Kundalini: A Rocky Path Towards Oneness

Alan Foulkes, 67, Male, Oxford, England

Ever since I was a young child I knew there was more to life than met the eye, and from the age of seven I have had quite a number of peak experiences and premonitions.

I have always had an interest in spirituality but have never subscribed to any one path.

The background to my kundalini story is that for a number of years I combined Reiki with a particular visual meditation/ritual that I did fairly regularly. One night I did the meditation particularly well (had a very single concentration) but then fell asleep without closing it off properly. I had a very vivid dream in which this energy was erupting from the second chakra of a statue of Buddha, and then I woke up and kundalini was rising up to my stomach. I was seeing colours, it was really pleasurable, but I knew a little bit about kundalini; enough to recognize it and also to know that I did not have the knowledge or tools to handle it. I managed to force the energy down and stopped doing Reiki on myself and stopped the meditation.

One year later, I was going through an unusual period of extreme anxiety. Superficially, this was about work, but I realized that this anxiety was from childhood trauma that was finding a way to come to the surface.

A good friend recommended that I go to an acupuncturist, and I decided to try this rather than take the antidepressants that were offered by my doctor.

During the resulting treatment I had very powerful energy moving up my body along my spine. It came all the way up to my head. The acupuncturist kept on telling to me to open up. I saw clouds like a William Blake painting, and in the middle, the clouds started to thin, until a golden light came through the clouds, and whoosh the energy went right up through my body and out of my crown chakra.

For 24 hours, I felt blissful. I could see the oneness of everything, colours were very vivid, and I was very sensitive to other people’s energies. I could not stand close to people with negative energy.

However, after 24 hours the experience changed. After a dark dream, in which I was with two characters in a Mexican desert who pointed me towards an entrance to what was like a nightclub in a cave, I felt the energy shift in my stomach. The anxiety came back with a vengeance. I could not function, or go to work. Energy was coming up to my head and getting stuck, like 1,000 watts being put through a 40 watt light bulb.

I ended up being convinced I was dying, could not walk more than a few yards, and spent two days sitting on the end of my bed waiting to die.

I was admitted to psychiatric hospital for 6 weeks, which was a major trauma in itself. I was hearing flute music (a common experience in kundalini awakenings apparently when the heart chakra is activated) but realised early on that had to stop telling them what was really happening to me as it was all seen as psychosis. I am sure if I had told them I would have had the diagnosis of schizophrenia; I was actually given the ridiculous diagnosis of “psychotic depression”; at no point was I depressed, just very anxious.

I was forcibly treated with major anti-psychotics, and it took me a further three months to be able to go back to some kind of “normal” functioning. I came off the medication as soon I could.

About a year later (May 2017) I went to the launch of Emerging Proud in London, which was a ground breaking movement that championed spiritual emergence. It was inspirational to meet others who had comparative experiences, and since then the journey has been a very positive one. Past hurt and trauma have been healed. I have met some great people, and now find myself in a community of people who are experiencing kundalini and other forms of spiritual awakening.

I have also had a strong drive to “serve”. I somehow feel that for me this is part of the process. We are all fundamentally One, so making a positive contribution is only helping ourselves!

I was keen to do my small bit to ensure that other people having kundalini awakenings and other spiritual openings had a better experience than I had, with validation and support.

I facilitated a peer support group for those in spiritual emergence(cy) with Emerging Proud , and then went on to jointly initiate the Kundalini Collective, a peer group community for those in the kundalini process.

I believe that we all experience the spiritual path in different ways; there are many paths up the mountain.

For me I see my sense of self gradually shifting from what I see as the created “self”, to the Self or universal consciousness. It is not a straight forward progression; I do go backwards and get caught in everyday issues, but I definitely have much greater self-awareness and do not identify with my thoughts so much.

As we know, the spiritual journey, although full of many joys, is not always an easy one. But I do believe that in the bigger picture we are all One, and we can all support each other on what may be our different paths.

It also feels important to engage with the crises that humanity has created through its misunderstanding of reality; the belief that we are all separate from each other and Nature, and to try to make positive change.

Raising awareness of kundalini and other spiritual awakening is part of the jigsaw needed to make that change.