Kundalinī

The Serpent of Light

Kundalinī is a most mysterious and fascinating theme, one that simultaneously awakens awe, attraction, and intrigue. Dedicating a few lines to the sacred Kundalinī may therefore prove worthwhile—especially since few truly possess any real understanding of it.

Precisely because of its exotic and initiatic character, layers of superficiality and mistaken interpretations have accumulated around Kundalinī. This began with none other than C. G. Jung himself, who saw in the system of the cakra, as likewise in the mysteries of alchemy, mere psychological projections or hypostatizations. Quite the contrary: if one turns to a Hindu Tantra—and it is in these foundational texts, rather than Western interpretations with their often conceptual limitations, that one must seek Kundalinī—she is described, more or less metaphorically, as a serpent: a latent and explosive energy that unfolds within the body and mind of human beings.

As a point of departure one may take the Ṣaṭ-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa (“Description of the Six Centres”), the Tantra that Sir John Woodroffe—better known as Arthur Avalon, Chief Justice in Calcutta during the colonial era—translated into English in 1919, accompanying it with a meticulous commentary. While he essentially misconstrued its true meaning (precisely because he sought to confine Kundalinī within the bounds of the rational mind—his own and that of his readers), he simultaneously disclosed to European culture the mystery of the Serpent Power. This Tantra offers a paradigmatic portrayal of Kundalinī, serving, one might say, as a finely wrought and comprehensive compendium of her nature and effects.

The Tantra opens thus: “Now I speak of the first sprouting shoot (of the Yoga plant) of complete realization of the Brahman, which is to be achieved, according to the Tantras, by means of the six Cakras and so forth in their proper order”—for those erudite lovers of the Upaniṣad it should be remarked that the aim of the Tantra is in fact identical to that of the Vedānta: the realization of Brahman; the means, too, are the same: in the Tantra it is the unfolding of the various cakra, in the Vedānta the control of prāṇa, which, as these learned souls will no doubt be aware, is the very “substance” of which the cakra are made. It then begins by describing the three principal nāḍī: Suṣumṇā, which corresponds to the spinal column, and on either side Iḍā and Piṅgalā, which intertwine at the height of the various cakra (this figure, incidentally, that intertwining of Iḍā and Piṅgalā around the central channel, is the very archetype of Hermes’ caduceus). The nāḍī are the channels—seventy-two thousand in number—that animate the subtle body, or yogic body, composed of prāṇa. Prāṇa, in turn, is the subtle energy that pervades all things: it is Śakti, the dynamic power of the Principle that is Śiva. Hence prāṇa is in truth Consciousness itself, that dimension in which every living form partakes by the very fact of being alive. Man draws prāṇa into his body through the breath; and, as is well known, prāṇāyāma is one of the foundational disciplines of the physical yoga —“by controlling the breath, one controls the mind,” say the yogin. Kundalinī is called prāṇa-śakti because she is the primordial energy in its most pristine form.

The cakra—literally “wheels”—are the points where the three nāḍī intersect: subtle ganglia of energy, analogous to lotus flowers that open as Kundalinī rises through them, each unfolding a new form of consciousness. The very word Kundalinī means “coiled,” for she is said—also in the Ṣaṭ-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa—to be a serpent wound three and a half times upon herself, asleep in the lowest cakra, the Mūlādhāra-cakra, or root centre, situated below the base of the spinal column, in the perineal region, at the mouth of the Suṣumṇā-nāḍī. (Strictly speaking, within the tradition of the Ṣaṭ-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa the Mūlādhāra is not counted as a cakra proper, for it forms the foundation of the six higher centres; in other traditions—and more commonly today—the cakra are said to be seven, including the Mūlādhāra, whereas in the subtle physiology of the Tibetan schools they are reckoned as five. Seven or five are the principal cakra; beyond them, others still are said to exist.)

If awakened, Kundalinī rises at once like a royal cobra, piercing all the cakra until she ascends to the crown of the head, where she blazes forth in the light of a thousand suns. The cakra through which Kundalinī passes are, in order: Svādhiṣṭhāna, placed “at the root of the genitals”, wherein he who meditates conquers the darkness of ahaṃkāra (egoity) and ignorance; Maṇipūra, at the navel, the seat of the inner fire; Anāhata, at the heart, and “he who meditates upon this Heart Lotus becomes (like) the Lord of Speech”; Viśuddha, at the throat, and he who contemplates it “sees the three periods”; Ājñā, at the centre between the eyebrows, whose opening is the vision of the so-called Third Eye—“he then also see the Light which is in the form of a flaming lamp”—a vision that renders the yogin omniscient and all-seeing (“He realises his unity with the Brahman and acquires excellent and unknown powers”). The final cakra is the Sahasrāra, the lotus of a thousand petals, situated at the crown of the head where the Suṣumṇā-nāḍī terminates. It is the seat of Param-guru Śiva, the manifestation of full divinity within man himself. Just as Śiva is the static principle of Reality (pure Consciousness) and the Goddess Śakti is its dynamic manifestation (its energy, and thus prāṇa and māyā alike), so each human being bears within himself that same vital energy, the true source of life and the principle of transcendence of matter. When Kundalinī—the supreme Śakti within us, the divine spark—unites with her Śiva in the Sahasrāra-cakra, man becomes divine. Yet, the plenitude of this superhuman realization is attained only by mastering Kundalinī’s return, her conscious descent from the Sahasrāra-cakra back through all the lotus flowers to the Mūlādhāra-cakra, as Śrī Ādi Śaṅkara illustrates in the Saundarya Lahari.

