Obstacles in the awakening of the Kundalini 1. States of the Kundalini Let us briefly summarize the evolutionary stages of the vital force of Kundalini awakening in the subtle system, in the Ida and Pingala channels and rising in Shushumna. 1. Awakening of consciousness Awakening happens in an absolute space time, not embodied, in absolute consciousness; it is Siva, who wakes up and becomes aware of itself, that is the awakening of the consciousness to itself. Before then the condition is described as existence unaware of itself, moving because moved and aimless, going nowhere. This is described in the Divine Comedy as emerging from the “dark forest”, and corresponds to this activation. It is the state of “The sleeping beauty” (where “she” is the consciousness), asleep in the forest. Awakening involves an identity crisis, a seeing that you are not the person, with consequent sense of loss of oneself, loss of all references, demotivation, depersonalization ... 2. Awakening of Shakti Kundalini At the same time, in the time-space of the person, that is, on a personal level, the activation of the energetic process, the awakening of the Shakti Kundalini manifests itself in his subtle body, with variable intensity for a number of reasons. This activation initially begins to circulate differently than before, proceeding towards the embodiment, an integration in one’s life of this awakening, through purification of the individual consciousness, because of this new circulation in the central and lateral subtle channels. Kundalini proceeds in this awakening from a coiled and earth bound (in muladhara chakra) condition to a progressive, gradual rise, despiralizing itself, step by step. In this initial activation, we will say that the Kundalini is in the activation phase, and the person begins to ask himself questions; he becomes a researcher. He starts investigating internal and external energies, that is, their projections into the world of stage, that could manifest also as an actual meeting a Master, a guide, who will eventually bring him home. Awareness grows in man, and at the same time external conditions appear to change likewise. In the Divine Comedy this is described as Dante who first meets Virgilio, representing the enlightened mind, and all encounters in Hell and Purgatory are progressively more enlightened, able to distinguish evil from good. In Eden he finally also meets the incarnation of the supreme feminine love principle, Beatrice. She was the driving force who sent Virgilio to him, she is the one who will complete the purification process in Eden, she is the driving vertical force who will drive him from the earth to the seventh sky, to the seventh chakra in the form of divine fire of love, Kundalini. Astrology describes how energy is circulating in the two lateral channels who are one, showing how we should dis identify from the sleeping, downward driving force of consciousness, and how purification occurs along the same path, the road of the six chakras portrayed as twelve zodiacal signs; it is the path of the light, from which Jyotish, Vedic astrology, takes its name. At the same time inasmuch as awakening proceeds to the solarization in the individual planets, then the two lunar nodes also activate more and more; we should remember that they are the head and tail of the dragon, Kundalini in direct form, who turn counter wise to the rest of the planets and indicate the way back to the centre of the zodiac. So this is Love, moving “the sun and the other stars”, as Dante puts it closing his poem, that finally finds the door, the star gate, for the return. This interpretation of the lunar nodes should be deepened. 3. Actively despiralizing This activation phase proceed then gradually and cyclically to a more intense gradual activation, and a corresponding greater activation of the energies emerging from the chakras, aligned on the astral spine. Thus more and more resistances to this circulation generate a conflict, which was not so present and evident in the previous energetic regime, and which manifests on a physical and psychic level. On the physical level, (actually the process happens in the subtle body but is felt as pertaining to the physical body) we can observe a series of symptoms who are well known to any man entering crises: these are initially non-intense physically felt symptoms which come from an energetic hyper activation in the chakras. We will discuss more in depth this point in a short while. Kundalini in this phase is becoming partially ascending, and is reaching and activating initially the lower chakras, sometimes only to subside and lower again, if the road she has to travel is not yet ready; energy then regresses and is claimed once again by the old identifications. It is said that only after having progressed beyond the third chakra the process is not tending to regress any more, and remains more active in progressing further to the higher chakras. What happens is that it rises to a certain point, and that reverses it’s energy not yet going straight to the top, because still much work of purification and of non-egoic choices has to happen, reverses on the lateral channel activating the inner energetic circulation in Ida and Pingala. At the personal level there is so a growing awareness about oneself and about the projections we make on the external world and relations. 