I am a yogi, studying and practicing from the traditional hatha background (as opposed to the Kundalini yoga teachings, which are a different methodology). I have not had a full kundalini awakening, but my kundalini has been open and mildly active for many years, particularly during meditation. Most noticeably, this comes in the form of subtle vibration, shaking, spontaneous movements that I am not controlling, etc.
Namaskar and welcome to the 5 Hive. It's wonderful to have you onboard. I assume, as a hatha yogi, you practice mantra japa and pranayama? I have walked many roads and trained in various systems of meditation but they have all led deeper within and augmented greater surges of energy throughout the body. Sadhana has been paramount to peeling away layers of dreaming illusion and mis-identification. On the highest levels, we find that what we seek is our very own nature itself.
I use yoga and meditation nowadays as a tool for spiritual growth, and as life and the process of going inward has started to intensify and I continue to face my own shadows head on, I have turned to exploring with various psychedelics in order to help me face the things that I’m having trouble getting to otherwise. This has been a slow process, as there has been a lot of fear on my part to “lose control” with psychedelics, but I am gaining an understanding that this is the exact reason I must persist.
I feel that one of the greatest misnomers about the nature of conscious-awareness, especially where entheogens are concerned, is that we have any control over the process of ego death. Each of us needs to let go, to allow for a certain undoing of the personal, mortal self. Now as individuals, we do have tangible control over willing ourselves to embrace surrender, to accept being dissolved into the immense limitlessness of the sheer void. And abject terror can be our teacher. Fear is a mirror of sorts, revealing where we are attached and in so doing, how to release our attachments and face all fears as lessons in self-reflection. That being said, I do believe that love is perhaps the greatest teacher of them all. We lose ourselves when we love without reservation or any condition.
My experience to date (mild mushroom trips, several ayahuasca ceremonies and most recently 5-meo) have all had one striking similarity: a strong energetic effect. A release or un-tapping of kundalini, manifesting in powerful energy surges, in some cases lasting for several hours. It was after my second ayahuasca ceremony a couple years ago this particular 8 hour (!) surge happened. This was, I believe, the moment that induced kundalini to start rising (as opposed to it mildly moving but not really going anywhere.) While most of these experiences have not been uncomfortable, per se, it’s become clear to me that when I use psychedelics it directly affects the energy system in tangible ways. Needless to say, that 8hr experience was extremely draining.
Psychedelics surely do open neural pathways into higher spheres of consciousness, flooding one's attention with a tremendous bloom of insight and as suddenly, tears away the ordinary fabric of the dreaming self, which habitually blinds us to the living presence of the Divine, right before us and the epicenter within us, all along. Without the false fascade of being an isolated organism, separate from everything else out there, the great web of life graciously reveals the interconnection and symbiosis inherent in all life. Grace is huge! This enlightenment can be realized without entheogens but the sacred medicines help to expediate the process of kundalini activation and gifts the direct interphase with the source. Yet we all come down. Dare we call it a preview? Such immense, expansive forces being released puts a lot of stress upon nadis within the subtle body, so less is more.
While I know I cannot lump these different entheogens into one category, as their experiences and methodologies are all different, I can broadly say that I’ve never had much in the way of hallucinogenic effect (mildly with ayahuasca) but rather, there has always been a sense that the plant (or the 5-meo in that case) was working on the energy system itself as a way of “clearing the channels”.
Agreed, they all have very unique qualities, characteristics and attributes. Some gift more visuals, some more sonics. "Hallucinations" are specifically, Ajna chakra phenomena and if you imbibe in higher does of real LSD or psilocybin mushrooms, these can get very complex and quite unbelievable. Have you vaped N,N-DMT? Talk about a kaleidoscopic journey! 5-MeO opens channels which attune to limitless effulgence. Each plant teacher has it's own signature and specific, potent effects.
But yeah, they do share the capacity to dramatically shift our attention and aid in dissolving the ego-self. 5-MeO-DMT is the very pinnacle of such a powerful catalyst and I feel that it is working with our most expanded fields of the mind's heart and via the immense release of cosmic juice, explodes the seeker into that which is sought. I concur with James Orac, 5 is a wholly Sahasrara oriented experience. This sacrement shows us that there is no true difference between the inside and the outside. Atman is Brahman.
I understand that 5-meo theoretically opens up our crown chakra and gives us that experience of ultimate non-duality (enlightenment) but without “doing the work” and clearing the energy pathways (which also entails working on your psychology) we cannot reach that place for good. My experience with 5 was in no way earth shattering. I did not ‘see god’ or feel non-duality or any of that. Mostly, I just blacked out. But again, when coming back to reality, it unleashed a well of energy, this time all emotional. I cried uncontrollably.. neither happy nor sad. Just raw energy being released.
Learning from the Toad or it's synthetic counterpart is a difficult path. Certainly, the biggest challenge is in maintaining focus during the peak. As the subject/object dichotomy vanishes, as individuality evaporates in the plume of the rise into Samadhi... holding attention can be derailed and such blackouts or more correctly put,
whiteouts, obscuring our remembrance of the self-shattering eclipsing with the infinity that is God.
There is just the One. Meditation is so key to strengthening our concentration. Ultimately, our inner vision blossoms beyond the relative perception into the transcendence of the Absolute state and this is why we are here now (where we always been and shall forever be).
