Kundalini awakening and the importance of prana—this is the essence of today’s discourse.
Prana is the currency of consciousness. Prana is the source from where Kundalini moves. Without prana, Kundalini cannot stir within you. Prana is not just air, not just oxygen, but the very charge of life that animates existence.
In this discourse, I will explain to you many practical aspects of the connection between Kundalini and prana. You will not only understand it intellectually, but you will also know it experientially, for the moment you begin to breathe with awareness, you can feel this truth alive in your body.
If you are going through the Kundalini awakening journey, you will notice that a great shift takes place—not only in your energy but also in your intelligence, in your intellectual quest, in the way your consciousness searches for truth. And at the heart of this transformation lies prana.
Without prana, Kundalini cannot move. Kundalini is the cosmic electricity, and prana is the electric circuit through which Kundalini flows. Imagine it like this: Kundalini is the driver, but prana is the vehicle. Without the vehicle, the driver cannot go anywhere. Without prana, Kundalini has no pathway.
When you inhale, the breath you take in is not just oxygen. That oxygen is charged with prana. This prana then takes many different formations once it enters your system. It changes from gross to subtle, and from subtle to the subtlest. At its deepest essence, it becomes the universal prana that pervades everywhere—the vast cosmic current on which Kundalini rides.
Kundalini cannot move without this pranic charge. Just as electricity cannot light a bulb without the wires and circuits through which it travels, Kundalini cannot move without the living current of prana flowing through your energy channels.
The Role of Quality Breath
When you take a breath in a place full of clean, fresh air—such as a mountain valley, a forest, or by the sea—the oxygen you inhale is rich with prana. But when you breathe in a polluted city, you may be inhaling oxygen that is depleted of prana and filled instead with toxicity—carbon monoxide, dust, and other pollutants. Such air does not support Kundalini’s flow. In fact, it obstructs it.
This is why practitioners of Kundalini awakening must be mindful of their environment. If your air is not alive with prana, your awakening will feel blocked, your body sluggish, your energy channels stiff. Prana is the true vehicle; without its quality and circulation, Kundalini remains dormant or trapped.
Prana as Bio-Electricity
On the physical level, the prana you take in becomes bio-electricity. It is this bio-electricity that powers your brain and your nervous system. The nerve cells of the brain cannot function without oxygen, and more importantly, without prana.
When you engage in dedicated sadhana—breathing and energetic practices guided by a Guru—the nerve cells of your brain begin to store prana like a reservoir. But merely performing pranayama mechanically will not help you. You cannot reduce prana to a physical exercise. Prana sadhana must be done with guidance, with the right processes, techniques, and above all, with conscious intention. Only then will the brain store prana in the nerve cells.
Once stored, this prana acts as bio-electricity. It fuels the functioning of your heart, your blood circulation, your muscles, your nervous system, and every vital organ in the body. Without this subtle charge, the body is like a machine without power.
Every single cell in your body is kept alive by prana. When oxygen, nutrition, and water reach the cells, they only become truly alive when they are charged with prana. Without prana, cells become dull, lifeless, and eventually dead. This is why diseases develop. A body low in prana cannot rejuvenate, repair, or heal.
When you sleep, when you move through your day, your body is constantly taking in prana with oxygen. Through your breathing cycles—sympathetic and parasympathetic—the cells are constantly being recharged. Your kidneys remove toxins, your blood carries nutrients, your nervous system transmits signals, and your brain processes memory—all of this happens because of prana.
When the same prana moves into subtler levels, it fuels your mind. Emotions, thoughts, and memories—all are processed in the presence of prana. On the mental level, prana takes the form of emotions. On the physical level, it powers rejuvenation.
Thus, Kundalini awakening is always a dual transformation: the physical body is transformed, and the mental body is transformed. And in both, prana is the essential force.
Prana in the Mental Body
When Kundalini begins to work on your mental body, the supply of prana becomes most crucial. The mental body is not just thought—it is a vast field that contains your ego, your tendencies, your patterns, your beliefs, your conditioning, your sensations, your stored emotions, your trauma, and even karmas from past lives.
All these blockages, which may be invisible to the conscious mind, are gradually transformed, dissolved, and burned by Kundalini. But the burning process requires fuel. That fuel is prana. Without sufficient prana, Kundalini cannot clear these blockages.
This is why, during your Kundalini awakening, you must ensure that you are constantly supplying your system with prana through correct breathing, a pranic environment, and conscious sadhana. Otherwise, Kundalini will not have the charge required to carry out the combustion of blockages.
Combustion and Transformation
Think of Kundalini as a great combustion process. The negative energies, traumas, and karmic impressions that are stored in your body are like dense materials. They must be burned and transformed into subtle energies. This burning cannot happen without prana.
