If you feel you are in a spiritual awakening process, or possibly in a spiritual emergence or crisis, you may

feel you have enough to worry about with the physical challenges that arise, or psychic shifts that are
throwing you into unfamiliar territory. But what is really important to understand in this awakening
process is that it is your subtle energy field that is erupting and unraveling and producing all the changes.

One way to frame this experience and gain some insight is to use the model common to yogis,
that maps chakras (energy vortices) and nadis (flows of energy) and various other knots and points and
brain centers that get involved in the transformative and evolutionary changes you are experiencing. In
this essay I will focus on the role of chakras in transformation and spiritual awakening.

Various esoteric systems see chakras in different colors, with varied symbols, and ascribe various
characteristics and talents to each. I believe the yogic science of Kundalini Tantra is the most useful
model to understand the many phenomena that arise in a spiritual awakening process. So here, in a very
truncated and simplified way, are the points I find most helpful in seeing what kundalini activity is up to
in any given body.

The most significant chakras are said to be in the center of the spine but there are probably 50
chakras throughout the body and these are points where your consciousness and energy intersect, like
little wheels of energy holding your invisible energy field together.

THE FOUNDATIONAL CHAKRA

At the base of the spine is the foundational chakra, muladhara, which holds you into a sense of
having a body, of being a separate person, a connection and agreeement that spirit is making with
existence. Three qualities are rooted here -- the tendency to lethargy (tamas), activity (rajas)or
harmonious balance (sattva). We each have a mix of these. Sometimes you can see them clearly in the
temperament of a new-born infant. Here also our spirit becomes identified with the limitation of time
and space, and we know we are part of the earth. Our life force is rooted here and active, because we
feel we are alive and pranic energy is moving throughout our body. Kundalini is said to be the residual
energy that is stored here, holding us in stasis, unless or until it is jolted into awakening and winding
upward through our bodies.

Although kundalini arises from this point this does not mean the chakra has awakened and
transformed at the time of awakening. I don't believe this happens until the rest of the transformation is
done and the system is ready to embody the spiritual sense of spacious presence that a full awakening
offers. Then there may be a profound letting go into living a life of internal freedom. It feels like the
ground breaks underneath you and you are standing in space.

THE SEXUAL AND PROCREATIVE CENTER

The second chakra, swadhisthana, is related to the sexual organs -- the drive to procreate, or the
desire for pleasure originates here. This chakra is active but in many people it is out of balance, causing
obsessions with sex or the opposite dynamic -- fear, frigidity, condemnation of the body or of life. This
area is believed to be the seat of all desires, and the storehouse of the collective unconscious, holding all
the darker energies in the deep subconscious. Because of this a person might become obsessed with
terror or demonic images, and move through a sexual or fear crisis as kundalini moves into and amplifies
this chakra. For this reason many spiritual traditions emphasize opening or awakening chakras in the
upper body first, but eventually the issues related to this area will need to be addressed. When this deep
unconscious material is cleared out a person is said to be free from lust, anger and greed, to feel
integrated, calm and fearless, and able to have a strong will and dedication to their spiritual life.