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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 24 2007 : 10:31:22 PM
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Kundalini is represented as a snake (pretty phallic!), thrusting with hot throbbing intensity up the spinal channel, yearning for the unmanifest, all-accepting cool silence to penetrate and ravage.
How on earth did the phallic blasting, penetrating snake come to be viewed as female, whereas the accepting, passive, sea-like silence come to be viewed as male?
It's the single biggest point of confusion for me. Can anyone help? Yogani? |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2007 : 11:27:48 PM
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I'm sure Yogani knows the answer to this one, but it is an interesting question.
There really doesn't seem to be a hard line drawn between male and female energies. Each contains the other and the merging has no defining edge. I think the idea of male and female is very form oriented here on Earth. Perhaps Shakti is invisible and contains the serpent of sexual fire. And maybe Siva is the one who fills the immeasurable cosmic womb. Which one is which in the love embrace? They lose themselves in each-other. Each makes the other. Can we really say for sure what is male and what is female?
Just some thoughts |
Edited by - Balance on Sep 24 2007 11:40:16 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 08:40:45 AM
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Thanks, Balance. I do understand about the chicken/egg thing; that both give rise to each other, and that both are aspects of the self-same unity. I understand that intellectually and also physically, as I've had experiences of internal copulation of the two poles (which didn't feel very metaphoric, however; it was very sexual, and I could definitely say for sure, right up until the merging, who was...er...screwing whom).
True, the thrusting phallic snake can only exist as a manifestation of the waiting/accepting/embracing sea, so it is initiated by seeming femaleness (as everything is initiated by seeming femaleness). But, still, if you're going to label the two aspects, why make the thrusting snake female and the waiting sea male? I mean...an egg is required to give rise to a chicken, but we don't call a chicken an "egg" (or vice versa)! |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 25 2007 09:16:10 AM |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 09:18:10 AM
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| This is my take on the subject, Jim: Shakti energy moves in a rhythm that is slow, sensuous, serpentine, and coiling, thus "she" (and there's no mistaking that the energy is female) came to be known as a snake. At times she's in repose, other times she's brooding and moving about, and then sometimes she's horny and aggressive. She's in constant motion, while Siva is in constant stillness...the persistent issue of becoming vs. being which always shows up in philosophy and religion. The snake has phallic symbolism due only to its shape, but more often throughout history the snake symbolism has been solidly female. |
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atena
113 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 09:50:42 AM
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| If I remember right in daoism male side is active and female passive |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 10:23:42 AM
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Atena, no, I'm pretty sure the Toists do it the same.
Meg, I think there clearly IS mistaking that the energy is female!  |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 25 2007 10:32:30 AM |
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yogani
USA
5241 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 10:37:33 AM
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Hi Jim:
As mentioned in a recent Samadhi topic, it is what it is and our naming of it won't change the reality of what is happening within us. Maybe there is no language or metaphor that can get it completely, because human spiritual transformation is a unique stage of evolution with its own dynamics.
Yet, we humans will always be trying to correlate and name things to suit our curiosity. The mind is a thought machine. 
The obvious sexual nature of an awakening kundalini leads us to metaphors of gender and procreation. But how long does the 'kundalini as male' metaphor hold up after the sex act is complete and the birthing is underway? In other words, what is the longer view of the process?
Perhaps the reason why traditional models view the energetic life force as feminine is because it is the creative aspect of our nature, while inner silence remains unmanifest as pure potential (seed), even as all of creation is expressing outward from an energetic source (womb). This is where the phrase "mother nature" comes from, and this is apparently what is being mirrored metaphorically in our inner processes as well. "Father" is generally not considered to be part of external nature (creation), but hidden behind in seed form. This parallels our experience of inner silence.
The Sri Yantra offers a clear representation of this, with the male principle represented as a bindu dot at the center of an ever-expanding array of feminine yoni triangles. The paradox in this is that inner silence (tiny bindu dot) is eternal unbounded pure bliss consciousness, while the vastness of the ecstatic energetic creation (all those expanding yonis) is an ephemeral play of waves upon the infinite ocean of consciousness. So there are several ways to look at it, even within the Shiva/Shakti model.
On the other hand, I believe it is correct that the Taoist system views masculine (yang) as active, and feminine (yin) as passive/receptive. Perhaps that has to do with the stage you are describing, Jim -- more about the sex act itself than what comes later. What is the Taoist view of the subsequent birthing stage? Surely the feminine is not passive/receptive then. Is there an equivalent for dynamic "mother nature" in the Chinese system?
