Kundalini: serpent power, awakening and practice

What is kundalini?

The word “kundalini” comes from the Sanskrit kuṇḍala, “ring, coil”. Kuṇḍalinī literally means “the coiled one”. In the tantric and yogic traditions it is the name of the divine life force that lies asleep at the base of the spine, curled up like a serpent. When it awakens, the texts say, it rises through an inner channel along the spine, passes through the energy centres known as chakras and, at the crown of the head, merges with pure consciousness.

In the tradition, kundalini is not “energy” in the modern sense, like electricity or calories. It is a goddess: Shakti, the cosmic creative power that brought the world into being and hides that same power in every human being. Her journey upward is a journey home. Shakti travels to her consort Shiva, and their union is what the yogis call liberation.

Today people talk about kundalini on three levels. The first is the old tantric and hatha yoga texts, which map the subtle body and describe the practices. The second is the twentieth-century teachers who brought kundalini to the West and wrote about their own experiences. The third is modern Kundalini Yoga, with its breathwork, mantras and gong, which you can now find in yoga studios in most cities.

Kundalini in Tantra and Shaktism

The teaching on kundalini was born in the Tantras, the Indian tradition that sees the body not as an obstacle but as a temple and a vehicle of liberation. Shaktism, which worships the Goddess as the highest reality, sees kundalini as her presence in the human being. In Kashmir Shaivism, whose greatest teacher was the tenth and eleventh-century philosopher Abhinavagupta, kundalini is described as the power of consciousness itself, which can contract and sleep or unfold and rise.

One of the most important texts is the Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa (“Description of the Six Chakras”), written in 1577 by the Bengali tantric Pūrṇānanda. It describes each chakra in detail: the number of its lotus petals, its colour, its seed syllable, its deity and its element. Western readers met this text in 1919, when Sir John Woodroffe, writing as Arthur Avalon, published a translation with commentary in The Serpent Power. It remains one of the most quoted books on kundalini to this day.

In the texts kundalini sleeps at the centre of mūlādhāra, the root chakra, coiled three and a half times around Shiva's emblem (the svayambhu linga), her mouth closing the entrance to the central channel. The three and a half coils carry their own meaning. The three coils are often read as the three qualities of nature (guṇas) or the three states of consciousness, waking, dreaming and deep sleep, and the half coil as what lies beyond them.

The subtle body: nadis, chakras and knots

To understand how kundalini “rises”, you need the traditional map of the subtle body. The hatha yoga texts speak of 72,000 energy channels (nāḍīs) through which the life force, prāṇa, flows. Three of them matter most.

The chakras sit along the sushumna. The Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa describes six chakras and a seventh centre at the crown, the thousand-petalled lotus. We look at each chakra in depth in our article Chakras: do they exist?, so here is just a short table tracing the path of kundalini.

The tradition also speaks of three knots (granthis) that block the way. Brahma's knot at the root is tied to attachment to the body and to safety, Vishnu's knot at the heart to attachment to feelings and people, and Rudra's knot between the eyebrows to attachment to one's name, knowledge and powers. Teachers say each knot loosens not through force but through mature letting go of what it is made of.

Kundalini in the hatha yoga texts

Hatha yoga, which most people today know as a system of postures, began as the art of awakening kundalini. Svātmārāma's fifteenth-century Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā opens its third chapter by saying that just as the lord of serpents supports the whole earth, kundalini is the support of all yoga practices. When the sleeping kundalini awakens through the grace of the guru, the text continues, all the lotuses and knots are pierced.

The texts name specific tools for “waking” kundalini:

• Bandhas (locks). Mula bandha (the root lock), uddiyana bandha (drawing the belly in and up) and jalandhara bandha (the chin lock) steer the flow of prana into the central channel. All three together are called mahā bandha, the great lock.
• Mudras. The Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā lists ten mudras, among them mahā mudrā, khecarī and śakti cālana, “stirring the Shakti”, which is meant for kundalini itself.
• Pranayama. Breath retention (kumbhaka) and especially bhastrikā, “bellows breath”, of which the text says it awakens kundalini quickly.
• Nada yoga. Listening to the inner sounds, which, the texts say, gradually carry the practitioner into deep meditation.

Other hatha yoga texts, such as the Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā and the Śiva Saṃhitā, describe similar practices. All of them stress two things: the practice is to be done under a teacher, and only after the body and mind have been prepared by long, patient work.

How the traditions describe awakening

In the teachers' accounts, kundalini awakening is not a one-off event but a process that may take years. It comes with signs the tradition calls kriyās, the spontaneous movements of the awakened force.

• Heat and currents. Warmth at the base of the spine or along it, tingling, a sense of current flowing through the body.
• Spontaneous movements. Trembling, swaying, postures or mudras the body takes on by itself, breath that pauses on its own.
• Inner light and sound. Visions of light with the eyes closed, the sounds of bells, flute, humming bees or thunder described in the nada yoga texts.
• Strong feelings. Tears, bursts of joy, a sudden flood of love, and sometimes a wave of old memories.
• Changed perception. A temporary loss of the boundaries of time and body, the experience of oneness with everything.

The teachers who brought kundalini to the West

In the twentieth century kundalini moved out of closed tantric circles and became a worldwide subject. Each of these teachers added something different: one a translation of the texts, another a personal account, a third a system of practice.

The idea of kundalini also shaped Western thinkers. In 1932 in Zurich, Carl Gustav Jung gave a seminar on Kundalini Yoga in which he read the chakras as stages of a person's spiritual growth; the notes were published in 1996 as The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga.

A similar force in other traditions

The word “kundalini” is Indian, but other cultures describe a similar experience: a power that rises along the spine and transforms consciousness.

In Boiling Energy (1982) the anthropologist Richard Katz described how San healers of the Kalahari feel, during all-night dances, a power climbing the spine, hot and painful, until it “bursts” and allows them to heal. Many researchers have noted how strikingly close this is to the yoga texts.

Kundalini Yoga today

Many people first meet kundalini in a yoga studio, in a Kundalini Yoga class in the tradition of Yogi Bhajan. It is quite different from posture-based yoga: a class is built from kriyas, set sequences that combine movement, breath, mantra and the focus of attention.

• Breath of Fire. Rapid, rhythmic breathing through the nose, with the belly pushing each exhale. The tradition treats it as the main tool for waking kundalini.
• Mantras. Classes open with the Adi Mantra, Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo, and the most repeated mantra is Sat Nam, “Truth is my name”.
• Sat Kriya. One of the best-known kriyas: sitting on the heels with arms raised overhead, you chant “Sat Nam” while pulling in the navel point.
• Gong relaxation. At the end of class students lie down while the teacher plays the gong, a sound treated as cleansing and integrating.
• White clothing. According to the tradition, white expands the aura and helps hold attention.

In classical Tantra and hatha yoga, waking kundalini is the summit of a long path, while Kundalini Yoga classes offer the exercises to everyone from the very first lesson. Both views agree that kundalini is not a workout but a spiritual path.

Kundalini practice: where to begin

Every teacher repeats the same thing: kundalini is not a force you “raise”. It wakes on its own when the body, breath and mind are ready. That is why the traditional path starts not with intense techniques but with the foundations.

A timer that shows the inhale and the exhale makes it easier to keep a steady breathing rhythm.

The tradition advises learning the intense techniques, such as bhastrika, long breath holds and mula bandha with kumbhaka, only with an experienced teacher. Teachers compare it to a river: if the water is released before the channels are cleared, it floods the fields instead of watering them. That is why Swami Sivananda always tied kundalini practice to an ethical life, service and devotion.