THE ASCENDING GODDESS:Kundalini Shakti

By Ruth Bailey
Copyright 2001

Invocation

I bow to That Shiva who is the supreme principle and cause of all worlds manifest and unmanifest.
I bow to my guru and teacher Swami Muktananda and to his guru, Shri Bhagwan Nityananda, for the gift of shaktipat and their watchful care of my life and heart. I surrender my acts before their feet and cast before the reader the jewels of light that have been bestowed upon me, so that the reader may see beyond the obscuring veils of human limitation.
It is these enormous beings who speak through me, a fortunate recipient of their knowledge given the heart fulfillment of writing this testimony to their wonder.
PREFACE
Here is an account of my experience of Shaktipat or Kundalini awakening by the Swami, Muktananda Paramahansa, in 1979. This altered me and my life in ways that are profound and uplifting. I write this with the loving guidance of my guru, and his guru, Bhagwan Nityananda without whom not only would I have no power to write, and no power to comprehend my experience, but most certainly no power at all to have had this experience in the first place. My homage and reverence go to Gurumayi Chidvilasananda who has for over twenty years sustained the teachings in a pure form. So all comes from these great beings of divine awareness, and all ultimately returns to THAT source that is the very essence of all beingness.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Oakland Ashram, Oakland, CA July 13, 2000

INTRODUCTION
On the day when a soul awakens from slumber and learns the glory and wonder of its true nature, then, a triumphant celebration should be called. This day came to me on Friday, July 13th 1979 in a small village in Hawaii. Thirteen is a supremely fortunate number. It is the number of rotations of the moon around our planet within one year. It is the number of stripes on a squirrel; it is the number of roundish shapes on a turtle's back. It is number of menses a woman has in a year. It is the number our planet gives us everywhere through animals and plants to remind us of our nature. And, it is the day of my own birth. In spite of Western superstition, for me, Friday the thirteenth was a highly auspicious and fortuitous day.
On this day I received Shaktipat or Kundalini awakening from a realized Master. To an observer, the outward manifestation of this would appear to be more like a breakdown than an sacred event; however, it was in fact a most profound event, not only in this life time but in all my lifetimes through aeons. This event is called Divya Diksha--the day the guru awakens the coiled Kundalini and in my case through shaktipat by mantra.
Rising Kundalini is a normal part of our lives as we go through puberty and then later in the midlife crisis. Longings, desires and yearnings for the ineffable arise at these times that send us on quests for answers to the meaning of our existence. However, the awakened Kundalini is this power magnified, manifested within the body, and tuned up many degrees to create an alchemical fire; in that fire we are refined like mercury in the alchemist's crucible until we are transmuted into a higher being. It is a great event.
It is the ending of the trap of karma, the ending of the wheel rotating endlessly in time where humans suffer lifetime after lifetime slaving without light or hope. It is the beginning of God realization and stepping out of the veils of limitation.
What a tremendously important day this was for me. There should be an arena somewhere on this Earth where souls that have broken through the limitations of their bonds, can be saluted and cheered as in an Olympic triumphal march. There should be a roll call nightly in some holy temple where the names of the liberated ones can be read and honored. But for me there was no such recognition, no applause, and little honor except from my own guru and his devotees within the meditation centers. Outside of these hallowed places, the dramatic transformations that turned me from a suppressed, limited, fear-based, housewife who lived through her husband and child, into a fearless spiritual warrior earned me the scathing label of : "air-head."
The world of the ego does not welcome these transformations. The journey to wholeness that I undertook under the loving aegis of my teacher was a long, lonely, much maligned and misunderstood one, even to this day. Fortunately, signs of respect for this process of transformation through Kundalini awakening are increasing. This account of my awakening and transformation is offered to the reader who may have also experienced something of this mystic touch or this gift of awakening through some planned or unplanned happenstance. My story is for those who are confused or puzzled by symptoms that no doctor can explain. My story is for the curious about this phenomena and wishing to know about it from the inside out-- not as a clinical study, but as a living transformational story of the wonder of the Divine in man.
I have had a chapter of this book published at http://www.spiritweb.org since 1996 and have received weekly mail from readers. Every letter reminded me that I must complete the manuscript and give this information to the hungry seekers of light and knowledge. Part of this completion has been made possible by the grace and generosity of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and her devotees in the Oakland Ashram where I was graciously accommodated while I worked. To these precious holders of light and worship, I express my sincerest thanks.

Salutations to my dear guru,