Kundalini, labyrinths and yoga: uncoiling the sacred serpent of sex and liberation
Are we humans programmed for sex, sadness and liberation? According to tantric yoga, yes we are!
In the book Gods of Love and Ecstasy, Alain Danielou links the spiritual hearts of the Indian god Shiva with the Greek god Dionysus. In these two Divine characters of magic and transcendence, East and West meet, both literally and symbolically.
When the mystical labyrinths appeared in the land of Crete about four thousand years ago, Shaivism (Tantric Yoga) had already existed in India for thousands of years. “Since its most remote origins, Shaivism has been inseparable from Yoga”, writes Daniélou. He also claims that Shaivism as a sacred yogic culture spread over a vast area, from India to Greek and Celtic Europe.
In other words, the inner labyrinth of Yoga, the kundalini, which is a coiled serpent of creativity, sex and spiritual liberation at the base of our spines, also manifests as outer labyrinths of the earth, as symbolic representations of the inner journey of yoga. . And Danielou believes that these shamanic and yogic snakes crept west from India and can be found in caves and land circles from the Ganges to England.
When you walk a labyrinth counterclockwise, you symbolically unwind the cosmic coil of kundalini, you free yourself from the earthly cave of the Muladhara chakra. And this spiritual unwinding from within is the awakening of Shakti, the kundalini, so that she can unite with Shiva at the Sahasrara, the crown chakra.
All this inner enterprise of unwinding the inner labyrinth is what we call yoga. And it’s an enterprise that’s been going on for a few thousand years longer than the world’s oldest yoga mat, ever since people did their asanas on dirt and sand and rock, ever since people meditated naked in the rain and sleet. frigid weather.
All the energy is housed in this first chakra, the abode of the Shakti. In fact, there are four fundamental vrittis, or human longings, associated with this chakra:
dharma, or psycho-spiritual longing
artha, or psychic longing
káma, or physical longing
mokÅa, or spiritual longing
In other words, the first chakra is not the “lowest” chakra, it is actually the seat of our spiritual longing, our thirst for love both physical and spiritual comes from this labyrinthine inner cave. In fact, we are programmed for spirituality, for dharma, for bliss. It is also programmed for lust, but even more for liberation, for spiritual union, for yoga.
That is why in India you will see people worshiping vaginas and penises made of stone. The vagina, the yoni or Shakti, is the labyrinth of the earth, the energy from which everything is created. This coiled feminine energy surrounds the masculine phallus, the linga or Shiva, the self-born consciousness erected in all things.
As you can see, tantric yoga was not created by puritans, but it was not created by hedonists either. These yogis of yore knew that beyond the first chakra there were numerous challenges ahead. These challenging vrittis, including hate, deceit, possessiveness, cruelty, fear, and arrogance, are located in groups of six, ten, twelve, sixteen, and two, around the other six chakras.
As you can see, most of these vrittis are more psychologically challenging than the main four located in the Muladhara chakra. But there are also positive ones, including hope, effort, discernment, and perhaps the most important of all, love vritti located in the heart chakra.
In addition, there is the human capacity to awaken spiritual knowledge, the famous apara vritti located in the ajina or chakra between the eyebrows.
The science of kundalini, chakras and vrittis, and how these esoteric inner expressions are alchemically awakened, balanced and controlled through hatha yoga and meditation, is complex and beyond the scope of this short blog. But the heart of this science is reflected in the labyrinth of the earth and the kundalini of the body.
In other words, the labyrinth of spiritual energy within us, the kundalini, is reflected in the sacred revelation of the labyrinth of the earth. As in, so out.
Our spiritual practice, our yoga, unwinds and releases the kundalini labyrinth and thus frees us from the containment in the earth chamber of the first chakra.