4. Reactions The person in all this may be frightened and seek help, or may understand or at least sense that a deeper positive change is taking place. When this process starts, one becomes more conscious of one’s life, more aware about personal relations or about the world around, as someone who starts to awaken, and in this phase it could happen, for example, to dedicate oneself to by a spiritual path of transformation. Psychological responses depend on the stages of evolution of individual consciousness, which is in turn linked generally to the collective phase of evolution in society at large. Transpersonal psychology has taken up from the spiral dynamics a model of evolution of consciousness in seven stages (Clare Graves), and has then been reformulated by Ken Wilber in his wide work on evolution of consciousness in the individual as well as on the collective level along history. In this theorization, humanity in general and the individual evolve from more primary and egotistic states, expression of an activation only of the energies of the lower chakras, to higher stages of consciousness, where people are more evolute and capable of love and cooperation and understanding. Responses vary to this consciousness shift from defensive and regressive attitudes, manifesting as psychiatric crises, to progressive and cooperative practices for evolution like meditation and charity and wisdom. As a consequence of this differing capacity to give way to this evolutionary pressure and change, we will observe more or very few symptoms, ranging from the lesser neurotic disturbances to the more complete psychic breakdowns; these may also manifest more or less physical correlated symptoms along the period of transformation. The more unprepared ones will react intensely, trying by all means to abate the process, others may try to accept and accompany, to help in the process, seeking guide or psychotherapy. In this regard, resistances may not only manifest as psychological defensive mechanisms, but also on a more physical organic level as actual disease, as a consequence of a non-atonement with the higher energy flow, to a resistance before or beyond psychical capacity to elaborate and eventually refute or integrate the change; so we are confronted with numerous functional and some organic disturbances , to diseases who come from this circulation somehow impeded and pushing for further development. Sometimes, energy activating may take wrong or deviating paths, and could express in an unbalanced way, could invade the more superficial net of energetic channels (described in acupuncture, a for example), or even activate ad unbalanced endocrine functioning, because of the connection of these glands to the functioning of the chakras. We will return on this. How rapidly will then Kundalini ascend? The period of this intermediate phase needed for the kundalini to move from the earth back to the inner sky is so variable, that all of those in which an activation of Kundalini happened in various degrees could’nt be categorised and there is no need or desire to do so. Be sufficient for the time being to say that it has a range going from an abrupt arousal, happening in an person prepared or not prepared, to the opposite extreme, a slow food cooking, looking as a smooth journey, without waterfalls, till they reach the wide-open sea. Let’s speak now of the direct ascending of Kundalini in Shushumna. 5. Kundalini rising or ascending In the course of time, one or more intensive and liberating moments are generally reached, in which the energy reaches its goal, Kundalini becomes completely straightened and ascending to heaven, that is the inner sky, the seventh heaven, the seventh chakra., which is also its origin. When the process, either gradually or more directly, is activated towards the straightening of the serpent, when the fire rises to the sky, as in Dante's Paradise, we may find ourselves becoming eager to follow, to align with, and to accompany in an active way this re unification, this yoga; and this is what Kundalini yoga deals with. From awakening onwards, there is self-recognition of conscience, yet this could still be burdened by egoic identifications. So almost always these processes are very difficult to sustain and to help in others; very often it is in this specific phase of hyper activation and energetic flow to the higher chakras that the most acute unbalances are observed and experimented, and where the major psychiatric syndromes appear and develop; the unpreparedness that still persist at this stage will make these unbalances much more manifest. Once Kundalini is rising and leaving no more space to preparation or refusals, what happens in the acute phase is to accompany, protect, sustain the process, helping the physical and mental condition as needed for sustaining it, going from shelter, food, warm and centred presence, drugs that can appease and equilibrate energy, modest advice on specific material and other matters that the person cannot handle by himself in that phase. The acute phase sooner or later recedes, and though this liberation from the ego, not of the go, can take place repeatedly, cyclically, in the inter crises phase a different kind of assistance is often needed, for sustenance again, for clarification, for integration. We will say more on psychiatric syndromes and their treatment later. In the Divine Comedy, heaven is the place of direct ascent of Kundalini, to reach the seventh chakra. All of heaven is a transcendental condition of vision and bliss, for he who, like Dante, has completed ego dis identification, (which occurs in Hell), and purified its consciousness, chakra after chakra, (as Dante did in Purgatory). Without entering here in detail on the Comedy’s structure and wisdom, I believe that psychiatric patients are flying souls, so heavenly souls, that fall because of incomplete ego evolution, having to go back for some areas in hell, and have to come down to continue the positive