Well, there are no right or wrong answers in this. We can call it whatever we wish. It is the experience that counts -- the full range of human spiritual transformation. Carry on! 
The guru is in you.
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 11:05:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by meg
She's in constant motion, while Siva is in constant stillness...the persistent issue of becoming vs. being...
Yes, Meg,
Manifest bodily, "she" is all the automatic mudras we associate with ecstatic conductivity. Realized mentally, "he" is silence, stillness, witness consciousness and bliss.
Gopi Krishna describes a phase of his own Shakti and Shiva drama as follows:
"...lying awake in bed waiting for sleep to come, I felt powerful new life energy sweep like a tempest in the abdomominal and thoracic regions as well as the brain, with a roaring noise in the ears, a scintillating shower in the brain, and a feverish movement in the sexual region and its neighborhood...
I, the owner of the body, was entirely powerless to take part, forced to lie quietly and watch as a spectator the weird drama unfolded inside my own flesh. Nothing can convey my condition more graphically than the representation of the God Shiva and his female power Shakti, pictured by an ancient master, in which the former is shown lying helpless and supine while the latter in an absolutely reckless mood dances gleefully on his prostrate frame."
(Living with Kundalini, p 238)
Such a representation of a dancing Shakti atop a helpless, supine Siva can be found at the temple of Dakshineswar where Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa often swooned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:...hineswar.jpg
The climax of the drama, when the two become one, is complete ecstatic bliss in stillness: Thus Ramakrishna's swoon.
So I've read.
(Crosspost note: This was a written, when Meg's was the still last post on the list. I'm a slow writer!)
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Edited by - bewell on Sep 25 2007 11:12:08 AM |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 11:56:16 AM
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Yogani wrote:
"Perhaps the reason why traditional models view the energetic life force as feminine is because it is the creative aspect of our nature, while inner silence remains unmanifest as pure potential (seed), even as all of creation is expressing outward from an energetic source (womb). This is where the phrase "mother nature" comes from, and this is apparently what is being mirrored metaphorically in our inner processes as well. "Father" is generally not considered to be part of external nature (creation) but hidden behind in seed form. This parallels our experience of inner silence."
That's it! Thanks Yogani Mother Nature expresses it all. |
Edited by - Balance on Sep 25 2007 12:22:44 PM |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 2:59:04 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Balance
Yogani wrote:
"Father" is generally not considered to be part of external nature (creation) but hidden behind in seed form.
Thus, a parallel with the divine father in orthodox Christian divine-human sex mythology: A virgin, sleeping alone, gets a visit from an angel who announces that, when the divine spirit enters her, she shall receive, in her womb, a seed. She "ponders these things in her heart." Her son, who counts God as his father, has no biological children, but has many children thorough the winds of the spirit that blows where it will -- "baptism by fire." |
Edited by - bewell on Sep 25 2007 3:08:24 PM |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 3:20:33 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
It's the single biggest point of confusion for me.
Rational explanations aside, I wonder if some gender confusion is part of what makes that myth work. Maybe, as with a zen koan, a bit of confusion, in this case, gender confusion, can keep the mind busy, creating space for the work of transformation.
I say this from personal experience. Part of what led up to my first serious hit of ecstatic energy was a dream where I was puzzled, confused about whether the beautiful person before me was a woman, as she appeared, or really, somehow a man. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 3:40:49 PM
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Thanks, Yogani. I'm still not clear on how this came to be, but of course you're right that it doesn't matter what you call anything (in fact, calling things by names is a lot of what got us into our illusion of separation in the first place).
Re: the Taoist stuff, I only dabble in that stuff, so I can't give a definitive answer. But I've been speaking a little to Michael Winn (who co-authored a number of Mantak Chia's books and is a knowledgable teacher in his own right...plus started out as a fairly advanced kriya/kundalini yogi, so he's a good guy to talk to about this stuff), and he's kind of sort of addressed this. Taoist practices really ARE tantric...so yoga and taoist practices are kissing cousins (of course, if you're talking left-handed tantra, it's a slightly more torrid kiss).
