Hi everyone, I just came across this forum and am glad to be here. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the role of community in awakening, as well as your personal experience. What do you think the role of community is in awakening? To what extent has community been a part of your world? How has it supported you? How has it challenged you? Has this changed over time? Early on in my kundalini awakening I found two physical communities that were incredibly supportive and a source of deep joy for me. One was based around a relational meditation practice, the other was a sangha with a teacher in the Kashmir Shaivism tradition. AND YET my path took me away from both of these... That was incredibly painful and I experienced it as a huge loss. Even though at a certain point I made the decision to step away from both of these communities, and they were not without their problems, a part of me kept trying to go back... but things simply would not line up to support it. (And I think there were good reasons for that.) I've had some online community since then, through different practices and trainings, but not a kundalini-centred community. It's been long enough that I almost got used to feeling alone in this process and forgot how much that sucked. Finding this forum made me feel in my heart how much I've missed this. I find it hard to put into words how it feels to experience kundalini working through a group... the depth of connection and sense of unlimited, unfolding potential is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have as a human being, I think. Obviously I don't know any of you yet but nonetheless it's nice to feel you all here, going through this process. Thank you @Sameer for creating this website. :-)
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Charlotte, you raised several very important questions. In the 45 years since my kundalini awakening, I had been actively involved in three different spiritual communities. The first community was with one of the Self Realization Fellowship centers, an organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda. They had a large community in Detroit, where I lived when I first began my spiritual journey. I was just starting a meditation practice and found the friendships that developed from that group very meaningful and supportive. The weekly service and community gathering afterwards were a respite from my worldly responsibilities and my social life. However, my kundalini awakening occurred several months later and the teachings and spiritual training no longer seemed relevant to me. And so, I stopped attending the services. A few years later, now in Pittsburgh, I was introduced to the teachings of Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan. These teachings resonated with me and, for me, was the next step in my inner transformation. In addition to attending several retreats at the Sufi center in New York, there was a small group in Pittsburgh that met several times a month for various activities. Again, this group was supportive and meaningful for me, as well as a respite from my other responsibilities. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the group slowly dissipated after a couple of years. As valuable as the Sufi teachings and spiritual practices were for me, my state of consciousness resulting from the kundalini awakening prevented me from feeling a more complete connection with others that were following the Sufi path of spiritual growth. Eventually, I left the Sufi community. Many years later, I felt the need to connect with others that were following a spiritual path and I started to sit and meditate weekly with the Laughing Rivers Sanga, one of the groups under the direction of the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. The people in this community were warm, sincere, and committed to a spiritual path. It was refreshing to part of another community. However, since I was already committed to a Sufi path, in addition to having the kundalini awakening, I did not feel the depth of connection to the group that I needed to continue my involvement. After a couple of years, I left that community. As both you and Sameer have commented, I completely agree that a community is important. From my perspective, a community that is kundalini-centered, such as described by Sameer, will be the one that I can connect with at the level that has been missing from my past experiences.
Hi Charlotte,
Thanks for your post and welcome to the group. This group was created by Alan and myself out of a wish to have something that was more informal and relaxed. We connect on the Zooms and the in person meet ups which are posted in the event forums and people seem to drop in and out as they like. For me, I did not have a community for the first eleven years of my awakening and I am glad about that as I had to find my own way, and work out what made sense for me. However I can see how important a community can be for sharing ideas and normalising the experiences which can be so internal. In my opinion what works for a community is the idea of support when needed, rather than a community adhering to a set of dogmatic rules. The issue that we had was that many of the communities or people we encountered seem to have hierarchical structures which did not work for us. We believe in peer support, but also the need to connect to our real world. In this way our community should hopefully be one of many that people connect with..