Jung On "Kundalini" Yoga

 Esoteric East-West crossover groups are certain to be involved in syncretic studies of cross- cultural spiritual practices, by definition. A great pioneer in comparative sources for psychological analysis was Sigmund Freud's one-time Swiss pupil Carl Gustav Jung 1875-1961. Beyond Freud's pioneering but narrow patriarchal ideas on the symbols of the unconscious mind, by extending his studies into symbols Jung found in Hermetic Philosophy, Quabalism, Alchemy and its Egyptian origins [Khem an old name for Egypt], Eastern Philosophy, Native American and African sources he achieved a synthesis which revealed a deeper level to the mind than just the personal subconscious Freud identified, but also a common level of what he named the Collective Unconscious where dialects of common symbols existed and had a formative background effect in shaping consciousness from the deep mind. These he called Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. I have studied Jung's ideas from when I was a student 40-50 years ago but was only made aware recently of the collection of four lectures from 1932 that were gathered together with numerous appendices to form a book, in the Bollingen series, that was later called 'The Psychology of Kundulini Yoga'

These were early days for Westerners to be studying Eastern ideas. Jung had previously written on the Indian 'Rig Veda', 'Upanishads', and 'Yoga Sutras' of Patanjali, and collaborated with Richard Wilhelm on the Chinese Taoist Oracle, the 'I Ching', and on the Buddhist meditations of the 'Secret of the Golden Flower'. In the early 1960s the only popularly available books on yoga dealt only with hatha yoga as a system of keep fit exercises, with maybe a page that touched on meditation as an add-on. To look more deeply into the psychology behind yoga Jung and a group of associates had to turn to the translations and commentaries of Sir John Woodroffe [aka Arthur Avalon], usually of Tantrik texts, done whilst he was a High Court judge in the British Raj occupation of India. That was an era of Victorian morality based on supposedly Christian values but in reality far more repressive social engineering. So his writings were often shortened, censored or bowdlerised. Natives suspicious of cultural theft as well as the exploitation of natural resources did not always divulge reliable information and often employed sandhaya bhasa, the twilight, secret, language to encode the meanings in their texts. I have two translations of the 'Kulanava Tantra', one by Woodroffe and one by a native translator. The former is in an easier style for an English speaker to follow but the latter is far longer and reveals that Woodroffe missed sections and whole chapters out.

The text chosen by Jung and associates to focus on was taken from 'The Serpent Power': a relatively ancient but not especially Tantrik piece called 'Sat-Chakra-Niripana'. Jung gives this a PSYCHOLOGICAL commentary, which focusses on the symbolism given for the chakras. I emphasize 'psychological' as there is no attempt to discus practical yogic activity in any way, even though he mentions an Indian native who emphasised to him that the chakras are a physical reality and not just mental concepts. Endocrinology, the study of the functioning of the endocrine glands in secreting hormones into the body was still relatively in its infancy, having slowly grown, over 70 or so years before Jung's lecture, from isolated experiments, while the centres had been discovered by yogic introspection many centuries before. The symbols that evolved to represent the chakras owe more to the ingenuity of Indian illustrators to depict descriptions of yogis observations than anything that could be found in nature. Yet it was these that Jung made the centre of discussion. He did not mention the main 'nadis' ida, pingala, and sushuma except in passing, as they relate to controlled breathing as a practical activity that is the engine to stimulate shakti energy, symbolised as a sleeping snake at the base of the spine. Also, somewhat naïve by the publishers was the use of the Sri Yantra on the cover of the collection of lectures, as this only has oblique connections to the chakras via the alternate male and female triangles at the centre of the yantra. Little is made of the Goddesse's role of shakti energy, which is central to Sri Vidya, and certainly no mention of the

spellcraft of related magic sigils. A figure in full lotus asana, familiar from many texts on yoga, and with chakra 'lotuses' in place up the spine does accompany the Sat-Chakra-Nirpana inside the book and that would have made a more appropriate cover.

Jung's great service in his synthesis of worldwide archetypes threw up one central symbol that his symbology rested on: that of the mandala, a term he adopted from Tibetan Buddhist and Bon multi-symmetrical circular icons for meditation, which he found dialectic variants of around the globe, in such diverse forms as cathedral stained glasses, to magic circles of Eurasian 'shamen', their remnants in witchcraft, elaboration in quabalistic magic, even in Native American practices, where emigrating tribes had taken then when crossing Bearing Straits ice bridges. All had a variant of the equal arm cross within the circle, which Jung identified with the five elements of mental function: earth with sensation, water with intuition, fire with emotion, air with intellect, and aether at the centre point above for abstract thought. When we reach the 'Sat-Chakra-Niripana', Jung basically sequences these elements in ascending order as he discusses the chakras. He uses the chakra names as taken from the accompanying diagram:

Muladhara: the base chakra of the scrotum, he naturally identifies with Earth, and roots, where he alludes to an Indian woman who kept dreaming of being entangled in roots, which after studying Woodroffe he interpreted as her earthly duties and and social interactions preventing her from what she thought should be her spiritual unfoldment. In bodily terms he associated the chakra with instincts like childbirth and defecation. The symbol within the chakra of an elephant was easily understood as the solidity of the physical world. Ganesh, Siva's elephant headed son is accompanied by a rat, symbolising his cthonic power in relation to the underworld.