effort of Purgatory. In other words, I see the three canticos of the Comedy as three contemporary phases, and not as sequential; and I compare this structure if the inner world that Dante exposes, to the three channels of Yoga in the subtle body. Beatrice in this view is Kundalini, the driving force propelling to the higher sky; but she cannot travel straight up until the preparation is finished. The identifications still present and operating in personality, that Kundalini forces rapidly to leave, old habits still present in the chakras, are all tendencies that bring Kundalini out of alignment and that are not compatible with the extraordinary urge to rise and go straight up of the kundalini rising phase. From this comes the unbalance we meet in these suffering persons. Anyhow for the best or for the worst this is what is happening, Shakti is activated to reach union with Siva (as the Hindu or Buddhist symbol Yab Yum expresses), and in the best cases she remains constantly united, so to say “married”, in constant intimate union with Shiva, the realized consciousness. At this point they are "one whole", which is the condition, incarnated in the body, of true man and true God, as in the statues of the Buddha Eden. It is here that we must now pause for some more clinical considerations on mental states during these processes, for as we were saying, not only spirituality is concerned with this, but also psychiatry. 2. Psychiatry, or sailing the sea A saying attributed to Plato says that there are three types of people in the world: the living, the dead, and those who go sail the sea. Undoubtedly the living are those who have completed the journey, who have found themselves and have arrived. They are rare, and not easy to recognize, if you are not one of them. The dead are the ones who have yet to begin; they just live, without self-awareness; they don't even know if and how much they are sick. They are the majority of humanity. Those who go to sea are those who started from the shore of the “me”, but have not yet arrived on the shores of the Self, if there were any. These are really many, although few compared to the dead, but they have to go through death to get to life. They are those mentioned in the Divine Comedy, they are those who sail towards the light, but also those who drown before reaching the goal. The former are dealt with by the spiritual teachers, while the latter are dealt with by psychiatrists and psychologists. However, the journey by sea depends on many factors, on external conditions, on what boat you have, on the guide that helps, on understanding the route ... We want here to briefly describe those who most often cry out for help, who suffer too much, so as to help them get home. A big change happened, inside them, and so they started. This event is the awakening: the consciousness woke up, started from sleep, and is looking for itself. In a frequently echoed example, it is like a birth, like the birth of a new being, and help is needed. 1. Resistance A saying goes that suffering does not come from change but from resistance to change. Now in a child birth birth suffering is the rule, and resistance is natural, for everyone. There are many cases though in which the person is not prepared, is not ready for this event, and suffers excessively and asks for help. The obstacle to awakening, in consciousness, is the sleep of consciousness, and this is deeper in some, or it is specific to certain aspects of life and not to others. Tradition speaks of a veil, an obstacle to seeing clearly, to light; a shade, an impurity, a spot. Tibetans speak of pure and impure vision. The egoic obstacles, the impurities are like conditioning of personal consciousness, and has multiple causes, including perhaps previous lives. This condition of falling of consciousness into a state of unconsciousness manifests itself as an opposition to change, an unconscious resistance, which the consciousness itself perceives as suffering. This hindering is a subjective "standing against" everything that happens; it is as if the awakening of the conscience found itself struggling with itself inasmuch as it still partly sleeps, that is, inasmuch as it is still identified with the ego. So, the ego is somehow opaque, obscured, it is not "transparent”, but burdened with an impurity. The obstacle is usually unconscious; and by the law that "what is unconscious is projected", the individual ego struggles against its own good. Thus, it is the ego who suffers, but also, he that causes suffering. We therefore see that the awakening of the Kundalini, although a process aiming for liberation, is not a pleasant walk for the transforming ego. And when the change begins, irreversibly, such as in the case of childbirth, it will cause conditions of greater and lesser difficulty, according to the level of purity, light, preparation of the subject in which this takes place. 