Kundalini Practice, and a Real Caution

The chakras exist in the tradition for the sake of a practice: the raising of kundalini through the sushumna from the base to the crown, by means of asana, pranayama, bandha, mudra and concentration, under a teacher and within a lineage. The classical manuals are consistently emphatic that this is done under guidance and not from books, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and similar texts contain repeated warnings about attempting the practices unsupervised.

Modern clinical literature has documented a range of adverse effects associated with intensive meditative practice, including derealisation, anxiety, disturbed sleep and in some cases psychotic episodes, and the phrase kundalini syndrome circulates in that literature. The atlas records the practice as the tradition presents it. Anyone drawn to it should know both what the tradition itself says about supervision and what the clinical record shows.