The Ṣaṭ-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa offers a technical description of the awakening of Kundalinī; yet this sacred serpentine power, in another sense, runs through—and indeed forms the very backbone of—the entire range of India’s esoteric knowledge. Its echoes can be found from the holy Ṛgveda, where Kundalinī is prefigured in Agni, the mystic Fire, 'the immortal among mortals,' through the* Bhagavad Gītā*, where Kṛṣṇa precisely outlines the discipline of Haṭha-Yoga meant to awaken the sacred serpent force, through the refined Kashmiri master Abhinavagupta, and down to the modern sannyāsin schools of Śivānanda and Satyananda, authors of numerous works on Kundalinī-Yoga and Vedānta. Well known—at least among curious readers—are the accounts of Gopī Krishna, the Indian paṇḍit in whom Kundalinī awoke unawares, and in the worst possible way, bringing upon him severe psychic and physical afflictions until a yogin taught him the ancient way. Less known is that even Śrī Aurobindo, while imprisoned for inciting India’s struggle for independence, experienced Kundalinī-Yoga during that time.

And though Kundalinī is commonly associated with ascetic yogin—bearded, saffron-robed, and withdrawn from the world—in truth, such men devote their lives to the attempt to awaken her. However, he who truly possesses the power of the serpent lives beyond karma, within real life itself—like the Buddha Śākyamuni. In the same way, Kundalinī stands at the centre of the first level of practices in the esoteric yoga of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism — both in the yoga of Padmasambhava of the Old Translation school and in the Dharma of Nāropa, which form the basis of the schools of the New Translation. The well-known gTum-mo, one of the secret Tibetan exercises, is nothing other than the rendering of the sanskrit term Chāṇḍālī, the “fierce maiden,” that is, Kundalinī herself. And even beyond the boundaries of the Orient, Kundalinī remains the hidden heart—though often unacknowledged—of many esoteric traditions, from ancient Egypt to alchemy.

If what is described in the Ṣaṭ-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa and in many Hindu tantra may be called the physical aspect of Kundalinī, it is nevertheless far from sufficient to convey the true depth of this mystery. In the Indian tradition, Kundalinī is in fact revered as the Goddess of Speech, and many yogin honour her under this very name. It is said that among the first signs of her awakening are a sudden clarity of mind, a rare eloquence, and even the wondrous understanding of different tongues—just as it was granted to the disciples upon whom Jesus caused the Holy Spirit to descend. More precisely, as the ṛṣi Gheraṇḍa and Patañjali teach, the first paths of the science of Yoga are Haṭha-Yoga (the yoga of posture, breath, and bodily discipline), followed by Rāja-Yoga (the yoga of the mind). (It is worth noting that while the West, in its habitual superficiality, has often regarded Patañjali as a mere philosopher, his iconography, depicting the lower part of his body coiled three and a half times like a serpent, clearly suggests a deeper esoteric understanding.) The awakening of Kundalinī, then, is not the highest state to which man can ascend, but rather the first and indispensable step toward assimilation into divine life. In the Ṛgveda, after Agni, the deity Soma is invoked—not, as Western commentators foolishly imagine (and some Eastern ones repeat), as a concoction of hallucinogenic plants, but as the continuation of that psycho-organic process through which the whole inner nature of man is transmuted, a process set in motion precisely by Kundalinī’s ascent.

It is not a question of believing or not believing in these things. The sages of India have repeated for millennia that this sacred dimension can only be experienced—or not experienced; to believe or disbelieve, to understand or fail to understand, is of no consequence. And if this vision of reality—and of man above all—were indeed the true one, it would merely mean that the Western world has spent more than twenty centuries chasing conceptual phantoms. In any case, the depth of thought and of language attained by the sages of India is surely not inferior to the complex tapestry of abstractions that constitutes our own world.

(Detail of manuscript painting of a yogin in meditation, showing Kundalinī serpent coiled in belly around Suṣumṇā-nāḍī) ⸻
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