Kundalini-Network in Denmark

INVESTIGATION AND DIAGNOSIS OF 76 CASES OF KUNDALINI AROUSAL

by Marja S 

The Kundalini Network and Information in Denmark, is a non-profit-making association, started by people who have gone through a process of Kundalini themselves. The members wish to help others and themselves. About 250 people (1996), who have experienced kundalini arousal, have contacted the association.

The Network's Else Johansen explains that they try to create a forum, where different points of view can be discussed so that the knowledge about Kundalini arousal increases. The Network urges emphatically all yoga- and meditation teachers, and other therapists to learn how powerful are the energies one is dealing with here, so that the damages can be reduced in severe cases of Kundalini arousal. The education should naturally contain knowledge about how to help those who have been stricken. Many people make contact with the Network after they have experienced a kundalini arousal which has caused a serious crisis including psychic difficulties and problems in the family-life and at work.
But, fortunately there are also people who have had exclusively positive experiences through the kundalini arousal, like well being, expanded consciousness and creativity.
Else Johansen tells:

— More and more people nowadays find that the modern consumer society, based on material values, cannot make them happy. Many want to reach something genuine within themselves, something eternal and imperishable. This has caused the increased interest in yoga, meditation, psychotherapies and body-therapies.

— Who would not want to learn how to relax in a stressed life? And since the adverts promise you higher cosmic knowledge and expanded consciousness, it is natural that many people try these techniques, unfortunately -in many cases- without knowing anything at all about the slumbering powers in man, which it can be most dangerous to release.

Else Johansen has herself experienced the risky side of Kundalini arousal.

- It happened 22 years ago (article written 1996), she tells. I had been practising yoga and breathing exercises for one year. Then something peculiar happened. I felt sexually excited directly after the exercises, and got the feeling of being "high", like when you have smoked hash. Some weeks later I felt an electric current running through the spine and up into my brain after the yoga exercises, where it felt so good that I can only describe it as a "brain-orgasm".
- During this time I became so acutely psychotic, that is I lost control. This, however, only lasted for three weeks, and never came back. The current kept on flowing upwards, and when its power increased - and from time to time it felt like burning fire and was very painful - it affected my health. It was as if I was being devoured from the inside by this terrible energy, which roared through my body and caused a most unpleasant over-pressure in the brain. When this had lasted for a whole year, I happened to see a book by Narayananda, "Primal Power in Man: The Kundalini Shakti", and there I found the answer to the strange thing that had happened to me.
- Later I found other books, most of them written by Indian yogis. Kundalini arousal and its effects are familiar things in the East, but it is not until recent years that people have noticed this force in the West, a force which can bring people to heavenly states, or down into a hell of sufferings.

Else Johansen continues:

- Kundalini arousal especially occurs as an unintentional side effect of yoga, meditation, healing or body-and psychotherapy. Some of the other releasing factors can be: Births, unrequited love, celibacy, intense studies, physical traumas, deep sorrow, high fever and drug intake. But Kundalini arousal can also occur suddenly without apparent course.
- When the process of Kundalini had lasted in me for about ten years, I was too tired out to be able to earn a living on my own. I went to a doctor and said: "It is completely crazy, my Kundalini has been aroused. What shall I do?" And then I told him about my state.
- "You are deeply psychotic", he said. "I will send you to a good psychiatrist. The energy you are talking about does not exist. You have serious misconceptions".
- I got sick pay and later disability pension, diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, without first having been taken in for a mental examination. No doctor that I spoke to concerning my pension believed my talk about Kundalini.
- But in the yoga literature I got a reasonable explanation of what had happened to me. Yes, I understood that the secret purpose of yoga and meditation actually is to release the kundalini force. When Kundalini reaches the brain, it is said to be stimulating the brain cells that are normally not used, so that a higher state of consciousness is reached.

Else Johansen continues and says that the doctors' ignorance of Kundalini has led to diagnoses like hypochondria, escapism, inflammation of the brain, and calcification of the brain.

