Sunset over St Marks Nature Preserve, Wakulla County Florida. Copyright Parker Stafford 2018
Several years ago I decided to interview people who had experienced awakening for inclusion on this blog. This was an effort to help bring the perspective of those who have experienced the phenomenon to the fore in order to help others who have gone through this life changing event to gain perspective, understanding, and perhaps greater awareness. I have recently published two of those interviews and they have been given their own page which are located under the header at the top of the page.
It is hard to know how much awakening can change your life. It is like a quantum leap into the unknown. It is bewildering. It crowns just as it crucifies. Navigating it is at once easy, difficult, with old rules now completely out the window. It leaves many feeling scattered to the four winds sometimes, and yet it is also a saving grace. It is powerful medicine. Many awaken without a background in any philosophy or religion to provide a framework for the experience. My sense, as it was perhaps my own experience, that we have much more to learn from awakening when we don’t have those frameworks in place. This is for the simple reason that we face the phenomenon without preconceived notions of what it is that we are experiencing. We don’t get “captured” by the “rules” of other groups who, I note, have been unable to glimpse the larger potential that awakening offers us. While the experience happens in every culture and corner of the world, there is also a rising tide within the Christian church, factions of it, who would paint this as an inauthentic experience, what is called a “counterfeit spirit.” Sadly, there are those who would resist the universality of this experience and they do so out of nothing more than ignorance. The only way to deal with ignorance is with education, with information, and with what we find to be true (rather than what we believe) from direct experience.
There are plenty of frameworks that do speak of awakening and many of them wind up, for me at least, to include just as much belief as they include factual information, which to my mind makes it a mixed bag. To know the truth, it seems, we have to go beyond what the masses are saying about it in order to learn to trust our own experience. This is a lonely proposition and can put us at odds with the mainstream (like Advaita or Neoadvaita for example). While awakening has very specific symptoms and signs, it leads us to an awareness that places us in a whole new kind of mind and heart space. This can be a lonely road for many of us. The interviews reminds you that you are not alone, that you are part of what appears to be a growing number of people waking up all around the same time frame. Curious, perhaps purposeful, we can each learn from each other. This is my hope.
My hope,too, is that we can build a library of these interviews for the assistance of anyone wanting to learn more about the experience, be they curious or an “experiencer” themselves. If you have had an awakening and would like to add your voice to the chorus, your interview is welcome here. Interviews are kept anonymous if you wish, but very real people are behind them. You can simply respond in the comments section and I will arrange to receive your answers to the questions (which are just a jumping-off point) for inclusion here. I am interested in whatever insight that you feel that you have, regardless of what others may say about awakening (or even myself) because we all have a lot to learn.
Waking The Infinite 
Kundalini is really complicated subject. There is as many version as number of people experiencing it 😉 in my case i noticed it works pararely to ilnes and change in life. Its really hard to establish if K triggered it or other way round. By the way do you know what means or why i hear sound of flute everyday.
I will admit that I ask about triggers because I was able to see what triggered mine…and then came a series of inner directives that I followed which resulted in more unfolding for me. That, and if someone has a sense that they do know, I would like people to hear about it. For some, it may be a mystery (and that is fine).
As to the flute that you are hearing, it is a symptom of kundalini to hear things. I heard all sorts of strange things during the period when the awakening was unfolding or making its way through me. Now I usually hear inner directives that tell me what to do (they often seem strange at the time but become clear pretty quickly). I say this because it is not uncommon. The question is what does your flute mean. Its hard to say without knowing more. If it were me, I would allow myself to open deeply into feeling, not the reasoning part. Is it a spiritual presence, or is it psychic energy manifesting itself as flute music? If it is pyschic (from the psyche) then it may be an effort on the part of your subconscious to “speak” to you but in a non-rational way.
Perhaps….pay attention to the music. Is it playing a certain tune, expressing or inducing a feeling in you? Does it respond to your thoughts in any way? Maybe try talking or singing to it…it doesn’t need to be sensical, it may be rooted in a feeling state because that is what all music does. But if it were me I would try and see if it will respond to your thoughts. What happens if you sing or whistle back? Does it stop? Does it restart once you have stopped? If its consistent each day does it happen the same time or when you are in a certain state of mind. I have always tried to he imaginitive when these things happen, I try not to wall off any possibility…sometimes I get a surprise and receive some insight.
