Dr. Larry Jensen

Ph.D., M.B.A, D.D.

What is expressed here cannot be truly understood.  It is beyond the realm of the analytical, sequential, thinking mind!  Fortunately, through the motivation I hope to inspire in this article, it can be directly experienced, and only then known.  —  Dr. Larry Jensen

In 1980, I was already acknowledged as one of the leading innovators and creators in the field of human potential.  My celebrated, cutting-edge work was achieving exciting results with individuals, small select groups, and with very large audiences.  Yet nothing could prepare me for what was about to happen when one evening “the ceiling opened up, the floor caved in, and the winds of Heaven blew in!”  My life was flooded with a transformational energy that I would not fully assimilate for nine months.  From that moment on, my life and work would never be the same.  This was my Kundalini, Holy Spirit, awakening.  In the future, my service to others would be from the inside out as a connection point of Holy Spirit into the world.  My work exploded into a new dimension and my abilities to facilitate growth and transformation were dramatically magnified.  However, I do not take personal credit for this.  This is the work of Kundalini, a spiritual passion of the Holy Spirit that ignites higher evolution and enlightenment.

This is your birthright also, to be awakened to the higher essence within.  This is the energy of the spontaneous spiritual emergence.  It is the ultimate passion, where body and soul are united as divine creative energy.  This is the passion which changes everything.

In the West we have been conditioned to believe that Holy Spirit is the serene background to our active lives, which we find within our hearts and within our quiet moments of prayer and meditation.  However, if we look at the traditions of spirituality and wisdom from other parts of the world, and even the Gnostic beliefs of early Christians, we will find a very different story.  In these traditions, Holy Spirit is anything but passive.  It is the very fire that ignites Divine Revelation.

In the words of Jeshua (Jesus Christ, Jesus was never his name during his life): “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you.  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”  John 14:25-26  

The spiritual practices of early Christian Gnostics were more like Eastern traditions than Western Christianity as we know it today.  "Gnostic" is Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" (or knowledge), they were seeking.  Unlike the blind faith demanded by most Churches today, 'Gnosis' means direct, mystical experience of the Divine, which blossoms through individual spiritual evolution into self-realization.  This cannot be found intellectually or within the confines of dogma.  The experience of Gnosis is trans-rational and non-intellectual.

From the Nag Hammadi Library, in the Book of Thomas, Jeshua tells us "For whoever does not know self, does not know anything, but whoever knows self, already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the universe."  Compare this with a tract from the Upanishads, the ancient Indian metaphysical treatise on self-realization: "It is not by argument that the Self is known... Distinguish the Self from the body and mind.  The Self, the atman, the highest refuge of all, pervades the universe and dwells in the hearts of all.  Those who are instructed in the Self and who practice constant meditation attain that changeless and Self-effulgent atman (Spirit/Self).  Do thou likewise, for bliss eternal lies before you...”

In another secret Gnostic text, Jeshua promises us spiritual fulfillment "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched and what has never arisen in the human mind."  This description is not unlike the Upanishadic experience "The Self is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor decays, and the accidents of life do not affect it.  The Self transcends space and time; what is great is not too great for it to comprehend and what is small is not too small to escape its attention.  It is the Self of All.”

The Gnostic “Gospels” say there is in everyone a divine power existing in a latent condition.  This, the root of the universe, is one power divided above and below, generating itself, making itself grow, seeking itself, finding itself, being mother of itself, father of itself, sister of itself, spouse of itself, and daughter of itself.  That infinite power exists in two modes: one actual, the other potential.
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”  (Luke 17:21).

What Jeshua called Holy Spirit, is known as Kundalini in India.  Kundalini has been universally recognized as the conveyer of Divine Activation.  Other traditions, by other names, have also acknowledged its power.  The Greeks referred to this energy as "Pneuma,” Islam speaks of "Rh,” and in Jewish mysticism it was known as "Shekkina.”  Long before that, the Sumerians worshipped the Mother Goddess Inanna, who gives spiritual birth and the sacred breath.  Several thousand years ago, "Chaitanya" and "The Self,” literally translated as "divine vibrations" according to Sahaja Yoga. Knowledge of these divine vibrations is very ancient; it has merely been distorted or lost over the ages. 

My good friend Shri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Yoga, refers to Kundalini as the reflection of divine desire within us.  She refers to the Holy Spirit of our Christian tradition as the Primordial Mother, sometimes also known as the Adi Shakti in the Indian tradition.  “By crossing the fontanelle bone (the little fountain) on top of our heads, the Kundalini actualizes self-realization, our second birth or baptism. …  This is the very same wind of the Holy Ghost that Christ's disciples felt at Pentecost.  Before this experience, the Kundalini is dormant, and so only virtual.  Once it is awakened and self-realization is established in us, it enables the breath of God to become reality.”

Traditionally, the knowledge of this energy has been a closely guarded secret, revealed by Spiritual Masters to only a few close and select initiates.  It tends to be spoken of in veiled symbolic language, if it is spoken of at all.  Buddha spoke of the "middle path" to achieve nirvana as he described the central channel (sushumna) through which this Essence ascends.  Later Buddhist masters considered that the existence of the path of liberation within a human being was the greatest secret which was only to be transmitted to a few "deserving" disciples. 

Kundalini is actually a power within and available to everyone. I am often asked “does it always require a God-conscious, enlightened Master to activate and initiate Kundalini”?  My answer is always “no.” However, it helps immensely. Just as the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion occurs (although rarely) in the physical world, Kundalini activation may also occur spontaneously (although even more rarely).  Imagine yourself as a candle.  Would you hope that somehow you would light yourself?  Or would you work with another unlit candle to light yourself?  Or would you go to a lit candle and let the spark of the lit candle ignite you?

The predicament of most human beings is to identify with lower mind-consciousness, which is trapped in matter.  Fortunately, there are greater dimensions of consciousness yet to be revealed!  Through intense prayer, meditation, and unconditional love, these buried sparks of human consciousness can be fanned into a blazing fire and liberated from their imprisonment in the darkness of ignorance.  Both personal and collective consciousness can be raised until it rests in the crown from whence the experiencer attains ecstatic visions and realizes his own divine nature.

The transformation from matter and darkness, to spirit and light, is universally acknowledged as the task of Kundalini, the Divine Consciousness or Essence within us.  The strength of the inner energy of wholeness - the "Whole-E Spirit" is what allows us to expand infinitely so that we can see the whole universe within ourselves.  Then, we no longer remain a limited, bound creature as we achieve total union with Universal Consciousness, to stand self reliant, unshakeable, and inviolate in the innocence of our integrity.

The “Inner Whole-E Spirit” is there to nourish, to heal, to look after; and, to give an individual a higher and deeper individuality.  The manifested power of Kundalini, Holy Spirit, is absolute purity, auspiciousness, self respect, pure love, detachment, concern for others; and, enlightened attention giving infinite joy and peace to an individual (and through that individual, to the world.)

Although we can engage in appropriate practices for its cultivation, the awakening of Kundalini is something we cannot preconceive.  It is a gift of Divine Essence awakening the great love and inner power in which we were created.  We discover it through acceptance of the greater spiritual power within ourselves as we reach for radical honesty - emotionally, socially, and spiritually.