Kundalini E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In Hindu tradition, the concept of kundalini refers to a form of primal energy located at the base of the spine. Through traditional Eastern methods, efforts were made to 'awaken' the kundalini in order to achieve transformed consciousness. Rudolf Steiner offers an entirely new perspective, integrating the kundalini idea into his spiritual philosophy. This anthology contains all relevant comments and notes by Steiner on the theme, highlighting how his thinking evolved. At the same time, it accentuates the differences – and similarities – between Western and Eastern spiritual paths, and in the process reveals what is new and original about Steiner's esoteric teachings.In contrast to most yoga traditions – which cultivate the energy rising from the lower life centre – the Western path of esoteric schooling starts in our upper centre of consciousness, in thinking and the 'I'. From there, the centre of experience is shifted downward, from the head to the heart. After development of the 'new heart centre', as Rudolf Steiner describes it, forces can be guided consciously and, through specific exercises, the 'kundalini snake' can be fully awoken. In his detailed introduction, editor Andreas Meyer distils the perspectives and instructions from Steiner's complete works, presenting a valuable synopsis for our understanding and practice of meditation today.Chapters include: 'The Meaning of Meditation, and the Six Exercises'; 'Developing and Cleansing the Lotus Flowers'; 'The Snake Symbol'; 'The Kundalini Fire'; 'The Kundalini Light'; 'Developing the New Heart Organ'; 'The Reversal in Thinking and Will'; 'Specific Aspects of Kundalini Schooling'; 'Transforming Physical Love and the Division of the Sexes'; 'Breathing, the Light-Soul Process, and the New Yoga Will'; 'The Polarity of Light and Love' and 'Transforming the Kundalini Fire into Fraternity'.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

KUNDALINI

Spiritual Perception and the Higher Element of Life

RUDOLF STEINER

Compiled and edited by Andreas Meyer

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by M. Barton

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

Originally published in German under the titleKundalini, Geistige Wahrnehmungskraft und höheres Lebenselementby Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel, in 2017

© Rudolf Steiner Verlag 2014 This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print book ISBN: 978 1 85584 558 9 Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 504 6

Cover by Morgan Creative Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

Contents

Introduction

1.The Meaning of Meditation, and the Six Exercises

2.Developing and Cleansing the Lotus Flowers

3.The Snake Symbol

4.The Kundalini Fire

5.The Kundalini Light

6. Developing the New Heart Organ

7.The Reversal in Thinking and Will

8.Specific Aspects of Kundalini Schooling

9.Transforming Physical Love and the Division of the Sexes

10.Breathing, the Light-Soul Process, and the New Yoga Will

11.The Polarity of Light and Love

12.Transforming the Kundalini Fire into Fraternity

Notes

Sources

Introduction

The very word ‘kundalini’ has a dazzling sound, drawing the interest of many people today even if they do not quite know what it means. It may suggest snake motifs, dancing dervishes or ancient sacred rites. Equally, many will regard it with prejudice, connecting the term with ideas about yoga, tantric practices or magic rituals, almost exclusively related to eastern traditions. The whole subject is often enveloped in vague mystery rather than founded on sure knowledge. And little attention has been given to Rudolf Steiner’s preoccupation with the theme of kundalini and the references to it in his work. This is largely because he no longer used the word at all after 1909, replacing it with other terms subsequently found throughout his work. A closer study of these matters shows that Steiner in fact opened up an entirely new outlook on the whole complex of kundalini and its development, along with related teachings about the chakras, developing it further and integrating it into anthroposophic insights into human nature.

The present volume contains all relevant comments and notes by Steiner on the theme of kundalini, and for the first time highlights how this concept evolved in his thinking and what importance he accorded it. At the same time it accentuates the differences and similarities between the western path developed by Steiner and other, eastern paths, in the process revealing what was new and original about his schooling path.

Steiner described kundalini energy as early as 1903. At the time, his accounts were somewhat unusual in the West. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky had previously introduced the term into theosophical literature, referring to it in her bookThe Secret Doctrine (1888) without however offering further explanations.1 Indian Sanskrit texts on kundalini2 were not yet known in Europe at this time, the sources only becoming available in 1918 when translated by Arthur Avalon (the pen-name of Sir John Woodroffe). Later the subject was taken up again in Charles Webster Leadbeater’s theosophical work The Chakras (1927).3 Subsequently Carl Gustav Jung studied kundalini,4 and Lama Anagarika Govinda5 publicized it in the West in his book Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (1956). Before Steiner though, neither the systematic development of the chakras nor methods for awakening kundalini energy had been described in detail.

