Kundalini awakening, whether it occurs within a traditional spiritual discipline or spontaneously, brings challenges for many people. It is as if your system has been amped up from 110 to 220 wiring and you, as the appliance, have not yet adapted to it. It is exceedingly rare for an awakening to be complete before many months and years of clearing have occurred.

Many people pursue spiritual practices in order to feel more peaceful, more harmonious and content with the world. The function of yoga, Qi Gong, meditation and other esoteric practices are to create a new energy pattern in the body, and to help consciousness be more in touch with the interior energy and spaces, and ultimately, peace.

It is not unusual to find yourself feeling chaotic in the kundalini process, and to find those who advise you giving guidance that only makes things worse. As you describe what is happening to you energetically, emotionally, and psychically most people can only apply their personal paradigm – a perspective based on their own experience or reading about someone else.

Here are some basic guidelines that are helpful in responding to an initial kundalini awakening or spiritual emergence.

The Mother, the sage Aurobindo’s partner in the teaching of Integral Yoga and founding of Auroville in India, once remarked that “When there is a great darkness inside, you can be certain there is a great light.”

The truth of what may be discovered during a spiritual awakening is that both darkness and light have their unique lessons to reveal.

Eastern scriptures have described three forms of kundalini awakening, based on the intensity of energy that moves through the body at the time. It may be mild like a river flowing, moderate like a snake crawling up the spine, and intense like a geyser.

Spiritual Emergence or Kundalini awakening bring many shifts in energy and consciousness, working through the chakra system. Chakras have unique characteristics and hold unconscious material that will be unloaded, as well as spiritual potentials that will arise.