2. Spiritual awakenings versus psychiatric psychosis We will therefore have certain situations in which the process, both in the preparation period and in the more or less acute complete onset, is welcomed and accompanied without the need for specifically dedicated medical or psychological help, for example; often it is sufficient to accompany these conditions that have been named spiritual emergencies, as they are defined, in a protected environment, with the help of people who are aware of what is happening, perhaps because they have experienced it. In other situations, and they are perhaps the majority, the level of consciousness of the person in which this happens is still unprepared; there are still attachments to personality, to the environment, and people are not ready to leave their world and themselves too, not ready to let space for the birth of a new state of consciousness. In these cases they carry out a series of ego reactions, aimed at hindering, and a major conflict can be generated, a conflict that can be even intense and often prolonged, in which consciousness is stuck: on one side, the process is irreversible and progressing, on the other side one is not yet conscious and able to let go of all resistances, to understand and welcome the change. These conditions, resulting from the reactions of the residual ego to the growing process, are mainly of control and flight, ways to try to survive the death and rebirth process of transformation. These conditions constitute the bulk of the disorders, the dystonic, infernal, sometimes chronic ego aspect of the symptoms that come. These are usually therefore considered pathological, and treated as such, by the patients themselves and by families and health professionals who are committed to bringing down the crisis. We could say that psychiatry sees mostly this type of developmental crisis, the stuck ones, the countered ones, the bad ones, that often do not evolve, become chronic, go stale. Psychiatric theory and practice are largely made up of assisting the processes that take place in people who are still unprepared, because they are still too identified with the old regime, when it is now time for an overall, intense and definitive change. My belief (and not only mine See also Lukof, in transpersonal textbook of psychiatry and psychology, by Scotton, Chinen and Battista, Books, 1996, (p.271) ) though, is that the conditions we just exposed are but two extremes of a spectrum in which no two crisis are same, but rather that there are infinite ways of awakening and infinite as individuals exist of incarnating, integrating, opposing, resolving this condition, so that seeing a patient in a condition of this kind we will take surely into account as many specifications as possible, but will nonetheless consider that the process is unique, awakening proceeding, and that it is difficult (for the ego), and that in all cases you can help in an adequate way and favour its natural positive outcome. This takes away at least part of the pessimism and fear in which psychotherapists and psychiatrists often fall when facing such intense and subversive conditions. This in turn does not lead to under evaluate the condition, or to diminish the attention and cautiousness needed to protect and help these patients; it also allows for a deeper understanding of psychiatric crises. 3. Syndromes of pain and misunderstanding The obstacles that activate in the individual consciousness manifest themselves as a conflict with the ongoing process, with resistance appearing as symptoms. Let's look at them more closely, considering them according to the phase in which they occur. Neuroses A first series of symptoms are compatible with a functioning connected to the previous reality, they are in other words milder, and constitute the neuroses as a whole. These syndromes are an expression of this resistance, and emerge when the process is still on the side of an initial change. We find here disorders in which defence mechanisms are on the forefront, either as a character trait or as frankly symptomatic.; for example like in the two main diagnosis of neurosis, DAP, panic attack disorder, or DOC, Obsessive compulsive disorder. In other cases, like in the more severe doc, a psychotic attitude of clearly felt fear of death is diffusing in the psyche, we observe the massive and inappropriate use of the dissociation paranoid mechanism of interpretation, where the person is trying to use the thought process defensively and aggressively to survive. Trying this way not to feel the danger, he builds and maintains a castle of defensive interpretations, putting up paranoid defences, where the enemy and the danger must be excluded outside and annihilated to save oneself. But until the ego survives, and is in charge, the old regime works in conflict with the unconscious. We are still nonetheless in the neurotic area, in which there is apparently some control over the transformation, or death and rebirth, process. On the physical level, (or rather on the energetics of the subtle body), the activation of Kundalini in a mild form in the initial phases expresses on the psychic level as neurotic conditions, but at the same time almost invariably, although in various degrees, express also on the level of the subtle body and as a sort of psychosomatic manifestation, due to the energy overflow in the chakra system. These disturbances are generally perceived as symptoms of the physical body, for multiple reasons; first of all, because of the identification we have with it. Then because in the general population, and also especially in the caregivers, the bio medical paradigm is installed and prevalent, so this materialistic point of view is the first and more approved approach to this subtle world. Consequently, these energetic imbalances are very often, and unfortunately for the patients, mistaken for physical symptoms, and give rise frequently to unending physical testing and procedures having no result in diagnosing or treating the disturbance. Actually, as dr. Lee Sannella explains in his book, it is the physio kundalini we see here at work and generating this kind of acute and unexplainable suffering. By this term this author refers to the Kundalini component insisting on the chakra system and its locations in the subtle body. The energetic flow along the chakra system may manifest in a psychosomatic catharsis, where symptoms manifest as critical functional disturbances