Leveraging Kundalini to abide in Atma-Jnanam

There are many people in the traditional schools of Advaita that believe Kundalini cannot produce liberation. It is said in the Vedas that only Atma-Jnanam can produce liberation. While this is technically true, it does not mean Kundalini cannot be leveraged or used to help abide in Atma-Jnanam.  In order to really understand this, we must first understand what Kundalini is and what it aims to do for the spiritual aspirant who has the ability to harness this dormant energy. 

 

Kundalini is the primordial divine energy stored within man.  It resides as a potentiality which can only fully awaken or manifest if one is qualified to use this energy for spiritual growth.  Kundalini is an attractive force.  The attraction of the energy helps take your awareness away from thoughts and objects and back to its own source due to its extremely divine and intoxicating energy.  Kundalini is known to remove impurities, imprints, karma and all other types of conditionings.  The reason why it removes these conditionings, is because it travels upward toward higher chakras which represent higher planes of realities where data is expressed in a more immaterial and abstract manner.  These higher realms have lower levels of ego since there is more connectedness and truth that pervades.  Just by abiding in these higher states of consciousness removes the impurities we build while operating in lower realms such as the physical plane.  This is because the more we experience something, the more we want to experience that 'something'.  In this case, the more we experience a higher state of consciousness, the more we are willing to let go of lower states of consciousness to abide in higher states.  This itself is why karma is burned when you harness the energy and build up momentum to carry it upward through the higher chakras. While Kundalini is known to take one to Brahmaloka (i.e. the highest heaven) via crown chakra (i.e. sahasrara), it can also take you to nirvikalpa samadhi (i.e. experiencing your natural self).  However, nirvikalpa samadhi cannot produce liberation through temporary dissolution of the mind.   The mind will only reappear again and the seeker will have to experience duality again as he/she comes down from such a state. In order to produce liberation, one must abide in turiya (i.e. atma jnanam) which allows one to rest in a non-dual source while the dream is exposed.  In this case, one is in nirvikalpa (non-dual source) while witnessing the dream in a non-separate experience. With temporary nirvikalpa samadhi however, duality is not known, therefore there is no knowledge of who you truly are since there is nothing to compare your true self to.

 

While many believe that kundalini cannot produce liberation, this does not mean that kundalini cannot be leveraged to help one abide in atma-jnanam.  Kundalini alone cannot allow one to abide in atma-jnanam.  Only inquiry alone can allow one to abide in atma-janam by using the power of viveka to turn inward consciously and without slipping into any form of laya such as temporary nirvikalpa samadhi or conscious deep sleep (i.e. yoga nidra).  However, Kundalini can be complimented with viveka as it enhances this discriminatory power exponentially to pierce through the veil of the false appearance, for one to fully isolate awareness and abide as that awareness while the false appearance continues to run non-separately. 

 

Therefore, kundalini CAN be used to abide in atma-jnanam and produce the Jivanmukti status (i.e. being liberated while living), BUT ONLY if you compliment your practice with viveka. While most will say kundalini’s only purpose is to cleanse karma (i.e. purify the mind) or allow the seeker to plunge in nirvikalap samadhi or the highest heaven (brahmaloka), it can still be used to enhance viveka while inquiry is underway. This is because when inquiry is underway, the kundalini will naturally trend upward.  Where the mind goes, prana will naturally follow.  And since kundalini is a potentiality, it will have no choice but to arise automatically while viveka is in use.  It is also important to note, that while kundalini can be used to compliment your viveka, the energy alone cannot help one gain full jnana.  Viveka alone will give full jnana and is not dependent on kundalini for this to happen.  But Kundalini is certaintly a power one can use to help enhance viveka and allow one to rest in Turiya/Atma-Jnanam, so that liberation can be produced.  In this case, you are abiding as a non-dual source while still exposing the dream. 

 

Just by abiding in this source will allow you to burn karma since you now rest in an indescribable experience that gives total dispassion to a dream that is not fundamentally real.  This itself is what burns the very root of ignorance, i.e. the mind, so that one can rest in turiya more frequently. Depending on how long one stays in turiya, karma will be destroyed since you become more attracted to this fundamental reality. It’ll burn the desires that attracts one to experience more physical-like realties. All karma which serve as the basis to experience reality, will need to be removed completely so you can rest in turiya permanently. To do this, you have to abide in this turiya more and more until it’s natural without egoic effort.  Only once you have fully abandoned the ego, will you abide fully as awareness.

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The attractiveness of Kundalini is the energy's role to unite with awareness since it functions like a magnet. It wants to draw in your attention to its own source because the subtlety of it is extremely close to the non-existent subtlety of awareness. It has no choice to make this connection like a small river that gets swallowed up by the current of the all-pervasive ocean.

 

So to truly be liberated, one has to experience the highest truth. Though in this special case, the highest truth is not nirvikalpa samadhi through temporary dissolution of the mind.  In this nirvikalpa samadhi, there is no appearance available to understand what truth really is.  The truth in this case (while in nirvikalpa samadhi) is unknowable and only becomes knowable when you come down from such a state to leverage the mind in order to understand what happened. While it is your natural state, this state can also be a form of laya that you fall into unwillingly like falling into deep sleep. You must use viveka to isolate awareness consciously and avoid laya at all costs, so you can abide as awareness while the mind runs on its own (i.e. exposes the dream). In this experience, the mind will only be running autonomously without any doer inside. No one is controlling anything, although some refer to this controller as God. Truthfully, there’s no one there as the role is completely empty. It’s just a mysterious and natural phenomena that runs similar to a dream which you never had the ownership of to control. But when immersed inside it, you feel as if you are the owner willing your character to be. By abiding in awareness as turiya, you expose the dream and so the dream will naturally disappear because you get lost in your own self-knowledge which causes the dream to fade away without being shut off abruptly and put aside (as with temporary nirvikalpa samadhi).  

 

So to summarize, Kundalini can take you to both places.  And in both cases, the body will be given up. In one case, the physical body will physically die (i.e. mahasamadhi) through willfull dealth where the jiva attends to higher realms to seek liberation elsewhere (via status of kramamukti).  And in the other, the kundalini can be used with viveka to isolate awareness from the body, but while still retaining it.  The body in this case, need not be killed for being in turiya while it still operates in the physical realm. Therefore, the former attains liberation elsewhere, while the latter attains liberation now in this very world itself.

 

When one naturally abides in turiya, the physical body continues to operate on its own (showing that it is an appearance unfolding as a mechanical process, and which you have nothing to do with). This is what the conceptual knowledge of Advaita aims to do when it’s put into practical use. And so when jivanmukti remains as is by striving to keep it's own attention resting in turiya relentlessly, the seeker will get lost in its own self. What the body does after is no longer the mukti's concern as duality no longer exists. The soul is now lost in its own knowledge.

 

So while jnani samadhi is possible only by using viveka, it can most certainly be complimented with kundalini. Otherwise, not using viveka and only using kundalini will only result in a form of laya. Now, this doesn't mean Nirvikalpa is not Brahman.  It just means it’s not atma-jnanam. Atma jnanam is needed because it allows one to rest in Brahman while exposing the dream simultaneously, whereas in nirvikalpa, one rests in Brahman without the appearance of a dream.  When atma-jnanam produces liberation, the dream will eventually fade away, while with laya, the dream will re-emerge again.  

 

While atma jnana produces liberation, it is not the final state. Because the appearance needs to disappear to be considered Advaita. Otherwise there will always be a knower and known even when it's in one form.  Once the appearance disappears, there’s no longer a witness (what we refer to as turiya). What can awareness witness then? There is only awareness left (Advaita). 

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