Kundalini Revelations with Delson Armstrong -Master Yogi

So we're here with Delson Armstrong today, talking about an interesting subject of Kundalini. And I think later in a few minutes he's going to have some revelations for us that are kind of unexpected. But first, let's get a little bit of background. My name is David Johnson, by the way. We're at the Dhammasuka Meditation Center. And as I said, this is Dharmacharya Delson Armstrong.

I understand you have quite a lot of experience with Kundalini practices, and you've even suggested that you've taken them as far as you can go. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so Kundalini practice. I started Kundalini practice around the age of 16 or 17. So for those of you who might have seen my videos on my background, you know that I went to the Himalayas and spent some time there. While I was there, I was introduced to different kinds of yoga practices, which include Kundalini and specifically Kriya Yoga. And there are six different degrees that you go through with Kriya Yoga.

And so the idea is to ignite the Kundalini and bring it up from the base of the spine all the way up to the crown. And then you have an experience. So the way to do that is through the different Kriya practices. As you get through each of the higher degrees of Kriya practice, it gets easier and easier for the Kundalini to reach into different parts of the spine. And there are different segments within the spine which you get towards.

And I've done basically all of them, to the point where I've had multiple Kundalini experiences, which have led to very cosmic consciousness-like experiences. So a union with the entire cosmos, a sense of this little I, or the little me, becoming the greater I or the greater me. And I was kind of obsessed. I was kind of obsessive about the practice. I did it for about six, seven, eight hours a day. That's a lot. And to the point that I still have the burn marks on my back. You have burn marks on your back.

Let's just be a little cautious about your practice out there. What is Kundalini? Yeah, so Kundalini is understood as what's known as Shakti. Shakti is like the force energy that pervades the universe, all around us. So Kundalini is nothing but really electrical activity that's going on in your nervous system. A lot of people talk about the Kundalini being this coiled serpent at the base of the spine. Right. Snake. It's three and a half coils, and then you awaken it, and then it comes up into the crown.

But actually Kundalini is everywhere. It's basically the electrical activity of your nervous system. And it becomes more centralized around the spine, obviously, because there are so many different networks of different nerves that are converging through the spine, the spinal canal. So the idea is that the Kundalini is most potent over there. And so you bring the Kundalini through. You basically take all of that energy and you focus it into the base of the spine, and then you bring it up through the different channels in the spine, all the way up into the crown chakra. So these are the so-called chakras that we're talking about. And what's your experience? Do these chakras really exist?

Subjectively, they have some kind of an experience, in the sense that you do experience some kind of energy at the base and at different parts of where the chakras are. But physically, or let's say even on a different level of being, they don't really exist. They're just subjective experiences.

And each chakra is associated with different aspects of the body. So the idea is that you're awakening the Kundalini. That doesn't make any sense, because if there was no Kundalini, then that means there's no electrical activity, which means there's no vitality or life there. So it's already awake. It's already there. This energy is already there. And so the idea is people say that you activate the chakras. Right. But if your chakras were not active, you would be dead. Okay.

That wouldn't be a good thing. Okay. So there's no real activation. No. The real understanding is, so each of the chakras is associated with some kind of endocrine gland in the endocrine system. That's the most, or the closest, way you can experience the chakras from that sense. But even there, it's just a psychosomatic subjective experience. It's not really like there is something there, like a nexus of energy that's there. But the idea, or the misperception, is that you have to activate the chakras. But like I said, your chakras are already active, in the sense that there's just energy there. It's just vitality. That's all it is.

So in Kundalini, if you were really to understand it, it's not about activating, but it's about balancing. And even there, the way that people do that idea of balancing is very much one-pointed. So it's like, I really have to focus on this particular energy center until it becomes active. But if one energy center becomes overactive, it can cause a lot of disturbances. It can cause Kundalini syndrome that you might have heard of. Well, tell us more about that. So people experience what's known as Kundalini syndrome, where sometimes it can turn into a psychotic break. People can suddenly have hallucinations and delusions about reality and the world around them. Some people have shivers down their spines, and people have rumbling in their nervous system.

