Concept of the Goddess in Kundalini

[Dumuzzi]

Hi everyone,

 

I have been listening to a series of Bonnie Greenwell interviews lately and one of the topics that keep coming up, is how in India, Kundalini is perceived as a goddess. Another one that has popped up repeatedly is the sexual nature of Kundalini. I have a bit of personal experience with both aspects, so whilst I wrote about this before, I would like to provide a more detailed and personal look at how the two are connected. This is going to get weird, so brace yourselves.

 

So, I’ve hinted at my story here and there, with more details provided on my youtube, but I never really tied the different strands together and I feel it is important to do so now, as listening to these interviews have crystallised some concepts and connections that I only really felt intuitively before, but now I have become conscious of them. It’s always difficult to provide enough background information, without taking up too much space, but I’ll do my best.

 

I am really uncomfortable writing about this topic, as it tends to ruffle so many feathers, but I feel it needs to be done anyway, as my own unique story could actually provide some clarity on topics that may have been unclear before. All of us, who have awakened Kundalini have such a unique perspective and we all arrived where we are from very different backgrounds, via different routes, and if we each provide our story to the spiritual community and the wider world, we will contribute to completing the puzzle, the greatest one there ever was, about the mysteries of the universe and the true nature of existence.

 

So, it is often said, that Kundalini is a goddess, yet she is also Shakti, a cosmic, all-pervading force in the universe, but locally, she is also sex energy (libido as Freud would call it, having learnt about Kundalini from his friend, Jung) and as Bonnie Greenwell points out in her works, she is in fact the very creative force that creates life upon conception, it is root energy. The Hindus believe that Kundalini is what germinates life upon conception, it is what creates the blueprint for the organism to grow and is the energy and intelligence behind cellular growth and the creation of full-blown multi-cell organisms. This energy is provided by the explosive energy of orgasm upon conception and is usually drawn from the father, though the exact process is unclear. Ancient civilisations were well aware of the importance of this process and conceptualised the act of creation via orgasmic release through various fertility gods and goddesses. In India, the god of fertility is Shiva, and one of her wives, either Parvati or Durga is seen as the goddess of fertility. The former presents a more benign, loving, aspect, whereas the latter is fiercer and more warlike.

 

Thousands of years before Hindu gods arrived on the scene, if mainstream archeological timelines are to be believed (and there is always some speculation and conjecture involved), in the first civilisation known to us, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the very first concepts underlying our current civilisation were being developed. Almost everything we associate with civilisation, whether writing, calculus, astronomy, agriculture, irrigation, architecture, calendars, timekeeping etc… was invented by the Sumerians, more than 6000 years ago. They seemingly came out of nowhere and developed all these high civilisational tools and achievements with no other civilisation to precede them. In their own records, they claim that the gifts of civilisation were bestowed upon them by their gods, whom they called Anunna, indicating that they were descended from the Sky God, AN , and were all various offspring of his marriage to KI, the Earth Goddess and mother of all gods (also known as Ninhursag), who, to honour this fact, were also sometimes referred to as the ANunnaKI. The chief God of Fertility was Enki, who was also associated with water and fish, whereas the goddess responsible for the sexual act itself, in order to create life and fertilise the whole of the earth, make plants grow, animals reproduce, etc… was known as Inanna (also Inana, later Ishtar) who was believed to be even more powerful than Enki in mythology, even though they had a familial relationship, where they often relied upon and helped each other. It was said that when Inanna descended into the underworld, life upon the surface of the earth would stop, plants would not grow, animals would not reproduce, her power over sexuality was seen as the fundamental force behind nature, which allowed its growth and replenishment and the cycle of life to continue. She had a dual nature to her as she was also the Goddess of War, riding into battle on the back of a lion, sporting an array of distinctive weapons and with various supernatural powers that have no doubt provided inspiration for the modern portrayal of superheroes. This has been acknowledged by the latest iteration of Wonder Woman, who carries her symbol, the 8-pointed star of Ishtar, representing the planet Venus (also a Roman Goddess heavily influenced by her mythology) on her forehead.