The five types of prana that circulate in your system—prana, apana, samana, udana, and vyana—are all forms of life energy. On the physical body, prana activates your cellular intelligence. The cells are not mechanical. They are intelligent. They know how to repair themselves, how to rejuvenate, how to refresh and become new. But they can only do this in the presence of prana. Without prana, cells die, and with them, disease arises.
The same principle applies to your mental body. In the absence of prana, the mind falls into depression, confusion, or illness. Negative thoughts multiply. Emotional wounds remain stuck. Mental health problems emerge. But when prana is abundant, the mind is capable of transforming its negativity into light, into awareness.
The Role of Semen Retention
Even semen retention—which is essential for Kundalini awakening—becomes possible only when prana is abundant in your system. Without prana, semen is lost, drained, and wasted. With prana, semen is preserved and transformed into higher energy.
This is why yogic masters have always emphasized semen retention as part of the awakening journey. But what lies behind it is not repression or control—it is the presence of prana. A body full of prana naturally holds semen without leakage, just as a healthy tree naturally holds its sap.
Prana as Lubrication for Energy Channels
Prana also acts like a fluid, a lubrication for your energy channels. Without prana, your nadis (energy channels) become stiff and blocked. With prana, they remain supple and flowing.
Imagine a river. If the water is flowing, you can easily place a boat upon it and travel downstream. But if the water is blocked by a dam, you cannot move. Prana is that river. Kundalini is the boat. Without the river flowing, the boat goes nowhere.
When prana flows freely in your system, Kundalini—the cosmic electricity—can travel smoothly. But when prana is obstructed, Kundalini remains trapped, causing friction, pain, and imbalance.
Negative Energies Feeding on Prana
Your lower qualities of mind—anger, fear, jealousy, rage, blame, shame, loneliness—all of these negative states feed upon your prana. When you are filled with these emotions, know that your mind has stolen prana from your physical and energy body just to keep itself alive in that negativity.
These lower emotions are dense. They are like ice—heavy, condensed, difficult to move. To transform ice into water, and water into vapor, a great deal of energy is required. Similarly, to transform anger, fear, or jealousy into love, trust, and peace, Kundalini requires immense amounts of prana.
This is why, if you have little prana in your system, Kundalini cannot burn through your blockages. It becomes stuck, unable to transmute the dense energies. But if you are filled with prana, Kundalini can effortlessly clear the channels and uplift your consciousness.
The Importance of Correct Breathing
The answer begins with breathing. You must breathe deeply from your belly, not superficially from your chest. Your diaphragmatic breathing should continue twenty-four hours a day.
If your respiratory centers in the brain are active, prana flows freely. But if you breathe shallowly, if your breath is on hold, then prana too is on hold. The cells receive little oxygen, the blood vessels do not dilate properly, toxins accumulate, and your energy channels become blocked with apana (downward-moving energy).
Thus, the simplest and most powerful way to keep Kundalini flowing is to maintain proper breathing. It sounds simple, yet its impact is profound.
A Practice for Awakening Prana
To experience this, try a simple practice. For thirty minutes, sit quietly, close your eyes, and breathe from your belly. Inhale so that your belly inflates. Exhale so that your belly deflates. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—like the rhythmic swinging of a pendulum. Nothing else is needed. Just this rhythm, steady and calm.
If you continue for thirty minutes, you will notice a transformation. The dense, stuck energies in your lower three chakras—the solar plexus, the sacral chakra, and the root chakra—will begin to shift. These chakras often carry lower energies, because they are the storehouse of survival fears, desires, and digestive heaviness. With belly breathing, these energies are gently loosened, and prana begins to circulate once more.
Emotional Purging as Energy Transformation
The negative energies stored in your subconscious are dense, like ice. When Kundalini, with the help of prana, begins to transform them, they change first into water, then into vapor. This transformation manifests as purging. You may cry, you may shake, you may rage—but all of this is simply frozen energy melting and rising into lighter forms.
When I heal my students of trauma, many of them cry uncontrollably or burst out in anger. That anger is not a failure—it is fire energy rising, burning through what was stuck. The subconscious is releasing, the energy is being transmuted.
Prana and Cosmic Electricity
Many seekers ask me: is prana the same as Kundalini? Or is Kundalini the same as prana? This confusion is common.
Prana and Kundalini are not the same. Prana is cosmic energy in its life-sustaining form. It is everywhere, in the air, in the water, in the earth. Kundalini, on the other hand, is cosmic electricity—prana transmuted into a concentrated, laser-focused current.
Kundalini has voltage. She is the spark. Prana does not have voltage. Prana is the medium, the circuit.
Emotion as Energy in Motion
What is emotion? It is energy in motion. And that energy is prana. Every emotion you feel—joy, sadness, fear, excitement—requires prana to exist. Emotion is like the electronic charge in atoms.
