Kundalini.Tantra.by.Satyananda.Saraswati

Levine, studying transcendental meditation, confirmed Banquet's findings of
coherence and synchronization of brain waves, both within each cerebral hemisphere
from front to back and between both hemispheres. (19) Corby and his associates found
that using tantric meditation there was arousal of the nervous system rather than
relaxation. (20) The episode of sudden autonomic nervous system activation was
characterized by the meditator as approaching the yogic ecstatic state of intense
concentration. Corby's subjects experienced: rushes of energy; chills, laughter, changing
and varied emotions; early life flashes; total energy absorption; yearning to be one with
the object of ideation; a great sense of merger and understanding of experience and its
meaning. (21i) Corby's meditators meditated, on the average, for more than three hours
per day and used more advanced techniques than usually studied in the laboratory.
Kundalini in the laboratory
Though it may be difficult, if not impossible, to record the actual kundalini
experience in the laboratory (either because such advanced meditators do not usually talk
about their experiences, or because the laboratory setting and environment is not correct,
or because our machinery might interfere with or explode under the force of the actual
experience), the research findings do tend to support Bentov's and the kindling model for
kundalini.
In the studies of meditation in which activation of the nervous system was found,
there was generalized coherence and integration of the brain and/or blissful, ecstatic
experiences. The experiences of awakening of shakti recorded within the laboratory
setting and their physiological correlates agree with the yogic theory that awakening
takes place in mooladhara chakra and travels up to ajna chakra, affecting the deep,
primitive, animalistic and energizing circuits within the R-complex and limbic system of
the brain, near the medulla oblongata. Energy flows from here to the thalamus to
stimulate all the areas of the cerebral cortex simultaneously and thereby creates a loop
circuit which gradually awakens latent and unused activity within other areas of the brain.
The whole brain begins to pulse as a single unit as energy pours into the central
controlling area of ajna chakra.
We can understand that as we progress in meditation, we set the stage for the eventual
awakening of shakti within the nadis, chakras and brain. An explosion occurs as we reach
the threshold required for kindling to take place. Once we reach this concentrated,
integrated state, neurological circuits take over and spontaneously begin to stimulate
themselves so that the energy liberated awakens new centers in the brain, creating a
transformed state of awareness and being at a new and higher level of energy. The
process of awakening of shakti has begun. From this point on, as long as we continue our
practice, the process of unfoldment continues because once kindling has taken place the
effects are relatively permanent. We develop more and more purity and strength, so that
we can handle the internal experiences as they arise for longer and longer periods of time,
until final awakening of kundalini takes place.