Svadhisthana, of the place of 'gut reactions' : borrowing Sanskrit terms and cautious language of the time is applied by Jung to the sex organs, and the Water element, and hence, we are left to deduce, to sexual fluids, and urine. This is, again obliquely, referred to as the emergence of Shakti energy and linked to the word 'kundulini'. But that is about the only mention of the word as he instead refers to the large fish that is the chakra's symbol and refers to it as a Leviathan symbol

“here be dragons” as it says in old maps of the sea for unknown monsters of the deep in the Water element. We are left, nowadays, to make the link between the symbol and sexual activity. As we can also say now: Shakti energy is aroused by ecstatic sexual and ritual yogic activity. Presently we could also expand on woman's monthly cycle, its movement around the nadis and how shakti energy can be stimulated in the nadis with acupressure and skilful foreplay.

As shakti energy rises we reach the solar plexus centre of the Manipura chakra, which Jung equates with Fire and emotion. This centre is activated when soldiers go into battle or we experience conflict situations, but here is harnessed to upward movement. The chakra symbol here is the ram,: Aries, a creature who peaks in Spring for contests with other males as part of courtship rituals leading to coupling with females.

The heart chakra, Anahata Jung associates with Air, where [in the term he coined] 'individuation' begins as the shakti energy is brought into balance when instinctual urges are diminished, mental activity is clearer, but ego also emerges. Quabalists might want to equate this to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Guardian Spirit as selfish motives then begin to fall away. The symbol that goes with the chakra is the gazelle, a fairly mild natured creature by now [I thought of Siva Pasupatinath, Lord of the Animals too, as wild nature is tamed.]

The Visuddha chakra is at the Aether level where mantra gives form to force [the Vision and the Voice of Enochian Aethers.] The elephant appears again here as symbol of the chakra, but not the solid variety of earthly muladhara, but where Gods, Goddesses and spirits take visionary form: Ganesh as God, not lord of the world and underworld.

The Ajna chakra is the third eye, organ of light, of the brow: the pituitary gland that secretes the honey elixir of Sauh. The chakra symbol is a two-petalled lotus, which resembles an eye. The eye is single, like Odin's: only focussed now on inner consciousness.

Of the Sahasrara chakra of the crown Jung says nothing can be said. It has no qualities. The 'thousand petalled lotus' of chakra symbolism is not a place where petals can be counted. It is the place of total Siva consciousness absorbed in the primary clear light of Shakti energy.

It has to be said that the chakra sequence that Woodroffe and Jung used is not the only one, but one of competing descriptions. This is because the endocrine glands do not perfectly match the chakras as stated above, but the introspection that discovered them sometimes combined the functions of neighbouring glands in what it identified was the chakras: the thymus gland is in the same region as the heart and contributes to the function of that 'chakra'; little mentioned by endocrinologists are the lyden glands that contribute to functions of the Svadhisthana in sex hormone production, and the pineal as well as the pituitary are both in the sphere of the head, and both contribute to the Ajna 'chakra's' function. Each chakra has been given a mandala by Indian icon painters.

It has also to be said that using the Umbra Zonule cone of meditation, when the cone is viewed from the bindu point that represents the Sahasrara, looking down, each mandala would fit inside the one below it to create a grand mandala.

Jung does make the observation that Indians have a culture where these higher levels of consciousness are taken for granted, while in the West we are usually struggling with the psychology of the lower levels of consciousness, and that is the usual domain of clinical psychology. Sadly Jung's depth psychology has been overtaken in general clinical practice by more functionalist approaches of cognitive and behavioural psychologies used to fit people into everyday social patterns [which we called 'rat psychology' when students].

Quabalists would recognise a parallel in Middle Pillar Otz Chiim exercises of Rising up the Planes; Malkuth for Muladhara, through Universe trump XXI to Yesod/ Svadhisthana, through the Art trump to Tiphereth/Anahata, through the Priestess trump to Kether/ Sahasrara. In fact that was the ritual I used while assuming a dialect of Siva's Godform as Pan/Pasupatinath before being fully acquainted with Tantrik techniques, but I do thank the Priestess for her part in crossing the Abyss. Fruition is not the gradual process of the celibate yogi, which can take more than one incarnation to complete it is said, but the Thunderbolt that illuminates all in one wholistic flash.......then you have to figure out the grindingly slow process of grounding, and how to bring siddhis back under control to be able to continue with everyday life: rebirth after transformation.