Some people are not able to sleep, because there's just so much energy and restlessness that arises when you do this. So what it is doing is activating that part of the nervous system that causes a lot of restlessness in the mind and body. So if people do it with that intention of activating, then it's just going to burn them out. And it can lead them to, like I said, you're activating restlessness. Yeah. What does this energy feel like? Like I said, it's very subjective, but it feels like heat sometimes.

It feels like heat in the body and heat through the spine. And then I've gotten to the point where you can experience a cool energy. So you can experience heat in the chakras, but you can also experience a coolness in each of the chakras. Some people have said it's blue. Some of them are, yeah. So some of the, there's some colors that are attributed to each of the chakras. And if you look at the colors of the rainbow, the seven colors, you're basically matching with the seven chakras. Okay. So here's the big question.

Does Kundalini lead to enlightenment? No. What does it lead to? It leads to a conditioned experience. Because first of all, we have to define what we mean by enlightenment. If you're talking about enlightenment in the sense that it's the cessation of suffering and it's the understanding of how mind works and then the letting go of craving and so on, then by definition, Kundalini does not result in any of those. Kundalini results in a conditioned experience, which is akin to infinite space or even the idea of infinite consciousness. This is one of the jhanas. That's right. So the idea is that Kundalini can lead you to becoming one with the universe, but that's an experience people have subjectively when they have an expansiveness of awareness in infinite space.

And actually, that's like what I just said. Kundalini causes more restlessness, causes more activity, causes more craving, because you're constructing an experience rather than deconditioning it and coming to something that's unconditioned. So instead of relaxing, you're actually going toward more restlessness. Yes. More energy. Yes. Which never calms down, never comes to the balance. No. It's where you want. It's very intense. Like the whole idea of Kundalini is to bring up as much energy as you can. Activate your nervous system to a point that you bring up a lot of intensity.

And that's why with Kundalini practice, people can experience a lot of emotional upheavals. So sometimes they can go into depression. Sometimes they can have a lot of anxiety. Sometimes they can suddenly flip out and become very angry. And sometimes they can have a lot of joy. Yes, they can have a lot of joy. But that joy is a very restless joy. And it's like uncontainable, uncontrollable laughter, for example. But all of these are just conditioned experiences. And most of them are very unpleasant to experience. What did the Buddha say about chakras and Kundalini? He didn't.

He didn't. He never mentioned it. He didn't even mention it. Now, if you go into the suttas, there's no mention about these energy centers. There's no mention about Kundalini. There's no mention about focusing on the spine or focusing on energy centers or anything. A lot of people try to equate the Anapanasati with pranayama and say, well, we're using breath practice as a way to awaken Kundalini. This is what sometimes Kundalini teachers will do. They'll take the Anapanasati Sutta, or something that the Buddha said, and then they will equate it to something that is related to Kundalini, as a way of justifying, or as a way of trying to appease people in the Dhamma, that this is what Kundalini actually is.

But the Buddha never actually mentioned any of that. He didn't even mention anything about focusing on your breath in Anapanasati as we know. He said just the breath is natural. There's no control over the breath. There's no control over any energy. Tranquilizing formations which means to relax. And I've never come across where in Kundalini you're relaxing. Very few teachers have I come across in the Kundalini practice who talk about balancing the chakras, let alone talk about relaxing to balance the chakras. So it's all about spinning the energy up. Increasing the energy constantly to get to some goal. Yes.

Now in the suttas I think it's mentioned that some practices get the breath going and then there's this feeling of happiness and then they just go off and take that as an object. What would you say about that? So that would not be correct practice. That would be ineffective practice. That's not the right practice. The reason is because what you're doing is you are creating an experience of joy. The joy that we experience from jhana is not created. It's a result of letting go.

So when we experience joy, piti and sukha in the first and second jhana for example, that arises as a result of letting go of hindrances. Not as a result of creating the intention for joy. So I guess you're not practicing Kundalini anymore. No. Has it left any benefit from doing all of those eight-hour sittings and constant practice? Well, to the extent that it let me know that this was a conditioned experience. This was not the path. This was not the path. Well, thank you, Delson. That's maybe something to think about with our audience and some warnings about maybe taking it too far. I know that we have had students here at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center that have come who've practiced Kundalini practice and they have some of these restlessnesses. They have joy but it leads to tears and it leads to a lot of different things and we have to kind of pull them down back and ground them. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. And we'll talk again. Thank you.