When emotions arise, we can say that it’s like a flower is blooming – some karma is coming to fruition – what wisdom traditions call the results of some action. The perspective of classical Tantra here, is that one should allow that flowering, without being attached or averse to the flower itself, but simply watch it bloom—and die out in its time. This is the fruition of karma in the body-mind, and it doesn’t need to take on further life outside—manifesting as cycles of habituation, or any other form of physical reality) through your interference with it.

This is true for both negative and positive emotion. Whereas we tend to cling to both, we generate both positive and negative karma. But if you can simply witness the rising and falling of that emotion, from Still Point, at the ground of being, what the Tibetans call rigpa—the non-dual awareness—then that karma will resolve on its own, living, and dissolve in its own time.

The goal of classical Tantrik practice is freedom, or liberation from the constraints of karma. This requires stillness—a stillness not entirely possible as householders. Still, a balance can be struck. We don’t need to live at the mercy of unconscious constraints; we are free to choose what we give our allegiance to, like love for a family, or a fight with the school board.

When we are no longer driven by the karmic tendencies, but rather become conscious drivers, and thereby antidoting the tendencies intentionally, we find that compassion arises, both for ourselves and for others. This is still emotion—it still generates karma—but it is a more spacious and free emotion, allowing a much more effective approach to living, free of delusion.

Self-liberating emotion isn’t a state that happens overnight. This is why we have the practices of skillful engagement. Just stopping to mindfully witness the arising of the flower in the garden is one such skillful approach. A momentary call to presence—a timeout to witness, realize, and recognize myself at the center of my experience. Using the mind, we can remember—’Ah, this is just a karmic trace coming to fruition.’

I can also blunt the force before it becomes a trauma later. Maybe relax my identification with the emotion somewhat, neither repressing nor expressing, but simply letting it be for a moment— recognizing. In this way, slowly, gently the karmic traces begin to change their orientations and your own life becomes a fertile ground for wellbeing.

But what the Yoga Sutras call afflictions, the Tantriks call obscurations of consciousness. Stuff that gets in the way. When we grasp onto, or are averse to reality, this creates an impression, or an imprint or stain on the crystal clear ground of being. Metaphors are tough—I know! The ground of being is like a movie screen—a backdrop in front of which consciousness is acting in so many ways. The mind grasps onto these actings and calls them real, obscuring the full view of the reality on which we play. What to do? This is the experience of the dual paradigm, and there really is no getting away from it, until unless you are very, very quiet.

The problem is that the sum-total of impressions that we are collecting in any given moment, over a lifetime, through our physical, mental and emotional experiences, embed themselves onto our psyches and create ‘habituation’. The illusion becomes crystalized. This crystallization, or calcification, needs to be purified. You can go all the way to Buddhahood, or you can just cleanse a little. Slowly, gently clean house, and relax into reality—no hurries; no worries. No need to become a Buddha in this life. According to the tradition, we will have many, many more chances to reach that place.

Training our minds to react differently to the vast consortium of experiences, is at the crux of the yogic practices though. We rely on increased awareness, allowing us to make proactive, more positive choices for creating our ways and our lives. By developing our awareness of the constructs and dynamics of reality, we are literally enabled, through this conscious witnessing process, to burn the seeds of karma before they grow. At that time, only the pure ground of being remains. No story exists. No dream is seen. That’s the enlightenment. The Awakening of the dreamer into reality, as it is.

In the tradition it is said that we all walk in Six Realms of Obscured Consciousness. These are aspects of consciousness that manifest as the negative tendencies of emotion. These realms are labeled as god-realm, demigod-realm, human, animal, hungry ghost, and hell realms. The energy patterns of these states of being manifest as anger, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride, and pleasurable distraction. Pleasurable distraction is the state wherein the other five emotions are present equally, all harmoniously balanced—a great feast!

Just as there is a physical body, and physical realms in which we, or the animal lives, there are also more subtle, energetic bodies, too—further, subtler realms of existence beyond the physical. In these realms exist beings of that realm’s particular frequency and resonance. As a collective. Just as karmic traces create our state, the collective of karmic traces create a realm – a collective consciousness within the greater collective consciousness. Archetypes take on life here. Here is the home of the entity and the egregore.

