Krishnamurti On Kundalini

The other question is what Pupulji raised about an endless journey. You want to discuss kundalini?
P: Yes, sir.
K: Sir, first of all, if you really want to discuss, have a dialogue about kundalini, would you forget everything you have heard about it? Would you? We are entering into a subject which is very serious. Are you willing to forget everything you have heard about it, what your gurus have told you about it, or your attempts to awaken it? Can you start with a completely empty state?
Then you have to enquire, really not knowing anything about kundalini. You know what is happening now in America, in Europe. Kundalini centres have been opened by people who say they have had the experience of the awakening of kundalini. Scientists are interested in it today. They feel that by doing certain forms of exercise, breathing, they will awaken the kundalini. It has all become a moneymaking concern, and it is being given to people who are terribly mischievous.
Q: We just want to know whether there is an energy that can wipe out conditioning.
K: So long as self-centred activity exists, you cannot touch it. That is why I object to any discussion on kundalini or whatever that energy is, because we have not done the spade work. We don’t lead a life of correctness and we want to add something new to it and so carry on our mischief.
VA: Even after awakening kundalini, self-centred activity continues.
K: I question whether the kundalini is awakened. I don’t know what you mean by it.
VA: Sir, we really want to understand this, because it is an actuality sometimes.
P: Do you know of an energy when self-centred activity ends? We assume that this is the source of this endless energy. It may not be.
K: Are you saying the ending of this movement from the centre to the circumference and from the circumference to the centre, the end of that …
P: Momentary ending of it …
K: No, the ending of it, the complete ending of it – is the release of that energy which is limitless?
P: I don’t say that.
K: I am saying that.
P: Which is a very different thing to me saying it.
K: Can we put kundalini energy in its right place? A number of people have the experience of what they call kundalini, which I question. I question whether it is an actual reality or some kind of physiological activity which is attributed to kundalini. You live an immoral life in the sense of a life of vanity, sex, etc. and then you say that your kundalini is awakened. But your daily life, which is a self-centred life, continues.
P: Sir, if we are going to examine it, let us see how it operates in one. The awakening of kundalini is linked to certain psychic centres located at certain physical parts of the body. That is what is said. The first question I would like to ask is whether that is so? Has the release of this energy, which as no end, anything to do with the psychic centres in the physical parts of the body?
A: Before we go into that, sir, is it not essential to enquire whether the person who acquires that energy is incapable of doing harm.
K: No, sir. Do be careful. How can we say somebody is incapable of doing harm? They say many Indian gurus have done tremendous harm misleading people.
A: That is what I say, sir. I feel that unless the person’s heart is cleansed of hate, and his thirst to do harm is completely transmuted, unless that has happened, then this energy can do nothing but more mischief.
K: Achyutji, what Pupulji is asking about is the standard acceptance of the power of this energy going through various centres and the releasing of energy and so on.
A: I say, sir, that before we ask that question, there is in the Indian tradition a word which I think is very valuable. That word is ‘adhikar’. Adhikar means that the person must cleanse himself sufficiently before he can pose this question to himself. It is a question of cleansing.
K: Are you saying that unless there is a stoppage of this movement from the centre to the circumference and from the circumference to the centre, that Pupulji’s question is not valid?
A: I think so. I will use another word, the Buddhist word is ‘sheela’. It is really the same. The word ‘adhikar’ used by the Hindus and the word ‘sheela’ used by the Buddhist really mean the same thing.
P: I take it that when one asks the question, there is a depth of self-knowing with which one asks. It is not possible to investigate the self which also releases energy, if one’s life has not gone through a degree of inner balance, otherwise what K says has no meaning. When one listens to Krishnaji, one receives at the depth to which one has exposed oneself, and therefore I think it is right to ask the question. Why is this question more dangerous than any other question? Why is it more dangerous than inquiring into what is thought, what is meditation, what is this, what is that? To the mind which will comprehend, it will comprehend this and that. To the mind which will not comprehend, it will comprehend neither. To the mind which wants to misuse, it will misuse anything.
K: Unless your life, your daily life is a completely nonself-centred way of living, the other cannot possibly come in.
VA: There is arising of energy – there is delight at first, then fear.
S: We would like to know why that energy creates fear.
VA: Fear comes later. One experiences death and everything vanishes. You are alive again and you are surprised that you are alive again. You find the world again, and your thoughts, and your possessions and desires and the whole world slowly come back.
K: Would you call that, sir, the awakening of kundalini?
VA: I don’t know, sir.
K: But why do you label it as the awakening of kundalini?
VA: For a few days after that, for a period of a month, the whole life changes. Sex vanishes, desires vanish.
K: Yes, sir, I understand. But you do come back to it again.
VA: One comes back to it because one doesn’t understand.
K: That is what I am saying, sir. When there is a coming back to something, I question whether you have had that energy.
P: Why has this question awakened so many ripples? Most people go through a great deal of psychic experiences in the process of self-knowing. One also understands, at least one has understood because one has listened to Krishnaji, that all psychic experience when they arise, have to be put aside.
