During the two decades that I’ve been involved in yoga, I’ve heard from time to time about the supposed dangers of Kundalini energy. During intense yoga or deep meditations, a dormant energy—mythically, a serpent goddess coiled three and a half times around the first chakra, or root chakra– might be awakened. The energy rises and opens the chakras and the results can be dramatic – the body vibrates out of control, enters spontaneous out-of-body or near-death experiences. In other word, the release of Kundalini energy can bring out states of consciousness that are out of this world.
I’ve never thought too much about it, especially since it never happened to me and I’ve never known anyone who has experienced the release of that powerful energy. In other words, it seemed that there was a greater chance of a meteorite crashing through the roof during a yoga class than experiencing a sponteous release of Kundalini energy.
But recently that changed.
A couple of weeks ago, Trish came home and mentioned that she saw an emergency medical vehicle arriving at the gym when she left, but she didn’t know what happened. A few days later, another yoga teacher told me that during a brief meditation at the end of her yoga class one of her students began to breathe rapidly, then her body started to shake. The teacher went over to see what was going on, but the woman didn’t respond. She grabbed her cell phone and called 911.
When the EMS team arrived, the woman was no longer shaking. She was breathing, but still wasn’t responding. Now here’s the synchronicity. The lead rescue worker was a yogi. He was able to bring her out of it. She was examined at a hospital and all the readings were normal. She has never suffered from convulsions of any sort and is in good health.
When she was asked what happened, she said she felt a powerful energy moving through her body and she suddenly found herself outside her body surrounded by an orange ball of light. She was aware of people around her body, but she didn’t want to go back.
Interestingly, orange is associated with the second chakra, which is related to fertility, creativity, sexual energy. It occurred to me that the release of this energy might be related to sexual abuse as a child. I mentioned that to the yoga teacher as a possibility and also sent her a link to a couple of web sites about kundalini energy.
A couple of days later she told me that she’d passed on that information. The woman found the web sites helpful. When I asked about my hunch, the yoga teacher replied, “She said it might be true, but not this life.”
Now that’s a strange idea: a dramatic incident from a past life generates the spontaneous release of kundalini energy during a short meditation in another life. Well, if we’re all connected with each other as a part of Indra’s Net, then it makes sense that each of us is connected with our past lives…and maybe future ones as well.
The woman seems to be undergoing some profound changes physically, mentally, and spiritually. She returned to the yoga class for the next session and nothing unusual happened – at least nothing noticeable. When she was asked how it went, she said she felt as if she were sinking through the floor into the earth during the meditation. But she remained in control and was able to come back at the end.
She plans to see a Reiki therapist, who hopefully will help her explore her meditations while staying in control.


















