Kundalini Yoga
"One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way. It is a meddling with Fate, which strikes at the very roots of human existence and can let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed. These sufferings correspond to the hellish torments of the chönyid state... "
C.G. Jung; The Tibetan Book Of The Dead
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Hatha Yoga
"The
fact that Hatha Yoga practices can lead to insanity is widely known in India
and, to some extent, even in the West. The term "mastana" in Persian
and "avadhoot" in Sanskrit is applied to an initiate whose entry
to higher dimensions of consciousness is attended with loss of worldly sense
to an extent as to be oblivious of his behavior or, in other words, who while
attaining to higher perception loses control over himself. Cases of this category
can be met in India and, probably, in other places also. All this association
of Kundalini and its products with possible derangement of mind, during the
course of practice and even later, can definitely mean, even if we disbelieve
other things, that the practices of Hatha Yoga or the arousal of the Serpent
Power can have such a drastic effect on the body and the brain as to cause
unhingement of reason in some practitioners. Apart from every other consideration,
does not even this issue provide a strong incentive for an earnest scientist
to start an investigation on this type of Yoga? If the practices or the alleged
arousal of the power can, in some cases, lead to psychosis, looked at from
the other angle, can it not be possible that the spontaneous arousal of the
power, brought about by genetic factors in an unadjusted system, is a fertile
cause for many forms of insanity and other mental or nervous disorders?"
(…) In Hatha Yoga the breathing exercises are more strenuous, attended
by some abnormal positions of the chin, the diaphragm, the tongue, and other
parts of the body to prevent expulsion or inhalation of air into the lungs
in order to induce a state of suspended breathing. This can have drastic effects
on the nervous system and the brain, and it is obvious that such a discipline
can be very dangerous. Even in India, only those prepared to face death dare
to undergo the extreme disciplines of Hatha Yoga."
Gopi
Krishna; The Awakening of Kundalini
"The
function of yoga
It is an established fact that yoga – at least in the form that has
become pervasive today, viz. Hatha yoga and Kundalini yoga – may release
and possibly create psychotic states in the mind of the practitioner, withdrawing
his or her interest from the outer world in ways reminiscent of the kind of
psychosis called autism."
Johannes
Aagard “Religion
and psychosis”
