Kundalini – The Rise to Sushumna acrylic on canvas, 48’ X 96’, 2008-09 This piece is an expression of the subtle nuances of life’s energies through consciousness and a mystical spiritual vibration which permeates our souls. This work is a magical vortex which I hope will open a deeper perception of emerging realities within your own awakening. ‘Kundalini’ is a Sanskrit word meaning either "coiled up", "coiling like a snake" or “a pit or cavity”. The concept of kundalini comes from Tantric yogic philosophy of ancient India and refers to the mothering female ‘shakti’ intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation. Prana (also known as universal energy, ki, chi) permeates the entire cosmos and is manifested within our bodies as kundalini, stored in the base of your pelvis in Mooladhara chakra. This kundalini is known as a psycho-spiritual energy, the energy of the consciousness, which is thought to reside within the sleeping body, and is aroused either through spiritual discipline and or spontaneously to bring about new states of consciousness, including mystical illumination. Everything to do with your creation, life, awakening and dissolution is wrapped up within the folds of your kundalini. When this kundalini pranic-energy is partially released it travels through the sub-channels called ‘Ida’ and ‘Pingala’, which are flows of charged ions capable or exerting an influence upon the flow of prana. Ida nadi is a negatively charged flow or prana and pingala is a positively charged flow of prana. “Consequently, discharges occurring between them are likely to influence all the dimensions of our consciousness of one who meditates upon them. In fact, it is believed by some scientists that the psychic centres, or chakras, in the pranic body are nothing more than areas of immense radiation caused by localized accumulations of pranic energy emitting various sub-atomic or ‘elementary’ particles”. S. N Saraswati. When the kundalini is fully released and begins its ascent up through the nadis, the pranic highways within the subtle body, it is like the blossoming of flowers through the Sushumna nadi, the central pranic channel, opening up all the lotus chakras, the energy reservoirs on its path and allowing its flowering to permeate one’s being with its sweet scent of Divine grace. The intoxication of this flowering flows through the seekers being, drowning the universal realities in their entirety. Given the opportunity, kundalini will elevate one’s higher spiritual nature, the soul and its manifestation unite as Shiva and Shakti, not limited to a particular body and mind, but pervading the entire universe. Your own sadhana (spiritual practice) of yoga or meditation and discrimination is meant to dissolve all uncertainties, lifting the veil of ambiguity and allowing us to see higher positive realities in our life. The realisation of that reality is not something to be achieved through sadhana alone, but must be uncovered through deeper insight into the working of the universe. Through your own sadhana, as your own kundalini begins its ascent, I hope an all-pervasive mystical luminosity consumes and embraces your very being. photo by Craig Bannerman