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A reader
writes:
My sister-in-law
is a medium. For about two or three years she has
been having problems that prevent her from helping
the bereaved.
She came
under a psychic attack and has been helped greatly
by a counselor who is also a medium.
In the
last nine months or so she has been experiencing what
the counselor and I believe to be a Kundalini awakening.
Recently we became very worried because she could
no longer determine whether her thoughts were hers
or somebody else's. She began to believe that her
feelings and her daughter's feelings were caused by
the psychic attack.
She is
doing better since I began to research Kundalini.
She at least feels that she isn't crazy! As you can
imagine she has no self-confidence left.
She feels
as though a huge snake is travelling from her sacrum
up through her spine and shooting out of her head
at a fast rate. It is very wide and hurts. It cracks
as it passes her neck and feels as though it has razor
blades on it as it is dragged through her head.
She has
bubbles moving up and down her body which usually
begin at her leg. She wakes with the feeling of tingling
or numbness in one arm and hand. She has severe headaches
and pains in her lower back, knee, leg, neck, and
eyes. When she sits to clear herself of negative energies
which were originally associated with the entities
attacking her, she shakes violently. She shakes too
in bed at night. She no longer meditates or works
at all spiritually. She also has felt at times that
she was taken into darkness and this would be followed
by bright lights which are blue, silver, white, and
gold. She once saw a silver shower in her bedroom
along one wall.
Any help
would be appreciated. Thanks.
Barbara
Dear Barbara,
While your
sister-in-law has some conditions that could indeed
be related to kundalini, she really needs much more
assistance than she can get through you or anyone on
the web.
I urge you
to have her call the Spiritual
Emergence Network and get the phone number of a
therapist in her community who has experience with spiritual
awakenings to help her sort out the issues and find
some grounding. She shouldn't do any practices unless
the person who recommends them has met with her and
taken a comprehensive history. She has a lot to sort
out. This is a wakeup call for her to take a new direction
in her life.
Her mediumship
practices are weakening her body and her mind, while
at the same time opening her energy field. She is taking
in the energy of people she knows nothing about, as
well as the grief of the families she is working with.
The pains could be related to the stress in her body
from opening her system to other energy fields. The
body needs rest and recuperation.
The shaking
that occurs when she tries to release negativity could
be the release of energy that doesn't belong to her,
left over from all the people to whom she has played
host. When the shaking happens she might want to lie
down, pray for the support of a high being she trusts,
visualize white light supporting her, and ask for any
energy that does not belong to her to be removed. She
may shake for a while and then it will pass. It is best
to do this for short periods of time if possible, and
then come back and do it again later, rather than shake
violently for hours, which is rough on the nervous system.
A trusted body therapist might be able to help her with
something gentle like acupressure. A simple ritual afterwards
to balance her could also help -- drinking some tea,
soaking in the tub, or doing something grounding.
Some of
the kriyas (movements) that come with Kundalini act
like stress-reducers; they are a letting-go of excess
energy. I have found that those who work closely with
the dying go through intense release periods. Usually
it passes in a few days or weeks if they stay open to
it, accept it as healing, and release fear. They are
not suffering from possession. We all pick up other
people's energy fields (especially if our Kundalini
energy is activated) and painful energy fields tend
to stick to us cellularly until they are released.
She would
also benefit from meeting with someone to explore the
possibility of lifestyle changes and look closely at
her spiritual process. When a process is as difficult
as hers, it can be caused by many things including the
emergence of early childhood traumas, the overuse of
psychic energies that overwhelms the normal functioning
of the mind, a near-death experience or other bodily
trauma, the use of drugs, intense engagement with people
in pain, or a prior instability in the psychological
system.
Also, if
there is a possibility of possession, this can cause
pain and unusual energy phenomena that look like Kundalini
but will go away if the possession is released.
Another
possibility is that an entity wishes to use her as a
channel. Some people with the combination of characteristics
you describe are opening to become channels. I have
seen the unusual light and energy phenomena that you
describe in these circumstances. I do not recommend
channeling, however, until the lifestyle is very grounded
and the person is comfortable with the concept. Your
sister-in-law has been doing this without much discrimination
for anyone who asks. Just because an entity has passed
on does not mean it is wiser than you. It is better
to seek your own realization. Channeling can also be
a large distraction from spiritual growth because, in
a way, you are giving someone else the opportunity to
express through you rather than using the openess to
connect with your own primary awareness of truth.
It is not
possible to understand what her problems really are,
where precisely they came from, or how to correct them,
without knowing her entire history, lifestyle, eating
patterns, belief-systems, and practices. We would need
to know who she is hanging out with, what was going
on when this began, why and how she became a medium,
who has typically come through her in the past, etc.
