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.
Hi all,
I have just started meditating yesterday and knew all this stuff, but before I had the knowledge, I had experienced most of the symptoms! And I have the ability to call up the ‘inner ear vibrations’ at will? I’m only 13 and confused :P
Thanks,
Hubert
hello everybody,
please visit http://www.sidhshakti.tv
i can tell you that your life will change once you start doing kundalini meditation under a spiritual guru.
http://www.sidhshakti.tv
you can do this meditation along with other meditations online from any place anywhere in world.
hope you are there
regards
sushil
2soni.sushil@gmail.com
hello sir …..i need to know that ….when i start meditating …should i say omkar continously…..i have awaken my kundalini….please give some tips through e-mail
Hi Anmol
I used to meditate few years back but afterwards i couldnt continue it. when i was doing my meditation i felt a violet color auora in my forehead and it sometimes lasts for minutes sometime it goes with in a second, i couldnt understand that what is happening. for the past 10 days i have started meditating and after these many years also i can able see the same auora in my forehead. i need to know what it is, is that my mind simulates such kind of things since i am reading about of meditation chakras & auora? or it is the begining of my meditative state. it will be helpful to me if you could explain me and tell how to proceed.
Another problem is if i concentrate on things like listening on lectures or meetings or if i need to give some speech are anything which need more concentration, at that period i started getting headache(after sometime only) i am thinking that i am so weak so that i cant concentrate on suchthings is that true? or because of i already practised meditation(even i did kundalini yoga for sometime in the past)i am getting those headache?.even i can feel the pain in my leg also(it pains like i was standing in one leg for sometime). I cant relate any of the things but if you guide me it will be more helpful. And also tell me how i should proceed now so that the violet chakra which i feel can be used to go into deep meditation(past i can sit only upto 10 – 15mins but now i can able to sit 1hr or 40 mins easily) even i enjoy by sitting such long time.
Hi,
My kundalini related story is here:
It’s free to read it…
Hi Anmol,
I want to share some of my experiences with you.
I haven’t practised any kundalini awakening methods but ya i used to practice yoga occasionally since childhood. I usually feel a sense of some thing flowing up the spine to the upper part of my skull. This is accompanied by goosebumps, and a pleasurable experience. I can voluntarily control it and can experience it whenever i wish. I just have to close my eyes and wish for it. Is it a symptom of kundalini awakening? If not then can you help me understand these??
I have been experiencing intense tingling and pain in the back of my neck and lower back, quite unlike any back pain I’ve had before. I’ve done yoga for many years, but only started kundalini a few weeks ago. Could it be realted? It doesn’t feel like usual ‘problems’ I have with my back, it is very different!
Extreme vibration felt around my arms, not being able to move as in another vibration, tingling, burning on my shoulders and heat racing through my body, like I’m going to explode. Can really understand spontaneous combustion of people. The heat is nothing like I have ever felt before. I have felt my body burning. I desperated need water after it.
I don’t think anyone should ge into kundalini until their life is stable and they are in their sixties! As long as you have desire, you have friction and if you are young, kundalini is more difficult because your mind is still immature. Not such a great choice.
im glad i found this sight. i have been feeling this spinkling in the back of my neck since a child. this spinkling has become more intense recently thus why i am searching for new information. the sprikling appears to have power to heal and is sensitive to thought also it seems to be activated when i hear the name of god people praying sincerely etc. i really need help in understanding. also have experienced pressure in middle of forehead. sperm count increased by 10X after last major spinkling
I use the Kelly Howell method to and series of meditation and breathing exercises for awakening my Kundalini, almost every time I do this I experience A brilliant divine white light come down and envelope me completely, when im out of this meditation I feel more alive and also I believe that by awakening the Kundalini you one can tap into other abilities for example clairvoyance and other psychic abilities. I would welcome any comments upon this.
Dear Mr Anmol
I was planning to start doing kundalini yoga regularly but after reading all the experiances the people have gone through, one gets scared. Is there any particular stage when these experiances start or can even a beginner experience them?
Also to know you have release it through the hands there should be a sure sign of goosebumps on the underside of your forearms.
If you start to feel a lot of pressure in the head from kundalini exercises you need to learn to open the heart chakra and carry the energy from there down into your arms if you cannot do this then cease the practice until months or even years later or risk insanity. There has to be a release if you cannot make it happen by carrying it through the rest of the body then give you body the time it needs to let it release it in its own way.
If you start to feel a lot of pressure in the head from kundalini exercises you need to learn to open the heart chakra and carry the energy from there down into your arms if you cannot do this then cease the practise until months or even years later or risk insanity.
To Filip’s question, that is NOT kundalini at all. What you experience is experiencing is termed “exploding head syndrome” look it up if you think I’m joking.
To Uli, there is a chance you have awakened kundalini either prematurely or accidentally. If you have done so, what is happening the the low level of your consciousness is clashing with the high consciousness state of the kundalini. Either you are too attached to your ego, your emotions, or you have too much negativity inside of you, or all, these do not mix with the with the higher consciousness bliss once the kundalini is awakened.
I’ve been experiencing a lot of heat in the body since starting a kundalini yoga practice last month, am not sure if it’s also related to the fact that I also started using a far infrared sauna daily at around the same time, although using the sauna never did this in the past. The heat is an unusual sensation and not particularly uncomfortable, just get hot and a bit sweaty intermittently and need fewer covers at night. Probably due to the exercises aggravating an old injury my neck has been killing me however, so I’m being very careful about it and using arnica gel a lot to help relieve the pain. On the whole the practice has been very beneficial and I do feel better, so thank you!
Regarding Filip’s question (27/4/2010) of a “loud bang going off in his head”, a Kundalini Awakening is certainly a possibility, but it is a fairly widespread occurrence across the general population.
Please see: http://www.dailyping.com/archive/2002/01/05/
for the many comments on this subject
I have to say i agree with ULI.
I know nothing about kundalini rising. What i know is that whatever is referred to as bliss is actually harming the body because of its intensity. There is no heat in the spine, neither do I meditate. There is a tremendous heat source in the chest area – maybe the thymus gland. Headaches, passing out, conscious darkness, twitching and not being able to walk sometimes as well as some sort of desirelessness are only a few sideffects. What can be done ? Someone help me, cause all physical tests came back as normal.