@Uma, well I doubt the conversation can go much further, you'll be relieved to hear! I really don't think you are seeing much of what I'm saying...

Your remarks on expropriation are correct though, no doubt about that, BTW, and there is also the very new age-sounding question of possible energy currents in the earth etc. Just because I don't think kundalini is necessarily and obviously the only and universal spiritual form, doesn't mean I think it won't travel... there is definite evidence of it in numerous places, as I mentioned! But not everywhere -- this is my point.

You should obviously know that I have personal experience of kundalini as well, and have been working with it for many years. I have met kundalini masters as you have, too. (You could check this.) This not about some weird books-vs.-experiences thing! What it's about is not operating on a faith-based approach, which I prefer not to do. We do not know whether kundalini is meant in certain spiritual images, without further proof, just because it looks as if it might be -- from my point of view, it seems a good idea to admit it!

It's not a question of which book to read. (Although yes, Avalon is still recommended by many.) You wouldn't have to read the books I mentioned to get the point I was making -- one which perhaps you'd rather not get! It's so simple -- comparing enlightenment experiences carefully, you do not always see kundalini. Certainly not in any obvious or conclusive way. Again that's enlightenment experiences -- awakening and realization experiences as reported by people who have them. Sometimes there is a definite kundalini shape to the experience -- sometimes not. Kundalini is widespread but not universal, so far as we know, based on talking to people who are willing to communicate their enlightenment experiences.

It's a very simple truth. No-one in the world who actually is interested in the truth could say, "I have experienced kundalini and therefore I know that this picture drawn by a 5-year-old, or this Sumerian image, or this river (??) exhibits kundalini." Of course one doesn't know! Things are not so simple, unless you simply decide that they are, but that is not the way human knowledge advances, with people simply deciding what is true! And certainly no-one could ever say "all spiritual experiences are based on kundalini", except as a pure guess. We haven't talked to enough people yet to know. We know it does appear in a lot of interestingly far-flung places... but we need to know more. A lot more!


No, I am not talking about different names only. The energy of kundalini is a certain energy, and there are other energies too. Kundalini is not a name for all energies and all energetic processes. Spiritual anatomy is a complex topic!This post is too long to get into that I think.


Similarly, the 'agreements between mystics worldwide' thing is very overdone nowadays -- mystics have also been arguing for millennia over the end result of their experiences and the nature of the ultimate (check out the Buddhist v. Hindu arguments for a start) and indeed the disagreements outnumber the agreements. Again, I'm afraid these are the facts! The faith in one system that always appears in different variations is for me just a faith. Humanity is so much more complicated and interestingly so, if you can get used to the mess!

For me your last answer is rather telling -



But "getting the info from one who has experienced" is exactly what I'm referring to, of course! I'm saying that many people who have major spiritual awakenings sometimes report a great difference from the kundalini approach, and I hardly think devaluing their experiences just to fit in with a preconceived notion of 'universal kundalini' is going to help see the real picture.

In fact it's quite hard to work out what even you think you're saying here... you say "getting the info directly from one who has experienced" is more important than "research", "authority", or "tradition". But Uma, what "research" could I be talking about other than 'getting info' from people who have experience? (As well as taking the odd blood test of course... ^_^). And what could "authority" be, except listening carefully to a teacher, exactly as you do, who has such experience? And what is "tradition" but a way of passing down the methods that people discover -- people who 'have experienced' -- for the next generation to use, exactly as your teacher does for you? It seems you are interested in "research, authority and tradition", after all!

When you 'get the info from one who has experienced', you are doing exactly what I mean by 'research'. Only, I am suggesting that if you are trying to draw general conclusions for the whole of humanity (let alone the whole universe), rather than simply getting answers that work for you personally, then the info-getting needs to be done widely, rigorously, and with an open mind, in the interests of generating real knowledge rather than a one-sided picture with many guesses, propped up by faith or what sounds good. I think the picture that could be built by collating the info more widely and carefully is more interesting than simply assuming that we know things which no-one could know for certain, no matter what their experiences are.

This doesn't change the fact that one's experience is real! Of course not. But other people have real experiences too. And (unless we are going to say everyone else's experience is not real) we need to do the real work of comparing and trying to understand the links and differences between paths, rather than simply saying we already know, when we plainly do not!

I'll leave it there, unless you're super-keen for more conversation on this... did you do your retreat yet? If so I hope it went well...