In general,
the way to maintain a positive outlook despite some
of the bizarre and uncomfortable processes that sometimes
come with Kundalini is to understand that this is a
life-changing process. It will challenge all of your
existing patterns, beliefs, and habits. It will challenge
you to develop the witness within yourself, at the deepest
level, so that you can learn to observe these problems
and accept them without getting attached to them as
part of your story. The task is to find the real Self,
the centered Self, the core of your personal relationship
to something much bigger than the ego, the universal
Self that all of us share.
Kundalini
energy seems to clear all the obstructions that are
in the way of knowing this Self. People who are committed
to the awakening of the Self, to Self-realization, eventually
become mature in a new way, a simpler way. They become
more grounded in their lives. They have presence and
wisdom and are not off in confused or dramatic altered
states.
When Kundalini
energy is used for dramatic practices, the ego can attach
to them. At a minimum, this diverts one from the spiritual
path, and at worst, it brings serious dangers to the
seeker.
The Kundalini
awakening is the intensifying of the energy of the life-force
-- of consciousness within the individual. All the activity
and movement is simply this energy pushing forward to
purify the physical, emotional, and energy bodies so
that ultimately stillness, presence, peace, and understanding
can emerge. One has to learn to be in the body in a
new way, in touch with the subtle energy field as the
primary life force.
Spending
a lot of time out of the body, or engaged in other-dimensional
experiences, and allowing other energy fields to reside
in our bodies, limit the ability to be fully present
with our true Self as it functions within our bodies.
The body can get sick because it is picking up lots
of toxic energies, or because it wants to get our attention
when we are ignoring it, or because it is crying for
its basic needs to be met. The ego is terribly threatened
by this movement toward spiritual wholeness because
it senses its own demise, for once a person is fully
awakened, ego no longer drives the life. Ego can throw
up many roadblocks such as fear, fascinations, obsessions
about other people, frightful images, physical illness,
bizarre behaviors, distractions, love affairs, sexual
addictions -- all kinds of things which differ for different
people.
Whatever
roadblocks get created, they provide an opportunity
to witness how your mind works without acting it out.
As you learn to do this, it will strengthen your ability
to reach the Self or the center of your being and find
peace. All of this is a major task for those who are
on spiritual paths, and sometimes it's more difficult
for those who have spontaneous awakenings and never
sought out a spiritual path consciously, because they
are naturally attached to being who they thought they
were before the awakening.
Remember
that the Buddha said that enlightenment is the end of
suffering. This is true, but it is not miraculous. It
is a process of letting go of all identifications and
beliefs and turning deeply toward the soul or the core
of your being, until the patterns that get you in trouble
drop away. Problems still happen, but you do not get
entangled. It is a process of listening to your body
and going deeper, listening to the subtle energy body
and giving it what you need.
I believe
your sister-in-law needs to understand the nature ofthe
spiritual journey, to care well for her body with food,
rest, a healthy lifestyle, and supportive friends, to
give up mediumship (at the very least until her mind
is clear of all confusion and her energy is in balance),
to learn to witness her mind and to find a personal
and informed teacher or guide or therapist who will
help her find her center. There are gentle practices
that may help her bring her energy into balance but
they need to be individually prescribed.
Many people
seem to be having problems with intense energy running
through their heads right now. I cannot say why -- perhaps
there is an astrological or metaphysical reason. Intense
concentration can trigger this opening, and when people
are mediums they are opening their mind in an intense
concentrated way that is very likely to eventually trigger
dramatic Kundalini activity. This is not the end of
their spiritual journey, but the beginning. The next
stage is to develop a plan and a lifestyle to support
the spiritual awakening process that honors the activity
of the deeper self that is taking place.
I recently
met a teacher who I believe exemplifies the completion
of this experience of awakening through his simplicity,
clarity, and quality of presence. He is not a Kundalini
teacher or helper but a spiritual teacher along the
lines of Advaita Vedanta (nondualism) who expresses
his message in clear Western terms. His name is Eckhart
Tolle and he lives in Vancouver, Canada. To see if he
is offering any programs near you, or to read his book
The Power Of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,
check out his website here.
Copyright
2000 Bonnie Greenwell. Please respect Dr. Greenwell's
copyright for all material in this column. You may download
it for your personal use, but please do not reproduce
it in any way without her written permission.
Bonnie
Greenwell, Ph.D., is a transpersonal therapist and author
of Energies
of Transformation: A Guide to the Kundalini Process.
For more information about her, click
here. |
