Finally, the third birth takes place at a point of illumination, when the cosmic energy stored up in the crown of the head blossoms into the ‘thousand-petalled lotus’ and opens the doorway of the infinite possibilities open to the fully realised individual. This is synonymous with the fulfilment of evolution — the reintegration of the individual with the primordial state. It marks the transition from the solar to the polar phase of life and is identical to Unity Consciousness.

Between the two hemispheres of the brain, in the very center of the brain, is the key to the connection between the inner male and inner female. That is the pineal gland, the third eye—the gateway between the material and spiritual worlds, the key to psychic development and higher vision.

The ka of Ancient Egypt represents the soul or subtle body, which was often symbolized by a phoenix, with the body of a man and wings of a bird, with arms turned upward and elbows bent. The phoenix is a symbol of death and rebirth. A tuft of feathers on its head represents the pineal gland and its function as the third eye.

Within our midline, we have an axis mundi, a world tree, a spiritual highway that allows for our consciousness to unfold. When kundalini rises up this axis mundi, going from the roots of the tree (in the genitals and sacrum area), to the very tips of the branches (the crown and above the head), we complete the first two stages of kundalini awakening.

The experience of rainfall (grace) flowing through the branches to reach the roots, as well as fully flowing through the trunk (the “heart” of the tree) is the last stage of kundalini awakening and brings permanent realization.

In the process of a kundalini awakening this dynamic, feminine creative principle rises to meet the static, male principle known as Shiva, which is located above the crown. This is the pathway of individual consciousness meeting cosmic or universal consciousness.

It is the energy of the female pole ascending and meeting the male pole, the two principles that hold us in polarity and trap us in illusion and limited perspective. After male and female poles have merged, the undifferentiated creation energy can then flow through us.

If we look at the state of the world, it is no wonder that we revere the masculine state of stillness and emptiness, while disregarding the feminine powers of creation and evolution.

We live in a patriarchal society that has suppressed and denied the feminine power of creation. Our bodies, the spirit world, the natural world, and our emotions are the deep feminine wisdom within us. These have all been taken away, destroyed, or demonized.

The masculine pole places us within binary consciousness. In somatic studies it is represented by the head, the energy of “doing,” and our logical minds. We need this force to bring our ideas into light, to act on our feminine intuition. In masculine types of consciousness, two polarities will always be at odds with one another. The masculine vs. the feminine, me vs. someone else—what we view as opposite and warring forces within and without.

Consciousness rooted in the feminine pole has a triple form: the power to see two things but also what lies between them, to access liminal space, to continually create and re-create.

Ultimately this is the power we all emerge from to separate into binary consciousness. It is only by deeply revering the feminine power of creation, by connecting the head to the body, the masculine to the feminine, that we can move beyond the constructs of binary reality and into a recognition of the creative principle that birthed us all.

In kundalini awakenings the state of completion is not one of a simple circuit of energy flowing from the genitals through the top of the head or into the brain, but of both forces combining and becoming one, and both flowing downward, intertwined, into the heart space.

This is a state of being beyond two forces constantly at odds with one another within and without—male and female, void and non-void, expansion and contraction, fullness and emptiness.

This is a state of being both forces simultaneously, as well as dropping between them. The separation of these two forces creates the duality of this world.

The rising of kundalini from the genitals through the spinal column to the brain is the interplay or dance of these two forces, with the eventual result being a “marriage” in which the two forces are no longer viewed, felt, or understood as separate.

At this point it is important to go deeper into the mechanics of the rise of the kundalini. The awakening and rise of the kundalini, or golden seed, at the base of the spine awakens and activates the chakras.

These are said to be a series of five non-physical organs running up the spine, with the sixth one in the third eye position in the forehead between the eyebrows and the seventh is the Brahma chakra, often called the thousand-petalled lotus —where Sarnadhi is realised. Chakra is the Sanskrit word for wheel.

They are wheels of radiating cosmic energy and are said to be at the basis of all psychic abilities. The awakening of the chakras can be said to be the milestones on the road to enlightenment. Yogananda says that the ordinary person is like a fifty watt lamp that has access to the billion watt power of the cosmic universe.

The awakening has to be both a gradual and natural process. Through regular spiritual practices conferred by an enlightened guru or teacher, a person’s subtle body can be transformed. These practices cause the life energy to revolve upward and downward around the six spinal chakras of the astral body: the cocygeal, sacral, lumbar, dorsal, cervical and medullary plexuses.

Due to polarity, these resolve into twelve inner constellations revolving round the inner spiritual sun in the heart, and are interrelated to the physical sun and the twelve constellations of the zodiac. When the life force permanently resides in the heart chakra, the initiate has realised the state of Cosmic Consciousness.

This point in spiritual evolution corresponds with the time of the second birth in the Mystery Religions. It took place at midday because that was seen as the culmination of the physical sun.

The full perfection of the human state took place when the full psychic integration of the mind and senses had been realised. This is when the life force resides in the chakra corresponding with the third eye. This is sometimes referred to by Maharishi as refined Cosmic Consciousness, and corresponds to what we know as God Consciousness. It is also identical with Elizabeth Haitch’s definition of prophet.

Finally, the third birth takes place at a point of illumination, when the cosmic energy stored up in the crown of the head blossoms into the ‘thousand-petalled lotus’ and opens the doorway of the infinite possibilities open to the fully realised individual.

This is synonymous with the fulfilment of evolution — the reintegration of the individual with the primordial state. It marks the transition from the solar to the polar phase of life and is identical to Unity Consciousness.

This is synonymous with the fulfilment of evolution — the reintegration of the individual with the primordial state. It marks the transition from the solar to the polar phase of life and is identical to Unity Consciousness.