The term kundalini, or also ‘kundali’ comes from the Sanskrit and means, roughly, ‘ringed’, ‘coiled up’ or ‘coiled together’. As ‘coiled up’ or ‘sleeping’ power, it refers on the one hand to the creative power within us in general, and on the other it is one of various Indian designations for the occult power that is also called ‘snake fire’ or ‘snake potency’. According to Avalon,6 kundalini is seen as the ‘foundation of all yogic practice’ and as the ‘mightiest manifestation of creative energy in the human body’, which sustains the life of all earthly beings.

From 1904 to 1906 Steiner used the terms ‘kundalini’, ‘kundali’, ‘kundalini light’ and ‘kundalini fire’ in his lectures and books. Light is seen as the symbol of wisdom, and warmth as that of love. The kundalini polarity manifests in light and warmth, or wisdom and love, and thus in that spiritual ‘power of perception’ whose right awakening—in connection with the development of astral organs of perception (lotus flowers)—is the precondition for spiritual seership. For this reason, while he used the term, Steiner spoke both of kundalini ‘fire’ and ‘light’.

Between 1904 and 1905 in issues 13–28 of the journalLucifer-Gnosis,7 Rudolf Steiner published the essays which he then compiled in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (1909). In this book, and in all subsequent editions, the passages where mention was originally made of ‘kundalini’, ‘kundalini light’, and ‘kundalini fire’ were replaced by the terms ‘power of perception’, ‘higher life element’, ‘organ of perception’ and ‘element of higher substance’. It therefore seems as if the whole theme of kundalini vanished from Steiner’s works from 1909 onward. But in fact, in altered form, it continues to pervade his accounts of the schooling path, corresponding to western idioms and gradually evolving anthroposophic teachings about the human being.

To make clear the nature of the revisions undertaken by Steiner, we cite passages below fromKnowledge of the Higher Worlds(GA 10), with the altered phrase in italics followed by the original version fromLucifer-Gnosis.8

Thus we see in what way the esoteric pupil has really become a new person by attaining this stage, only gradually maturing to the point of governing thetrue higher life element(the ‘kundalini fire’ as it is known) through the currents of their etheric body, and thus gaining a high degree of freedom from their physical body.9

Once the esoteric pupil has succeeded in attaining this life in their higher I then—or in fact already while acquiring higher consciousness—they are shown how to awaken to existence thespiritual power of perception(the ‘kundalini fire’ as it is known) within the organ created in the heart region, and conduct it via the currents characterized in previous chapters (issues). Thispower of perception(this kundalini fire) is an element of higher substance issuing from the said organ and streaming in luminous beauty through the revolving lotus flowers and the other channels of the developed etheric body. It radiates from there outward into the surrounding world of spirit and renders it spiritually visible, in the same way as sunlight falling upon objects from without makes them physically visible.

Only gradually in the course of development itselfcan we come to understand how thispower of perception(this kundalini fire) is engendered in the heart organ. (This understanding is a subject of esoteric schooling itself. Nothing is communicated publicly about it.)

The world of spirit only becomes clearly perceptible as objects and beings to someone who in this way can send theorgan of perceptionas we have described it (kundalini fire) through their etheric body and into the outer world in order to illumine such objects. From this we can see that full awareness of an object of the world of spirit can only arise when a person themselves casts the light of spirit upon it. In truth, the I that engenders thisorgan of perception(kundalini light) is not within the physical human body at all but, as we have shown, outside it. The heart organ is only the place where a person kindles this spiritual light organ (fire) from without. If we did not do so here but elsewhere, the spiritual perceptions thus arising would have no connection with the physical world. But we do need to relate all higher spiritual elements to the physical world, and by so doing allow them to work into the latter. The heart organ is precisely what enables the higher I to make the sensory self into its instrument, and the place from where this is governed.10

The second passage comes from the chapter headed ‘Changes in Dream Life During Esoteric Training’, whereas the corresponding essay inLucifer-Gnosis(issue 24, May 1905) was still called ‘Awakening the Kundalini Fire’.