Who knows, but the answer is in you. Maybe wonder to yourself if it might come into your dreams and maybe you will have the opportunity to see who it is that is playing the flute. You might get the opportunity to ask what the purpose is! Let me know how it goes, this one sounds very interesting!
Didn’t Shiva play a flute?
I remember in the past it was sound of OM then half year ago turned in to flute. I heard that Shiva has sth to do with flute 🙂 Maybe you remember when i mention that i had problem with spine ,energy flowed through nerval system reaching area just bellow heart. I couldn’t walk and eat. That was hardest physical suffering in my life. All changed. I quit job and we changed the house some relation collapsed. Later i went deeper into looking for sens of life and God it self. Really strange things happened. I started to understand existance ( world,God,life ) paradoxical way. Where paradox you can find in everything but it perfectly complete each other. I would talk another hour but its not the case. At the end all my imagination and all i learned about God broken to the pieces. I found my self with nothing more than “fate” with no shape and direction. Quite shuttering experience but releasing at the same time. Comming back to sound. It is not direct hearing of flute, i can hear it when other constant sounds take place like buzzing of frige, music, tv, general noise. It attach to it or I would say it is the background and source of sound. As you mentioned before about state of mind, i reckon it has sth to do with that because i feel like detached from mundane life. Additionally i have dreams about spiritual things but most of it I don’t understand. As you mentioned maybe it is sign to “get contact” with subconscious or higher self, who knows. Finally i came to conclusion… Because it is hard time to me that God make this sound to let me know to do not give up because he is still with me ( us )
Hello, Stafford Art Glass…My name is Cynthia. I would like to tell my story of awakening..If you are still collecting stories. You liked one of my posts on wordpress. That is how I found your page. I agree with you. These stories, would help people understand what is happening to them. Somewhat. I could have used the help when I first ” Woke up”.
You can email me at ct52598691111@gmail.com
Put The Interviews, in subject line.
So I will know it is you. Thanks for your time. Love the article. ✌& 💘
Cynthia
Hi Parker. Well, I’ve read the interviews that you have posted, more than once. I find them a fascinating read, as is pretty much everything written about kundalini, if it’s from personal experience. As you say, everyone’s experience is unique, which makes it both absorbing and eliciting a ‘did kundalini really bring you to that point? – It seems miles from where I am!’ A statement that I would repeat when reading some of what happened with dychotomia1981 (though some of your report is familiar ground, dychotomia: life generally being turned upside down, and you know that ‘you’ have no choice in it anymore!).
Which is a prelude to saying that I would be keen to do an interview. The kundalini energy woke up big-time about 20 months ago, after what I now realise was a considerable ‘heating’ phase. The process is ongoing, but I feel that I have a perspective on it that I didn’t, say, 9 months ago. Which is why I’m now up for doing something like one of your interviews, which I think are a great idea, and I hope we get some more.
Let me know. If you feel I should leave kundalini to work through more, just let me know, that’s fine. I won’t be able to pay it any attention until the beginning of May, but that will come round pretty soon.
That’s it for now. Love to you and all readers, from the Highlands of Scotland. Ian
Hey, Ian. You can either contact me via email for the questions or you can note them in the interviews so far. However you would like to go about it is fine by me. You can contact me via email at (address removed-my effort to control being spammed through my email) if that is better and we can go from there. I can send you the questions and once that is done, I sometimes will have follow-up questions, if you are good with that.
I’m glad that you have found the information so far, helpful. Your involvement will help others gain perspective, awareness, and who knows what else…we are all so different but all standing under the same umbrella.
So no rush. Take your time. It took me some time to get these interviews up that you see. More are coming because like yourself, others are wanting to add their voices to the work. I am thrilled. -Parker
Thx Ian for reply, it looks we are neighbors 🙂 i have lived in the middle of the England. Kundalini is challenging but even in this circumstances it gives as an sens to go forward.
Oh! That is Ian from Ianinverness blog. We had a chat the other day about the interviews. He is from Scotland and is off on a jaunt to Morocco this week! Oli, who was gracious enough to do an interview is from the U.K. too. There are a couple other bloggers I’m friends with who are in the U.K. too.
I am, however, in the States…at least currently. If you come here you are welcome to hang out…I’ll show you the sites!
