A view on Kundalini
Dec 20, 2004 02:29 AM
by new7892001
Hi,
the following text might be of interest.
For further discussion on Krishnamurti's teachings, please visit:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/J-Krishnamurti_andLife/
Regards,
j.
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J. Krishnamurti
on Kundalini
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The other question is what Pupulji raised about an endless journey.
You want to discuss kundalini?
P: Yes, sir.
K: Sir, first of all, if you really want to discuss, have a dialogue
about kundalini, would you forget everything you have heard about it?
Would you? We are entering into a subject which is very serious. Are
you willing to forget everything you have heard about it, what your
gurus have told you about it, or your attempts to awaken it? Can you
start with a completely empty state?
Then you have to enquire, really not knowing anything about
kundalini. You know what is happening now in America, in Europe.
Kundalini centres have been opened by people who say they have had
the experience of the awakening of kundalini. Scientists are
interested in it today. They feel that by doing certain forms of
exercise, breathing, they will awaken the kundalini. It has all
become a moneymaking concern, and it is being given to people who are
terribly mischievous.
Q: We just want to know whether there is an energy that can wipe out
conditioning.
K: So long as self-centred activity exists, you cannot touch it. That
is why I object to any discussion on kundalini or whatever that
energy is, because we have not done the spade work. We don't lead a
life of correctness and we want to add something new to it and so
carry on our mischief.
VA: Even after awakening kundalini, self-centred activity continues.
K: I question whether the kundalini is awakened. I don't know what
you mean by it.
VA: Sir, we really want to understand this, because it is an
actuality sometimes.
P: Do you know of an energy when self-centred activity ends? We
assume that this is the source of this endless energy. It may not be.
K: Are you saying the ending of this movement from the centre to the
circumference and from the circumference to the centre, the end of
that …
P: Momentary ending of it …
K: No, the ending of it, the complete ending of it – is the release
of that energy which is limitless?
P: I don't say that.
K: I am saying that.
P: Which is a very different thing to me saying it.
K: Can we put kundalini energy in its right place? A number of people
have the experience of what they call kundalini, which I question. I
question whether it is an actual reality or some kind of
physiological activity which is attributed to kundalini. You live an
immoral life in the sense of a life of vanity, sex, etc. and then you
say that your kundalini is awakened. But your daily life, which is a
self-centred life, continues.
P: Sir, if we are going to examine it, let us see how it operates in
one. The awakening of kundalini is linked to certain psychic centres
located at certain physical parts of the body. That is what is said.
The first question I would like to ask is whether that is so? Has the
release of this energy, which as no end, anything to do with the
psychic centres in the physical parts of the body?
A: Before we go into that, sir, is it not essential to enquire
whether the person who acquires that energy is incapable of doing
harm.
K: No, sir. Do be careful. How can we say somebody is incapable of
doing harm? They say many Indian gurus have done tremendous harm
misleading people.
A: That is what I say, sir. I feel that unless the person's heart is
cleansed of hate, and his thirst to do harm is completely transmuted,
unless that has happened, then this energy can do nothing but more
mischief.
K: Achyutji, what Pupulji is asking about is the standard acceptance
of the power of this energy going through various centres and the
releasing of energy and so on.
A: I say, sir, that before we ask that question, there is in the
Indian tradition a word which I think is very valuable. That word
is `adhikar'. Adhikar means that the person must cleanse himself
sufficiently before he can pose this question to himself. It is a
question of cleansing.
K: Are you saying that unless there is a stoppage of this movement
from the centre to the circumference and from the circumference to
the centre, that Pupulji's question is not valid?
A: I think so. I will use another word, the Buddhist word
is `sheela'. It is really the same. The word `adhikar' used by the
Hindus and the word `sheela' used by the Buddhist really mean the
same thing.
P: I take it that when one asks the question, there is a depth of
self-knowing with which one asks. It is not possible to investigate
the self which also releases energy, if one's life has not gone
through a degree of inner balance, otherwise what K says has no
meaning. When one listens to Krishnaji, one receives at the depth to
which one has exposed oneself, and therefore I think it is right to
ask the question. Why is this question more dangerous than any other
question? Why is it more dangerous than inquiring into what is
thought, what is meditation, what is this, what is that? To the mind
which will comprehend, it will comprehend this and that. To the mind
which will not comprehend, it will comprehend neither. To the mind
which wants to misuse, it will misuse anything.
K: Unless your life, your daily life is a completely nonself-centred
way of living, the other cannot possibly come in.
VA: There is arising of energy – there is delight at first, then fear.
S: We would like to know why that energy creates fear.
VA: Fear comes later. One experiences death and everything vanishes.
You are alive again and you are surprised that you are alive again.
You find the world again, and your thoughts, and your possessions and
desires and the whole world slowly come back.
K: Would you call that, sir, the awakening of kundalini?
VA: I don't know, sir.
K: But why do you label it as the awakening of kundalini?
VA: For a few days after that, for a period of a month, the whole
life changes. Sex vanishes, desires vanish.
K: Yes, sir, I understand. But you do come back to it again.
VA: One comes back to it because one doesn't understand.
K: That is what I am saying, sir. When there is a coming back to
something, I question whether you have had that energy.