K: Is that understood? Psychic experiences must be totally put aside.
A: We put them aside, not only give no importance to them.
VA: Some new passages do get opened in the body, and the energy keeps rising in those passages whenever it is required.
K: Sir, why do you call it something extraordinary? Why do we attribute something extraordinary to this? I am just suggesting, it may be that you have become very sensitive. That is all. Very acutely sensitive.
VA: I have more energy.
K: Sensitivity has more energy. But why do you call it extraordinary, kundalini this, that or the other?
P: The real problem is to what extent is your life totally changed. I mean the only meaning of awakening is if there is a totally new way of looking, a new way of living, a new way of relationship.
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K: I live a life of torture, misery, confusion. That is my basic feeling and can that end? There is no motive.
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Can that whole process end? Only then can I answer the other questions, which have tremendous significance.
P: What is the nature of the soil of the human mind which has to be cultivated to receive the other? You tell me that is also a wrong question. You say I am in conflict, I am suffering and I see that a life of conflict and suffering has no end.
K: That is all. If it cannot end, then the other enquiry and investigation, and the wanting to awaken the other in order to wipe this out is a wrong process.
P: Obviously.
K: It is asking an outside agency to come and clear up your house. I say in the process of clearing the house, this house, there are a great many things that are going to happen. You will have clairvoyance, the so-called ‘siddhis’ and all the rest of it. They will all happen. But if you are caught in them, you cannot proceed further. If you are not caught in them, the heavens are open to you. You are asking, Pupul, is there a soil that has to be prepared, not in order to receive that, but the soil has to be prepared? Prepare, work at that, clean the house so completely that there isn’t the shadow of escape. Then, we can ask, what is the state we are all talking about. If you are doing that, preparing, working at the ending of sorrow, not letting go, if you are working at that and you come along and say is there something known as kundalini power, then I am willing to listen.
A: Sir, the reason why I objected is that in the Hatha yoga Pradipika text we make a statement that this investigation into kundalini is in order to strengthen you in your search.
K: For God’s sake, Achyutji, are you working at clearing up the house?
A: Definitely.
K: Now, what is the question? Is there an energy which is non-mechanistic, which is endless, renewing itself? I say there is. Most definitely. But it is not what you call kundalini. The body must be sensitive. If you are working, clearing up the house, the body becomes very sensitive. The body then has its own intelligence, not the intelligence which the mind dictates to the body. Therefore, the body becomes extraordinarily sensitive, not sensitive to its desires, or sensitive to wanting something, but it becomes sensitive per se. Right? Then, what happens? If you really want me to go into it, I’ll do so. The people who speak of the awakening of kundalini, I question. They have not worked at the other, but say they have awakened kundalini. Therefore, I question their ability, their truth. I am not antagonistic, but I am questioning it. A man who eats meat, wants publicity, wants this and that and says his kundalini is awakened, I say it is nonsense. There must be a cleansing of this house all the time. Then Pupul says, ‘Can we talk about an energy which I feel must exist?’, not theoretically but of which she has had a glimpse, the feeling of it, an energy that is endless; and K comes along and says ‘yes’, there is such a thing. There is an energy which is renewing itself all the time, which is not mechanistic, which has no cause, which has no beginning and therefore no ending. It is an eternal movement. I say there is. What value has it to the listener? I say ‘yes’ and you listen to me. I say to myself what value has that to you? Will you go off into that and not clear up the house?
P: That means, sir, that to the person who enquires, it is the cultivation of the soil which is the ending of suffering, which is essential.
K: The only job. Nothing else. It is the most sacred thing, therefore you can’t invite it. And you are all inviting it.
Clearing up the house demands tremendous discipline, not the discipline of control, suppression and obedience, you follow? In itself it demands tremendous attention. When you give your complete attention, then you will see a totally different kind of thing taking place, an energy in which there is no repetition, an energy that isn’t coming and going. It is not as though I have it one day and a month later I don’t have it. It implies, keeping the mind completely empty. Can you do that?
VA: For a while.
K: No, no. I have asked: Can the mind keep itself empty? Then, there is that energy. You don’t even have to ask for it. When there is space, it is empty and therefore full of energy. So, in cleansing, in ending the things of the house, of sorrow, can the mind be completely empty, without any motive, without any desire? When you are working at this, keeping the house clean, other things come naturally. It isn’t you who are preparing the soil for that. That is meditation.
P: And the nature of that is the transformation of the human mind.
K: You see as Apa Saheb was saying, we are programmed to centuries of conditioning. When there is the stopping of it, there is an ending of it. If you pull the plug out of the computer, it can’t function any more. Now, the question is: Can that centre, which is selfishness, end? And not keep on and on? Can that centre end? When that ends, there is no movement of time. That is all. When the movement of the mind from the centre to the periphery stops, time stops. When there is no movement of selfishness, there is a totally different kind of movement.

Exploration into Insight, Bombay, 18th januari, 1977, p. 83- 92