 

If you thought that a fierce warrior goddess, riding a lion, slaying her enemies and being associated with sexuality sounded familiar, you’d be right, she has equivalents in many subsequent cultures, where some or all of her aspects and attributes were syncretised into local goddesses. Some, like Aphrodite, Venus or Astarte are no longer worshipped, whereas others, chiefly the Hindu Goddess Durga, still are. I bring up Durga here, because some scholars have established a link between these two very similar goddesses and have linked them both back to the Parthian Nana, who in the Indus Valley became known as Nana Devi. She is recognised as one of the 108 official forms of Shakti and now seen as an ancient form of Durga, from whom she inherited most of her attributes, including her fierce, war-like nature (she is the slayer of the demons of ignorance, symbolically) and her marriage to Shiva, providing the counterpoint to his role as the god of fertility and thus creation. Keep in mind, that in most strands of Hinduism, Durga is honoured as the primary form of Shakti and all this will soon start to make sense.

 

So, apologies, if I had to get to my point in a convoluted manner, but it is relevant to the story I’m telling and it cannot be understood without this mythological and philosophical background. The point here, as often expressed in Shaktism, a major branch of Hinduism, that puts goddess-worship at the forefront, is that all these different names and forms for the Goddess are not what matters, for the force, the intelligence behind it, is essentially the same, different flavours of the same Shakti. And this Shakti is behind the creation, sustenance, rejuvenation and continuation of life, it is responsible for evolution, the creation of new species and allowing existing species to step on to the next rung of the evolutionary ladder. We may have different names and forms for her, we conceptualise her differently depending on our cultural background, but all of her different forms stem from the same underlying intelligence, she is the essence of all life and in this sense, the Divine Mother that gives life to all, not literally, but in a manner of speaking.

 

This also explains, why Shakti has her own drive and initiative, her own goals and agenda, which is the continuation of life on earth and the evolution of all species, but on this planet, the human form in particular, towards a higher form, to reach its full potential and achieve self-realisation. That is why, when she activates in us as Kundalini, her primary goal is our transformation and evolution. There is no difference between her myriad forms, they all share one divine cosmic consciousness, we only perceive them to be different due to the limitations of our senses.

 

So, you may ask, why did I bring the Sumerians into this, isn’t the picture already complicated enough without them? I had to do this, because it informs my own story and is of personal relevance to me. You see, when my Kundalini first started rising, back around 2010, I was an atheist, though I maintained a keen interest in spirituality from early childhood and had always known that subtle energies and souls were real, I also maintained somewhat of an on-again, off-again meditative practice. Living in London at the time, I visited the British Museum regularly and became fascinated with the Mesopotamian Exhibits, not least the Uruk collection, which was excavated from Inanna’s holy city and the Burney Relief, which is said to be a depiction of her.

Concurrent to my visits and interest in Mesopotamian culture and mythology, my Kundalini started rising, first as heat at the base of my spine and then gradually cleared the first three chakras in a gentle and painless manner, bringing up the requisite past unresolved issues and memories, I was supposed to deal with. The problems started when the energy hit my heart chakra and was unable to clear it and break through. I felt chest pain and in time developed heart palpitations, anxiety, heavy breathing and neurological problems.

 

Having been pretty much an atheist up to that point (I was brought up as a Roman Catholic prior to that, but also had some exposure to Hinduism, when I lived in India as a child), my only solace from the increasingly troublesome collection of Kundalini symptoms was during my regular meditative sessions in the Cathedral Gardens, next to St Paul’s, the river Thames in general and my frequent visits to the British Museum and the associated reading areas where I delved into Mesopotamian Mythology with growing interest. It was as if the artefacts from all those millennia ago were calling to me and I felt an energetic connection developing, particularly with the artefacts depicting the gods Enki and Inanna. In some myths, they are Father and Daughter, in others they are Husband and Wife, in yet others, they are Uncle and Niece, but their relationship is central to Mesopotamian mythology and they represent a very important male-female duality, where their strengths complement each other.