in the organs and apparatus concerned in that energetic station. Among them are a trembling sensation inside the body, and differing and disturbing symptoms manifest in the region of the genital area (hyper or hypo sexual arousal), stomach (like nausea), heart (altered rhythm, sensation of weight or pain), throat, (sensation of suffocation, aphonia), or head (tinnitus, vertigo, sight temporary problems, head ache or sensation of head too full). On a more psychological level, the kundalini syndrome is accompanied by various degrees of a sense of fear, a sense of head and thought being confuse, disorientation, with memory and concentration difficulties, strong emotions arise or on the contrary a sense of not feeling them like before or being absent. Psychoses A second series of symptoms occur when the process escalates and becomes uncontrollable, and the identity goes into a complete crisis; we are dealing here with symptoms that psychiatry calls psychosis, because the functioning of the personality here is strongly deranged and often requires direct assistance, sometimes urgently too. These make up the heterogenous group of the various psychoses, which are the conditions with which psychiatry most frequently has to deal. Summarising and simplifying, in psychoses we can clearly enough distinguish three series of symptoms. These are related on one side to the process of ego crisis, on the other side to the energetics of its developing, but finally also to the residual ego reactivity which is so disturbed and disturbing as to need external help, as psychiatry puts it, to make a person dangerous for herself or for others. Let’s see them in a rapid survey. 1. Symptoms connected to the identity crises are -depersonalization, that is not knowing or finding oneself any more, in differing degrees or continuity, - and derealization conversely, as if the world was not the same, not real or existing, or deforming and altered in many ways. One doesn’t feel connected to the old “I”, he feels a dissociation, a dis orientation, a very deep indeed feeling of isolation and loneliness, a sense of death, like being in a desert, in a dark night of the soul. The body can also deform, an alteration is perceived in everything, in the relations and the way affection is perceived, or the sensations. In this processes of depersonalization, other symptoms as -demotivation, that is -apathy, -lack of desire or anhedonia, -lack of concentration, difficulty in memory recalling, disorientation, etc. When symptoms of this type prevail, psychiatrically we would be oriented toward a diagnosis of the schizophrenic spectrum, from milder to more serious and chronic forms. 2.The second series of symptoms, connected with the Kundalini activating, These symptoms may evolve and can mature to reach a more continuous and intense energy hyperactivity and overflow at all levels. In these cases, they can even rapidly transform in more important conditions, as a bipolar hypomanic situation, or even manic, with a need for hospitalization. Sometimes at the onset of the process it is not yet clear if the condition will remain in a more moderate and useful energy growth or will turn in a disruptive and dangerous outburst. Anyway, it is clinically sound to consider the situation starting from what is more evident and active. Just to make one example to explain better what I am stating here, let’s take the example of panic attacks. Before they organize in a panic attack disturbance, where avoidance becomes an outstanding feature in itself, affecting and disabling the patient’s life probably more than the panic attack he once experienced but that rapidly subsided, panic attacks are obviously an acute and disrupting upsurge of energy from the lower chakras aiming to rise to the crown chakra, but most of the time they are short lived, incomplete, and start a series of repetitions until they transform into a more continuous and wide energy flow that can show as hypo and manic phases or ecstatic and expansive consciousness states. But the liberation of energy we observe in some physio kundalini symptoms, as vertigo, can last long just as well as they can transform promptly into a more psychic and spiritual condition, leaving almost no traces of the previous way of presentation. On the contrary, panic attacks could be the first signs of a psychic breakdown of the schizophrenic type which will reveal itself more in time. Recurrence of these episodes, like in childbirth, is not a simple repetition of an identical imbalance the person fears of. At a closer examination, it rather expresses a maturation of the crisis in time, it seems to produce a progressive transformation ion the subtle body of the person, and of his awareness. Globally, these symptoms have been categorized under the diagnosis of the various forms of bipolar affective disorders, to clarify that the affective energetic system is mainly interested by the change. The bipolar conditions in their various forms express the oscillating affective energetic trend deriving from the activated Kundalini. Patients grandly differ as to the capacity to maintain a distance from identifying with this strong energetic flow, and the majority are blown away by it, becoming hyperactive, insomniacs, aggressive, hypersexual, hyper everything, with fast mod changes, fast thinking and talkative and so on. Drugs to re balance the system are generally necessary and welcomed if used wisely. 