Kundalini Shakti: The Psychobiological Arousal a Neuroscientific Perspective

Kundalini Shakti is an ancient Sanskrit word for the psychobiological energy or arousal. Kundalini means coiled up, spiral, circular, or cyclic. Shakti means energy or arousal. Both Indian and European authors have written extensively on this dormant energy and the seven energy circuits or chakras with their symbolic meanings. After reviewing the literature on Kundalini, and briefly summarizing the modern neuroscience of conscious arousal and awareness, it is hypothesized that the lower two Kundalini Chakras, Muladhara and Swadhisthana, are functionally related to the Medullary Reticular Formation; the middle two Chakras, Manipura and Anahata, are functionally related to the Pontine Reticular Formation, and the upper three Kundalini Chakras, Vishudhi, Ajna, and Sahasrara, are functionally related to the Midbrain Reticular Formation and its ascending-activating and descending-deactivating circuits including the Reticular-Limbic, and the Reticular-Thalamic-Cortical-Striatal circuits. In the final section, a brief review of the current literature on the relatively new scientific field of Neuro-Psychobiology and its recent development is provided. There are five major neural networks in the cerebral cortex. They are the Default Mode Network, the fronto-parietal Executive network, the cingulo-opercular salience network, and the Dorsal and Ventral Attention networks. The Salience network senses and appraises the present situation that an organism is facing, and makes an instantaneous decision whether to engage or disengage from the situation actively. Engagement occurs through the Fronto-Parietal network, and disengagement occurs through the Default Mode Network. The Ventral Attention network processes the object that is present, and the Dorsal Attention network maps the experiential space-time, where the object is in relation to the conscious observer, the witness, or the agent of action. Thus, the main function of the Brain-Mind-Self is to adapt to the ongoing self-situation. It is crucial for survival, growth, and flourishing.