In the atom, electrons carry negative charge and are always in motion, never still. Likewise, your emotions are always moving, always seeking to connect, discharge, or transform.
Grounding and the Discharge of Excess Charge
What happens in grounding? The extra electrical charge in your body, built from prana, is released into the Earth. The Earth is abundant in negative ions and has the gravity to absorb excess electrons. By walking barefoot on soil, by touching trees, or by immersing in water, you allow your emotional charges to discharge. You return to neutrality, to stability.
The Birth of Higher Emotions
When prana has discharged the lower charges, when negative emotions are burned away, the same energy transforms into positive emotions. Out of prana arise courage, love, gratitude, passion, enthusiasm, truthfulness, bliss, joy, and peace.
These higher emotions are the energies of the soul, the signature of the spirit. They are lighter, expansive, uplifting. They do not steal your prana, they circulate it. They do not contract your body, they expand it.
On the atomic level, think of it this way: when electrons (negative charges) are discharged, the atom is left with protons and neutrons. Proton is the positive energy—the Shakti, the power of Kundalini. Neutron is the neutral awareness—the Shiva, pure consciousness.
Together, Shiva and Shakti form the nucleus, the very center of existence. When Kundalini unites with consciousness at the center, you experience this sacred union.
Beyond the Subtle: Emptiness
If you go deeper still, beyond protons and neutrons, you find only empty space. Within every atom lies a vast emptiness. This emptiness is the field of nothingness beyond prana itself. It is the invisible energy field from which both prana and Kundalini emerge.
At this level, Shakti becomes pure dynamism, and Shiva becomes pure stillness. Awareness itself.
The Eighth Chakra and the Universal Merge
When Kundalini moves through the chakras and unites beyond the crown chakra, at the eighth chakra, she merges with universal consciousness. At the crown, your ego dissolves and you realize yourself as pure awareness. But when energy moves beyond and merges with the universal field, you enter a state where all questions dissolve.
If you are doing sadhana with a living Guru, you will be guided step by step into these dimensions. The pre-enlightenment practices, the moment of enlightenment itself, and the post-enlightenment sadhana—all reveal to you the mysteries of prana, not just as concepts but as living, felt experiences.
Feeling Prana Directly
Prana is not something you have to imagine. You can feel it directly, here and now. Sit quietly. Close your eyes. Become aware of your breath. As the breath enters your nose, feel its quality. Is it cool? Is it warm? Notice the subtle touch inside the nostrils. Do this for five rounds. Inhale, exhale—count one. Inhale, exhale—count two. Continue up to five.
This simple awareness awakens you to the presence of prana. It is not the oxygen you are noticing, but the charge carried within it. That is prana.
Technique One – Fast Inhalation
If you want to feel prana more strongly, practice fast inhalation. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and begin inhaling rapidly, focusing only on the in-breath. Do this until you feel slightly tired. Then open your eyes. You will feel refreshed, as if your brain has been washed with light.
Technique Two – Forceful Exhalation
After fast inhalations, blow the air out of your mouth forcefully. Exhale until your lungs are empty. Then pause, clear and still. In that emptiness, prana begins to circulate more freely. Then repeat the cycle: inhale rapidly, exhale forcefully.
This combination is powerful. It refreshes the nervous system, removes fatigue, and restores clarity. The respiratory centers in the brain, long forgotten through shallow breathing, are reactivated.
Why Rewiring Is Needed
For many seekers, years of stress, addictions, or fatigue have rewired the brain incorrectly. Breathing becomes shallow, mechanical, and weak. The natural prana intake is blocked. A longer period of consistent training—often one hundred days—is needed to rewire the brain. In this time, the system learns again to breathe deeply, and prana circulation becomes natural.
The Flow State of Prana
When your breathing is healthy, your prana flows continuously. This flow state is essential. If prana is frozen, Kundalini too is frozen. If prana flows, Kundalini flows. This is the golden key: do not remain in freeze mode. Shift into flow.
Prana as River, Kundalini as Boat
Always remember the image of the river. Prana is the river. Kundalini is the boat. If the river flows, the boat moves. If the river is blocked, the boat is stranded.
Your task is not to force the boat to move, but to keep the river flowing. Maintain prana in abundance, and Kundalini will travel naturally.
Closing Words
For now, let this much be clear: prana is indispensable in the Kundalini awakening journey. Without prana, cells die, the mind collapses, blockages remain. With prana, cells rejuvenate, the mind transforms, and Kundalini flows like a river.
Practice awareness of breath daily. Practice belly breathing. Practice fast inhalation and forceful exhalation. Ground yourself in nature. Stay close to living energy fields. Build your reservoir of prana.
Then, when Kundalini rises, she will not struggle. She will flow with grace, carried on the current of prana, transforming your body, your mind, your emotions, and your very being.