 

One day, I was feeling particularly “unwhole” and suffering from Kundalini Syndrome. As I was walking towards the Cathedral Gardens at St Paul’s from my City office, it occurred to me, that these ancient gods I had been so intently studying, weren’t just myths, but perhaps they were very real beings and could be prayed to and applied to for help. I looked towards the majestic dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and thought, well, I have nothing to lose, if I ask for help, so I might as well. I closed my eyes and imagined the god Enki as depicted on a particular relief in the Museum and asked for his help. I told him, he was known as the creator and greatest helper of humanity, most gracious amongst the gods and most likely to take pity on any mortal that might need his help. I asked him to send any help he can and having read about the concept of guardian deities or spirits beforehand, even suggested he might send someone to assist me with my Kundalini issues in person.

 

Immediately, I felt a huge download of energy. It was as if the skies had opened up (being London, it was grey and overcast) and some sort of beam or ray of energy descended from the sky, straight into my crown chakra and suffused my entire being. It felt like I was filled with light and had received a gift of divine grace. I immediately felt better and felt hopeful for the future.

 

The next day, as I was washing up, a light appeared behind me, as bright and hot as a second sun and white in colour, accompanied by a sound of beautiful radiance. It had a female presence, immense intelligence, grace and emanated pure love. Within her energy field, time seems to have stopped or slowed down immensely, the outside world appeared like a mere shadow and looked unreal. Only she and I existed in that moment, everything else was a mere projection on a wall. Nothing has ever felt so real up to the point and so-called reality never felt so unreal. It was as if the colour, the flavour had gone out of it and it had gone pale and lifeless, so incredible was her shining and radiance, illuminating everything around her with the light of a thousand suns. Without words, this being of pure light energy floated towards me and communicated that she would like to heal me and touch me, in a way asking for permission, I suppose. She touched my back, at the level of the heart chakra and this touch felt real, like that of a human woman. She gave me shaktipat, which is what I later discovered, this transmission of energy is called, unblocked my heart and caused the energy to shoot up and flood all the nadis as it passed through the heart.

 

I felt the need to lie down and allow Kundalini to do its thing, so I went to my room and that’s what I did. I started thrashing around and having various kriyas as the energy shot up, taking only a few minutes each to clear each of the upper chakras. When it got to ajna chakra and then past it, I felt a rhythmic thud at the top of my skull, towards the back part, as if the energy was trying to escape and break through, but couldn’t. This final knot, in the Brahmarendra, just below the crown is the last one and again I was getting the constrained feeling like I did when the energy was stuck below the heart.

 

However, Inanna was still there, in the kitchen and as I was having this experience, she gracefully floated into my room, emanating this white-silvery light everywhere and giving the impression that she had tendrils of light extending from her in all directions, with which she was able to caress and touch me. She then floated on top of me, as I was lying in bed and started enveloping me in her light and I even felt like someone sat on me, with not much, but still noticeable weight, which to be honest, felt rather sexual, as is often the case when kundalini is involved. I have since seen many depictions of tantric goddesses sitting atop devotees in an act of tantric union in Buddhist art, especially in Tibet, so I’m guessing this is pretty universal. Not for nothing is Inanna known as the Goddess of (sexual) Love.

 

In this tantric union, which really felt like an act of divine lovemaking, our beings slowly merged and became one. She gave me her energy and I felt my Kundalini finally shooting up with such force that it broke through the last knot and it felt like, my actual skull, with an audible crack, which sounded like a bone breaking. I have only recently discovered, that this moment is known as the breaking of the cosmic egg (Hiranyagarbha), which is accompanied by the release of the yolk, known as Amrita, which floods the body.

 

The way I experienced it, was that after the breaking of the cosmic egg, the serpent finally escaped and as it exited the skull, it felt like it was peeking out from just above me, eventually coming to rest its neck, just below the head, and keeping its head raised up, the way it is often depicted in Egyptian art. Concurrently to this, amrita started flooding my brain and this felt like a rush of liquid light with again an audible sound of rushing water, like a stream, or even a waterfall. As the Amrita flooded me I experienced incredible feelings of bliss and joy, as well as downloads of profound truths, which is known as sat-chit-ananda (truth-joy-bliss) in the vedic literature. I received great realisations moment after moment and my whole being was being suffused with light, brighter than anything I have ever seen. Each subsequent stage of this awakening was more joyful and blissful than the previous one, even though I always thought, surely, it cannot get better and more intense than this, but until the final stage of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, it always did.

