I am blogging on a new website..www.kundalinispiritualawakening.com

To my amazement I got a comment on a post that I had written many years ago. I haven't written on this site for a long time. I created another website called www.kundalinispiritualawakening.com and that is where I now blog. I haven't been the most consistent when it comes to blogging. In the past I wrote extensively. It seemed to be part of the process for integrating the strong Kundalini energy which rose in me in 1999. Re-reading some of the blog posts on this site I am struck by how freely I wrote then and how I wrote very much from the present and what was going on for me in each moment. My writing now has become a little academic and I'm not using myself so much as a case study for spirituality which is what I did for this blog. That said, I am incredibly grateful for this blog because it allowed me to write and make sense of my experience. In April I am putting on a UK conference called Kundalini Matters: Science, Psychosis or Serpent. The aim of the conference is to raise awareness of the power of the energy we all have within us. That energy behaves and manifests differently depending on the consciousness of who it rises up in. I have sufficiently integrated this energy into my consciousness now as to put on this conference without having it to be a platform for me to air my experience or views. I am bringing together 8 speakers from all the UK and the US to speak about the link between Kundalini and spiritual awakening/crisis. I have no attachment to the outcome. I just want to put on the best possible conference so that everyone who comes gets such a lot out of the day.

My first weekend of teacher training....

is over and it was just amazing. What I didn't know before I started this training is that Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan is about balancing the right and left sides of the brain. I couldn't believe when I was flicking through the teachers manual and I read this. From this point on I felt totally and completely at home. I have experienced the Kundalini so there isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind that this energy exists and is dormant at the base of all our spines.

Yogi Bhajan developed this method of Kundalini yoga to enable a smooth transition of human consciousness from the Piscean age to the Aqarian age. At present we are still in transition from Pisces and Aqarius which accounts for all of the chaos and conflict there is in the world. Pisces is largely about control, power, and separation. Aqarius is about harmony, co-operation and sharing experience, expertise and is about expansion. In all of us there are Piscean elements in conflict with Aqarian elements which leads to inner turmoil and conflict. The aim of this yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan is to strengthen the nervous system to make the body stronger for when the shift happens on a global basis. I had thought that the shift was going to be of the consciousness from left to right and I suppose if we see the left brain as Piscean and the right as Aquarian then this makes sense in this way too. However like it's not in balance to live solely in the left bran nor is it in balance to live solely in the right brain so where the consciousness is heading towards is whole brain.

For the first time in my life I am committing to a daily early morning Sadhana practice so that I can be fully prepared for when this shift happens. Some documents put this date at 2012 but this is the date when the consciousness is fully in the Aquarian age. I must stress that I don't know any of what I write to be the truth. The relief for me of this weekend is finding a place where the thoughts and ideas I have had for months if not years have been echoed in a training which I can now give my all to. I want to be a teacher who gives students an experience of what's possible by committing to a spiritual practice.

Writing this tonight I feel a level of peace but also of confidence to finally be who I know myself to be without any apology to anyone, to make a difference to people from the experience and expertise I have without hiding it under a bush and that....is something I am really looking forward to doing.

It's just a few hours before....I begin teacher training to be a Kundalini yoga teacher

It's finally happening. In just a few hours I will be beginning my first weekend of six to be a Kundalini yoga teacher and I am just so excited. I am settled and at home with the experience I had on a meditation retreat many years ago as an experience of Kundalini energy rising up through energy centres called chakras which are located in the subtle energy body of the spine. I know these exist and are real and for me to be training to be able to have mastery with this powerful transformative energy is nothing but a privilege and a pleasure. It is the energy that is present in all of us and as a yoga teacher my purpose is to work with the energy so that it will raise safely and naturally in my students.

I am doing this training not because I am a chosen yogi or a mystic but simply because I am right brain dominant and I am following the path other right brain dominant people have done over the centuries. For years I have been alone with this right brain theory but just a few days ago to my absolute astonishment I was sent through the email details of a video clip of a woman who was a brain scientist and who suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. The damage to the left hemisphere shifted her consciousness to the right hemisphere and she began to have experiences similar to what mystics and yogi's have described. This is just an amazing story and I urge all of my readers to watch it. I am not tech savvy so have no idea how to emed this video into this blog post, so I am just going to post the link here and really recommend that you watch it.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

The significance of what happened to this lady is I assert and I don't know for sure what is going to happen to the consciousness of humanity on a global scale. It is going to shift from the left brain to the right. I remember many years ago in the 60s' there was a scientist called Perry who did 'split brain studies' and his work was completely dismissed and I remember that there was always something in the way it was ridiculed which didn't sit right with me. I think something of the power of the right brain was discovered then but because the right brain is very powerful his findings were suppressed. But now evolution itself has taken the lead and scientists can no longer keep the lid on the power of the right brain which is why there is suddenly an explosion of revelations about it on youtube and other sites.