Winn says there are different levels of union of the two polarities (which explains, for one thing, why I'm experiencing such union even though I'm missing some of the late-stage yogic stuff). He talks a lot about union in the "core channel", which is one of the few concepts to which he offers no yoga analogy. Core channel is not ida, pingala, or shushumna. I don't pretend to understand, but it may represent the totality of mother nature, as you say.
Ironically, the Taoists are SO into naming stuff, cataloging stuff, and delving into reams of jargon and myth, that the further I go into that stuff, the more I share your conclusion that it's better to just DO it!
FWIW, here's the gist of my correspondence with Winn on this (note: he refers to yoga as "fire path", because, in his view, it is about bringing heat up and cultivating it, without returning it to ground and water, which he sees as a more balanced practice...and he has a point, at least from the perspective of someone who had a long-standing front channel block, like me):
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ME:
Now that my front channel's seriously clearing out (thanks), a quick observation for your amusement:
Up the back, chi thrusts up; you are f$%#ing yourself, up the hollow channel of spine. Down the front, chi is being grabbed at by you - sucked in and encompassed. So the back's a penis, the front's a vagina....yet you serve both roles in both channels (which REALLY makes me understand the unity of yin/yang). I always thought the wizened Chinese dudes were being metaphorical with the maleness/femaleness dichotomy...all those rich, high-minded adjectives distinguishing yin and yang. Ha!
This is why, as you said, you can't push chi down from your head. You can push it upward from your root, but going downward, it must be sucked, not thrust. You "change roles" so to speak. It's a huge flip, and very trippy since, again, you're playing all four parts.
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Winn:
totally agree. eventually you'll experience this internal sex in the core channel - that's what the other inner alchemy formulas are about.
m
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ME:
My kundalini's been consistently awake for a couple years. Doesn't this flowing within shushumna correspond to core channel?
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Winn:
That's fire path understanding. Taoist see spine as fire channel, chest as water channel, and core is in between.
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ME:
So is this core channel sexuality the integration of shakti/shiva unity downward into the whole body?
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Winn:
fire path puts everything at/above the head....Taoists see it all converging inside the whole body/core. Difference between enlightenment and immortality.
m
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ME:
Why is the shakti (thrusting, moving up the tunnel-like spine) female/yin?
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Winn:
yin within the yang is core alchemy, all explained and how to capture it is the essence of my homestudy kan & li courses.
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 6:32:10 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
But I've been speaking a little to Michael Winn...
Interesting. Just yesterday, I stumbled onto this Winn autobiographical sketch:
http://www.healingtaobritain.com/p6...alorgasm.htm
Once I got started reading it, I did not want to stop. Very informative with some powerful energy experience and wisdom behind it. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2007 : 6:45:37 PM
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He knows a lot of stuff, I'll say that for him.
One problem with Winn's writing on (indian) yoga stems from the fact that he studied with one of the lineages that's mostly concerned with energy cultivation, with little or no attention to silence. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 25 2007 6:48:26 PM |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2007 : 04:49:48 AM
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I found a part in a book of Mantak Chia that explained A LOT to me of why there's this male-female confusion between taoist and yogic systems. It seems as if the yoga system is the one differing from many other systems.
The taoist system talks about balance between yin-yang, heaven and earth. Shamanic systems use the snake and the eagle as heaven and earth. They both express the importance of Mother Earth as the grounding force, the feminine. The yoga system does not. I have not anywhere in the AYP teachings for example seen an explanation of the Earth energies, and it has confused me greatly. I have had a non-logical model of three energies being important - shiva from above somehow -shakti from below (being the kundalini), and somehow the necessary grounding earth energy - seen as some sort of neutral force unable to define. I didn't get it all to fit.
Then I read this in a section about kundalini psychosis:
"Kundalini psychosis occurs when too much hot or Yang Chi rushes up the spine (or right or left psychic channel) to the brain and gets stuck there.
- - - Bringing the energy down is much easier if one learns groudning techniques. Earth energy, Yin and magnetic, helps attract the energy downward. One can also draw the Yin earth energy upward; this cools the heat in the head and increases the kidneys' Yin power. (Mantak Chia"
Isn't THAT a huge key for understanding this mixture? Kundalini - the fire, the hot - is HE (according to the taoist system)!!! And it can go upwards! SHE is the cool, sensual, water, the earth energy coming up through the perineum as we do the spinal breathing, and through the feet when out walking. It fits much better into my own experience as well. The whole lower part of my back goes ice cold after spinal breathing, and I become a sensual, cool ocean where my breathing is like the gigantic movements of that ocean, no ecstacy, no fire, no orgasmic stuff. Just a rising of the Almighty Goddess and her colour is Blue.
