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Tantric practice and lust.

  
  

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trouser the trouserian
07:42 / 01.10.07
Tuna

Old thread on Kundalini-related stuff.

Also, I think you'll find that western interest in Kundalini goes back further than the 1960s - there are references to Kundalini in the writings of H.P. Blavatsky. Interest in the subject was also spurred by the publication of C.W. Leadbeater's book The Chakras (1927) and Sir John Woodroffe's translation of the Satcakranirupana Tantra in 1919 under the title, The Serpent Power.
 
 
illmatic
08:11 / 01.10.07
someone who knows and has had experience with kundalini yoga and/or traditional Taoist breathing/energy work, start a thread comparing the two?

I have experience of both, and other breathwork disciplines, but I don't think I could transmit what I think about them in a that in a thread, I'm afraid. Discussion of either discipline is going to be very muddy, because there isn't a clear measurable quantifiable expereince that you can point to and say "Aha! That is kundalini/chi/orgone/fishcake energy!" And as shown in this thread, people are going to read their experiences in a variety of different lights and perhaps back project half understood Eastern terms on those experiences, which may enlighten or mystify.

For instance, I might see Kundalini as the vibration that starts in my muscles when I do "yoga nidra" relaxtion exercises. Is this gentle loosening "really" kundalini? Someone else might see it as the big energetic blowup that led to them getting sectioned when they could see auras and feel their body energy flowing through them in an overpowering fasion. Is this experience "realer" than the fomer? Which one of us has access to the "true" kundalini? See what I mean? And how much more complex is it if we start mapping two very different traditions together? What if you experience your "energy" flowing upwards rather than downwards - does this mean you've got it wrong?

My starting point is that we all have bodies, which are the bedrock of our experience. Soemtimes certain practices (or just events in our lives) will produce variations in our experience, which can be small scale or drastic. This is dependent on our different bodies, our histories our emsotional states and so on. Texts on Kundalini, Chi and so forth are maps pointing to experiences other indivudals in other cultures have had. Replicating the prescriptions that they give may cause us to have similar or different experiences (I mean, why wouldn't they be different - we all have different bodies, dont' we?), bu they are just maps, perhaps more akin to poetry than fixed and easily replicable scientific quantites.

One note of caution I would add is that I think a lot of this experience is relatively "normal", it's just stuff that passes under our awareness a lot of the time. We are prone to fantaise about, and exoticise material that we don't understand - amazing altered states, levitating Tibetian yogis and huge explosions that will cure all our problems once and for all. It's not helped by demeted OTT marketing hype and bullshit in the books availble. I think this veneer of fantasty and wish fulfillment makes it harder to recognise what is going on directly under our noses.
 
 
Stigma Enigma
10:02 / 01.10.07
Brilliant, Roy.

This is really a problem of "transmission", as you put it. Maybe tossing out the word kundalini was the wrong thing to do...it seemed to excite some debate, at least.

I think the maras are in check, these days...if anything just a nuisance. I've calmed down my practice on the whole with the coming of Autumn...I seem to be deeply connected to the shifting seasons and this summer was more intense than any other in my life. The illuminating experience that prompted my initial post is long behind me...I was simply here reflecting and seeing who could shed their own light, which many of you have. I thank you.

Now there's just Halloween to look forward to....here we go again...
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
12:20 / 01.10.07
Trouser: Thanks for the links. I was a bit startled by Gypsy's bit

Isn't there a lot of debate over whether the discipline of "kundalini yoga" itself, as taught and practised in the west, has any precedent whatsoever in actual Indian yogic practice? Isn't there a current academic argument that the western understanding of this material has its roots in theosophy and orientalism, by way of the new age, and this idea of raising the kundalini - as touted in books like the Glen Morris one, and taught in yoga classes in the west - is actually an invention of the West, rather than something clearly rooted in Indian spiritual practices?

I suppose I won't be able to gauge the accuracy of that statement without a little research.

Roy: Pity! I'm more and more interested now. Would you say that although you haven't really read much of Dr. Morris ideas on kundalini (we can use Mako's explanation ...is derived more from Toaist practices than anything; as such it's better described as the the greater kan and li of nei shen gung fu, which basically translates to Taoist fire/water breath work and meditation of internal spiritual martial arts,...), you would support Gypsy's earlier statement where he describes it as a "totally different discipline from another continent"? That bit seemed a bit suspect to me, but I'll defer to you there.
 
 
EvskiG
12:23 / 01.10.07
Normally, when I hear something like dude arrives from India claiming that they spent many long, hard years climbing all over the Himalayan mountains seeking out reclusive sadhus and yogis . . . my alarm bell starts ringing too.

Your alarm bells were right to ring. Looks like (former New Delhi customs agent) Yogi Bhajan was quite a bit of a fraud.

Which, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that the techniques he taught don't work.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
12:37 / 01.10.07
Huh! I knew a lot of New Religious Movements were under a lot of criticism, but...weird. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.
 
 
illmatic
13:00 / 01.10.07
Maybe tossing out the word kundalini was the wrong thing to do...it seemed to excite some debate, at least.

I don't think it's wrong to use the word or concept as such. What I'd say is dodgy is to firstly, to assume that everyone is going to have the same ideas about what this means as you do, and secondly, to not be prepared to unpack the experiences you've had, and your own understanding of the term and how you arrived at that. Glad you found the post useful.

Tuna: I don't really think Mako's explantion is an explantation, really. What does this mean: greater kan and li of nei shen gung fu? What is Taoist fire/water breath work. I don't know and even if I did know, I wouldn't assume my understandings of these were shared by other practitioners, unless I had some reason for doing so i.e. if we were part of the same lineage, had shared teachers etc.

you would support Gypsy's earlier statement where he describes it as a "totally different discipline from another continent"

I appreciate the point that Gypsy is trying to make. Rather than play "pin the chakra on the occult donkey" and making possibly random connections between very different disciplines and experiences, he's advocating we look at these things in their specificity and on their own terms which is something I'd agree with. However, this is a lot more difficult than most popular occult texts wish to allow for and IMO serves as a kind of dumbing down. "MCdonaldisation" it's referred to as in the other thread, whereby everything is served up in workbook sized pieces for a spiritual hungry, yet undiscerning Western audience.

I actually think that there are definitely some connections with Chinese and Indian alchemical/subtle body ideas, down the old Silk Roads, but I don't think it's a cut and dried crossover. There's some material in David Gordon White's The Alchemical Body which points to the importance and significance of mercury in both cultures for instance. (I'm at work so I can't remember half of it) and a variety of other connections (numbers specific to Indian tantra turning up in Chinese alchemical texts) but none so simple as chi=kundalini and that's all there is to it, I'm afraid. Both terms and the variety of discplines that surround them have their own histroy, metaphysics and culture which they are enmeshed in and I think as Westerners picking them up, it behooves us to be aware of that.
 
 
illmatic
13:11 / 01.10.07
BTW my questions about Taoist meditation are rhetorical. I don't want someone to leap in, brandishing a copy of the latest Bruce Frantiz book, and give me all the answers, straight off of page 53. That sort of thing is really my point: I practice a couple of the interal arts myself - but I don't use the terms that Mako uses, so I don't really understand his statement. I wouldn't assume that other practitioners share my understandings of terminology, practice etc.
 
 
illmatic
13:16 / 01.10.07
More illustration: I just googled Bruce Frantiz (to check spelling!) and brought up a few threads on forums about Ba Gua. I found them all a little irritating. Very wordy, and I can't really recognise what I do and what I'm taught in these discussions. But who's really practising Ba Gua? Answer: We all are.
 
  

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