In my humble opinion, there is no such thing as a partial kundalini awakening. The kundalini is a full blown experience of your spine wiring into various mystical experiences. If that’s not happening, it’s not kundalini. There are experiences, such as kriya and the development of chi, that are similar and are sometimes identified as being kundalini experiences, but they are not. They are their own forms of phenomena and should be identified as such. The kundalini is seldom pleasant, is almost always associated with nerve damage, periods of altered states of consciousness seeming to parallel insanity, interaction with dieties, and various siddhis. At its culmination, it results in union with All. The kundalini experience may go on for years after that. Sometimes the spiritual experiences deepen and the person becomes a true mystic, but often people just go insane.

Tamra [Temple] tells me I make it sound hazardous in all cases. It is. Even she realizes that hell was an important part of her journey and is for any who succeed in enduring the kundalini. She feels that the heart will guide, but it doesn’t seem to work that way in the majority of cases. Her heart is not that of the average bear.

Partial experiences may be feeling energy move through the body, particularly up and down the spine, occasional altered states that quickly fade, some siddhis, skill in healing, increased energy, seeing auras, or mood and appetite alterations. People often treat this as if it were a kundalini awakening, but in my opinion that’s just wishful thinking. It’s chi development and if people do not follow a schedule of chi kung, they’ll eventually get into trouble with it. Usually, kidney or liver failure. Oftentimes, these partial kundalini effects are brought on by mixing drug use with meditation or intense chi kung training as used in the martial arts. The effects fade away if you quit meditating or breathing in a chi kung manner or, in the case of drug use, when the effects wear off. It’s safer to take the slower path of meditation and following the breath. As far as achieving enlightenment, the kundalini is the rocket path, but cannot be followed. It’s its own phenomenon. Until it happens, it’s good to do Zen meditation, chi kung, or follow a bhakti tradition in preparing the body and mind.