Kundalini Awakening Symptoms
Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening
Real Life Experiences & Descriptions of Kundalini Rising
Are you going through a kundalini awakening episode or experience? Let’s find out…
Kundalini awakening symptoms are truly a very intriguing subject. Really there is no correct answer to the question, “What are the symptoms of Kundalini Rising?”, as thankfully, each of us is absolutely unique and thus, on a unique trajectory on the path to Kundalini Awakening. That said, there are some common kundalini experiences that are often reported, which I would like to share with you in this article.
Although we can draw up endless lists of symptoms from third party accounts, I would like to instead make this series about kundalini symptoms that you or I have actually experienced. In this article, I will give a recent account from one of my students about what she experienced shortly after class, and then I will add my own kundalini experiences and observations as well.
In the comments section, I encourage you to add any kundalini awakening experiences or symptoms you have felt, so others can better understand what they might be going through. Here is the recent email I received from my student, Aida:
Aida’s Experience of Kundalini Awakening:
I am a student of the “Gentle Kundalini Class”. I just finished taking a series of exercise specifically for the spine.
As I left the class I felt energized as I usually feel after each class, but this time it was a little different, I was feeling extra aware of my surrounding. Like a light turned on. My back was so straight. It lasted all day.If I could go to class every morning I would go. It makes my day start right in every way. And there are times when I am not feeling like going to class and I push myself to go and do not regret it.Thank you for being my teacher.Aida D.
For those interested, here is a link to the Spinal Warmup Kundalini Yoga Kriya we did in class that day. Thank you Aida, for sharing your personal experiences with us.
This particular experience of kundalini is very interesting and significant. This is because it is the common experience of advanced meditation and of kundalini yoga. In the article, Powerful Kundalini Yoga Battles Profound Zen Meditation, I described my own such experience with kundalini awakening, but not from doing kundalini yoga, but instead from doing Silent Mind Meditation!
Aida’s experience points at the two things that all yoga and meditation boils down to. Energy and Awareness.
My favorite description of Kundalini Yoga is, “The Yoga of Awareness,” and as you see from her account, she felt more aware, as the energy of kundalini had risen up her spine. In meditation, it is the same. The demand for intense awareness, in order to comprehend the thought process via direct perception, leads to energy (kundalini) rising up and elongating the spine. Awareness then follows.
Jiddu Krishnamurti describes this experience of kundlaini energy flowing up the spine as “The rush of water filling up and thus causing a pipe to stand erect.”
When we insist that the spine be straight during meditation, it is simply to facilitate this awakening and thus, to assist in being more aware. I have experienced kundalini rising and puling up with such force, during meditation, that it sometimes make me feel as if I am going to be launched right off the ground or as if it’s going to pull my head off and up into the sky.
Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening:
I am going to describe some of the physical symptoms my students or I have felt due to kundalini awakening. I know there are many emotional and mental symptoms as well, and you are welcome to share those with us in the comments section below. I am grouping the experiences into 3 categories, common, uncommon and rare, according to what I have observed.
Common Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Tingling in the body and brain region. Also sometimes described as ants walking, tickling energy or flushes of energy. The brain being flushed with energy is quite pleasant :-).
- Heat or cold in the system, or running along various channels and chakra centers.
- Fluttering or twitching of muscles.
- Pinching or burning in various regions of the body or brain.
Uncommon Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Pressure in the Third Eye Region (Ajna Chakra). This is pressure, tingling or other sensation in the center of the forehead. Can go on for years (14 years and counting so far for me). Caution: If the pressure, due to certain practices, intensifies to uncomfortable levels you feel are “immense”, you should cease that practice and consult a competent kundalini yoga teacher.
- Sudden bursts of energy anywhere in the body. These are almost always short lived, from a few seconds to a few minutes.
- Spontaneous yoga asans or kundalini yoga movements. They may come on spontaneously, or they may take over, as if on auto-pilot when one is practicing Kundalini Yoga Kriyas or Exercises (For an example see article: Explosive Kundalini Rising in Class Today).
- Kundalini Shakti rising up and elongating the spine.
- Incredible feeling of love and desire for your partner (not ordinary lust, alcohol induced or otherwise :-). Usually comes upon you spontaneously, deep in the night. Sex feels like it’s the first such experience and the intense feelings of attraction emanate from somewhere beyond yourself.
- Unfortunately, pain in the lower back, back of the neck and headaches.
Rare Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Experience of divine light within. Very intense light, usually pure white and incredibly beautiful. I call it the Radiation of the Lord.
