Kundalini.Tantra.by.Satyananda.Saraswati

Chapter 9
Cross-cultural Evidence
Kundalini is a transcendental phenomena, one which lies outside of time and space.
We cannot understand how powerful the experience of kundalini awakening really is, but
we can see its effects on our lives and the effect that awakening has had in terms of
changes and functioning of society and various cultures. For example, the effect of
kundalini awakening is said by many researchers and yogis to be at the basis of the
experiences had by Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Rama and other great religious and spiritual
figures from history.
While researchers continue to scientifically probe the phenomena itself, its
components, its related events and ramifications and its ability to affect machines,
another type of researcher is examining the phenomena in its social setting and
anthropologically. As a universal phenomena we can see kundalini everywhere, in every
culture and at all times. John White states:
"Although the word kundalini comes from the yogic tradition nearly all the world's
major religions, spiritual paths and genuine occult traditions see something akin to the
kundalini experience as having significance in divinizing a person. The word itself may
not appear in the traditions, but the concept is there nevertheless, wearing a different
name yet recognizable as a key to attaining a God-like stature." (1)
Altered states
Kundalini induces an altered state of consciousness (ASC), that is, it takes us to
realms of inner experience beyond those normally accessible to modern man. Arnold M.
Ludwig writes, "Beneath man's thin veneer of consciousness lies a relatively uncharted
realm of mental activity, the nature and function of which have been neither
systematically explored or adequately conceptualized." (2)
Ludwig and other ASC researchers cite daydreaming, sleep and dreams, hypnosis,
sensory deprivation, psychosis, hysterical states of dissociation and depersonalization,
pharmacologically induced mental aberrations, sleeplessness, fasting and meditation as
examples of ASCs. Anything can induce an ASC, any place or event can trigger a change
in consciousness, however, usually we have to manoeuvre ourselves or use some agent to
bypass the so-called "normal" functioning of the brain. We can say that our normal state
of consciousness is the one in which we spend most of our waking lives.
There are many people, however, who believe that the state of consciousness most
people exist in is very limited and fixed, itself a retarded, degenerate and unhealthy state
which induces fear of change, neurosis and disease. In terms of our inner experiences we
are like retarded dwarfs, like the flea kept under a glass who, after hitting its head on
the glass a number of times, ceases to jump hundreds of times its own height but rather,