3. In various degrees, we generally see associated with these symptoms an aggravation of the Kundalini syndrome we were talking about just before. Other Other psychiatric syndromes that we observe in acute states of suffering and requiring help show up in the psychiatric ward, and though they differ even widely, could be seen. Like the previous ones as expressions of a diversified unique process In the intuition of some great founders of psychiatry, who hypothesized a single psychosis, with many forms, we find the same vision that we are describing here. I’m referring here to the old theory of the unique psychoses of old German school of psychiatry in 1900, of death rebirth of identity, and its energetic correlated activities, mixed with various degrees of organized resistance on the part of the residual ego still having credit, still speaking in the head with his old microphone to which the patient in his crisis still gives some audience. For example, in this view the various forms of eating disorders are forms in which control does not go away when the system has been intensely activated, oscillating from activations of active kundalini phases and mental control over the impulsive drive of hunger, and the energetic changes that come by during assimilation of food; Another common condition is drug addiction, where again we can see the control mechanisms very active in trying to modify actively mental states through psychoactive substances; these are conditions dancing on the brim of the abyss of the process of death and rebirth, often with a tragic epilogue. 3. Deviated Kundalini In addition to psychiatric symptoms, in the activation phases of the Kundalini we may encounter specific symptoms on other levels than the one we considered till here, as a consequence of specific blocks in circulation (impurity, other forms of resistances), so that the circulation deviates, and manifests differently than it could. 1. Body level We often observe in the course of crisis, or in preparation for them, several functional and even organic physical symptoms, which require adequate assistance. I want to clarify here that the use of this term is not in the classical sense, where we refer to effects on the physical physiology and eventually anatomical disturbances originating in the psychic condition or conflicts that influence emotionally the body. Having as a standpoint the unified spiritual-psychical-physical body levels of manifestation of the yogic tradition, we refer here to how energy consciousness could manifest more or at least also on other layers than the main ones according to the preparation of these bodies to change and transformation. This could be connected with some unconscious identification with bodily functions, as if there existed a sort of psychosomatic short circuits; for example, the way a child was born, or was breastfed, or the way the mother handled body hygiene and physical care, or traumas memorized by the body at that stage, may all interfere in the adult circulation of energy in the proper way. This area still is to be investigated further. Thus, when the ascending kundalini deviates from its proper circulation, may manifest itself with symptoms at the body level, which usually begin as functional disturbances. These initially do not produce permanent organic damage, and are therefore reversible; however, in specific cases, or because of its duration, or for a further somatization of energy they can eventually become real physical illnesses, of the kind we study in general medicine. Let's see very briefly here a few of these conditions: -All the long of the spine, particularly in correspondence with the third (lumbar) or fourth or fifth chakra, we observe pain or blocks in motility, sometimes in the form of acute onset, such as witch blows, which usually and unfortunately are indistinctly attributed to a herniated disc. This herniation can of course exist and be diagnosed as a cause of the pain or block, due to a physical pressure on the nerves; experience though, even among orthopaedic doctors, indicate that physical compression of a nervous root is not the only case in which we find those symptoms. Actually, often a difficulty in energetic circulation along the astral column could be a contributing factor or sometimes the main actor in the play. Furthermore, in the local painful crisis there can well be a reverberation of physical and subtle body activities: a contraction due to an energetic block could well imply physical mechanisms of spasm, inflammation, altered circulation that come in maintaining intensifying and the painful condition, creating a vicious cycle. The pain in itself could have also a positive purpose, for it attracts attention, energy and care, brings about rest and physical care; all this could re-enact and elaborate traumas from first infancy still stored in. body’s memory and reactivate energetic circulation in regard to these blockages. -We often observe several different dysfunctions of organs and systems, often connected to the endocrine gland system. These in turn are connected with the chakra system: -at the 2nd chakra level, symptoms may involve the organs and systems of the area, contributing or being a principal cause for impotence, or anorgasmia, and sexual dysfunctions in general; but also, may have a part in the otherwise inexplicable chronic inflammation of the bladder, or of the genital organs, or prostatic hypertrophy. - at the level of the 3rd chakra: gastritis, gastroesophageal reflux, diabetes. - at the level of the 4th chakra: heart rhythm irregularities up to angina and heart attacks, reduction in diaphragmatic breathing, immunity modulation in the Thymus. -at the level of the 5th chakra: choking in the throat region, speech disorders, chronic inflammation in the region, problems in swallowing. - at the level of the 6th chakra: dizziness and dizziness and tinnitus, disturbances