There are many paths to the ecstatic state, and the parallels between them are pertinent. One of the most fundamental questions to ask, is why pursue this state at all? That pursuit is something that humans have been engaged in since we can remember, and avoiding it because it is hard to define or control does not seem very satisfactory to me. It is also helpful to avail ourselves of some of the wisdom possessed by our ancestors and other explorers, before we dive into potentially treacherous waters. Light goes with Shadow.
[This post is the third in a series of five exploring some aspects of aquatic bodywork based on the author's recent personal experience as a receiver and as a practitioner since 1998. See links to the related posts below.]
The meeting with oneself is at first, the meeting with one's own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.p. 21-22 in Carl Jung, The Archetypes of Collective Unconscious, 1959
Since my recent Harbin experience had a distinctly yogic quality, I begin my investigation here. On my desk is a copy of John White's attempt to investigate the related topic of kundalini back in 1979; he compiled essays by many authors on traditional views, personal accounts, scientific research, and advice for seekers (Kundalini, Evolution and Enlightenment, edited by John White, Anchor Press). Kundalini is a phenomenon that I believe is related to my experiences of aquatic bodywork (see An aquatic kriya: the bodywave). In the Introduction to his book, White wrote:Some of the lines of investigation offered here may appear bizarre or even absurd at first because they are contradictory to 'common sense' and accepted scientific views. However, nothing need be taken on faith. That would be out of keeping with the basic assumption of the book - namely, that the scientific method can be applied to kundalini as a means of determining its validity and usefulness.
He went on to make four requests of readers that might also be helpful to those of us looking below the surface of the emerging and little understood aspects of aquatic bodywork - in particular, those aquatic experiences involving energy effects, psychosomatic shifts, and even spiritual epiphanies, that are real to those reporting and witnessing them but do not fit current medical models for beneficial procedures or outcomes in healing. Here are the requests John White made:
1. examine the evidence critically but with an open mind
2. judge whether the speculations and inferences are logically derived, coherent, and in accordance with those data from science and scholarship that bear on them
3. do not dismiss the entire concept if any single part should prove false or untenable
4. remember that a new idea usually does not 'make sense' until you have sufficient preparation to receive it.
In the 20 years since his collection was first published, we've made slow progress is developing technologies that can detect subtle but apparently influential energies such as kundalini. There has also been a reluctant recognition that whenever we attempt to capture or fix any thing like this, that thing eludes us or changes. Thomas Moore articulates well the limitations of making unequivocal interpretations of body symptoms, such as science prefers (Care of the Soul, p. 159). He goes on to write (p. 175):
We may understand the body as a collection of facts, but if we also grant it its soul, it is an inexhaustible source of 'signs'. Tending the body in all its physicality, but also with imagination, is a important part of care of the soul. But such a project calls for an approach that is difficult to conjure up in an age of facts - medical poetics.
This 'medical poetics' struck me since recently I began calling my own approach to aquatic bodywork 'aquapoetics' - inspired by Joe Landwehr who distinguishes his approach from the barely accepted field of astrology by using the term 'astropoetics'. We both hope to draw attention to the kind of soulfulness that Thomas Moore and others have articulated so beautifully. Incidentally, Joe was attending Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft workshop (reconnecting with soul through nature) elsewhere in California while I was in Harbin.
Any proposed connection between cosmology (whether yogic or astrologic or other) and human psychology faces some prejudice. Still, those brave enough to risk their reputations in such studies find many poorly understood phenomena to pursue. These often concern our understanding of human consciousness and whether or not it can be altered intentionally and beneficially. Later in the Introduction mentioned earlier, John White went on to quote (p. 25) Ken Dychwald (from his book Bodymind) as follows:
... the kundalini perspective on psychosomatic structure and process is in some ways remarkably similar to several of the popular Western approaches, such as bioenergetics, Rolfing and the Feldenkrais method. Underlying each of these approaches to human development is a strong emphasis on identifying specific psychoemotional qualities and levels of human awareness in terms of their relationships to the body.
Dychwald continued: Yet kundalini yoga differs from these Western processes in that within this ancient system lies a deeply profound statement about human evolution through bodymind development. John White added: Science, seemingly so familiar with the life processes, has from the yogic perspective lost its perception of the cosmic context that generates those processes .... We do seem to have lost our sense of awe and wonder, to have devalued the mystery of life.
