Image above: “The Artist’s Hand” by Alex Gray.

We all have the power within us to awaken Kundalini. You don’t even have to practice yoga or know a thing about esoteric energy; it has already risen! At some point in your life, you’ve been a vessel overflowing with the stuff.

So was Leonardo Da Vinci, Mozart, Einstein, and Jesus. Kundalini was the spark of thought that kept them up all night, creating like a kid in a sandbox. It was running through Da Vinci when he couldn’t draw himself away from drawing, when five-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus composed his majesties, and when Einstein squared mc.  In yoga, we know this energy as Kundalini, or Shakti. Kundalini is the very juice that nourishes the creative process.

According to Yogarupa Rod Stryker, founder of ParaYoga and author of The Four Desires: Creating a Life of Purpose, Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom, we all– geniuses and girls-next-door alike– have experienced Kundalini to some degree. It’s awakened in that instant that we feel “fully illumined” and experience life informed by something beyond “normal.” At its most universal, it is nothing more (or less) than a truly inspired creative moment or groundbreaking discovery. It’s the aha!, the By Jove!, the I think I’ve got it! moments. In short, kundalini awakening is what happens right before we find ourselves feeling: Wow.

There are volumes written on the spiritual flavorings that ignite the creative process, including Julia Cameron’s widely acclaimed  The Artist’s Way. Kundalini, it seems, was in Cameron’s mind when she noted,

“My books are not creative theory. They spring straight out of my own creative practice. In a sense, I am the floor sample of my own tool kit. When we are unblocked we can have remarkable and diverse adventures.”

Unblocked! Isn’t this the very unblocking that Kundalini unleashes as she rises, lightning like, through the chakras?

Image here.

But maybe you are the more pragmatic type… Need proof in the pudding of this mysterious energy’s existence? Could kundalini awakening be as black and white as the gray matter in the human brain?

• Exhibit A:  Neuroscientist David Eagleman has this to say about the overlap between brain and soul:

“A typical neuron makes about 10,000 connections to neighboring neurons, which means that there are more connections in a few cubic centimeters of brain tissue than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy… So if you ask me, ‘Do I have a soul?’ I would say, ‘You know, I kind of feel like there’s something about me that’s a little separate from the biology.’ But I have no evidence for that.”

• Exhibit B: Another brain scientist‘s theory on Kundalini as alchemy in the artist:

Now one must take some Kundalini promises with a grain of salt. Hocus-pocus and hoo-rah run amok under the guise of being the answer to all of our woes.  One such website suggests we “proceed slowly, sensibly and systematically” as we dive into the “pool of energy” whose currents carried the greatest thinkers, artists, and spiritual guides who have ever graced the planet. I couldn’t agree more.

So tell me, when do you recall being so absorbed, enchanted and joyful by what you were doing that you lost all track of time?

Show, and tell. (Tip: don’t think too hard for your answer. It’ll come from your soul.)