 

At this stage I was already in some state of Samadhi, though still within my body, with the opening at the top back part of my head, known as the Mouth of Heaven in the literature, giving me constant access to a higher, infinite and non-dual realm, which I can only refer to as Heaven, as we really have no other or better word for it.

 

However, my experience had not yet culminated at this point and I was to experience the greatest bliss of all, as my consciousness exited the body. My body fell away and became increasingly small as I extended into a black, spaceless, timeless and dimensionless void. I was all alone, it felt, but I was also everything. I started experiencing everything being part of me, the whole cosmos and everything within it and my expansion seemed never ending. I filled everything, suffused and pervaded everything with my being. I was in my own universe, not knowing if I was the only one with his own expanded universe, or whether there were others parallel to me, but ultimately, it did not seem to matter, because in this place, I was whole, loved and loving, both the object and the subject. It seems like a paradox in hindsight, because how can you be loved or love, when you are alone, but in fact I was pure love, nothing else really existed, everything was made of pure light, the ecstasy, the knowledge, the happiness, the love, the joy, the bliss, all of it was way more than any human being could possibly bear, so I had to be in this universal form, encompassing everything there is, to bear the majesty and brilliance of it. This was a state of non-duality, where all opposites, even subject and object ceased to exist and there was only the One, the Absolute, the Self. The Self was universal, omniscient and all-loving. In this state, everything was already understood and known, past and present were no longer mysteries, they were all occurring simultaneously, everywhere and there was no limitation of any kind, just pure expansiveness.

 

I must have been in this state for about an hour, though during that time, I had no concept of time at all, it simply did not exist. The same thing for space, everything was within me and I was within everything, with no separation. Ditto for dimensions, they extended infinitely in all directions and I was part of each dimension of existence. My vision wasn’t confined like it is now, it was also in all directions and saw everything there ever was or will be, everywhere, simultaneously. All knowledge simply “was”, already there, instantly available and there was nothing that wasn’t known to me. In hindsight, I understand why ancient Rishis described this moment of realisation as “I am that”, because really, that is all there is. In that moment, you are that and that is the only thing that exists, so you realise the unity and oneness of everything and everyone, different manifestations of the same “One”, seemingly different in the illusory, dualistic world of Maya, but ultimately stemming from the same source.

 

Once I have grown tired of existing in my infinite, universal state, I started shrinking again, until I was small enough to fit back into my body (it felt like falling back into it) through the same route I exited it. Being back in my body, I felt incredibly constrained and my muscles were sore. I knew this was a profound experience I’ve just had, but it also felt rather disappointing to be back in my same old body and to have lost that full immersion into truth, bliss and joy, though I have carried back the memory of it. Since my crown was now opened up, the mouth of heaven provided a constant link to Heaven and I was able to interact with heavenly beings, beings of light from then on, depending on the needs of those that exist in this shadow world of illusions. The state I have just come back from is known as Nirvikalpa Samadhi. I have been able to go into Samadhi states and rest in them subsequently as well, though none were ever this intense, this seems to be a one-time deal, to show the Jiva or Soul what awaits it once its task has been completed here on earth, as a motivation to keep up the work and lead others towards union with the divine (Brahman).

 

So, there you have it, that is my own unique take on Shakti being a goddess, one of many names and forms, which are largely made up by humans, but the intelligence, the force, the power behind it is unchanging and always the same. In fact that reminds me, the Goddess once showed me a vision of herself when I admitted to being confused about all the different forms and names that are associated with her and how she could be all of those things when to us, they may look so different. In this vision, I saw her as a Hindu Goddess in a four-armed form. Like I said, names and forms are for us, for her, they are all the same. She was alone, in a black, dimensionless void, like the one I have been to in my Nirvikalpa state, sitting cross-legged, two of her arms raised up in meditation and the other two manipulating reality. In front of her, was a loop, donut-shaped. As I looked into the loop, I realised it contained all the time and space of the universe, condensed, and as you “zoomed in” individual faces and lives started appearing though from her perspective, they were all flat or two-dimensional. She could reach into any one moment or any one life and make adjustments as she deemed necessary. She explained to me (in thought, not words), that this is how she reaches into manifest reality to keep the loop running as it should be and both time and space circle back into each other and start again, over and over, but to her all points in space, time and various dimensions are equally accessible and visible. She also explained to me, that when intervention is needed, she might incarnate in a certain form along a particular point of the timespace loop. All she need to do, is “pinch” that particular point in the loop-movie, for her, no time will have passed, but in the movie, in the physical play-out reality we inhabit, an entire avatar or incarnation may have been born, lived and died, completing the missions she was sent there for. I’m not going to speculate on how this relates to other gods and goddesses, I am simply reporting what I was told, or rather shown and you can make up your own mind about what that might mean.