of vision and focus and light, difference between the two eyes, subtle sounds and lights, or disorders of hearing ; these could even become hallucinations, like hearing voices or having visions. - always by activation of the 6th chakra, previously more subtle dormant functions can develop, development of special powers, such as seeing in the dark, seeing the aura, presences and shadows, seeing the future, diseases in others, up to more known situations such as dream precognition, insights etc. about which the person may feel intimidated or even proud. -Conditions connected to the 7th chakra can manifest, such as inexplicable healings in oneself or others, mind reading, situations in any case connected to non-separation. - More systemic, general functional disorders, such as hypertension, aging, fatigue; disorders of the psycho-neuro-endocrine immunological system (studied by this new science, Pnei), such as autoimmune disorders, fibromialgia; and more, like tics, general or partial paralysis, (not being able to walk for example), etc. and so many other disturbances we treat only symptomatically, by lack of a complete understanding of the complexity of man, which obviously has multiple dimensions and not only the physical one to consider. 2. Psychic level Psychology generally speaking deals with taking care of symptoms of a relatively non acute phase, or of the initial or integrative final phases of transformation, appearing as neuroses. A theory that gained approval in time in psychology is the trauma theory. This theory holds that many if not all symptoms come from some traumatic experience in childhood or later. After all, it is an evolution of the psychogenetic approach in Freudian approach. As we know, Jung proposed to integrate this approach with teleology, that is where are we going, not w only from where have we arrived here. Symptoms as dysfunctions or conflict may come from a difficulty in becoming what we are supposed to be in the next phase. S. Grof in a book called “the psychology of the future”, S. Grof, Psichology of the future, 2005 in a transpersonal view of psychology suggests to amplify the cartography of the psyche including the perinatal and the transcendental phases of evolution. The concept anyway in psychogenetic theories is that problems in evolution come from exogenous factors, which create a psychological conflict, trauma, experience that will not allow harmonious subsequent psychological balance. Psychologists generally give little importance to genetical factors in normal psychopathology and tend to concentrate on the psychological history of the patient to interpret symptoms, i.e. a panic attack. On the other hand, the predisposition to react in a feeble or exaggerated deviated way resides in the organism, and is not coming necessarily from the exterior. So, the way we react to traumatic experience is certainly a main factor in defining a trauma. Some event becomes traumatic also because of an internal factor, and depends on “what we have done with what has been done to us”, this is what makes the difference. The concept of endogenous was created in the bio medical paradigm to indicate how a diathesis, a predisposition to sickness was to be searched in some congenital, in the sense of hereditary generally, weakness or altered response to external stimuli, and could manifest even without an activating factor. If we transpose this to psychiatry, mental illnesses for the organic theory in psychiatry, a psychiatry born out of neurology, is caused by some endogenous predisposition on which we have little power to intervene. As a consequence of this standpoint, mental illness, and specifically the most serious ones that is the psychoses, are seen as endogenous illnesses, and very little importance is given to the psychological factors in diagnosing, treating them. Psychiatrists of this orientation generally devaluate what psychologists do, on the conviction that disturbances come from a predisposition, or at the best by an interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors. There is another way though to approach the evidence in psychiatry that endogenous factor prevail on exogenous to explain the outburst of symptomatology. Based on the transpersonal, holistic paradigm, mental illness can be reviewed as a transformation coming from within, from awakening, as we have seen, when the time is ripe. This evolutionary crisis starts with an awakening from personal consciousness, something similar to birth, of a new consciousness, we were saying, activating at the same time energies that bring over and produce a transformation and a purification, to evolve to an integration of this new consciousness. This transformation is so difficult, generally, and so ego problematic, that we are confronted with dysfunctional experiences, a number of symptoms we went through in the previous paragraphs, and which is considered as a form of illness, precisely of the mind, in fact a mental illness, because of this difficult period one has subjectively to go through. This way of seeing things would once again point to endogenous processes, and reduce the importance of activating moments, like traumatic experiences in the present or in the past of that person, to explain the crisis. Rather, the fact that external situations do happen concurrently with the interior changes, could be viewed as a synchronistic condition which happens to be significant for the change that has to occur. In my view, there is not a real distinction spiritually between endogenous or exogenous for consciousness creates both, but we believe to have a separation between inner and outer, between physical and psychical, because