The Spontaneous Arousal of the Kundalini

The kundalini is a dormant feminine power that resides at the base of the spine. Figured as a snake coiled three and a half times, the kundalini functions as an organic key to shredding the veils of samsara, destroying the illusion of self and awakening the extimate psyche. Ancient disciplines such as Hatha yoga and tantric sex are typical paths to arousing the “goddess energy” of sheer potential. In the course of these practices the serpentine power is raised up through portals (chakras) stacked along the spine, culminating in reaching the crown chakra where the charged sexual energy overwhelms the intellect and obliterates everything you thought you ever knew. The awakened kundalini produces a full body orgasm that breaks your brain. It is an ego-meltdown and ecstatic paroxysm of the psyche/soma. Surges of heat and electricity flow through all your body; the ‘thousand-petaled-lotus” overwhelms sense and the senses; waves of pain and bliss follow upon one another. Often lasting for days (or more) it can be mistaken as a psychotic break; its recipients becoming temporarily catatonic or even paralyzed. If Freud describes libido as bound energy that must be expelled, the kundalini and its practices instead retains this flow of libido and draws it up throughout the body and into the conscious mind with the result of spiritual awakening and/or mental breakdown. Given that this ancient phenomena is also known to happen accidentally, that is, without effort or intent, spontaneously, a question arises: what, if any, is the difference between the mystical and the psychotic?