I want to contribute a manual or guide for other people preparing to run a long intensive. I also want to try to pass on my own experience and understanding of the process. The experience I am drawing on is running nine two week Intensives and one six week Intensive. All the two week Intensives had 18-20 people except one which had 14. The six week had 22 participants. A few people have come back time and time again, but generally there has been a steady throughput of participants. In all I have interacted with about 200 people on long Intensives. These cover the complete spectrum of age (from 20 to 70) ability, experience and personality.
In order for you to be able to assess this material it also seems important that you understand something of my own personal experience participating in long Intensives. I embarked on running long Intensives because of the enormous benefit they gave me in my own personal growth. I took a three day Intensive (with Jeff Love), then a two week (with Satyavati) and then a six week (also with Satya). When I came back from the six week I was in a state of love for almost a year afterwards. I transformed in all sorts of ways – and I was able to stay in touch with the deep experiences that I had had on the six week. I attributed all the change to the experiences and the prolonged period of self inspection (I worked on “What am I?” for six weeks). Recently I have come to question this view. The reason is that it is possible that it was the kundalini release that I experienced on the six week that propelled my growth so much. From what I have learned about kundalini since then, I am confident that I did experience a major release and that it was the cause of the ruptured colon that put me in enormous pain for a year. Indeed I think it was the anaesthetic in the operation to correct the ruptured colon that finally stopped the kundalini. What I cannot assess is the degree to which the three components, kundalini, self inspection and direct experiences, enabled me to change my life so profoundly.
It seems to me important to consider this issue of kundalini because it is a serious issue associated with long Intensives. Charles Berner regards it as a good reason for not running long Intensives. Each time I have had a major kundalini release I have suffered a serious physical or emotional consequence. Since participating in the six week Intensive I have had three further episodes I have attributed to kundalini, two as a result of mastering a long Intensive and the last from mastering a three day Intensive. The second release caused me to collapse physically and since that time I have been allergic to wheat and dairy products. The third caused me to cry for three months. The fourth caused me to have a frozen shoulder. I saw a participant have a major kundalini release after a three day Intensive – she ended up in a psychiatric hospital for ten days – she was fine once the kundalini subsided, but it was an extremely serious problem until then. So I do not take this issue lightly – and I recommend that you take it seriously. My own understanding of kundalini is very limited, you may be able to add more information or experience to guide you as a Master. I will return to the subject later on in this document. You have to understand the risks and probably share that understanding with participants. My recommendation would be to receive enough training so that you can administer some energy management technique so as to be able to bring someone “down” from a release. But if someone had done that to me in California after my kundalini release I may have missed out on all or part of the growth opportunity of a lifetime!
A Master's Path 