Kundalini

Kundalini – from the Sanskrit kuṇḍalinī, “the coiled one” (from kuṇḍala, ring, coil) – is, according to yogic teaching, the basic energy of the human being. Its image is the “sleeping serpent” that rests coiled at the base of the spine. At the Kyborg Institute it is more than a term: it is in our name – Kyborg stands for Kundalini Yoga based Organisation. We describe kundalini as a teaching of experience from an ancient tradition, not as a medical finding. Of the energy centres and their common source, the kundalini, D. Harald Alke himself notes: “They cannot yet be measured directly.”

What is kundalini?

“Kundalini is the basic energy of every living being, representing an enormous potential of power, which rests in normal life and is fully activated only in emergencies or through targeted exercises.” This is how Energytraining defines the term. It is the common source of the energy centres, the chakras, and – in a fine image from tarot interpretation – “the kundalini that keeps us in motion, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously”.

In our worldview-based conviction, its role reaches beyond a single life: it is the energy “that is activated from time to time in order to call us into life, keep us alive, or one day take up our experiences from this incarnation and carry them over into another body” (see Reincarnation).

The Indian tradition understands this field of force as Shiva-Shakti: “the male-female primal power of the universe”. Shakti, the female, moving power, is in this teaching the kundalini itself.

How does kundalini rise?

“Through the spine flow the most important energy channels, ida, pingala and the sushumna. Through the central channel of the sushumna the kundalini rises.” On its way it passes through the chakras from the pelvis to the crown. Those who experience it often describe it physically: it can rise “like a hot, dazzlingly bright impulse through our spine up to the head centre. It is perceived as a hot current in the back.” Others feel impulses of heat in the lower abdomen that run through the whole body.

The tradition knows the bandhas for this, inner “locks” with which yogis guide the energy – above all mula bandha, “contracting the root lock”, a gentle tensing of the pelvic floor.

The difference between a brief experience and a transformation matters: a person can experience “a flash of kundalini” – or gain lastingly “a new consciousness”. The second takes time. “Today I know that this path will never come to an end.”

What is Kundalini Yoga?

Kundalini Yoga is the path of practice directed towards this energy. It combines “physical exercises (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), mantra meditations, silent meditation, dharma yoga (service to one’s neighbour, a conscious and exemplary way of life), karma yoga (working through one’s own karma)” – see Yoga, Pranayama, Meditation, Karma.

Some characteristics:

• In the midst of life: “In the tradition of Kundalini Yoga, no one is expected to go into the mountains as a yogi or fakir and devote themselves to their exercises there.” Family and work belong to the path – and: “Taking on social obligations belongs to Kundalini Yoga just as it does to Energytraining.”
• Mantras: they play a major role, usually in syllables from Sanskrit. The best known is Sat Nam: “Sat = being, existence. Nam = the name, recognising something and naming it.”
• Breath of fire: a rapid, panting breath from the diaphragm with the emphasis on the out-breath – “When a dog has been running fast, it stops and begins to pant. That is really already the breath of fire.”
• The image of the instrument: “One can rightly say that through the method of Kundalini Yoga our body is tuned like an instrument.”
• The ethics of teaching: “Kundalini Yoga is taught for the sake of individual perfection, not for profit, prestige or show.” And the teacher is not to drive students on, but to enlighten them.

At the Institute, Kundalini Yoga does not stand alone. D. Harald Alke combined it with Zen, which he learned from Roshi Tetsuo Nagaya: “It is like the beam of a pair of scales. In one pan lies Kundalini Yoga, in the other ZEN.”

→ More on the method as taught at the Institute: Energytraining.

Is the awakening of kundalini dangerous?

The honest answer of our own work is: it depends on preparation. “If you are prepared and do not block yourself, it is wonderful. If, however, someone is suddenly overtaken by such states, this can lead to feelings close to panic.” And: “Without prior knowledge a person can be completely confused by it.”

That is why the path includes:

1. Knowledge. “Knowing about these things is already a protection against mental confusion.”
2. The right teacher. “The chosen method must suit the student, and the teacher must suit you!”
3. Proven sequences of exercises rather than one’s own experiments – the methods should be practised as they have been laid down “on the basis of long experience”; without ambition or force.
4. Grounding. “So at the centre of our efforts we should continue to develop our present life.”
5. No expectation. “It need not be like this for everyone. Many of my students have had no experiences of this kind at all.” And: “Of course it is not a must.”

The specialist literature that the Institute itself cites – Lee Sannella and John White, for example – describes in detail strong physical and psychological phenomena that can accompany a kundalini awakening. Anyone experiencing lasting strain should seek medical or psychotherapeutic support; a spiritual practice is no substitute for it.

Where does the tradition come from?

Kundalini is a term of Tantra and Hatha Yoga; in the West it became known above all through The Serpent Power (1919) by Arthur Avalon, behind whom stood the British judge Sir John Woodroffe – in D. Harald Alke’s words, “translations of unique value and seriousness to this day”. Kundalini Yoga as a distinct path of practice was taught in the West from 1969 by Yogi Bhajan; he was the teacher with whom D. Harald Alke studied, and to him this school owes its emphasis on mantra meditation and the energy body.

Scientists, too, have taken the kundalini experience seriously without confirming it: in 1971 the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker wrote the introduction to a book by the Indian author Gopi Krishna on his experience of kundalini – calling him “not always a competent analyst”, but “an eyewitness to the truth he represents” (English edition 1972, p. 5).

Other cultures set other emphases, and we place them side by side as equals: “Likewise, to the Japanese or the Chinese the hara centre, the 3rd chakra with its worldly power, is much more important than the 4th chakra, which the Kundalini yogis emphasise.” With regard to Christianity, too, D. Harald Alke sees “no conflict …, only differences in method, but not in meaning or aim”. Tobias Alke describes spirituality in this sense as unconditionally following one’s own path – as traditional Kundalini Yoga teaches it.

How did the Kyborg Institute come by its name?

“On 26.1.1976 I attended my first course in Kundalini Yoga in the ashram in Hamburg that had been founded shortly before.” From then on D. Harald Alke practised every morning an hour and a half of Kundalini Yoga, an hour of mantra meditation, and in the evening silent meditation. A memory from that time: “It was the end of January in Hamburg, cold, but I radiated such an inner heat that I could walk about in my shirt and was almost too warm.”

In 1980 his teacher encouraged him to open a centre of his own. He found the name in 1985, in a way that suits the matter: “On a visit to Amsterdam I meditated on this task, and the word Kyborg arose in my head.” The meaning came only afterwards: “Only some time later, in another meditation, did I realise that the word Kyborg was meant to be the abbreviation for ‘Kundalini Yoga based Organisation’.” The Institute was founded that same year.

For his own teaching he later translated “Kundalini Yoga” as Energytraining – because many rumours circulated about the unfamiliar name. His comment: “Funny how people go by the label.” The path is passed on according to the image of the golden thread: “Thus the masters hand the students the golden thread which they themselves held and followed for some years, and the students will follow it further, become masters and pass it on.”

An anecdote from the first year of practice is told in the viewpoint The weather maker (1976). Related terms: Life energy, Prana, Chakras, Yoga.

Note: This entry sets out a spiritual, worldview-based view and is not medical advice. It describes experiences of perception and consciousness, not healing effects, and is no substitute for a medical diagnosis or treatment.

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By D. Harald Alke, Tobias O. R. Alke