For me all I feel is relief that I stayed true to myself and didn't put myself out there as some chosen yogi or mystic. I am simply right brain dominant which is the result of only having one properly functioning eye. This has resulted in less stimulation going from the right eye to the left brain causing the right side of the brain to work harder to compensate. I don't know any of this to be true but it feels right and authentic to me. There have been times when I have let go of my brain theory and basked in the notion that I may have been 'chosen' but then something happens that brings me right back to earth. When I stay with my brain theory life works and is beautiful and magical which makes it right for me.

So this training is deepening the consciousness of the right side of my brain with a view to being a powerful teacher for others and I am so inspired by it. My plan once I am qualified to teach is to spend six months of the year teaching in England and then to go to India and teach for the other six months. It makes sense for a right brained person to be in a right brained country.

My training starts at 7.30pm and I think although this hasn't been confirmed that it will begin tomorrow morning with Sadhana at 5am which in this freezing cold weather will be something else for me to actually get up and attend. This training is going to test me in ways I have never dreamed off. There are going to be different barriers to overcome but....bring it on...I have never been more ready.

I have made a promise that I will write after every weekend of my training with both the highs and lows. And I promise that I will do that......

How long.....has it been...

I haven't written for a while because I've felt stuck. Not because my spiritual world has become dry but because everything spiritual I read resonates and I do not know where to start. I am noticing more and more how spiritual reflections of different kinds are becoming more and more common on such social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The consciousness is definitely shifting that is so obvious to me.

I have also been quiet because I have been reading 'The Spiritual Brain' by Dr Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary and it is without doubt the easiest to read and understand academic book on this subject that I have ever read. The greatest shock for me from all the research done by neuroscientists is that I can no longer get away with that all of the spiritual experiences I have had is the result of any over active right brain. This is not true. Spiritual experiences involve both sides of the brain as every study to-date has shown and this discovery has really shocked me. I do not consider myself particularly spiriutal. I am the most ordinary woman that you could meet so for me to have been given the grace to have the permanent current of bliss, ease and contentment that I have without a physiological reason as I had thought for so long has really moved me and I am now allowing myself to feel blessed and emotional about it all. I am also incredibly grateful to this Divine Presence for its patience with me being like a dog with a bone desperate to prove that spiritual experiences could be reduced down to overactivity in the right side of the brain. I have now been forced to accept by the weight of scientific evidence that they are not.

So now what to do. There is no point in me writing another book. Everything that I can say has been said before. That is the thing there is nothing new to be discovered on the spiritual path. The ultimate revelation that what we take to be real and permanent is not and that the REAL hides within the unreal is not new. I am so excited to be starting my training to be a kundalini yoga teacher in December because it is here that I see a platform for what I know from my experience. I have experienced the powerful energy that rests at the base of all of our spines. I understand and have experienced the energy release from all of the seven chakras. It is amazing that until this experience I didn't believe in the chakras. I thought that they were something made up to make lots of money from and then innocently on one meditation retreat I was on I was given a full experience of energy rising through these different chakras. So being a kundalini yoga teacher where I work with people on freeing the blocked energy in these chakras so that the kundalini energy can move safely and naturally from the base of the spine to the top of the head where in Indian mythology Shiva meets Shakti is where I am going to focus my energies from now on.

When I start the teacher training I will write more often because it is a journey that I will want to document as fully as I can and I just love to write this blog when there is something of importance to say. Training to be a yoga teacher is going to be different to the training I have done to date with Landmark Education. I am an intellectual seeker so I have to reason out my shifts in consciousness. Others are devotees and can do the spiritual path on trust and devotion alone. This has not been my path. I question and it will be interesting to see how my approach to this path goes down with my spiritual teachers. One thing I know from experience of progression on this path is that it doesn't come from sticking doggedly and riggedly to one philosophy or faith. It only comes when one is willing to move from what's certain to that which is uncertain....

I begin my teacher training on the weekend of December 4th so if I don't write again rest assured that I will write following this weekend....

My dilemma.....around being a Kundalini yoga teacher...

I've sat here for the last 10 minutes gathering my thoughts about how to write this blog entry. I am due to start my training as a kundalini yoga teacher in early December. From my experience of the spiritual path it is not one path for the whole of one's lifetime. Many of the spiritual disciplines have an exclusivity around them which is not my experience of progression on this path. I was born and brought up a catholic and so I remained until 1988 when Mahayana Buddhism found me and I then went onto study and practice that for almost 10 years.