I think Thomas Moore is writing of a similar oversight when he says (Care of the Soul, p. 168): All illness is meaningful, although its meaning may never be translatable into entirely rational terms. The point is not to understand the cause of disease and then solve the problem, but to get close enough to the disease to restore the particular religious connection with life at which it hints....In a very real sense, we do not cure diseases, they cure us, by restoring our religious participation in life.
Moore was talking here about the way in which illness plays out at the level of actual body tissues and also at the level of dream. Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, healed by means of dreams and the god's animal form was often depicted as a snake biting a person where they were afflicted. Kundalini energy is also known as serpent power. The word comes from kundala which means coiled, and the image given is of a snake coiled up at the base of the spine while resting.
Yogi Bhajan said that kundalini means 'the curl of the hair of the beloved' - a poetic metaphor for the flow of energy and consciousness. Each human being is a miniature universe: all that is found in the cosmos exists within each individual, and the same principles that apply to the universe apply to an individual. Kundalini then is the personal aspect of the divine cosmic energy or universal life force, the bioenergy of the body that can be channeled through the spine to the brain.
The phenomenon been described in sacred scriptures that date back to the 5th century BC, and long before that in oral history. In fact, yoga was conceived as just as much science as sacred. Swami Vivekananda (quoted by White, p. 22) said: [kundalini is] the real power coiled up in every being, the mother of eternal happiness, if we but know how to approach her. And yoga is the science of religion, the rationale of all worship, all prayers, forms, ceremonies and miracles.
This linking of science with spirit is tenuous in our modern world. Perhaps the concept of soul coming out of Jungian tradition helps us to bridge the gap. 'The great malady of the twentieth century', says Moore (Care of the Soul, p. xi),'.... is "loss of soul"....When soul is neglected, it doesn't just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning' (p. xi).
Moore continues,'Tradition teaches that soul lies midway between understanding and unconsciousness, and that its instrument is neither the mind nor the body, but imagination. I understand therapy as nothing more than bringing imagination to areas that are devoid of it,which then must express themselves by becoming symptomatic' (p. xiii). When, during an aquatic bodywork session, a part of my body is touched or moved and my mind floods with images, as often occurs, what does this mean?
Dreaming is a special form of imagining. In 2001, I attended a workshop on 'Dreams and Rituals in Healing Waters' with Jungian psychotherapist, Professor J. P. De VierVille. He said 'Water is to the Body, as Dreams are to the Soul'. It was then that I began to see how dreams and water might be combined in a powerful exploration of human consciousness and healing. The Hindu Vedas identified three states of being: one in this world, one in the other world, and a third intermediate state, that of sleep (trance, dream and reverie).
It is as if the warm-water pool provides a portal to the unconscious (as in shamanic journeying) and the movements of the body (as in yogic kriyas) then help a person to travel deeper into this realm. Our ability to bear witness to this, to give it meaning and description seems to be a quality of soul. The sense of connection - inner to outer - that has been part of my own aquatic healing is described in this extract from Watsu: Freeing the Body in Water by the originator of Watsu at Harbin, Harold Dull (2nd edn, 1998, pp. 16,17):
No matter on what level we become intimate, whether with another person or with our own body, with a place or with the world around us, there is a similar underlying process that entails three elements: 1. the knowledge of our separateness, 2. the opening to the other, and 3. the knowledge, the experience of our oneness. Any one of these can initiate the process, but there is no true intimacy unless all three are present..... when we are in our body and the oneness we feel is not limited by its physical boundaries.
In Tertium Organum, P.D. Ouspensky wrote: The first state was 'ecstasy'; from ecstasy it forgot itself into deep sleep; from profound sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness, but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams; from dreaming it passes finally into the thoroughly waking state, and the outer world of sense. Ecstasy is the term used by Plotinus; it is entirely identical with the term turiya of Hindu psychology...(quote kindly provided by Inger Whist from her MFA thesis paper on Water Issues).
A master of kundalini yoga is supposed to need little sleep and does not dream but rests for 2-3 hours in the deep 'awakened' sleep called turiya; dealing with subconscious material, normally processed in the dream state, in early morning meditation practice. Yogi Bhajan's followers have suggested that a better understanding of this relationship between meditation, sleep, and dreaming, might demonstrate that altered states of consciousness could be used effectively to process psychic material just as dreamwork does.
........................................................................................................................................................
