Evolution
Medieval Sanskrit literature offers us countless explanations of what kundalini energy is and how it becomes activated in humans. For a modern definition, however, we can turn to Harvard Divinity School’s archive of mystical experiences where author and professor Anya Fox works. “This ‘Serpent Power’ is a feminine energy that rests coiled at the base of the spine, in the subtle center of the muladhara (or root) chakra.” She tells us, “When awakened, it rises like streaming fire to the crown of the head, transforming mind and body along the way.” Often depicted as snakes slithering up the human spine, kundalini energy can be consciously activated by meditation, yoga, sexual practices, spiritual work, or just spontaneously.
“When Kundalini uncoils and straightens, rising up the central channel, which is generally understood to follow the path of the spinal column, she reverses the process of cosmic creation within the body, burning up and collapsing the body’s material constituents into their more subtle forms, and ultimately returns the practitioner to the primordial state of non-dual consciousness by uniting the rising feminine principle with its masculine counterpart at the crown of the head. In some texts, this is represented as a form of voluntary death,” Fox explains of the implications of kundalini awakening for human consciousness embedded in a world of duality. “Meanwhile, other sources describe Kundalini’s return as she bathes the body in immortal nectar, heralding the practitioner’s transformation into a living embodiment of liberated consciousness.”
Experiential accounts of awakenings range from blissful to agonizing depending on, what Kabbalah refers to as, the capacity of our individual vessel. If we think of our physical body and nervous system as being a vessel that can only hold so much liquid, the activation of kundalini energy is like turning a faucet of higher dimensional current, and our vessel os not bottomless. We expand our vessel by doing spiritual work, taking good care of our minds and souls, and by learning to regulate our nervous systems but if we fail to match this work in our physical bodies, the activation of kundalini energy can cause injury, sickness and even mental health crises.
Fox believes that kundalini energy in small doses occurs naturally and is responsible for dreams and bursts of creative imagination.The conscious cultivation of energy has much more drastic effects, which can result in a blissful experience of unified consciousness. “If it is augmented and awakened through meditation, then this power can flood the nervous system to induce a reaction far beyond mental states made possible by normal sense perception, allowing the yogi to project his mind and his will throughout the whole of nature,” she writes. Citing author and scientist Itzhak Bentov’s book Stalking the Wild Pendulum, where he coined the term ‘physio-Kundalini syndrome,’ Fox explores his theory of kundalini activation as an evolutionary feature of the human nervous system. According to Bentov, a vibrational state becomes entrained as we learn to release stress, thereby expanding our vessel and evolving our nervous system to be able to handle the more stimulating, information-rich state of consciousness associated with kundalini energy.
Bentov’s model posited that accumulated stress creates a kind of noise or jitteriness in the nervous system, limiting the amount of information we’re able to process. Once a critical mass of stress is cleared, our vessel is ready for the dormant Kundalini energy to become active. Once activated, kundalini functions as the ultimate stress-release mechanism, systematically clearing out bodily noise lso the nervous system can operate at a higher level of sensitivity, processing more information which can ultimately lead to the development of extrasensory abilities such as clairvoyance and telepathy. Once activated, Bentov believed that stress could be eliminated from the nervous system as quickly as it accumulates, preventing buildup and allowing more information and therefore sensory stimulation to flow.
The physiological mechanism starts with changes in the rhythm of the heart, breath, and diaphragm, causing the aorta to vibrate in a specific way. Bentov wrote that this creates acoustical standing waves in the fluid-filled ventricles of the brain, which then stimulate the cerebral cortex. As the process develops, the cortex becomes polarized and the signal begins moving through the neurological representation of the body known as the homunculus, generally beginning in the toes and traveling upward. This corresponds with the tingling, numbness, pressure, and burning sensations often reported during kundalini experiences, which Bentov interpreted as the current of kundalini energy running through the nervous system, encountering where stress was lodged and releasing it.
He also believed the process activates the pineal gland, broadening our frequency response and making information available to us that would ordinarily fall outside our perceptual bandwidth. This is where his explanation of kundalini begins to intersect with reports of heightened intuition, psychic phenomena and the perception of what he called other realities. If our nervous system normally acts as a filter, then reducing its internal noise allows a much wider range of information to enter consciousness. If the activation occurs before enough stress has been cleared, the flood of sensation and information can overwhelm the system rather than expand it. This is akin to the Kabbalistic concept of shattering the vessel, which is marked by a period of profound personal instability that requires repair in order to return to normal functioning.
Bentov’s model explains why spiritual traditions centered around kundalini have historically prescribed so much preparation work as to amount to nervous system mastery. Meditation, breathing techniques, tantric practice, cultivating physical health, and emotional regulation all increase the capacity of our nervous systems to hold such a powerful energetic current. As Bentov wrote of the metaphysical aspect of kundalini activation, those experiencing it, “ Suddenly have been catapulted into a situation in which they are functioning in more than one reality. They can see and hear things according to neighboring realities, that is the astral or other higher realities, because their ‘frequency response’ has been broadened.” He contends that all of humanity is moving in this direction, and that meditation is the best way to ease the transition into this lighter, more information-rich octave of being.