Prelude
I just re-read my most recent posting on this blog site, and the incident it details was indeed a remarkable series of events. But now I'm going to shift gears just a bit and go into a broader exploration of what overall has occurred in the last twelve plus years since my world was upended by that energetic opening in the body which took me, and its subsequent unfoldment. This potentially could involve some difficult reading for followers of this blog (and difficult writing for myself), so I'll try to keep it as simple and entertaining as I can for both of our sake. My intent is simply to arrive at some clarity by laying out a framework with which we can all look at and make some sense of this unusual phenomenon sometimes labeled 'Kundalini Awakening'.
But to do that I'll have to first clarify where I'm coming from. Though Kundalini is often spoken of within a spiritual context (and I'll use the term 'spiritual' in the most open, generic sense for now), I myself am not a spiritual seeker, nor have I ever been. I've never followed any sort of spiritual/religious dogma or practice, nor sought a spiritual teacher or guru. Even in art school I never had a particular mentor (I like to say I spent seven years in art school, then spent the next seven years forgetting everything I learned there; that's when the real work began). I'm not looking for God in any way, shape or form - for that matter, not even in formlessness. Though not a seeker, I will split some hairs here and describe myself as an explorer; perhaps, one could say, an explorer without a destination, but still guided by principles inherent in three questions I've mentioned in the past - what are we; why are we here; what are we doing here?
The vehicles of that journey have varied, though prominently centered around three activities - creative visual practice; philosophical speculation, both through deep readings and deep conversations with fellow explorers; and of course writing, such as in this blog. All the while through these activities I've carried with me - sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously - that faith that I spoke of in the last posting, that yearning to know that this exploration of mine into our sometimes painful, often wacky, occasionally awe inspiring Earthbound life is, in fact, not only a worthwhile venture, but is exactly what I, at least, need to be doing. A Buddhist might call it my dharma.
Where that dharma is leading me I have no clue, but along the way in my journey I stumbled upon something entirely unexpected and astonishing; or perhaps it stumbled upon me. That discovery, of course, was the Kundalini I've been speaking of. For twelve years now it has stuck with me, seemingly working me over through both body and mind. And yet, I can even now borrow the title of my last group of postings and simply say "it is darker than any mystery".
But it just so happens I have a little flashlight...
Fugue
...and that flashlight's name is evolution. Another name is creativity. Another name is development.
Evolution, creativity, development - three words that in many ways are interchangeable. If we think of the term evolution as we typically do, we usually picture the evolution of the Cosmos. Consisting of the physiosphere and the biosphere, there is a traceable movement through time from the Big Bang to the emergence of life on this apparently lonely (for the moment at least) ball of rock we call our Planet Earth.
It's really astonishing to flesh out this picture. From - so far as we know - nothing, came an immense and unfathomable release of pure energy, followed by the gradual condensation of that pure energy into fireballs of matter, then further into stars and solar systems and galaxies on an unbelievable scale (it's been recently estimated that there are on average 2.25 billion stars per galaxy, and possibly a mind-bending 2 trillion galaxies!!!). Then, 10 billion or so years later on our little, lonely planet, somehow someway life emerges within the primordial swamp in the form of tiny, squiggly one-celled creatures who could actually make choices (imagine the little fella swimming along without a care in the world, then sensing a strong glucose current and thinking "hmm, I think I better hang a left here" - OK, single celled creatures don't think in words, but you get my drift). Not only that, they eventually discovered that by making a little whoopee they could produce new versions of themselves (contemplate that - the evolutionary emergence of whoopee!).
From there time starts to compress as multi-cell creatures appear, then complex organisms leading to the underwater plant world, followed by the underwater animal world, and on to dry land. Species after species after species appearing then disappearing for billions of years, until 100 million years ago dinosaurs ruled the lands, only to be interrupted by the explosion of a large meteor strike in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent nuclear winter which wiped out everything on Earth bigger than a chicken. And that opened the door for the mammals - at the time no more than small underground dwelling rodents who managed to survive the calamity of the meteor strike, suddenly having the freedom to roam on the surface.
And after 100 million years more of mammalian species endlessly appearing then disappearing, the human species emerges 100-150 thousand years ago. And that species would eventually be able to discover and comprehend something astonishing - evolution itself! And write about it on glowing instruments that make letters and words and sentences appear and disappear with the touch of a finger...
If you don't look at that big picture and see boundless creativity, then, well... maybe I need to work on my communication skills!
So in my view, one could well say evolution is, for all intents and purposes, creativity itself. It's also development - like I said, big bang to physiosphere to biosphere, and with our arrival on the scene , to noosphere. Clearly a line of development. And to quote a well used phrase from many religious traditions, "As above, so below", the below being little you and little me, tiny blips on the immense cosmic scene...or perhaps, if we forget quantity and focus on quality, not so tiny?
To be continued...
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