Maybe one day i will travel to US but for now i can only watch it on tv 😉 . It would be grate to meet all together and talk face to face about kundalini.
By the way, many times i had dreams about removing some stuff from the body like nail from the throat and last night parasite from my temple. Whats your opinion about this. Is it mean a sign of problem to be resolved or sign that sth was removed from our “karma” etc.
I have had similar senses to you in regards to this very thing. I have met a couple of others who have expressed similar kinds of forms or objects. I think our opinions or thoughts about them are the same. 😊
I have been having some unusual experiences. Is there a way to know whether they are related to awakening?
Hi Danielle. On this blog there is a page dedicated to Awakening Symptoms. It isn’t a post that you have to search for, it can be seen along the top of the blog itself. There are also other resources on other pages, all along the top of your screen.
Hope that helps!
Thank you! The information about the symptoms of awakening was very helpful. More questions are raised now in my mind about the subject, though.
If I am experiencing some of the symptoms of awakening, does that mean I am in the process of awakening or is that how this works? If I am waking up, is there something I need to do or keep in mind in any way? My mind is a flurry of questions! Do you provide counseling or consulting for this?
I’m glad you found the symptoms page helpful.
It may be that you are experiencing aspects of awakening, sure. It may also be that your aren’t. It really depends. What I mean by saying this is that awakening is an energetic event that forever changes your consciousness’s ability or awareness of energy at a considerable degree greater than most people have ever experienced (that may or may not be obvious and my background in teaching often leads me to say things that are often obvious to most, but go unasked by those to whom it isn’t obvious so forgive my obviousness!).
You already ARE energetic, your consciousness already rides upon this energy we call prana, chi, or life force energy…it is only a manner of degree.
Personally, since I have seen so many assumptions about what those in India think what awakening is (not to mention also now in the West) and how it must be stimulated go by the wayside in what I observe is a still evolving understanding of what this thing is. I think it is evidence that we don’t know all there is to know about the phenomenon. Which, I know is probably muddying the waters for you at this point.
I’m trying to say that we experience the forces in awakening at lower levels through our lives until a catalyst comes along that helps to change our conscious capacity for an awareness of this energy. So you could be experiencing aspects of awakening, sure, and it is possible that it could lead to more or it could run its course and fade away.
I don’t consult or do counseling in this area. I do help friends and I write, but that is the limit to my work for reasons I think are important. I think there is a need for it, but I personally believe that it’s important that as humans we need to stop having gurus and start listening to our own inner authority, which is called “the guru in you.”
That said, I would say further that you are one step ahead of the game. You are aware and you are doing your homework. Since I don’t know what your symptoms are I can’t really speak to that without knowing more, but suffice to say that if you are going to awaken, you will. Is there benefit in helping it along? That depends. It depends on how you are at this point prepared. If you go into awakening with a heart for adventure it will be that. If you shut down and become fearful, it will become that for you. So your state of mind will determine a lot of how you feel moving forward. Also it can be a difficult process, too, simply because you are actively in the process of cleansing or clearing the psyche of so many limiting beliefs in such a short time. You may not be consciously fearful, say, but you might have something not fully acknowledged within you that is getting worked out, and that can cause challenges and snags sometimes. But learning how to not let yourself feel defeated is an important mindset in the face of what can turn into a withering pace of releasing these things buried in the self.
I would reccomend that you read on the topic. There are blogs galore now on the subject of awakening. In fact, many of those who comment on my posts are themselves often writing on the subject in interesting and illuminating ways. You can also just search for posts with tags, WordPress’s way of setting up hashtags so you can find relevant material in your topic is helpful.
I would recommend staying away from chakra clearing meditations if you tend to be a left-brained rational “mental” kind of person. If you are grounded and resilient and can handle loads of intensity, chakra clearing is certainly the accelerated way to do it. There are other gentler ways to help it along and I have written about them over the years.
Since my answer to you is now verging on being a novella, I will say that these kinds of answers are better suited to a message board platform. Too bad we can’t transition to that to cover more bases. Me, I have such limited time it is hard to balance life, work, and family equally, let alone answering questions in a way I feel good about.
Keep reading, keep inquiring, and ask yourself “Am I awaking?” And wait to see what answers come from the subconscious since it can answer if you will listen and be open to it.
And with that, that is the end of my lunch break!
I wish you the best of luck to you in your spiritual pursuits! ~P.