The Awakening of the Yoga Force in the Individual

When we consider the ‘awakening of the Kundalini Shakti at the base of the spine, we frequently imagine some kind of dramatic experience, some palpable energy, some noticeable force operating and moving up through the experiential body. And in some cases, this actually does occur this way. For the most part, however, the awakening of the Yoga-Force is more subtle. As a chakra ‘opens’ it becomes receptive to energies that vibrate at the frequency that it is able to receive, similar to a radio receiver tuned to a specific channel.

In some cases, the development of the energies occurs quite naturally as a process of maturation of the being. The individual simply grows into it. In other cases, there is some prod or impetus that touches something deep inside and awakens the individual to a new thought, a new emotion, a new energy, a new way of being. Then there are the dramatic instances where an individual undergoes some kind of intense, life-changing experience, possibly a near death experience, which radically changes his life-focus.

Charles Dickens, in his classic story A Christmas Carol tells the tale of Scrooge, who operates his life primarily from second and third chakra energy. His heart center is closed and his methods are rough and uncaring, demanding and unsatisfied. He has an experience where he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, woeful and in chains, and is warned that he will be visited by three successive ghosts, one showing him the past, one the present and one the future. After undergoing these experiences, he finds the next morning that his heart chakra has opened, and he becomes a caring, supportive and open-hearted person, essentially a complete reversal from his prior personality, and with this change he becomes cheerful and even joyful in contrast to his former constant dour mood.

Dannion Brinkley in his book Saved by the Light, tells how he was literally struck by lightning, declared clinically dead and upon returning, he transformed his life from being a stone-cold mercenary to a caring and understanding individual with a mission to help others in their transitions as they faced death in hospice situations.

Another individual reported how he had his entire life transformed through a case of poisoning and near death event. He had been on an educational path leading to a possible career in the legal field until the event. When his body seized up from the poison and he could not breathe, he reported hearing an inner voice that said ‘Do yogic breathing.” He had no exte
al knowledge of or relation to yoga and had never been exposed to it. His body started breathing differently and when he awoke, he saw the sun shining brightly and he knew at that moment that there was a divine consciousness creating and guiding the world and he had been returned to carry out a life dedicated to a path that was being laid out for him. He abandoned his education, his former career aspirations and took up the study and practice of yoga. He experienced this as an act of Grace.

In his epic poem Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo describes a process where the soul takes up the effort of former lives in his evolutionary development: “A thought was sown in the unsounded Void, A sense was born within the darkness’ depths, A memory quivered in the heart of Time As if a soul long dead were moved to live: But the oblivion that succeeds the fall, Had blotted the crowded tablets of the past, And all that was destroyed must be rebuilt And old experience laboured out once more.”

A disciple asks about a citation from Sri Aurobindo: “… ‘There is a Yoga-Shakti lying coiled or asleep…’ How can it be awakened?

The Mother responds: “I think it awakens quite naturally the moment one takes the resolution to do the yoga. If the resolution is sincere and one has an aspiration, it wakes up by itself.”

“In fact, it is perhaps its awakening which gives the aspiration to do yoga.”

“It is possible that it is a result of the Grace… or after some conversation or reading, something that has suddenly given you the idea and aspiration to know what yoga is and to practice it. Sometimes just a simple conversation with someone is enough or a passage one reads from a book; well, it awakens this Yoga-Shakti and it is this which makes you do your yoga.”

“One is not aware of it at first — except that something has changed in our life, a new decision is taken, a turning.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VIII Yoga-Shakti pg. 81