 

I have also “seen” her (specifically in the form of Inanna, but also as others, including Buddhist forms, as reported by friends who were visited) manifest in physical reality and “reach into” it, manipulating events, or performing healing on someone. The events were reported by friends or people who have asked me for assistance, remotely, but I also saw them in my minds eye, in the form of visions, so to me they were as real as if I was really there, even though I was thousands of miles away. If that sounds weird, keep in mind this is known as remote viewing and is reportedly how the Mahabharata was written, so that events could be seen by the author remotely. When the Ajna chakra is activated, these things become possible, though I have never sought them out, they only happen spontaneously, when the situation calls for it.

 

In conclusion, I realise I have thrown a lot of weird, hard-to-digest stuff at you and it may not make much sense now, but perhaps in time, it will. I know it took me many, many years to get a sense of what’s really going on and understand at least the basics of it. I cringe at the thought of how many people will be upset by this story and I have plenty of experience with that, believe me. I’m not bothered by the criticism, which is predictable and I have noticed always comes from the point of view of which cherished part of the ego feels most threatened by it. Some will be upset by the mixing and matching of religions and philosophies, to some it will be new-age, to others way too religious, polytheists will decry its monotheism, monotheists its polytheism, non-duality its dualism, dualists its non-dualism and so forth. This story does not fit into any neat category and neither do I, I am literally in a minority of one, so it has the unique advantage of upsetting everyone at the same time. It may also seem unfair that such profound spiritual experiences would occur to someone so undeserving as myself (and that I very clearly am) and all I can say to that is that we live in a different age now (some would say, the tail end of the Kali Yuga) and as things get darker, one advantage of being here now is that we have to put in so much less effort to progress spiritually than only a few decades ago.

 

A lot more people are waking up and having spiritual experiences of a profound nature, whilst simultaneously, those that refuse to grow and evolve with the changing times are growing ever more demonic and hateful, as has been predicted by the Puranas all those millennia ago. So for you, my advice would be this: keep doing whatever you’re doing and work on it, because there has never been another time in human history, when it was easier and quicker to achieve spiritual liberation than it is today. Don’t listen to mean-spirited critics (teachers and gurus who know what they are doing excepted), instead, follow your own heart and your own intuition, listen to the guidance of the Goddess and she will manipulate events in such a way as to give you maximum opportunity to develop and grow. Also, pray to her, talk to her, plead to her if you have to and she will find a way to communicate with you. Do not be bothered by the differences in outward appearance when it comes to her many forms, work with whatever form works best for you, whether it is the more impersonal and universal Shakti / Mahashakti, her more localised form as Kundalini Shakti or one of her more personalised forms appearing as various goddesses in different parts of the world all throughout history. If you feel more comfortable with the male aspect of God, then do that and apply to that aspect for help, that is also what I initially did, when I prayed for help almost a decade ago now. But, you’ll find, that in most religions, it is the female aspect of God, that is most active in this reality and is most likely to step in, whereas the male aspect tends to remain somewhat distant and is generally outside of the created world, rarely taking an interest in it or intervening directly.

 

I hope that helped you and I encourage others to share their personal stories of awakening in a similar manner so we may all learn from them as a collective, because in the end we are one consciousness, having the same experience, but from myriad different points of view.

[WelcometoReality]

@Dumuzzi Thanks for sharing your story. An awesome read for anyone who is into kundalini stories. ?

