Awake (cont.)

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I was born with awakened Kundalini. It is really not that uncommon. According to the traditional teachings if a woman who has awakened K becomes pregnant and has a child, the child is born with K awake. It may not be very active for a long time (the young body can't sustain too much of a shock) but it is awake. So a young woman is not just working for her spiritual growth but for that of her unborn children.

There were signs, siddhes, as early as 4 or 5 yrs of age that I can recall (precognition during dreams mostly, there was other stuff but some of that was just as likely knowledge I brought along from most recent past life).

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Strong emotion was the very heart of the experience. I had known the story of Jesus since childhood, but I had never paused to consider the implications fully. I became aware of this beautiful Divine Love Jesus had expressed with his death. Then I became painfully aware that my own expressions of Love were pathetic by comparison. This triggered a great fear in me--that I was not worthy of the kingdom of heaven. I cried horribly.

Then I began to pray with all the sincerity a human being is capable of.

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Meditation and praying for understanding

Much fear right before it happened, not much emotion during and Love later.

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This is a difficult question to answer in a strictly "either/or" sense. It was not planned in the usual sense in terms of method, goal, and timescale. However, looking back, it was implicitly planned into the practice of Yoga in general. So the method could be said to be Yoga, but I always assumed that the goal was beyond my reach in the timescale of this lifetime (having heard about Masters who practiced Yoga for many decades to get certain results). Hence it was not spontaneous in the sense of not knowing the background and philosophy, but the symptoms were definitely surprising when they actually occurred. When one hears about these symptoms in theory the reaction is usually "Yeah, so what?", but when they are manifest directly into one's life then one is filled with awe.

a. Was an "eastern" technique involved? ...

Yes. Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Nada Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Karma Yoga.

By nature I am not very emotional. One of the resulting symptoms (but not a trigger or cause) was a deep sense of Universal Peace. Mantra was involved, but not the personal form of prayer (ie I did not ask for anything to happen in this respect).

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I had meditated for 12 years within different frameworks. I had called it yoga, just calming my mind or having a moment with God... different names but basicly just sitting and relaxing and clearing mymind. I had given up this almost daily habit some years before my "awakening" took place. At the time I had done Chi Kung exercises for about a year to keep my body working well....There had been a short and sexually very arousing relationship some months before. In fact the first sign of the awakening was waking up to a whole body/heavenly orgasm at night. ...the thought of using sexual energy for spiritual progess started to make some sense. I started to do some simple exercises (not with sexual energy) and run into spontaneous chi.

It is so difficult to tell when I had my awakening. I had a profound heaven experience while meditating in 1978. At that time I had fallen in love with my yoga teacher...And during the years there were many moments of enjoying "the presence of God" but the felt energy was very weak compared to the spontanous daily process that started later.

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Q Do you think heredity is implicated?

My mother is a charismatic Pentecostal who regularly goes into trances, tongues, shamanic dancing, paralysis, and sometimes exhibits the power to heal. Like one morning I awoke in pain from my arthritis and thought 'Mom is praying for me. I'll feel better soon.' And I felt better immediately. And it turns out she was downstairs praying for me. It's too bad we can't have a discussion about our beliefs, b/c she thinks mine are evil and I think hers are limiting.

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Maybe. I think you can have a senstive nervous system that can make you more prone to activating it. This you can inherit.

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I have whacked-out relatives, but don't think this is hereditary.

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Yes. I think I was born with it. I had vivid dreams and epileptic- like seizures when I was around four. Analysis of my EEG (brain wave) traces all come back labeled abnormal.

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Possibly. Even more then heredity, I am grateful for the parenting. They are truley blessed people my parents.

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;-) Definitely not. Altho' I must say, since my maternal grandmother passed on I've seen her twice in extremely significant dreams. I really never knew her, but always knew I loved her. It did seem she was like me in more ways than a few. My mother never got along with her mother or her daughter. Hmmmmm.

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Only as far as there is slight tendancy toward eccentricity on my fathers side. My paternal grandmother was extremely religious and was almost totally responsible for my biblical knowlege. She was also VERY eccentric, but only to the casual observer.

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Heredity could be a factor. My parents not inclined spiritually (except through art), but my grandmother was.

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Not in my case. My father did remark to me once that I seem to live a lifetime every three years or so. I am definately the alien child in my family.

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There seems to be a predisposition in my case. Dunno if it's cause we're of spiritual family to start off with though. My mother has always been very intuitive and open minded with a tendency to paranormal experiences and my mother's father had a tendency to paranormal experiences as well (once in synchronicity with me).

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Yes. I did not know my father was involved and interested in quantum physics until after his death. He never spoke to me about his ability to see auras and other abilities he experienced.

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Q. Did you have an NDE (Near Death experience)?

When I was born I almost died or did, who knows?
but I remember watching from up above all the labor and the voices and the people involved

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About 7-8 years previously. It was a baaaad thing, which haunted me for years.

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I seem to have a couple of them every ten years since I was little. My most recent one was in 2001, January.

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I died twice and rose again twice, afterwards.

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Re: NDE - this wasn't quite the case for me - but I did undergo a rather severe depression for around 4-6 months prior to the K release... it was in a sense something of a spiritual death...and subsequent rebirth...

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I had a very severe car accident which resulted in a closed head injury. I would not call it a NDE, but I was unconscious in my car for 10 minutes before they got me out. This occurrred about 5 years before my awakening.

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No - I did have a very intense healing experience with Sai Baba bi-locating from his ashram in Puttaparthi, Andra Pradesh to my hotel room in Kovalam, Kerala a week after my visit to Him

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Had a car accident when I was a teen. No injury or leaving the body, but I thought I was about to die and a great peace descended.

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Thanks to all!:))

END

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poll:

A list member wrote: I have become curious > what % of members had a spontaneous awakening.
And another replied:

I had a spontaneous awakening, but the trigger I think was falling madly deeply truly in love at age 16. I was in bliss total utter bliss for 6 months as I felt total love and this huge expansion of consciousness - my world literally exploded. It was the most exciting, ecstatic time of my life. Then the bastard dumped me (his phone number was 666 I joke not...) and I plunged into the first of depressions...

Also I had done a small amount of Transcendental Meditation at age 15 (at the suggestion of my mother - I never took to it and didn't do it for long but it may have been some kind of pre-trigger factor)

Dear List,

I'd like to revisit this subject for a new poll.

Question:

1. Did you have a spontaneous awakening, or was it "planned?"

2. What do you think triggered your awakening?
a. Was an "eastern" technique involved? ( i.e. meditation, Hatha Yoga, chanting etc.) and if so which one?
b. Was a strong emotion involved? Love? Fear? Pain? Despair? and if so was prayer involved?
c. Do you think heredity is implicated?
d. Did you have an NDE (Near Death experience)?

I'm guessing that it is perhaps a combination of factors that triggers K and it would be interesting to see which ones predominate!

Thanks everybody!