In 1999 I had what I am calling a conversion experience while on a meditation retreat in Southern England. Then in 2005 I found the transformative education offered by Landmark Education and through Landmark I have progressed through the second stage of spiritual awakening which is transformation. I firmly believe that without transformation the final stage of spiritual awakening - Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is about taking responsibility for having created everything in ones life up to that point. In the taking of that responsibility transformation happens. Taking responsibility is the vehicle for Transformation. Having used the tools of Landmark Education to bring about a transformation in myself and my life. I am now moving to the final stage which is to have mastery over the incredibly powerful spiritual energy that rests at the base of all of our spines called the Kundalini energy by becoming a certified Kundalini yoga teacher trainer.

My dilemma is this, that as a teacher I am going to recommend that everyone I teach do the weekend Landmark Forum offered by Landmark Education. This weekend is so powerful that it can cause conversion and transformation in one weekend if one is spiritually inclined. Landmark is not a spiritual programme but energy will go where attention goes and for people like me who uses everything she comes across in life to act as a spiritual catalyst there is nothing that comes close to the experience of the Sunday evening when responsibility is taken and the past is put firmly back into the past, leaving a future that is like a blank canvass just waiting to be created on.

The way that I have done the spiritual is not the usual way. The usual way is that you take on a practice and stick doggedly at it for life. I agree with this to a certain point. After all I spent almost 10 years studying and practicing Mahayana Buddhism but there will come a point where there is a letting go of all that and I assert that it is because there is so little of this letting go amongst spiritual masters and guru's that there is so little enlightenment in the world. It takes courage to let go and move deeper into the unknown and the uncertain. It is easy to remain cushioned among like-minded people and be obedient and sell out on reason and intuition but to do this is to close on the door on any future enlightenment.

Going for Enlightenment before experiencing conversion and transformation is like a child wanting to run a marathon before it can even crawl - impossible. There have been accounts of people who achieved enlightenment without seemingly going through either of these experiences but I have never met one so can't verify that. From my own experience which is all I will ever and only speak from there are three definite stages to this path; conversion, transformation and enlightenment. All three are necessary to experience fully. The ultimate end of enlightenment is no witness, nothing or nobody to write.....but that cannot come before the other two stages.

Given my declared commitment that everyone becomes spiritually enlightened in this lifetime my insistence on those I teach doing the weekend Landmark Forum is likely to bring me into conflict with kundalini yoga authorities. Spiritual disciplines are rigid in their thinking that their discipline and only theirs can deliver enlightenment. I had an experience of this with my kundalini yoga teacher who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for. I have met many people on the spiritual path and he is one of the most authentic I have met. But even he when I tried to explain about what there is to experience on the Sunday evening of the Landmark Forum was rigid and inflexible about it 'going against his beliefs'. In that word 'belief' lies the trap of rigidity and inflexibility. I never had beliefs just a deep unshakeable faith that when Buddha said the enlightenment was possible in this lifetime I never had any doubt that he spoke the truth. It wasn't a question of belief but of faith. And faith doesn't adhere rigidly to anything...it goes with the flow....for what is possible.

Everything......is grace...

This is the realization that hit me when I was in the gym yesterday. Absolutely everything that has happened to me has been a gift of grace and I couldn't see it because I was too busy searching for evidence. What I realized ia that whether or not the lack of sight in my right eye has anything to do with the spiritual experiences and insights that I have had that everything is a gift of grace. This realization has left me profoundly humbled. At the moment I am reading Osho's Book of Secrets and everything I read resonates so profoundly. I would like to think that I am the female version of Osho as he writes everything that I think. I can't believe that I dismissed him for so many years because I decided that he was a guru who had feet of clay just because of his Rolex watches and fleet of limousines. But what I also see is that I didn't reject Osho but my identity did because it knew that once I touched Osho and his writings that its days were numbered and yet the identity is never totally transformed, it has layers and layers just like the layers of an onion. The identity put simply is our animal nature. It's sole purpose is for survival. To embrace and be compassionate to this animal nature of ourselves is to be well on the way to freedom.

Many years ago I did a 10 day silent Vippasana meditation retreat in India. I was totally amazed at how when the silence was broken on the 10th day at how difficult I found it to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow the words wouldn't come. I have thought back on this many times and from it I saw just how powerful silence is but there was something else that I knew was there about silence but couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I read it in Osho's book of secrets where he explained that it is easier to go from sounds to the soundless than to come back from the soundless to sounds. He gave the example of Meher Baba who kept silent for 40 years. At certain times he would write a note about when he would break his silence but he never did. According to Osho if you remain silent for three years then the mechanism for sound is gone and talking becomes impossible. This is the missing piece of the jigsaw for me. I could see this process beginning in how difficult I found it to speak and that was only after 10 days. I would love to know if it is like this in the silent orders that still remain. Of course, I am taking all of this on faith from Osho. Part of it corresponds with my own experience which is so important when on this path. Vigilance about being hoodwinked is one of the most important qualities to have on a spiritual path. To be spiritually discerning.

