everyone's path is different. there are as many ways to "enlightenment" as there are people. thich nath hanh says you can liberate yourself by brushing your teeth, if you do it with awareness. is that cheating? personally, I think that going about any sort of "spiritual practice" is cheating. Even bothering to incarnate in the first place could be considered cheating. Unfortunately, having any sort of relationship with reality at all seems to inevitably make a big mess. . . so why not experiment, choose the path(s) that inspire(s) you and enjoy!

Namaste
There are so many different paths and Kundalini is also one of them.
Now its your choice to which you choose but you have to choose.
OM

It's not cheating. You awaken when you awaken.

My thinking is -
If we could get enlightenment within 33 minutes , every sadhaka pursuing kundalini yoga would be enlightened by now :D.
In Dnyana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge, you need devotion and dispassion in any path . Once kundalini is awakened ( that is if your physiological and pranic conditions are conducive for awakening ) , at every chakra , you are supposed to attain a new siddhi, but along with that , there is also a new attachment to be dispassionate about. Its like , you receive a medal after every race, and immediately after receiving the medal , you have to throw it away and prepare for the next race. Otherwise, you tend to be satisfied with the medal and feel that medal was
your purpose in life. You can get the powers and rejoice them , but enlightenment is still further than that.
Once you become enlightened, and become one with the prana of the universe , even the kundalini and the powers you realize will be maya for you.

Eternal peace
Om.

Hi everyone,

>think that doing so via Kundalini awakening is cheating

One would only think of it as “cheating” if one is thinking of enlightenment as some type of contest. It is only a contest if your ego is heavily invested. Why anyone would be begrudge somebody else’s awakening baffles me. There are so few, we should rejoice in all of them.

Kundalini-yoga is an extremely powerful tool. Like any mundane power-tool, it can be used to great benefit, used to great harm, and used in a way that doesn't accomplish much of anything other than diversion.

>because it can be done in 33 minutes

While a given practice session may last less than an hour, I've never heard of anyone accomplishing much in a -single- practice session. In any event, most ancient texts talk about raising kundalini as an important step on the path, but not the end of the path. But if somebody awakens thirty odd minutes after beginning, we should all rejoice.

>and that one who has awakened this way has signs of it in their energy
>and can be recognized as one who used Kundalini to do so.

I don't think there is much question about the fact that some people can sense activated kundalini in others. However, I certainly don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. Honesty, doesn't this all sounds like "my sadhana can beat-up your sadhana" playground nonsense.

It really *can't* be cheating IMHO because it is a persons karma that brings them to a kundalini teacher and guides them to engage the practice seriously. That karma is the result of choices and life-orientations from uncountable lifetimes of accumulations. The fact that it happened this lifetime in a way the -looks- relatively easy to another person doesn't mean that it wasn't earned over eons of dedication and sacrifice.

We are all the product of what we were before, and where we are now is always the result of were we have been before.

Gratitude and love,
Ryan

Thanks for the insight. I am not sure I believe it is cheating, but that is just what I have heard, but I also know not to believe everything you hear and to follow your bliss, and if that means awakening through Kundalini in order to achieve enlightenment, then so be it.

if it's cheating that's ok, no one is judging it ...many forms yet One is shakti...everyOne has his/her marker :) 1

It is impossible to cheat at this. It takes many years.

No matter what you think you've felt.

yeh i wonder, too.. seems kinda manufactured. course it can't be taken for granted when it's spontaneous, really.