- In a radio program, in which I participated, a psychiatrist said that Kundalini is just an idea, imported from the East through yoga. People hear or read about it, and therefore they think they have Kundalini arousal.
- But that reasoning does not hold, Else Johansen continues. I have met 250 (1996) people who have had a well-defined kundalini process, and about half of them did not know about Kundalini beforehand. It was a shock to them when the process started. They have been helped a lot, knowing what actually happened to them, because in any case it is an advantage to know what is going on. That they later found an explanation to the odd thing that happened to them, has helped them enormously, because it is in any case an advantage to know what is going on.

Is it dangerous to throw oneself into techniques, said to heighten your level of consciousness, as yoga, meditation, healing and different physical- and psychic therapies?

- If somebody asks me for advice, I prefer to say that one should avoid it if one has small children, since I know four women who have been incapable of looking after their children for a long time owing to Kundalini arousal. But I also know a few who have had exclusively positive experiences, like feelings of bliss, deep well-being, increased energy and creativity.

Else Johansen also says that it is a problem that yoga- and meditation teachers do not tell their students, that some of them might be disposed for Kundalini arousal, and that this could turn their life upside-down.

In an investigation concerning the kundalini process in 76 people, it was shown that 42 of them had never been informed by their yoga and meditation teachers about the existence of Kundalini. It also showed that their teachers - in most cases - were not able to give any help whatsoever.

- A Kundalini arousal never develops the same way in two different individuals, which is mirrored in the different diagnoses they receive, Else Johansen continues.
- 8 got to know they were psychotic, 8 received the diagnosis schizophrenia, borderline psychosis, 7 anxiety neurosis, 3 manic-depressive, 2 hypochondriac, and 2 inflammation of the brain.
- 32 of the investigated people had been taken into psychiatric care, 3 in a neurological ward. 12 could manage with help from the outpatient department; many of these periodically received sick pay. 24 now get disability pension.
- There is a "gap of understanding" between patients and doctors, Else Johansen points out. The patients feel that they - while sitting in the waiting room - know the correct diagnosis: Kundalini arousal, but when they come in to the doctor, they have to shift their world picture to the doctors' - and there the power of Kundalini does not exist.
- 17 of the surveyed persons admit that they have had thoughts of suicide, since it has felt impossible for them to live with an active Kundalini. One has committed suicide. In an interview a short time before he died he said: "The times when I was in hospital, I had something like a red-hot iron bar in my back, and my head felt like it was burning up." In his case, the kundalini arousal happened due to unhappy love.

- There are meditation teachers who have advised people who have Kundalini arousal to meditate even more. This is like putting out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. It is very hard to stop a bolting Kundalini.

One woman had use of rather violent yoga exercises, but generally yoga only use to fortify the process. Some have had joy of healing, others got worse.
- From my experience, I want to advise highest caution. A form of therapy that helps one person can make it worse for another. At the acute stage, it is good to do earthly things, like cooking, which is a fine therapy, and heavy, nutritious food is a good thing. Long walks and easy gardening is good since it is grounds with the earth. And it is wise to avoid spiritual things in the acute phase.

Else Johansen has together with other people who have experienced a kundalini arousal, put together a list of the most typical symptoms:

• Burning heat or ice-cold currents moving up the spine, and in most cases, reaching the head.
• Sometimes a feeling of air bubbles or snake movement up through the body up to the head.
• Pains in varying locations throughout the body.
• Titillation of the genital area, spine, or head.
• Tension or stiffness in the neck, and headaches.
• Vibrations, unease, or cramps in legs and other parts of the body.
• Fast pulse and increased metabolism.
• Sensitivity to sound, light, smell, and the proximity of other people.
• Orgasm-like sensations in different places in the body, or total cosmic orgasms.
• Mystical/religious experiences, revelations, and/or cosmic glimpses.
• Parapsychological abilities. Light phenomena in or outside the body.
• Problems with finding the balance between strong sexual urges, and a wish to live in sublime purity.
• Persistent anxiety or anxiety attacks, due to lack of understanding of what is going on.
• Insomnia, manic high spirits or deep depression. Energy loss.
• Impaired concentration and memory.
• Total isolation, due to inability to communicate inner experiences out.

Of course you can have some of these symptoms without having a kundalini arousal.

Copyright Marja S 1997. All rights reserved.