This brings me on to the subject of the types of people who follow a spiritul path. Essentially they are of two types. The intellectual and the devotee. I definitely fall into the former category. I am always reasoning and trying to fit what I read with my own experience. Not with my thoughts and feelings about what I have read but about what my own experience and intuition tells me about what I read. This is why the writings of Osho resonate so strongly with me at the moment. Yet even my intellectual seeking had humility. I remaining saying to the Divine 1% of me is true and authentic, you make that stronger and let me work on the 99% that is arrogant, superior, out to prove that you are just a mechanism in the brain. I think it is this that has kept me safe thus far on this path.......

The spiritual path....happens in cycles....

Many years ago after I had been following a Buddhist path for many years I was in my flat one Saturday morning and I remember feeling so disillusioned about this path. I had returned from a trip to India where I had tracked the life of the Buddha and I felt lost and didn't know where to go next. Then I heard either my own thoughts or a voice that said just three words. These were 'give it up'. I couldn't believe it. The pursuit of the spiritual was something that had become a part of me and wasn't something that I did and so to have this thought of giving everything up was shocking for me. Yet I listened and gave up reading any spiritual books, writing or going to workshops/talks. I can still remember the emptiness I felt.

Then I had what to most people is a normal common everyday experience where an emotional situation triggered a reaction in me in a normal everyday setting of a work situation. Weeks later I accidentally grabbed a book from my bookshelf to take to read on a bus journey that I was making. My heart sank when I saw that it was a spiritual book that I had promised to give up months ago but still I opened the book. As my eyes glided over the sentences I realized that I had a different ease of understanding that definitely hadn't been there before. I was so engrossed in reading that I completely missed my stop.

Now why am I writing this in the blog when it has been written in my book? I have seen in myself that events that happened years ago are happening again which is why I say that this path happens in cycles. A while ago I went to see the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' and I really enjoyed it. I was particularly interested in the experiences of the ashram that were shown. Then a woman who I work with asked me if I had read the book and I said 'no' and she said 'I will lend it to you'. She was true to her word and on Monday she produced the book for me.

Last night on the bus going home reading it, I missed my stop to get off. Why did I get so absorbed in what I was reading? The reason is because to my absolute astonishment I read the closest account I have read about the energy that lies at the base of the spine and what happens when it rises. The film was the ideal opportunity to bring this information to the world and it didn't happen..why? Why didn't the film bring this information to the world. It could have been done in a dialogue between two of the actors in the ashram. To me this was such a golden opportunity and it would have shifted how people saw the spiritual. This energy at the base of the spine is common to all therefore it's not purely a spiritual energy. It is a human energy which when it is experienced gives the realization that we are spiritual beings having human experiences.

As I was reading it I realized with a jolt that I had experienced what is called the 'blue eye' in meditation. The closest I can relate this to is the view from a kaleidoscope where the eye suddenly opens up and 'something' is seen. I vaguely remember this happening but because I was so against 'seeing' anything in meditation I didn't give what I saw any importance. This is unlike my yoga teacher who told us that when he experienced this eye that when it parted there was a big spider there. As he was terrified of spiders this broke his meditation. So at every stage of this path there are challenges to overcome.

The writer of Eat, Pray, Love has a Guru and all I can think of is that when she was involved in the making of the film that she consulted the guru who advised her not to mention the powerful kundalini experience she had while meditating. I don't have a guru which is why I'm more objective/scientific about the whole thing. I think that this is such a shame as to have had the kind of conversation about it that she has written in the book would have profoundly shifted the spiritual path from one which is thought just for certain people to a path that everyone has a right to and indeed what is at the root of the profound emptiness that is so often found in the west.

She writes on page 142 'I fall asleep for a while (in meditation. When I awake I can feel the soft blue electrical energy pulsing through my body in waves (the 'waves' is exactly the same experience as I had'. It's a bit alarming but also amazing. I don't know what to do, so I just speak internally to this energy. I say to it 'I believe in you' and it magnifies, volumizes in response. It's frighteningly powerful now, like a kidnapping of the senses. It's humming up from the base of my spine'. There is more but this is the most important part. Over the next pages to page 146 she investigates kundalini but nowhere in the film is there a discussion about any of this and this just amazes me. I was so absorbed in this part of the book that for the second time in my life I missed my stop on the bus. What is also familiar is the process of letting go which came before.

Yesterday I declared that I would let go my story about the right brain and spirituality. I don't know though how I have shifted by reading this book. All I am left with is a huge frustration that knowledge and information that could have been brought to the world wasn't. A couple of my friends who read the book before seeing the film expressed a disappointment in the film but couldn't say why. Maybe deep down they also feel there was......a golden opportunity lost.....