Kundalini and Prajna as the two energies of awakening (Christopher Gladwell posted on May 31st, 2013 )

The great Abhinavagupta was a Tantric master. Author of the TantraLoka or Realm of Tantra and the TantraSara. Abhinavagupta lived
around about the years 950 1025 in the Christian scale of timekeeping.
Abhinavagupta was the great teacher of Kashmir Shaivist Tantra and authored many other eminent texts whilst also being a polymathic
genius who extended his thought and influence into all areas of life. Abhinavagupta studied with many teachers including Buddhists and
practised as a Kaula, whose practices I mentioned earlier when writing about Miranda Shaw andDavid Gordon Whites work.
Abhinavagupta taught that the goddess Kundalini is the source of all things, she shines in all things as all things in the form of energy
and in the form of breath. She is also birth, death and dissolution. As the principle energy of the universe she is also known as Shakti.
Abhinavagupta recognises the two main qualities of Kundalini Shakti as the experience of upwards and downwards, levity and gravity
associated with cosmic expansion and contraction respectively.
These are the same flows as Kundalini and Prajna. Prajna we hear about in Tibet as the feminine essence of wisdom, the mother of all the
Buddhas. The supreme perfection of wisdom in Tibet is fully called PrajnaParamita. PrajnaParamita is emptiness, the pregnant possibility
out of which all things arise, exist and fall. The PrajnaParamita Sutra is also called the Great Heart Sutra.
Pragna in India is called Pragya. So Kundalini and Prajna are the ascending and descending currents of feminine creative-power and
feminine wisdom.
Indian Tantrikas work more with Kundalini, Tibetans with Prajna.
Both Abhinavagupta and myself work with both energies.
For Abhinavagupta, Kundalini is all of form and the source of all energy, from whom the Lord Shiva as pure consciousness is utterly
inseparable.
Traditionally, to work effectively with Kundalini, one requires initiation, or abhisheka into the spiritual heart. This initiation is through the
auspices of the Lord and Goddess of the spiritual Clan (Kula) one is associated with. All practice then revolves around this relationship.
The spiritual heart has the Lord and the Goddess residing in embrace here. Whilst being Kulacentric and Gurucentric, the teachings also
encourage exploring all teachers and taking nectar from all the flowers, whilst understanding that the honey is made in the hive.
From the original spiritual heart arises the power that manifests as the experiences of body, breath, pleasure and pain (duality) and the
circle of deities that metaphorically represent the constituent elements and energies of the body and of existence. Thus the power within
incarnation that is the force of sexuality and reproductive power is also directly connected with Kundalini.
The wisdom of the mantra Ha and the knowledge of Aham, are the essential vibration of supreme subjectivity, the very source of all,
with Aa as its initial movement into consciousness and Mmm as its final withdrawal, all are totally associated with Kundalini.
The evolutionary force, conscious or unconscious is Kundalini and is inseparable from Consciousness, not two. It is she who animates all
of creation, and in her form in the individual body, as Urdhva Kundalini, causes liberation through her upward, illusion-shattering,
attachment-breaking, knot-slicing, heart awakening, ego-dissolving momentum.
Abhinavagupta defines three aspects to the matrix of Kundalini.
Purna Kundalini- the divine feminine energy of the universe; also called Prana Shakti.
Prana Kundalini- the manifestation of Kundalini as life force, which we experience as the five prana vayus, the qualitative
experience of the flow of life-energy.
Urdhva Kundalini- the upward moving, relentless evolutionary energy of the awakened serpent.
There are also three levels of sound that accord with the three levels of Kundalini and the three realms of existence, the three Lokas of
radiant emptiness, energy and the appearance of form, the crust of matter.
Pashyanti: most subtle
Madhyama: subtle
Vaikhari: manifest sound
These are the qualities of sound utilised and understood through Mantra practice.
Yantra are the geometric maps of creative force used as tools of visual Dharana. Through their use they take the mind back to the
inception point of each universe, each moment, each flow of energy.
The two core practices in all authentic Tantric traditions are Yantra and Mantra, thus working directly with vibration as sound and form,
the two as one. Tantra works with metaphor, symbology and vibration as this speaks directly beyond the rationality that gets one to the
point of practice but cannot transcend it.
Sadly to date very little western neo-Tantra has any real understanding of either of these practices of Mantra or Yantra!
The Yogi and Yogini thus tap into this matrix of Kundalini-Prajna.
The Hindu Tantrika manipulates Prana Kundalini to facilitate Urdhva Kundalini with the intention of fully knowing Purna Kundalini. Purna
Kundalini is of course inseparable from Shiva.
The Tibetan Tantrika unfolds duality through the application of penetrating wisdom and meditative realisation and thus computes the
non-dual nature of reality.
Sadly both Hindu and Tibetan systems tend to misunderstand, diminish and disrespect the other
Sadly both traditional Tantric systems and western Neo-Tantric schools tend to misunderstand, diminish and disrespect the other

Either way, Purna Kundalini and Lord Shiva, Form and Emptiness are in perpetual and inseparable ecstatic and enstatic embrace in Yab-
Yum, as Consort and Lord in the spiritual heart space and metaphorically represent the true nature or reality.
This spiritual heart is not eternal, nor is it infinite. It is simply beyond, before, after and through time and space, bigger and smaller than
infinity, beyond and before mere eternity.