The Kundalini Experience and the Dark Night of the Soul

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

 
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The Kundalini Rising and Dark Night of the Soul are concepts and terms that comes from the mystical literature. Both refer to the transition and experiences associated with the process of moving from living the reality of our enculturated mind to another reality where we create a more personal relationship with the Divine and the creator/Creator as we come to understand the creator/Creator. Often the goal of the transition is to function as a willing vehicle for the Divine or a as channel of the light. That is, we surrender our ego and life to become enlightened as to how to lead a life lead by the Divine in whatever form we experience the Divine. The Dark Night of the Soul is a metaphoric descriptions of how the stripping away process is experienced. The Kundalini Rising is a metaphoric description of the euphoric experience we have after the stripping away process is completed and our creative spirit is free to unfold or have a greater freedom to unfold and/or we become that vehicle for the Divine.

What is important about the Kundalini Rising and the Dark Night of the Soul is any creative endeavor take us into an aspect of each. Any attempt to access the depth and breadth of our unlimited creativity requires a deep inner journey that parallels the traditional mystical journey towards enlightenment. The reason for this is often the path we take inward to get at the root of what is creating our current experiences is also the path we take inward to get at the root as to how we construct our ego relative to the mystical journey As such, it is very easy to see, and a quite common occurrence, that the creative endeavor can turns into a deeper mystical journey into enlightenment and/or as to how we create our experiences and the mystical journey to obtain a deeper relationship with the Divine ends us only addressing recreating some aspect of our life.

The two concepts Kundalini Rising and Dark Night of the Soul are actually a description of a step in the creative/creation process from different perspectives. They describe what is felt and experienced as our existing world crumbles to release the energy to flow into the new desired creation. Although the two are usually separated and their origins come from different spiritual/mystical traditions, they should be seen together as part of the same overall process. Each are ultimately talk about the same thing.

What is interesting about the two concepts is their focus. The Dark Night of the Soul is a Western mysticism term referring to the stripping away of one’s identity to surrender to become a channel to the Divine. The Western term focuses on the pain and suffering one must endure as the ego is destroyed by whatever means - yogic, meditative or otherwise. Since the ego is strong in the Western traditions, the emphasis is on the changes the ego must endure and it is seen as painful.

Kundalini Rising is an Eastern mysticism term referring to the unlocking and releasing of one’s creative life energy. The Eastern focus is on the energy and euphoric sensations that comes after one does the intense yogic and meditation work that can be tremendously trying and is intentionally destructive of the ego. In the Eastern tradition, there is less focus on the ego because the ego in many of the Eastern cultures is not emphasized nor is the uniqueness of the individual as in the West. In these cultures the ego is not as strong and as such, the discipline one must endure is not consider that unusual as compared to the West. The Eastern ego is more open to be a part of the collective family than the individuals and independent Western ego.

The bottom line is that to tap the Source there will be an ego transformation usually experienced as an ego death that can be felt as pain and suffering at any and/or all levels of being followed by an euphoric rise of creative life energy. The two go together. Both will be experienced to one degree or another and how intense the experience of either depends on how strongly we are attached to our existing world, how much we desire the new world and what we look to feel and experience in life. That is, are we seeking to avoid pain, seeking to find pleasure or simply flowing with lie whatever it gives. The deeper we tap the Source within our own being the greater the ego and corresponding death that will be required and the greater the euphoric rise of energy we will experience. This process can be in successive stages, a one time "all or nothing" experience, or repeated indefinitely in cycles if we do not do the work to sustain the level of energy we tap. To tap and sustain the Source at a very deep level of our being, we can be assured the life we live with an awareness of the Source will look nothing like the life we had before tapping the Source.

In accessing a freeing our creative spirit and/or experience the Source of Creation within our being it has been observed to consciously feel the Source is overwhelming. Some feel they will explode like a balloon. Other see it falling into deep bottomless abyss. Other seen is as simply being overcome with an extremely warm feeling in the heart that will burn them up. Some see it as awaking from the sexual organs moving upwards into an awareness about Creation. Then again, some see it as simply awakening long dormant sexual feelings and/or a passion for life and/or to create life. What each experiences is different. This phenomenon is described in the mystical traditions and each mystical tradition has it own way of describing what is experienced. This is because of how the human mind works and the beliefs it holds as discussed in the topic, "Mind and the experience of the Source of Creation - the trap of mind."

Additional discussion on the Kundalini and the Dark Night of the Soul are found in the topics, "The Kundalini" and "The Dark Night of the Soul."

Related topics
Awakening to an intimate relationship with our creative spirit
Kundalini
Dark Night of the Soul
Calling forth our creative spirit and the issue of sexuality

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