The Awakening of the Yoga Force in the Individual

0:01 When we consider the awakening of the Kundalini Shakti at the base of the spine, we frequently imagine some kind of dramatic experience, some palpable energy, some noticeable force operating and moving up through the experiential body, And in some cases this actually does occur this way. For the most part, however, the awakening of the yoga force is more subtle. As a chakra opens, it becomes receptive to energies that vibrate at the frequency that it is able to receive, similar to a radio receiver tuned to a specific channel. In some cases, the development of the energies occurs quite naturally as a process of maturation of the being. The individual simply grows into it. In other cases, there is some prod or impetus that touches something deep inside and awakens the individual to a new thought, a new emotion, a new energy, a new way of being. Then there are the dramatic instances where an individual undergoes some kind of intense life changing experience, possibly a near death experience, which radically changes his life focus.

1:22 Charles Dickens, in his classic story A Christmas Carol, tells the tale of Scrooge, who operates his life primarily from 2nd and 3rd chakra energy. His heart center is closed and his methods are rough and uncaring, demanding and unsatisfied. He has an experience where he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Woeful and in chains, and is warned that he will be visited by three successive ghosts, one showing him the past, one the present and one the future. After undergoing these experiences, he finds the next morning that his heart chakra has opened and he becomes a caring, supportive and open hearted person, essentially a complete reversal from his prior personality, and with this change he becomes cheerful and even joyful in contrast to his former constant dower mood.

2:26 Danny and Brinkley in his book Saved by the Light tells how he was literally struck by lightning, declared clinically dead and upon returning he transformed his life from being a stone cold mercenary to a caring and understanding individual with a mission to help others in their transitions as they face death in Hospice situations. Another individual reported how he had his entire life transformed through a case of poisoning and near death event. He had been on an educational path leading to a possible career in the legal field until the event when his body seized up from the poison and he could not breathe.

3:10 He reported hearing an inner voice that said do yogic breathing. He had no external knowledge of or relation to yoga and had never been exposed to it. His body started breathing differently and when he awoke he saw the sun shining brightly and he knew at that moment that there was a divine consciousness creating and guiding the world, and he had been returned to carry out a life dedicated to a path that was laid out before him. He abandoned his education, his former career aspirations and took up the study and practice of yoga.

3:51 He experienced this as an act of grace. In his epic poem Savitri, a legend and a symbol, Sri Aurobindo describes a process where the soul takes up the effort of former lives. In his evolutionary development quote, a thought was thrown in the unsounded void. A sense was born within the darkness depths, a memory quivered in the heart of time, as if a soul long dead were moved to live. But the oblivion that succeeds the fall had blotted the crowded tablets of the past, and all that was destroyed must be rebuilt and old experience labored out once more. End Quote.

4:42 A disciple asked about a citation from Sri Aurobindo. There's a yoga Shakti lying coiled or asleep. How can it be awakened? The Mother responds quote. I think it awakens quite naturally the moment 1 takes the resolution to do the yoga. If the resolution is sincere and one has an aspiration, it wakes up by itself. In fact, it is perhaps its awakening which gives the aspiration to do yoga. It is possible that it is a result of the grace or after some conversation or reading something that has suddenly given you the idea and aspiration to know what yoga is and to practice it.

5:28 Sometimes just a simple conversation with someone is enough, or a passage one reads from a book. Well, it awakens this Yoga Shakti and it is this which makes you do your yoga. One is not aware of it at first except that something has changed in our life. A new decision is taken. A turning End Quote reference. Sri Aurobindo and the mother powers within. Chapter 8. Yoga Shakti. Page 81.