And Mantak Chia describes the feeling of proper grounding:
"Feel a nice, cool, gentle, blue energy gathering like a pool of water around your feet."
So "The obvious sexual nature of an awakening kundalini leads us to metaphors of gender and procreation." - and the following notion that kundalini is female is from my perspective a MALE interpretation! It is a thought that since Yoga stems from a long, long line of male descriptions of the way to enlightenment it may be the reason for Kundalini having become female in that system. As soon as something gives a sexual feeling, from a state of separateness, it would logically be interpreted by a man as something female, since that is what is associated with sex, no? So it is logical that when Kundalini starts rushing and is cleaning all sexual blockages and gives wonderful sexual friction experiences, it may be viewed as feminine, although it's perhaps not. It's only the consciousness burning the mind-made blockages. HE is cleaning the system out of junk, and all of that junk is sexual. And it is to be transformed into higher states of LOVE and COMPASSION - Love, being the feminine taking place instead. And that seems to be what happens. As more and more sex is cleaned out, love takes place.
An alternative view: Yoga has not acknowledged grounding for what it is: The Pure Feminine, Yin, Mother Earth, water, moon, the allmighty Shakti balancing the Pure Masculine, Yang, Kundalini, Father Heaven, fire, sun.
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Edited by - emc on Oct 20 2007 08:29:02 AM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2007 : 09:46:53 AM
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| Thanks, EMC! Hey, which Mantak Chia book is that from? |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2007 : 10:00:29 AM
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Awaken Healing, Light of the Tao
Mantak & Maneewan Chia, 1993
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2007 : 10:27:32 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
The yoga system does not. I have not anywhere in the AYP teachings for example seen an explanation of the Earth energies, and it has confused me greatly.
In terms of "understanding", I'm with Yogani about not spending much time peering under the hood. The mind wants to encompass all this spiritual stuff...to "have a handle on it" so it can get you to this latest goal.
However, one does sometimes need to understand and peer beneath the hood when things go wrong. And if you're suffering from a front block channel (headaches, feeling of pressure at ajna, crown, or jaw, TMJ, "spaciness", much easier to do "up" pranayama than "down"), then the lack of grounding in yoga is a problem.
A front channel block keeps energy trapped in the head and unable to flow down the front toward ground. If you've got a bad one (as I did, for decades), the lack of attention to grounding is the great fault of the yoga system. If you don't have such a block, and you don't suffer from such symptoms, there's no problem, and it's not worth worrying about. Some of AYP's practices may help clear the head and neck portion. If that doesn't do it, the standard vague yogic advice is to take long walks (which is a long haul method of grounding). But the Taoists do grounding better than anyone (via tai chi and certain qi dongs), and I've already suggested a visualization technique derived from Taoism (here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=2210 ).
My feeling is that unless you have a specific block that's adversely affecting health or practice, let go of all concepts of energy. It's all god's love, and if you can simply open to it, however gradually, rather than, like, tinker around with it and categorize it, etc., that seems to work best. AYP is a great way to make it happen. The Taoist stuff is more tinkery...more about health and power and "figuring it all out", less about bhakti and surrender (though all practices, in the end, go to the same place). |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Oct 21 2007 10:30:56 AM |
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Katrine
Norway
1813 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2007 : 08:39:13 AM
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Hi
I know this is en intellectual discussion....but I wrote this song yesterday.....the lyrics are ready....the music is still maturing inside. Anyway - I'm at work....I was drawn to this topic, and it cliked with the song...
So here it is (sorry if the placement may be "off topic"):
The oceans’ prey
Did you know
the sky is quiet
Did you hear
the call
Most of all
I ponder sorely
why I let
it fall
away, and afar
is my mind this day
None and nothing
saves me now
Just the naked truth
What I am;
this silent presence;
can't impress
a heart
hardened, so I stay
and I cry this day
I crack and I die
in a dark, heavy rain
Now the river I am
flows where all rivers go
Do you know
the night is quiet
Do you hear
the call
Most of all
I love you dearly
You who let
me fall
inside. Yes, and Heart,
I’m the oceans’ prey
Moving as love this day
Katrine 2007
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Why Is Shakti Female and Shiva Male?