For further inspiration, see this extract comparing state of consciousness to states of water: Conscious fluidity
Previous posts in this series:
1. A return to the water
2. A path to aquatic ecstacy
Subsequent posts in this series:
4.Pristine waters; murky depths
5.How to investigate aquatic altered states of consciousness
See also related posts:
An aquatic kriya: the bodywave
Trance, dreaming and aquatic bodywork
Harbin Hot Springs
See more of my poetry and other creative explorations on:
Diving Deeper: An Adventure Inspired by Water
2. judge whether the speculations and inferences are logically derived, coherent, and in accordance with those data from science and scholarship that bear on them
3. do not dismiss the entire concept if any single part should prove false or untenable
4. remember that a new idea usually does not 'make sense' until you have sufficient preparation to receive it.
In the 20 years since his collection was first published, we've made slow progress is developing technologies that can detect subtle but apparently influential energies such as kundalini. There has also been a reluctant recognition that whenever we attempt to capture or fix any thing like this, that thing eludes us or changes. Thomas Moore articulates well the limitations of making unequivocal interpretations of body symptoms, such as science prefers (Care of the Soul, p. 159). He goes on to write (p. 175):
We may understand the body as a collection of facts, but if we also grant it its soul, it is an inexhaustible source of 'signs'. Tending the body in all its physicality, but also with imagination, is a important part of care of the soul. But such a project calls for an approach that is difficult to conjure up in an age of facts - medical poetics.
This 'medical poetics' struck me since recently I began calling my own approach to aquatic bodywork 'aquapoetics' - inspired by Joe Landwehr who distinguishes his approach from the barely accepted field of astrology by using the term 'astropoetics'. We both hope to draw attention to the kind of soulfulness that Thomas Moore and others have articulated so beautifully. Incidentally, Joe was attending Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft workshop (reconnecting with soul through nature) elsewhere in California while I was in Harbin.
Any proposed connection between cosmology (whether yogic or astrologic or other) and human psychology faces some prejudice. Still, those brave enough to risk their reputations in such studies find many poorly understood phenomena to pursue. These often concern our understanding of human consciousness and whether or not it can be altered intentionally and beneficially. Later in the Introduction mentioned earlier, John White went on to quote (p. 25) Ken Dychwald (from his book Bodymind) as follows:
... the kundalini perspective on psychosomatic structure and process is in some ways remarkably similar to several of the popular Western approaches, such as bioenergetics, Rolfing and the Feldenkrais method. Underlying each of these approaches to human development is a strong emphasis on identifying specific psychoemotional qualities and levels of human awareness in terms of their relationships to the body.
Dychwald continued: Yet kundalini yoga differs from these Western processes in that within this ancient system lies a deeply profound statement about human evolution through bodymind development. John White added: Science, seemingly so familiar with the life processes, has from the yogic perspective lost its perception of the cosmic context that generates those processes .... We do seem to have lost our sense of awe and wonder, to have devalued the mystery of life.
I think Thomas Moore is writing of a similar oversight when he says (Care of the Soul, p. 168): All illness is meaningful, although its meaning may never be translatable into entirely rational terms. The point is not to understand the cause of disease and then solve the problem, but to get close enough to the disease to restore the particular religious connection with life at which it hints....In a very real sense, we do not cure diseases, they cure us, by restoring our religious participation in life.
Moore was talking here about the way in which illness plays out at the level of actual body tissues and also at the level of dream. Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, healed by means of dreams and the god's animal form was often depicted as a snake biting a person where they were afflicted. Kundalini energy is also known as serpent power. The word comes from kundala which means coiled, and the image given is of a snake coiled up at the base of the spine while resting.
Yogi Bhajan said that kundalini means 'the curl of the hair of the beloved' - a poetic metaphor for the flow of energy and consciousness. Each human being is a miniature universe: all that is found in the cosmos exists within each individual, and the same principles that apply to the universe apply to an individual. Kundalini then is the personal aspect of the divine cosmic energy or universal life force, the bioenergy of the body that can be channeled through the spine to the brain.
SUSHUMNA: The most important of all the nadis; the central channel, which extends from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. It is the pathway of the awakened kundalini. PRANA: The vital life-sustaining force of both the body and the universe. From the Siddha Yoga Glossary
The phenomenon been described in sacred scriptures that date back to the 5th century BC, and long before that in oral history. In fact, yoga was conceived as just as much science as sacred. Swami Vivekananda (quoted by White, p. 22) said: [kundalini is] the real power coiled up in every being, the mother of eternal happiness, if we but know how to approach her. And yoga is the science of religion, the rationale of all worship, all prayers, forms, ceremonies and miracles.