The reason for these changes must doubtless lie above all in the fact that Steiner wished to shed the term of its connotations of eastern yoga,11 and place it into a theosophical-anthroposophical context. Elsewhere, in connection with development of the ‘sixteen-petalled lotus’, Steiner explained how he saw the relationship with Buddhist teachings:

People well-versed in these matters will recognize in the conditions for developing the ‘sixteen-petalled lotus’ the instructions which the Buddha gave his disciples for their ‘path’. Yet it is not a matter here of teaching ‘Buddhism’ but of describing developmental conditions that arise from spiritual science itself. That they accord with certain teachings of the Buddha cannot mean that they are not alsointrinsicallytrue.12

In Steiner’s works, the theme of kundalini is inseparably connected with the development and configuration of the ‘lotus flowers’ or chakras. The inner practices13 that lead to their awakening in our astral organization are likewise described in detail in his schooling book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. From a certain stage of self-development these include exercises for self-knowledge and moral self-perfection that enable us to perceive the character and illusion of what we have previously regarded as our own I. The ‘preparatory’ or ‘subsidiary’ exercises, as they are called—corresponding to the eightfold path of the Buddha and the eight Beatitudes of Christ—are primarily described in the two books Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Occult Science, an Outline, as well as in many lectures.

The awoken lotus flowers become organs of perception in the course of further schooling, initiating the process that leads to the birth of the higher I, the ‘embodiment’ of the higher in the lower self. This ‘new self’, governed by the higher I, then develops the capacity to autonomously guide the kundalini fire as the ‘true higher life element’. It creates in the region of the heart an organ of light, superordinate to the chakras, as a luminous etheric centre. With this it can then guide and govern the kundalini force as ‘spiritual power of perception’. This consciously governed power of perception, the kundalini fire, illumines the world of spirit in the same way that sunlight illumines physical objects. This brings about a reversal in the soul faculties of thinking, feeling and will:

The moment kundalini is awoken, passive thinking becomes active, and active will becomes passive.

We can describe this moment of awakening by saying that our innerbeingacquires an active, i.e. productive thinking, and a passive, i.e. receptive will.14

The many meditations given by Steiner are an aid in this transformative process. Our capacity to perceive the spirit is acquired through transformation and metamorphosis of soul faculties into organs of perception for the supersensible. When as spiritual pupil we become able to withdraw the kundalini fire voluntarily from the organism, it becomes possible to free ourselves from the physical body ‘as if this were no longer present’.15 We can then voluntarily govern from within what hitherto streamed into us and governed and determined us from without.

According to Indian yoga teachings the kundalini resides in all of us at the lower end of the spine; it is symbolically depicted as coiled and sleeping in the lowest chakra. Steiner also repeatedly connected the snake symbol with the picture of the caduceus or staff of Mercury (as symbol of human I development)16 and with the spinal cord:

If you concentrate on your spinal cord for instance, you will in fact always see the snake. You may also dream of the snake, for this is the creature that was transposed out into the world at the time the spinal column developed, remaining at this stage. The snake is the spinal column transposed into the outer world.17

According to Indian tradition the kundalini chakra lies between the six-petalled and ten-petalled lotus flower as a kind of intermediate organ.18 Somewhat diverging in position from this, in Steiner’s works it corresponds to the organ which he calls the heart organ and etheric centre from which a network of rays issue to the various lotus flowers. In Knowledge of the Higher Worlds he gives the following account:

The purpose of this development is to enable a focal centre to form in the region of the physical heart, from which streams and motions emanate in the most manifold spiritual colours and forms. In reality this focal centre is not a mere point but a very complex configuration, a wondrous organ. It shines and glimmers spiritually in the most varied hues, and displays forms of great regularity that can change with great rapidity. And other forms and currents of colour flow from this organ to the other parts of the body, and also beyond it, pervading and illumining the whole soul body. But the most important of these currents flow toward the lotus flowers, infusing their separate petals and governing their rotation; then from the tips of the petals they stream outward and lose themselves in external space. The more highly developed a person is, the greater is the periphery around them in which these currents spread.19

In his 1910 bookOccult Science, an Outline,Steiner then describes the development of this heart centre as follows:

In the region that roughly approximates to the physical heart, we become aware of a new centre in the etheric body which configures itself into an etheric organ. Movements and streams pass from there in the most diverse ways to the various parts of the human body. The most important of these streams pass to the lotus flowers, permeate them and their separate petals and then pass on beyond the body, pouring out like rays into external space.20

In Hatha Yoga, kundalini is connected with the elemental human spine and with our strength of I and will power.21 Steiner also speaks of these aspects of kundalini in the context of anthroposophy’s view of the world and human nature, and in relation to further important aspects of schooling. In a lecture on 26 August 1913 in Munich, for example, he says:

The strengthened sense of I one develops is an inner stability which we could call an elemental spine. We need to have developed both: lotus flowers so that we can transform ourselves, and something resembling a spine in the physical world, an elemental spine, so that we can develop our strengthened I in the elemental world.22

As preconditions for supersensible experience, Steiner speaks here, as often elsewhere, of the need to strengthen soul life and of ‘higher moral experiences’ such as stability of character, inner assurance, tranquillity and courage. These latter are of great importance in the modern era, chiefly in relation to the connection of Lucifer and Ahriman with the lotus flowers and the elemental spine. Steiner expressly warns against awakening the lotus flowers and developing the elemental spine without sufficient efforts to achieve moral stability. The moment the lotus flowers have awoken, luciferic and ahrimanic spirits seek to usurp them and the elemental spine by connecting the lotus flowers too closely with the elemental spine. This danger for higher development can be neutralized only by developing moral impulses and by inner cleansing (catharsis), without which a person would be chained and straitjacketed in egoisms and illusions.