of identification with the body, but it is all consciousness. In this view endogenous activation of Kundalini, for inexplicable reasons, God’s or Nature’s or astrological inner timing, indifferently, is probably non something to be taken separately, as a consequence of specific physical or psychological conditions associated with the onset of that crises; rather, they should conjunctly be considered as happening together, “synchronistical”. For example, a post-traumatic stress syndrome may be alleviated by specific drugs or psychological interventions, but could well be the way by which a transformation process, who was already emerging, created, in the outer world, a condition for the death - rebirth scenario to manifest. All symptoms are so to be considered from this point of view as endogenous. Probably the “trauma theory” is so outstanding in psychology nowadays because of the resistance to acknowledge the primary role of consciousness, and the minor role of the ego and of its strategies in the evolutionary process causing the change from within, and the painful feelings of impotence that therapy would want to cure instead of accepting. So psychic symptoms again are to be referred to the evolutionary process of Kundalini working its way through resistances to merge finally with higher consciousness. In this process she pushes us in a psychological crisis and a rearrangement of identity, of emotional roles and thought, to reach a greater self-awareness on a higher level than personality. 3. Spiritual level Gopi Krishna, in his second autobiography of hi late years, referring to his awakening around his 35th year, following intense and prolonged concentrative meditative practices, observes that altered circulation in his Pingala solar channel was the cause of a major imbalance in his subtle system, deviating Kundalini from reaching his crown chakra. He was thus confronted with a prolonged and extremely painful and burning condition in his body, due to an excessive and unilateral use of meditation, that activated Kundalini mainly on the Pingala side only, creating this sensation of being burnt from within, and only when he deliberately activated the balancing energy of Ida channelling it into Shushumna the situation rapidly resolved in a high energy regime in which warmth, balance and pleasurable expansion of consciousness finally stabilized. 4. Treatment This last one in particular is only one of the examples that could be made, of how deviated Kundalini is becoming not only perceivable, but rather symptomatic, incapacitating, stuck, and painful. I thought it would be useful to the spiritual seekers, as well as to patients in a psychotic transformation, to examine and discuss the origin and treatment of mental disorders from the point of view of evolving consciousness instead than from ego well-being. In this article I am therefore addressing specifically all the helping professions, but psychiatrists in particular, so as to more adequately help or at least accompany and respect these sacred processes which appears so terrible. Terrible besides is a term indicating what is beyond good and evil; gods, or nature, or childbirth or death connote be put in the small boxes of separation, they are beyond. A better term could maybe be “the highest good”. Awakening is like a birth, and a death at the same time; it is a paradox, like truth. Inasmuch as it is a sacred passage, like the birth of a new being, it requires a midwife with this experience, a guide. This is why in this phase people often go to psychotherapy or seek spiritual paths. Often psychiatrists are the first caregiver called upon to assist these troubled processes of awakening. A new psychiatry is needed, though, that we could call a transpersonal psychiatry, to help in this kind of birth, this rebirth of consciousness from the point of view of the Self. It will be necessary to re-establish psychiatry and medicine on other bases,: these should also include the biological medical paradigm (for example, the use of psychiatric drugs may be necessary to balance the energy and conscience), but however they should also transcend it (so as to accompany the crisis, and not just break down the crisis because it is pathological). I therefore especially address medical doctors working with psychiatric conditions, for psychologists or spiritual teachers in this respect are figures who can only help part of the ongoing process, and often those who turn to them get answers that are clinically insufficient. To summarize and conclude As we have seen, the Kundalini states in the course of awakening are often in the foreground due to their manifestations and perceived psychic obstacles, and constitute the core of psychiatric difficulties. Besides psychiatry, the various stages and modes of this circulation manifest themselves, find the words to be told and to be recognized, in every artistic product of all times, from literature to figurative arts to philosophy to economics. Among these, the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri holds a special position, for it talks about this whole process in an unparalleled way, drawing a complete and eternal map of awakening. The message contained in the Divine Comedy is analogous or rather identical to that found in all wisdom traditions, from Buddhism to Hinduism to Taoism. Kundalini as we have seen can proceed gradually, but at other times can also rise abruptly. Is its way home the long searched for path, to say it with Dante, “the right path that was lost?” and yet existing? The way to get directly home, to overcome any separation and to self-recognize in the origin as well as in the goal.  NOTES