upport of all the
yoga practices. When kundalini is sleeping it is aroused by the favor of
the guru [spiritual teacher], then all of the lotuses [lotus here stands
for nerve center] and granthis [swallowings, nerve plexus?] are pierced.
Then prana goes through the royal road, susumna. Then the mind remains
suspended and the yogi cheats death.... So the yogi should carefully
practice the various mudras [exercises] to rouse the great goddess
[kundalini] who sleeps closing the mouth of susumna." (Hatha Yoga Prad.,
Ill, 1-5.) "As one forces open a door [door symbolism] with a key [the
'Diederich' of the wanderer in the parable] so the yogi should force open
the door of moksa [deliverance] by the kundalini. The Paramesoari [great
goddess] sleeps, closing with her mouth the hole through which one should
go to the brahmarandhra [the opening or place in the head through which
the divine spirit, the Brahma or the Atman, gets into the body; the
anatomical basis for this naive idea may have been furnished by one of the
sutures of the skull, possibly the sutura frontalis; the brahmarandhra is
probably the goal of the breath that passes through the susumna that is
becoming free.] where there is no pain or misery. The kundalini sleeps
above the kanda. [The kanda, for which we can hardly find a corresponding
organ, is to be found between the penis and the navel.] It gives mukti to
the yogis and bondage to the fools. [See later the results of
introspection.] He who knows her, knows yoga. The kundalini is described
as being coiled like a serpent. He who causes that sakti [probably, power]
to move ... is freed without doubt. Between the Ganges and the Yamuna [two
rivers of India, which are frequently used symbolically, probably for the
right and the left stream of the breath of life, ingala and ida, cf. what
follows] there sits the young widow [an interesting characterization of
the kundalini] inspiring pity. He should despoil her forcibly, for it
leads one to the supreme seat of Vishnu. Ida is the sacred Ganges and
pingala the Yamuna. Between ida and pingala sits the young widow
kundalini. You should awake the sleeping serpent [kundalini] by taking
hold of its tail. That sakti, leaving off sleep, goes up forcibly."
(Hatha-Yoga, Prad., III, 105-111.) Ram Prasad ("Nature's Finer Forces," p.
189) writes about the kundalini: "This power sleeps in the developed
organism. It is that power which draws in gross matter from the mother
organism thr