- Tremendous vibratory energy (sometimes feels like it’s coming from the inner ears). Very blissful, but can intensify to the point where it would completely overwhelm your consciousness if you let it.
- Spontaneous bliss, intensely pleasurable.
- This one is a bit scary. Complete paralysis of the body. Complete immobility and rigidity takes place. As with the all consuming vibratory energy, it requires some courage to allow.
- This one is exceedingly rare. I have experienced it only once in my life, and have only ever read about it being experienced by one other – the master of awareness, G. I. Gurdjieff. The arms and legs churn like that of a baby. It happens naturally and cannot be simulated. It is also intensely pleasurable and quite a remarkable experience.
There are of course a wide range of transcendental experiences, some of which you will find described in the category Spiritual Enlightenment Experiences. Above, I have provide those that are more commonly associated with kundalini awakening, although many would argue, including Swami Vivekananda, that all enlightenment experiences have to do with kundalini entering the brain region in some capacity.
So if you have experienced some kundalini symptoms as well, please do share them with us below. I think it will benefit others identify if what they are going through is actually symptoms of the ever mysterious kundalini awakening.
Hello: I have suffered greatly because of Kundalini awakening..This happened years ago but I still have the awareness that it brought about in me.. first I was in the process of doing a Chant quite alot of it and I had just become very sensitive as I did five years of primal therapy. I had changed my diet to Macrobiotic.. My friend came to my door and he was invited in he had some cream which he put on my third eye. ( of cource without telling me anything about what he was doing. ) he also gave me a tape of Baba Mucdananda chanting… well six months went on it did take a while but things began to happen and I was being led to do all kinds of thing and they were mostly about God and it got so intense that I went into a psyciatric ward.. and all the time not knowing that I was experiencing Shaktipot( as my friend called it..) I never did get involved in any eastern religioun besides the Namyo ho renge kyo chantingwhich is japanese.) I had four such episodes like this and all the time not knowing this was kundalini and doing other things that I choose to do… I have had increased awareness grant you but have suffered greately as I got so high my mind shut off and my thinking became my talks with God exclusively.. I have since turned to him completly and Have settled down alot and have not had anymore eposodes but My thinking has never returned.. I feel that playing with Kundalini is dangerous to say the least. It is like using street drugs not a safe way..
I am sorry but I forgot to mention the spontaneous, violent nosebleeda and when I look at objects, they appear to be ‘moving’ not out of place but animated?
Hello,
I have had some exhausting physical, emotional and mental issues since Septemer last year. It started with an abcessed tooth at the end of Sept…the abcess migrated into my maxillary sinus cavity, where it has remained. I have always been anemic, but my body stopped absorbing the iron and I became deathly sick. I had to have an ‘iron infusion’ where they put the iron directly into my viens. Also I had sinus surgery in Jan to remove infection as my sinus cavity was completely walled off.
About a month ago, I connected with someone from my past…that’s another story…he has awakened things in me that I didn’t know existed….Both of us truly feel that we are each other’s ‘twin soul’…we have known each other since we were 6yrs. old. We are now 38. But we never ‘knew’ each other. Since reconnecting with him, I have had strange symptoms develop…my eyes feel like they have vaseline all over them…and at times my eyeballs feel like they are melting…everything has a colored haze eminating from it…as if I am looking through 3d glasses…We just had a really close friend die, very suddenly…on march 11…i was talking to him at 5pm and he was dead before 7 and I was the last person to talk to him…Since his passing all of my crazyness has intensified…and now I am having spells where I ‘freeze’ I cannot get warm no matter what…I have been seeing things in my peripheral vision and shivers down my spine. I could go on and on with symptoms…Am I going crazy or what?
namaste Ji,
Naman, yes I am aware of that option. Somewhere I read that its not students who chose their guru but guru who choose their disciples :) Nevertheless, I know points of improvement at my end on which I can work on. With lords grace, pure mind and heart I will meet somebody who could guide me :)
Om Shanti,
Hana
om,,
namastey hana,
sorry i don’t know any yoga teacher,,,
but there is one useful and important advice that instead of finding yoga teacher u search for a self realized guru,,,,it will help alot,,because those who reached their final goals they can guide u effectively….
hariom
Hi Naman
Thank you for your answers. For you or Anmol, do you know any ‘good’ kundalini yoga teacher in New Delhi?
