The circulation of the vital energy is the fundamental technique of all the esoteric Shaiva traditions. It’s called the awakening of kundalini, because the vital energy at our core starts to expand and move through the chakras. As this energy circulates, it totally transforms our awareness and our lives.
Circulation and Alignment
The process of circulating the vital energy is very straightforward. Using your breath awareness, you take your attention into each of the chakras in turn (as described in this post). The fact is this circulation is going on all the time anyway. It’s not like you are doing it. It is simply happening. Most of us, though, have experienced various physical traumas, such as injury and disease, not to mention emotional traumas. These experiences cause misalignment within the energetic mechanism and the emergence of a whole series of complex compensations that restrict circulation.
Have you ever had a relationship with somebody that you really like, who likes you back so that there is a flow there? In fact, it may be so amazing that you are dazzled by the whole circumstance. But then your daily life and the things that happen in the world and the choices that you feel compelled to make in your material circumstances cause you to compensate for the various stresses that you experience. And those compensation mechanisms diminish that wonderful flow you felt at the beginning. You are, left twenty years later, wondering, “What the hell happened?”
We circulate the energy to continuously reestablish the alignment of our body, mind and spirit so that all compensation mechanisms can be resolved. Circulating the energy also supports us in making choices that promote the unfolding of our creative energy, as opposed to choices that serve our material circumstances.
How to Practice
You practice like this: you take your attention into each chakra and with your mind you touch it. You don’t have to pound on it or hammer it. Just touch it. To be honest, it can get boring and monotonous at times, and it’s actually work. Like anything meaningful, you have to work at it. But you don’t develop any musical talent just by having an instrument in your closet. You don’t become a painter by buying some canvas and some paints and brushes. You can’t accomplish anything in your life or cultivate any finer part of yourself by watching television. You have to do some work.
What About the Mind?
My personal experience, as well as the understanding of the principal traditions that I am trained in, is that mind itself is always active. It’s like a radio in which the tuner is broken, and it just goes all over the place whenever it wants. And there is nothing to be done about that.
So when you meditate and your mind goes every which way, and you think “Oh, I am having a terrible meditation and I just can’t do it,” you are mistaken. Everybody’s mind goes like that all the time. Just as there are constant clouds in the sky, there are always thoughts in the mind. But there is also a place above the clouds where the sun is forever unobstructed, no matter what the clouds are doing.
In circulating the energy, what we are doing is attending to the essence of the mind. The essence of the mind is nothing but energy, and we are bringing that energy into a deeper place within ourselves. With the understanding that all of our experience is energy and potential nourishment, we take our attention within ourselves and along the magnetic lines of force or energy channels in our mechanism. We move our awareness and circulate the energy. And as we do that, we will feel a relaxation and an expansion in each of those different centers. It’s actually quite a wonderful experience.
Cultivating Awareness
We grow based upon the investment of time and energy we make in the direction that we hope to develop. There is certainly nothing more important or significant to develop than cultivating our awareness and our understanding of the reality of our existence. The truth is that the vital energy that has created the entire universe has come from one unified, vibrant awareness—and that awareness is at the core of each of us.
To look elsewhere is a little bit ridiculous, but it’s what we do. So it is not surprising that so many people would experience this life as one of great disappointment, pain and suffering. If you could take a little time every day to make contact with yourself and begin to be in touch with a deeper part of you, that will change. You will begin to become familiar with this mechanism. You’ll be able to be in touch with it more easily, and you will find that your physical body changes. Your level of sensitivity to your environment will change, and your capacity to truly communicate with the world around you will become enhanced. A more subtle understanding and a subtle intellect begins to dawn in you. This doesn’t happen so quickly. A great tree does not grow in a week. But, over time, you and your life will be completely transformed.