[Preety_India]

I want to know about Kali

 

[Dumuzzi]

@Preety_India I know relatively little about that aspect of the Goddess.

However, just yesterday I had a brief encounter with that aspect, as I was meditating and allowing my K to rise up the spine. At about the sacral chakra, the one responsible for sexual urges, she appeared and asked me some impertinent questions about who I would like to have sex with and such. It seems it was a test of sorts as when I answered truthfully, my then at that point strong sexual desire (this is natural when the power is active in the sacral chakra) dissipated and I saw her face smiling and dissipating into darkness, into a black void, which I realised was her. She emerges out of this black void, the primordial chaos out of which creation emerges from time to time, which is of the light, to merge back into the blackness of Kali Ma. 

Based on that, I'm guessing there was a teaching for me in that, about her true nature as a primordial chaos goddess who is beyond what we would think of as light and dark, creation, or even existence itself, she represents the true potentiality of chaos and she tests you by sexual sublimation, the ability to acknowledge and transform the true strength of your sexual desires.

Hope that made some sense.

Also, I haven't been following your story lately, but did you have to marry that man your parents wanted for you? I remember this was a discussion last year. Sorry for being nosey, just curious.

[Loba]

This was informative, a good read, thank you.
She came to me as Kali, but I recognize her in many different forms.

I've been collecting songs, pictures, etc. that hold her energy.  Here's a few that remind me of this energy, and an old altar I used to have - I love communicating with her and getting the motherly vibes that my real mother could not provide.

This song has strong goddess vibes.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Loba

[Dumuzzi]

The Goddess Kundalini Speaks

I am Shakti, light of the Divine
Into thy soul I shine my light
I illuminate the darkness within
What has been hidden, will be revealed.

Into the void I enter with life
Once dark, now it is filled with light
All resplendent, shining and magnificent
Life is created by my shining.

In thy soul I shall rise up
Thy body I shall cleanse
Thy spirit I shall purify
And liberation you shall surely attain.

I shine my light onto you to illumninate your darkness
To lift the veil of ignorance that clouds your mind
To give you the knowledge and power needed
To lift yourself up from the dirt and achieve liberation.

In your heart I reside, the seat of your soul,
Yet, I can be found in all things,
Everywhere, where there is life, I am present
And the whole universe is my playground.

If you look within, you shall find me.
I am that which moves you to do great things
I am the power behind love
I am the Goddess of All Creation

Shakti flows in everything that moves
Shakti transcends everything that loves
Shakti motivates all that seek out the divine
Kundalini is the hidden power of Shakti in all.

I rise up in those that seek me out
Not for power or glory, but for the love of all.
I am motivated by your love for the less fortunate
I am also the Goddess of compassion for all living things.

I have many forms, yet whichever you seek out,
You will find me, for there is only Shakti
And though my forms are many and resplendent
All are dear to me and lead you to the truth.

Do not despair, if you don't find me at first.
Keep searching and seeking, look in the right places,
Which are all within you and by turning inward
Shakti's divine light will shine upon you.

All Joy in life is by my grace
I am the love that the mother feels for her child
I am the passion that creates life from the loins of lovers
I am that, which holds the world together by my bonds of love.

In Shakti, you will find the happiness you seek
The bliss, that has been eluding you will fall upon you
The knowledge you lacked, will be revealed to you,
The liberation you seek, will be granted to you.

I created this world and yet, by the end of it
We will reunite with my beloved
And in his terrible dance, all this creation, 
This web of illusion, will be no more.

Similarly, in your body, you are a microcosm of the universe.
You were once created and you think you are real and separate.
Yet, only I am real in you and I long to reunite with my beloved.
When I crawl up your spine to reach him, I destroy all attachments.

As I cleanse your body of what the past has left behind
I annihilate the bonds of matter, I destroy the ties of ignorance
I lift the veil of illusions, I reveal what was hidden,
And when I reach my crowning achievement, we shall dance.

Me any my beloved dance to the song of destruction
The demons of illusion we slay, their dark world we vanguish,
Our loverly embrace illuminates all that was once dark
And only the pure light of the absolute remains.

When you realise this, you shall be free.
 

[Dumuzzi]

@Benton thanks