Kundalini

 

“In so-called ‘occult’ literature you have probably met with the expression ‘Kundalini,’ ‘the fire of Kundalini,’ or the ‘serpent of Kundalini.’ This expression is often used to designate some kind of strange force which is present in man and which can be awakened. But none of the known theories gives the right explanation of the force of Kundalini. Sometimes it is connected with sex, with sex energy, that is with the idea of the possibility of using sex energy for other purposes. This latter is entirely wrong because Kundalini can be in anything. And above all, Kundalini is not anything desirable or useful for man’s development. It is very curious how these occultists have got hold of the word from somewhere but have completely altered its meaning and from a very dangerous and terrible thing have made something to be hoped for and to be awaited as some blessing.

 

“In reality Kundalini is the power of imagination, the power of fantasy, which takes the place of a real function. When a man dreams instead of acting, when his dreams take the place of reality, when a man imagines himself to be an eagle, a lion, or a magician, it is the force of Kundalini acting in him. Kundalini can act in all centers and with its help all the centers can be satisfied with the imaginary instead of the real. A sheep which considers itself a lion or a magician lives under the power of Kundalini.

 

“Kundalini is a force put into men in order to keep them in their present state. If men could really see their true position and could understand all the horror of it, they would be unable to remain where they are even for one second. They would begin to seek a way out and they would quickly find it, because there is a way out; but men fail to see it simply because they are hypnotized. Kundalini is the force that keeps them in a hypnotic state. ‘To awaken’ for man means to be ‘dehypnotized.’ In this lies the chief difficulty and in this also lies the guarantee of its possibility, for there is no organic reason for sleep and man can awaken.

 

“Theoretically he can, but practically it is almost impossible because as soon as a man awakens for a moment and opens his eyes, all the forces that caused him to fall asleep begin to act upon him with tenfold energy and he immediately falls asleep again, very often dreaming that he is awake or is awakening.

 

 

Gurdjieff on the fourth way, as recounted to P.D. Ouspensky in “In Search of the Miraculous,” taken from the edition published by by Paul H. Crompton Ltd 2004, Page 220.

 

commentary

 

Something ought to be said about Gurdjieff's unique interpretation of this word. There is no doubt that his comments fly in the face of an absolutely massive amount of yoga tradition, which, although it truly has misunderstood the word (see comments The Heart of Yoga by T. K. V. Desikachar) maps out a nearly identical set of teachings, including the vast majority of Gurdjieff's energy centers, which yoga calls the chakras, the action and role of prana in breathing (as outlined in the chapter on the chemical factory in In Search of the Miraculous -see pgs 188-189 in the Crompton edition) and so on.

 

While Gurdjieff's teaching is remarkable and extensive, he did not get everything right: even he, by his own admission, was incapable of comprehending absolutely everything, and he revised his teaching and his methods, as well as some of his ideas, over and over again as he refined them throughout the course of his lifetime. While his description of the inimical action of imagination on man is absolutely accurate,  his use of the word kundalini to describe this action lies well outside any known definition or use of the word.

 

Readers will probably agree that it seems difficult to just up and throw out thousands of years of tradition engaged in by an ancient and worldwide discipline based on the remarks of a single irascible Yogi.  Only those who choose to believe that Gurdjieff was infallibly expounding the Holy Gospel will do so. (Are there Gurdjieffian and fundamentalists? If not, there will be. Every practice produces them.)

 

We will have to, in other words, take Gurdjieff's remarks here with a tablespoon or two of salt. Perhaps he had some ax to grind; we will never know. But since the vast majority of his work, even today, involves developing and channeling the very same inner energies that kundalini yoga describes and works with, his above remarks have to be considered as questionable at the very least.