The path to inner cleansing and self-knowledge is in turn connected with the kundalini power: ‘Through the kundalini fire, as it is known, a person can observe themselves from within.’23 Just as we only see objects in the physical sense world by virtue of reflected sunlight, the awakening of kundalini fire and kundalini light makes it possible to perceive soul qualities: ‘The moment we are able to illumine the soul with the aid of kundalini light, it becomes visible like an object upon which the sun shines its light.’24

In the further course of schooling, kundalini becomes a light organ that also enables us to have vision of the world of spirit, ‘illumining the things of the higher world just as the outer sun illumines sensory things and creatures’.25 A third stage follows ‘at which the ‘‘true I’’ awakens, the world-encompassing self-awareness which is able to receive the key to true knowledge’.

This relates at the same time both to an aspect of earlier mystery schoolings and to esoteric research practice. ‘Old accounts [of human nature] were gained when pupils became visible to themselves through meditation, through inner enlightenment.’26 A major aspect of these schoolings was the transformation of the sensual forces of sexuality into powers of love. The Dionysian mysteries are a well-documented example of European initiation connected with kundalini power.27

Sensuality transforms into love: it spiritualizes and ensouls itself. And the god who, for the Greeks in the mysteries, was close to this power of sexual maturity was Dionysus…. The god Dionysus is the last-born of the gods; that is, the Greeks saw him as the one who had brought human beings to their present state of autonomy…. Dionysus is the creator of autonomy.28

Steiner sees the higher goal of this development in connection with overcoming the division of the sexes.

The ascent of the human being occurs initially through the overcoming of physical love; secondly through regulation of the breathing process, in relinquishing oxygen, the life of the plant; and thirdly by developing the kundalini light whereby we give back the light reflected by the mineral kingdom.29

The discovery that a man’s etheric body is feminine, and the etheric body of the woman is masculine, was for Steiner one of the most ‘seismic inner soul experiences’.30 But this polarity is found in the astral body too. Starting from his account of every person’s astral body being hermaphrodite, with both a male and female half (the ‘second half’ of the astral body is feminine in a man and masculine in a woman), Steiner, in a notebook entry, situated the kundalini fire very precisely. According to this, the kundalini fire is ‘the activity, initially warmth and light, which is kindled in the second astral body’.31 In a sketch, Steiner drew the stream of kundalini forces rising to the heart centre. Our upper and lower aspects meet in this stream. According to this sketch, the new heart organ—expressly not identical with the heart chakra of the twelve-petalled lotus flower—is located between the ten-petalled and twelve-petalled lotus flowers. In Indian traditions this heart lotus flower occupies an independent position alongside the twelve-petalled lotus flower and is often referred to as the ‘isle’ or ‘throne’ of jewels, upon which the vision of the ‘world teacher’ is seen.32 This points clearly to an affinity with the Christ mystery.

A further, subtle aspect of the kundalini fire is mentioned on only one occasion by Steiner, in a lecture he gave on 29 December 1903. He considers here what connects the astral body with the physical body and its organs when, during sleep, these two entities are detached from each other and the astral body is dwelling in the world of spirit. His answer runs as follows:

There is a kind of bond, a connection, which is a transitional matter between physical and astral matter. And this is called the kundalini fire. If you look at a sleeping person, you can always trace the motion of the astral body in the astral: you have a luminous streak leading to where the astral body is. You can always locate this place. As the astral body moves farther away, the kundalini fire becomes correspondingly thinner, forming an ever more tenuous trail and increasingly coming to resemble a fine mist. If you observe this kundalini fire very carefully, you will see it is not uniform. Some places within it are more luminous and dense, and these are the points that lead the astral back to the physical. Thus the optic nerve is connected to an astral nerve by a denser part of the kundalini fire.33

These comments by Steiner accord in turn with the description of the ‘sutratma’ in theUpanishads,where this luminous streak is also called a ‘silver thread’.34