Going Rogue

What makes doing the basics so hard?

Three different sessions, three very different clients, one singular result.

Back in the day, my weeks were full of teaching, and my weekends filled with students learning Sadhana. There were many, probably too many occasions where Kundalini would raise its serpent head, making its prey wiggle and wander through inventive shapes. I would then spend varying amounts of time, all dependent on how invested the student was, on the merits of following this versus sticking with the basics I was offering. Since there were many occasions, I got to see how well I could listen to, feel into, and allow suitable solutions to be presented. Whether these suited or not seemed to be very dependent on how attached these snake-charmed students were. One in particular pops to mind, where his stubborn mind and mine, like two behemoth Sumo wrestlers, lumbered around, neither of us getting over the line.

I was also privileged on many occasions to see Kundalini in action, moving the body like a puppeteer’s puppet, bending bodies into shapes I knew full well the student could never have gotten into alone. Which is fine when you have time to let it play itself out, but suboptimal when you have to get on with everyday life. I have also been a witness to a much darker side of this power, which, when awoken into an unready mind and body, leaves devastation in the wake of its unraveling coils. I suppose it is a bit like any drug in that respect, as I know someone who’s imbibed “herbs” every day for decades and shows little if any side effects. Yet a dear friend knows directly of the costs, as a young lass in his family, her exploratory foray into the same drug has left her with serious psychological difficulties.

Sensitivity seems to be the word which is used to describe the difference between the effect on one person compared to another. To use myself as an example, almost all of my friends love fresh-leaf coriander. My family, on the other hand, don’t really like it, though my dear sister has now taught herself to eat it (of course, she has). Yet I still actively find the smell of it makes me wretch, and eating it, even a small quantity, will leave me grey, green, and burping like I’m a fart cushion being bumped with air. Consuming any after this stage is deeply unpleasant.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a place for the energy of Kundalini, as when channelled, it provides such an effortless current on which to sail your practice and life. But it’s not essential. Especially when the internal channel is more likely than not to have leaky spots, and like our internal gas, when it unwarrantedly slips out, it can be unpleasant not only to us but to those around us. Which is why I always argued, I mean recommended for students under Kundalini’s charms, to stick to the basics and not try to move it themselves. And when it did want to move, see if they could gently soften as much as they could, so not to colour it with their own needs. Obviously, this is a bit of an ask, especially when the whole experience can range from blissful to terrifying.

It’s a bit like asking my friend, who’s just taken a huge hit of herbs, to then focus on something specific. At that point, it’s best to leave them to groove away to the tunes and let themselves and the herbs dance it off. It’d be better to catch them before they take the hit, so to speak. Just like with those students enraptured by their inner serpent, it’s better to have prepared them with the structures into which this energy can be contained and encouraged through the right channels. And for myself, my adventures into unexpected fresh coriander leaf consumption mean that every time I eat out, I clearly verbalise that it is better that the chef omits this devil herb from my plate.

Yet the best-laid path, and regarding this essay, my attempts at the clearest instructions, still seem to lead life to go rogue. Sparks of Kundalini can appear regardless of what you’re doing. The unexpected high I got from being in a cloud of smoke at a friend’s party was unexpected, and even when I have specified no fresh coriander leaf, it has appeared within the dish. So it is with these three very different clients in the three separate sessions. They have all been given similar simple practices, yet each of them in the short follow-up has gone rogue. One talks of parts of the body I never mentioned, another widening where I never mentioned to widen, and the other lifting where I specifically said to soften.

What I see, whether it be consciously or unconsciously, is our understandable and natural attachment to what we see as ourselves. Kundalini pulls on this, drawing us to see ourselves as perhaps special, blessed, where it is simply another drug, or energy there to benefit our being. Isn’t the addiction in imbibing a drug to benefit part of us, whether the result overall is beneficial or not? So even if the instructions are the clearest they can be, we will always have to do battle with our attachments, the way we experience ourselves. Therefore, isn’t a good practice one which dismantles this so we discover what is truly underneath? And even if not truly, it can get us under the surface.

So I offer you a simple practice following on from this essay in a couple of days. And if you’re game, just do the instruction, and see how long it is before you find yourself going rogue.