Kundalini Tantra (Jan Esmann)
A Classic One-Star Text
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Kundalini Tantra: Song of Liberation†by Jan Esmann.]
This book was available for free at Scribd.com, so I downloaded it and read it. I’d been wanting to check out a Jan Emann text for a few years, but didn’t want to dish out any coin to do so, because what I’d read by the author at his website didn’t impress me. Unfortunately, the material in the book was no better.              The foreward by David Spero (who claims to be an Avatar, but isn’t) doesn’t even reference Esmann’s book. Maybe I wasn’t the only one not impressed by Esmann’s Kundalini tantra writings.
Esmann claims to be Self-realized, but he has nothing to say about his enlightened state. Moreover, the spiritual cognoscenti will laugh at his claim because he reveals gross ignorance of the “mechanics†and esoteric anatomy pertaining to spiritual enlightenment.
For example, he believes that the epitome of spirituality is “awakening dormant Kundalini and marrying it with Siva in the brain.†To those in the know, this is false. Siva, or rather Siva-Shakti, can only be realized in the Heart-center (Hridayam).
Esmann devotes a goodly portion of the book discoursing on the various Hindu yoga traditions/philosophies. His “knowledge†may impress the ignorant, but the cognoscenti will dismiss him as “unimpressive.â€
He mentions the blue pearl (made famous by the late Swami Muktananda) just once. He writes, “The blue pearl is the gateway to the Divine, to the pure Self.†If this is so, why does the author not elaborate on this supposedly all-important “bindu� The truth is that the blue pearl has nothing whatsoever to do with Self-realization.
The author’s exegesis of Kashmir Shaivism, the spiritual tradition he seems to most identify with, is nothing short of pathetic. For example, his entire description of the Sambhavopaya (Divine Means) is just a single misleading statement: “This is the highest initiation. Here spirituality is a natural state of fuffillment.â€
I could spend pages deconstructing all the erroneous statements that riddle this spiritual text, but why bother? In sum, this is a classic text – a classic one-star text, that is.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Kundalini Tantra: Song of Liberation†by Jan Esmann.]
This book was available for free at Scribd.com, so I downloaded it and read it. I’d been wanting to check out a Jan Emann text for a few years, but didn’t want to dish out any coin to do so, because what I’d read by the author at his website didn’t impress me. Unfortunately, the material in the book was no better.              The foreward by David Spero (who claims to be an Avatar, but isn’t) doesn’t even reference Esmann’s book. Maybe I wasn’t the only one not impressed by Esmann’s Kundalini tantra writings.
Esmann claims to be Self-realized, but he has nothing to say about his enlightened state. Moreover, the spiritual cognoscenti will laugh at his claim because he reveals gross ignorance of the “mechanics†and esoteric anatomy pertaining to spiritual enlightenment.
For example, he believes that the epitome of spirituality is “awakening dormant Kundalini and marrying it with Siva in the brain.†To those in the know, this is false. Siva, or rather Siva-Shakti, can only be realized in the Heart-center (Hridayam).
Esmann devotes a goodly portion of the book discoursing on the various Hindu yoga traditions/philosophies. His “knowledge†may impress the ignorant, but the cognoscenti will dismiss him as “unimpressive.â€
He mentions the blue pearl (made famous by the late Swami Muktananda) just once. He writes, “The blue pearl is the gateway to the Divine, to the pure Self.†If this is so, why does the author not elaborate on this supposedly all-important “bindu� The truth is that the blue pearl has nothing whatsoever to do with Self-realization.
The author’s exegesis of Kashmir Shaivism, the spiritual tradition he seems to most identify with, is nothing short of pathetic. For example, his entire description of the Sambhavopaya (Divine Means) is just a single misleading statement: “This is the highest initiation. Here spirituality is a natural state of fuffillment.â€
I could spend pages deconstructing all the erroneous statements that riddle this spiritual text, but why bother? In sum, this is a classic text – a classic one-star text, that is.