P: Why has this question awakened so many ripples? Most people go
through a great deal of psychic experiences in the process of self-
knowing. One also understands, at least one has understood because
one has listened to Krishnaji, that all psychic experience when they
arise, have to be put aside.
K: Is that understood? Psychic experiences must be totally put aside.
A: We put them aside, not only give no importance to them.
VA: Some new passages do get opened in the body, and the energy keeps
rising in those passages whenever it is required.
K: Sir, why do you call it something extraordinary? Why do we
attribute something extraordinary to this? I am just suggesting, it
may be that you have become very sensitive. That is all. Very acutely
sensitive.
VA: I have more energy.
K: Sensitivity has more energy. But why do you call it extraordinary,
kundalini this, that or the other?
P: The real problem is to what extent is your life totally changed. I
mean the only meaning of awakening is if there is a totally new way
of looking, a new way of living, a new way of relationship.
…
K: I live a life of torture, misery, confusion. That is my basic
feeling and can that end? There is no motive.
…
Can that whole process end? Only then can I answer the other
questions, which have tremendous significance.
P: What is the nature of the soil of the human mind which has to be
cultivated to receive the other? You tell me that is also a wrong
question. You say I am in conflict, I am suffering and I see that a
life of conflict and suffering has no end.
K: That is all. If it cannot end, then the other enquiry and
investigation, and the wanting to awaken the other in order to wipe
this out is a wrong process.
P: Obviously.
K: It is asking an outside agency to come and clear up your house. I
say in the process of clearing the house, this house, there are a
great many things that are going to happen. You will have
clairvoyance, the so-called `siddhis' and all the rest of it. They
will all happen. But if you are caught in them, you cannot proceed
further. If you are not caught in them, the heavens are open to you.
You are asking, Pupul, is there a soil that has to be prepared, not
in order to receive that, but the soil has to be prepared? Prepare,
work at that, clean the house so completely that there isn't the
shadow of escape. Then, we can ask, what is the state we are all
talking about. If you are doing that, preparing, working at the
ending of sorrow, not letting go, if you are working at that and you
come along and say is there something known as kundalini power, then
I am willing to listen.
A: Sir, the reason why I objected is that in the Hatha yoga Pradipika
text we make a statement that this investigation into kundalini is in
order to strengthen you in your search.
K: For God's sake, Achyutji, are you working at clearing up the house?
A: Definitely.
K: Now, what is the question? Is there an energy which is non-
mechanistic, which is endless, renewing itself? I say there is. Most
definitely. But it is not what you call kundalini. The body must be
sensitive. If you are working, clearing up the house, the body
becomes very sensitive. The body then has its own intelligence, not
the intelligence which the mind dictates to the body. Therefore, the
body becomes extraordinarily sensitive, not sensitive to its desires,
or sensitive to wanting something, but it becomes sensitive per se.
Right? Then, what happens? If you really want me to go into it, I'll
do so. The people who speak of the awakening of kundalini, I
question. They have not worked at the other, but say they have
awakened kundalini. Therefore, I question their ability, their truth.
I am not antagonistic, but I am questioning it. A man who eats meat,
wants publicity, wants this and that and says his kundalini is
awakened, I say it is nonsense. There must be a cleansing of this
house all the time. Then Pupul says, `Can we talk about an energy
which I feel must exist?', not theoretically but of which she has had
a glimpse, the feeling of it, an energy that is endless; and K comes
along and says `yes', there is such a thing. There is an energy which
is renewing itself all the time, which is not mechanistic, which has
no cause, which has no beginning and therefore no ending. It is an
eternal movement. I say there is. What value has it to the listener?
I say `yes' and you listen to me. I say to myself what value has that
to you? Will you go off into that and not clear up the house?
P: That means, sir, that to the person who enquires, it is the
cultivation of the soil which is the ending of suffering, which is
essential.
K: The only job. Nothing else. It is the most sacred thing, therefore
you can't invite it. And you are all inviting it.
Clearing up the house demands tremendous discipline, not the
discipline of control, suppression and obedience, you follow? In
itself it demands tremendous attention. When you give your complete
attention, then you will see a totally different kind of thing taking
place, an energy in which there is no repetition, an energy that
isn't coming and going. It is not as though I have it one day and a
month later I don't have it. It implies, keeping the mind completely
empty. Can you do that?
VA: For a while.
K: No, no. I have asked: Can the mind keep itself empty? Then, there
is that energy. You don't even have to ask for it. When there is
space, it is empty and therefore full of energy. So, in cleansing, in
ending the things of the house, of sorrow, can the mind be completely
empty, without any motive, without any desire? When you are working
at this, keeping the house clean, other things come naturally. It
isn't you who are preparing the soil for that. That is meditation.
P: And the nature of that is the transformation of the human mind.
K: You see as Apa Saheb was saying, we are programmed to centuries of
conditioning. When there is the stopping of it, there is an ending of
it. If you pull the plug out of the computer, it can't function any
more. Now, the question is: Can that centre, which is selfishness,
end? And not keep on and on? Can that centre end? When that ends,
there is no movement of time. That is all. When the movement of the
mind from the centre to the periphery stops, time stops. When there
is no movement of selfishness, there is a totally different kind of
movement."
J. Krishnamurti
Exploration into Insight, Bombay, 18th januari, 1977, p. 83- 92 (CD-
Rom code EP79EI-07)
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