Shared Transformation Issue 3
SPIRITUAL OPPRESSION
Itzhak Bentov estimates that as many as 25% of diagnosed schizophrenics may actually be unrecognized
cases of Kundalini awakenings. This happens because psychic openings thrust one into multiple realities, creating
an information overload where one may "mix and confuse two or three realities" at once (Stalking the
Wild Pendulum). B.S. Goel says that during his twenty year Kundalini process, he manifested symptoms of just about
every mental illness on record (Third Eye and Kundalini). I know Westerners going through Kundalini awakenings
who have had doctors throw everything in the DSM-III at them. When Gopi Krishna was undergoing his own tormented
awakening, he said he instinctively knew to steer clear of doctors and psychiatrists, no matter how bad his condition
became. He realized they would not have a context to understand his mental and physical symptoms, and that in their
ignorance, they might impose treatments which would have a deleterious effect on the process (Kundalini: The Evolutionary
Energy in Man). In our recent past (and I very much hope it is entirely in the past), even such a natural process
as childbirth has been at times treated in barbarous ways. I have heard atrocity stories of delivery room nurses
forcibly holding shut the legs of a pregnant woman in advanced labor, because the obstetrician was not yet on the
scene to "authorize" the birth. Such practices have resulted in brain damaged or stillborn infants. Just
so, a grossly medically mismanaged and violated Kundalini awakening can result in an arrested or aborted process.
Stupefying drugs may be administered which reduce the patient to a barely conscious zombie. Or antidepressants
and other psychoactive drugs are prescribed which are antagonistic to the process. A temporary episode of apparent
psychosis, when allowed to run its course in a supportive environment, most often leads to new levels of inner
clarity and awareness. Conversely, bombarding the system with mood-altering chemicals may prevent the erupting
unconscious material from being integrated, resulting in a "frozen" condition in which the patient neither
returns to normal nor is able to complete the interrupted self-healing process. More brutal than the arsenal of
drugs are involuntary incarceration in mental hospitals, shock treatments (which permanently damage brain tissue),
and various inhumane restraints. Patients in benign altered states of consciousness, manifesting vigorous kriyas,
have been strapped for days or weeks to hospital beds. Even the softer therapies can be hurtful to someone in the
midst of a transformational process. Professionals with a know-it-all attitude -- but who have no understanding
of spiritual emergence -- can be patronizing at best. At worst, they can plant unnecessary fears in the patient's
mind. Those who have no personal experience with mystical states tend to clump all nonordinary consciousness into
the same pathological category. Those who are unaware of the correlation between heightened spiritual energy and
physical/emotional disturbances will refuse to believe that the individual is undergoing a potentially self-renewing
process. Few therapists and psychiatrists have been trained to deal with extraordinary (non-pathological) states
of consciousness. Many of them try to force the client's experiences to fit into a reductionistic formula of childhood
trauma or unresolved personality issues. Sometimes they are "successful" at this. One woman undergoing
profound psychic opening became convinced that all her spiritual experiences were meaningless hallucinations resulting
from childhood abuse. It's sad that in the name of healing, so much harm can be done. It's disheartening that we
live in a culture which provides so little support for transformational experiences. Until very recently, the phenomena
of Kundalini awakenings and other beneficial expansions of consciousness were virtually unheard of in the West.
The contributions of Carl Jung, who personally went through a psychospiritual awakening, have taken a long time
to have serious impact on mainstream psychiatric thought. Stanislav and Christina Grof are among the pioneers of
the transpersonal psychology movement, yet in many circles, they are still regarded as mavericks. One of the first
people to write a detailed personal account of an intense Kundalini awakening was Gopi Krishna. This superb narrative,
Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, was not published until the mid-70's, and even today, it is relatively
obscure. There are a dozen or so other autobiographical books by different authors which accurately describe Kundalini
phenomena, but they are rare treasures smothered amidst scores of misleading or outright false depictions of the
Kundalini. Hopefully, those of us having these powerful and little understood transformational experiences are
the vanguard of a new epoch in human awareness. The persecution we suffer is probably much less than what someone
in the throes of spiritual emergence must have faced 20, 30 or more years ago. Even if we are unable to get through
to those locked in abysmal ignorance, we can stand up for ourselves internally, and not give others the power to
interpret our reality for us. Through our networking and our unimpeded completion of our own processes, let us
be instrumental in spreading awareness of the true nature of transformation. Let's pray that our children and their
children will inherit a better, wiser world in which spiritual evolution is recognized and honored as an authentic,
purposeful, and crucial part of human development.
-- El Collie