And just like when we dream, or astral project, the realms we visit appear real and substantial, they are like dreams, or waves of conscious projection, all floating on a vast, blank backdrop, projected onto a movie screen by the Great Projectors called Original Source & Force. And these realms are all interconnected—we walk in each at every moment.

Consider the Hell realm, where anger lives. Here, deep bias and personal prejudice, hatred and war, injustice and rage are here. Of such emotion are entire armies are formed! The legions of the demon hoards. Indeed, there is a collective of the karmic traces generated by such emotional grasping. The beings of this realm share a collective, consensual experience.

Within us we carry the seeds of karma and rebirth into every realm. When we experience our emotions, we participate in the existence of the realms in which those emotions predominate. Like when we experience pride or envy, we may temporarily walk with the demigods, partaking of some of their characteristics.

Sometimes the characteristics of a particular realm predominate in our own characters. And you can even recognize those characteristics in others, if you know what you’re looking at. Somebody who is perpetually dissatisfied may themselves be trapped in the hungry-ghost realm. Or as someone who is always angry seems like a hellish figure, someone who considers themselves enlightened, and is always preaching about this or that may be identified with the gods.

Most people run the spectrum of realm-identification because most people run the spectrum of emotion. Everybody knows jealousy. Fear exists in every realm. Sadness and love can express themselves in every realm. The point is not the emotion though, but rather the spectrum of experience that the realm represents.

The realms are important to understand, not in terms of the emotions so much, but more for the potential they represent. They’re paths from one point of experience to another, karmic stepping stones. The identification with one emotion leads to a predominance or an affection for the emotion. This leads us to our destiny, or our evolution.

Consider the joy, and revulsion, we feel when being entertained by movies based in horror, or war. What does this say about the direction of our focus? Of our play? In those moments, which path is consciousness walking on, and why? What is it attaching itself to, and what karmic trace is being imprinted on its screen? What will be the proper result of such an attachment? Entities do not attach themselves to you. You attach yourself to them!

Obscurations. Obscurations of consciousness. Just getting in the way. No problem, anyway. It’s all a great play. With very real effects. And so, rebirth. Come back. Do it again. Until unless you realize something. Remember something. Recognize your freedom, to do what you do and be as you are. Otherwise, until and unless you are liberated from these obstructions—these afflictions—you will not free to shine like the luminous light you are. That I Am.

Ignorance manifests as mild unknowing, a cloud that gets in the way of recognition. Sometimes it’s a gentle veil, like sleep in our eyes, momentary disorientation until a shot of adrenaline brings us to our senses. Sometimes it becomes habituated tendency and we walk through an entire life bereft of purpose, stuck in the animal realm without use of our intelligence.

Other times, when all of these emotions are well balanced, and we feel right as rain, pleased with ourselves, or happy—this is one of the easiest times to tell ourselves stories of righteousness. We may become as gods, trapped in the god realm—no less a delusional than any other realm. Because it is just a story line. And that’s okay! But see it for what it is. THAT’s Kundalini Rising. Kundalini Awakening. The bourgeoning of awareness.

Every moment you are painting a picture on a blank and pristine background. It’ is only a picture! Because the rain will wash away the paint, yes? Kundalini is the rain.

And still, we will feel sad again, disturbed again, suffer again, and anger, and again. We will move from realm, to realm, to realm without a second thought.

Hence the traditional practices of stabilizing the awakening. For example, the Yoga Nidra practice of centering yourself on the ground of being, and learning to identify with the myriad emotions. While realizing yourself to be at the center of the emotion, you learn to intentionally traverse the spectrum, and bring yourself willfully back to Still Point—to the balance point between the extremes, or bi-poles of those emotions. You come to realize yourself as a conscious operator. That’s Kundalini Awakening. The Awakening of Consciousness.

Such tools like yoga nidra, and others, are very good to have in your kit, before you go looking to engage the realms directly. It’s always good to have an Ariadne’s thread to guide you back out when you go on inner journey’s of discovery, and work on the meditative field.

There’s a nice book out there called: The Six Realms Teaching: Opening the Heart of Compassion (Short/Lowenthal). And as always, you can feel free to reach out to me, too, anytime.