Om Shanti,
Hana
hi hana,
attainment of siddhis is the result of purification and dhyan so formed by self restraint which also fullfilled as kundalini goes up….
kundalini and self realisation has no direct contact for self realisation one has to follow jnana yoga along with kundalini yoga though by the practice of kundalini yoga you can experience bliss of samadhi but it will not lead to self realisation,,,,
for self realisation one requires to do self enquiery, manana, sravana, nididhyasana….kundalini yoga ,bhakti yoga etc.. are only a mean to concentrate mind on ones reality(oneness),,,,so for self realisation you must follow jnana yoga too its compulsary….
Namaste Amnol, Tripti,
as I stumbled across this site let me share some of my Kundalini experience… and also to ask some questions :)
I am a very enthusiastic yoga practicioner. After practicing yoga daily for several months I followed advice of my teacher to do alternative nostril breathing in the morning and at night… and thats how it all started… After few months I started to experience energy in the chakra regions. One chakra after another, I started to experience a som extra ‘additional’ things.. need to have sex, all loving or very destructive and self-hurting toughts to need to control my speech (emotions coressponding to the chakra where the energy was very intensive)… Its very slow process happening over months. Also energy is moving up my spine, sometimes I feel my body is very light which is brilliant for my hatha yoga pratice as my body becomes very flexible. I have to restrict myself from meditating in the evening as sometimes it energizes me so much as the energy goes up and I cannot sleep. This process I described tend to happen in cycles.. sometimes I have the feeling that things happen so fast and sometimes ‘nothing’ happen for weeks. Nevertheless, my question is is it good idea to add to kapalabhati and alternative nostril breathing also the Sordarshan Chakra Kriya? Is attainment of Siddhis neccesarily sign of the awakening process?? And is there any connection between kundalini awakening and self-realization??
Om namah Shivaya,
Hana
Claudia,
With regard to the relationship please see the article The True Purpose of Relationships.
It will give you a new way of looking at and dealing with the pain of the breakup. If you need help in purging your system of the emotional pain many have found SoDarshan Chakra Kriya
very useful.
As far as the Kundalini symptoms go you are already on the right path with the consistent practice and meditation.
All the best,
Trupti
Naman,
It is best to trust the intelligence of the energy as to where and how she should flow. You can use the How To Analyze and Heal Chakra Centers
article to help and guide your progress though.
All the best,
Trupti
Mary,
Right approach – take is slowly and go from there.
All the best,
Trupti
Drama,
YES….. onward meditators – onward :-))
All the best,
Trupti
Pujya Ketanbhai,
Haan, yeh Kundalini ke symptoms hosakte hain. Aap iske bare me aur par sakhte hain issi panne par.
Namaste,
Trupti
Martin,
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It does sound like your Kundalini was rising and awakening.
If you have not really embarked on your meditation journey I would suggest you do so now. The link below will get you started.
Beginners Meditation Guide
Or if you are already on your way then the Kundalini Meditation
may be useful. Just remember to take it slowly as it is in itself pretty intensive.
All the best on your journey,
Trupti
Aishwarya,
You will find the following link useful, you will also find more information and discussion on the same.
Kundalini Awakening Symptoms
All the best,
Trupti
Samir,
People experiencing Kundalini Awakening often have encounters with snakes in many different ways – perhaps this is an invitation for you to begin your meditation journey in earnest..? :-))
All the best,
Trupti
Joe,
Aha – multiple questions :-) I will respond to them in the same order.
The dizziness is a sign that you are overdoing the Kundalini meditation – it being an intensive meditation in itself you need to tone it down and take it slowly.
Yes your symptoms are a sign that Kundalini is Rising.
You may find our Teachers Meditation training program useful.
To get further information on other teachers programs please visit http://www.3ho.com
Wishing you all the best.
With peace and love,
Trupti
Chitranth,
Thank you for sharing your experience. Yes – that is very consistent with the Kundalini symptoms.
All the best,
Trupti
hello
it is almost crazy to be hearing these syptoms because i get the pressure in my forehead from time to time almost like im wearing glasse3s that are not mine or a powerfull magnet is loged inbetween my eyebrows but i now see what it is thank you for sharing this information now alot more people will maybe “WAKE UP” in their own way!
Dear anmolbhai,
mai concentration badhane ke liye ek small chakra par dhyan kendrit karta hu. Jab mai dhyan kendrit karta hu tab thode time ke bad meri body mein niche ki tarah se upar ki tarah zataka lagte hai.
Kya yeh symptoms kundalini awakening ke he?