When I was a kid, waking up was what you did in the morning. It was a part of the day anticipated more enthusiastically at weekends than on schooldays. My first inkling that there was more to waking up than this was during my early days of practicing Buddhism. I soon discovered that Buddha was sometimes referred to as the Awakened One. The implication being, I suppose, that the rest of us were, to varying degrees, asleep.
Nowadays, all sorts of people are waking up in all kind of way. I know this, because the internet tells me so.
One common type of waking up concerns folk who are beginning to realise some truths about politics, parapolitics, the news, the media, education, the financial system, and so on. They are beginning to arouse from a slumber induced by being blindfolded, having the wool pulled over their eyes, or some such. This kind of waking up can be truly shocking, making a person question everything they have ever considered to be real, to be true. The entire world begins to crumble before their newly-opened eyes. It can be profoundly disturbing, depressing, or worse.
The other type of awakening is of a more directly spiritual nature. There is plenty of it about, especially online and in magazines concerned with 'mind and spirit'. Most frequently, those people involved talk about non-duality, oneness, cosmic consciousness, divine presence, or some such. While less dark than the first type of waking up, it can nevertheless deeply shake up the individual's sense of who they are and what the world is. By learning discernment, the reader can begin to sort out the chaff from the wheat. There are plenty of folk who are a bit fake, or have had a single blast of more enlightened experience, but who remain, one suspects, a bit lop-sided or incomplete in their awakening. And then there are the few who appear to be the real deal. They tend to be rather quiet, modest individuals, while the tub-thumping, chest- beating, 'follow me and my method, and you will be saved' type immediately arouse suspicion.
Some people are awake to the machinations of the control system, but asleep to other dimensions to life. While others have done a bit of non-dual stuff, but remain oblivious to the deviousness of dualism dished out every day all around them. Both of these are, in my view, insufficient. Direly so, I might say on a harsh day. There are folk 'out there' trying to do a decent job of incorporating the two into a complete vision. I haven't delved into his work much in recent times, but I know that Neil Kramer is one such person. Search them out and cherish them, even with all their imperfections.
Part Two
It's a few months ago when I bought a copy of 'The Spiritual Awakening Guide: Kundalini, Psychic Abilities, and the Conditioned Layers of Reality'. I did so in the hope of landing a fish that might provide some useful advice in my navigating the sometimes tricky and unpredictable waters of the kundalini crossing. I opened the package immediately on its arrival and skimmed a few pages of the book. After about three minutes I plonked it down forcefully on the table. This was one occasion on which I'd really wasted my money. I'd bought a book that really was unnecessary: a guide to kundalini was a contradiction in terms. The process was unique, highly individual - personal, even. The only guide could be my inner muse, and my wish for an external guide was simply a reflection of my inability to muster the courage to deal with my own life.
That was several months ago. Since then, I've found Mary Shutan's book invaluable on all sorts of occasions. It has been a trusty companion in my moving through the unfathomable.
Like almost everything else conceivable, kundalini has plenty of entries on the internet. YouTube, in particular, overflows with techniques guaranteed to awaken your kundalini. And like everything else on the internet, and on YouTube in particular in this case, most of it is half-sense or nonsense. Anybody with an active kundalini will soon get to discern. There is plenty of stuff simply copied from what the Hindu texts and gurus over the ages have said; or very same gurus spouting the same platitudes themselves. There is plenty of New-Agey type stuff which might conceivably have some effect upon ones energy, but nothing like a full kundalini awakening. And, buried amongst the dross, is a small number of sources which are direct and authentic. From people who have actually been through a process (one which never really ends, it seems), and have something of value to impart. Amongst this merry little band we find Mary Shutan.
I first came across Mary via her website. She is the genuine article. No-nonsense: simultaneously out beyond the heaven chakra while completely practical and down-to-earth. She writes about how, for example, some mornings she gets up and wishes she didn't have kundalini to deal with as well as the other business of the day. Such realism marks her out as authentic. She casts an unimpressed eye over the plethora of 'wake your kundalini' stuff out there, remarking that, if these people really knew what kundalini awakening involved, they would run a mile.
The book is clearly written, and easy to follow. Mary sometimes adopts the style of 'when we reach this point, we will feel this.....' I don't like people telling me what I'm going to experience, but the material dealt with in the book is maybe most easily presented in this manner. It's a small gripe of mine.
Her book is not, for me, something to read methodically from cover to cover. It is a resource to dip into when the need arises, or when you simply fancy reading a few words of her wisdom. Bits and pieces have helped me no end, even if primarily as reassurance. Sometimes I just open a page at random, and see what's there. Nearly always it's of interest and/or use.
Thanks, Mary, for the book. I see she is bringing out another, solely on kundalini, next year. As she remarks, there is plenty of material, and enthusiasm, about waking kundalini, or what kundalini is. But, tellingly, relatively little on how to negotiate kundalini, should it actually wake up in the first place. For this we need people like Mary Shutan.
A typical short quote to end with:
'It is important to understand that many who are teaching or claiming to be "awake" or "enlightened" are doing so on a somewhat awake or between awake and asleep level. This false, or ego awakening is an illusion that can cause a great deal of harm. Careful differentiation of gurus, teachers, and ourselves is needed so that we do not fall into this category, which is increasingly and unfortunately common.' (Part One: Ego Awakening')
Images: Creative Commons
Mary Shutan's book