This linking of science with spirit is tenuous in our modern world. Perhaps the concept of soul coming out of Jungian tradition helps us to bridge the gap. 'The great malady of the twentieth century', says Moore (Care of the Soul, p. xi),'.... is "loss of soul"....When soul is neglected, it doesn't just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning' (p. xi).
Moore continues,'Tradition teaches that soul lies midway between understanding and unconsciousness, and that its instrument is neither the mind nor the body, but imagination. I understand therapy as nothing more than bringing imagination to areas that are devoid of it,which then must express themselves by becoming symptomatic' (p. xiii). When, during an aquatic bodywork session, a part of my body is touched or moved and my mind floods with images, as often occurs, what does this mean?
Dreaming is a special form of imagining. In 2001, I attended a workshop on 'Dreams and Rituals in Healing Waters' with Jungian psychotherapist, Professor J. P. De VierVille. He said 'Water is to the Body, as Dreams are to the Soul'. It was then that I began to see how dreams and water might be combined in a powerful exploration of human consciousness and healing. The Hindu Vedas identified three states of being: one in this world, one in the other world, and a third intermediate state, that of sleep (trance, dream and reverie).
SUBTLE BODY: The second of four bodies within a human being (the physical, subtle, causal, and supracausal bodies), which is experienced in the dream state. From the Siddha Yoga Glossary.
In the intermediate state one was thought to have the capacity to perceive both this world and the other world simultaneously. Jung talked of the active imagination which occurs in the form of a waking dream (a dreamlike state in the absence of sleep), in which one could observe one's conscious thoughts and actions while at the same time enjoying access to images, fantasies and emotions normally inaccessible to consciousness. Waking dreams happen during aquatic bodywork. They are the body's poetry expressed.It is as if the warm-water pool provides a portal to the unconscious (as in shamanic journeying) and the movements of the body (as in yogic kriyas) then help a person to travel deeper into this realm. Our ability to bear witness to this, to give it meaning and description seems to be a quality of soul. The sense of connection - inner to outer - that has been part of my own aquatic healing is described in this extract from Watsu: Freeing the Body in Water by the originator of Watsu at Harbin, Harold Dull (2nd edn, 1998, pp. 16,17):
No matter on what level we become intimate, whether with another person or with our own body, with a place or with the world around us, there is a similar underlying process that entails three elements: 1. the knowledge of our separateness, 2. the opening to the other, and 3. the knowledge, the experience of our oneness. Any one of these can initiate the process, but there is no true intimacy unless all three are present..... when we are in our body and the oneness we feel is not limited by its physical boundaries.
In Tertium Organum, P.D. Ouspensky wrote: The first state was 'ecstasy'; from ecstasy it forgot itself into deep sleep; from profound sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness, but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams; from dreaming it passes finally into the thoroughly waking state, and the outer world of sense. Ecstasy is the term used by Plotinus; it is entirely identical with the term turiya of Hindu psychology...(quote kindly provided by Inger Whist from her MFA thesis paper on Water Issues).
A master of kundalini yoga is supposed to need little sleep and does not dream but rests for 2-3 hours in the deep 'awakened' sleep called turiya; dealing with subconscious material, normally processed in the dream state, in early morning meditation practice. Yogi Bhajan's followers have suggested that a better understanding of this relationship between meditation, sleep, and dreaming, might demonstrate that altered states of consciousness could be used effectively to process psychic material just as dreamwork does.
TURIYA: The fourth, or transcendental state, beyond the waking, dream, and deep-sleep states, in which the true nature of reality is directly perceived; the state of samadhi, or deep meditation. From the Siddha Yoga Glossary.
Is it possible that: the movements a person is guided through during an aquatic bodywork session; the way in which this alters breathing patterns; the occurrence of waking dreams and passing images and vocalizations; the synchronization that appears to occur between giver and receiver; and, not least, the medium in which this all takes place - water - have the potential to provide, for someone who is not a master of kundalini yoga, a beneficial experience of higher consciousness?........................................................................................................................................................
For further inspiration, see this extract comparing state of consciousness to states of water: Conscious fluidity
Previous posts in this series:
1. A return to the water
2. A path to aquatic ecstacy
Subsequent posts in this series:
4.Pristine waters; murky depths
5.How to investigate aquatic altered states of consciousness
See also related posts:
An aquatic kriya: the bodywave
Trance, dreaming and aquatic bodywork
Harbin Hot Springs
See more of my poetry and other creative explorations on:
Diving Deeper: An Adventure Inspired by Water
