MEDITATION - To awaken kundalini and for self-realization.
All forms of prayer and meditation will eventually bring illumination and awakening of the kundalini. Meditation, visualization, and pranayama can accelerate this process, using meditation techniques such as the macro or microcosmic orbit meditation. However, when the heart chakra is developed, or activated it makes the process a lot quicker. The best way the heart can be developed is by selfless service. However there are other methods too. Possibly the following meditation is one of the very best meditations to activate the kundalini. It may occur the very first time you try it, or it may take a year or two if you persist, and it is all dependent upon Grace. Of course shaktipat is the fastest, yet grace is..... Grace.
MEDITATION OF THE TW0 HEARTS
(This begins as a Bhakti yoga meditation and ends as a Raja yoga meditation revealing the 'Light of the Soul')
Illumination Technique or Meditation on the Two Hearts is a technique to achieve Buddic consciousness or Cosmic consciousness or illumination. It is also a form of service to the world because the world is harmonised to a certain degree by blessing the entire earth with loving kindness.
Meditation on the Two Hearts is based on the principle that some of the major chakras are entry points or gateways to certain levels or horizons of consciousness. To achieve illumination or Buddic consciousness, it is necessary to fully activate the crown charka.
The crown chakra when fully activated becomes like a cup. To be more exact the twelve inner petals open and turn upward like a cup to receive spiritual energies which are distributed to other parts of the body. The crowns worn by kings and queens are but poor replica’s or symbols of the indescribable resplendent crown chakra of a fully developed person. The fully activated crown chakra is symbolised as the Holy Grail.
The crown chakra can only be fully activated when the heart chakra is first fully activated. The heart chakra is a replica of the crown chakra. When you look at the heart chakra, it looks like the inner chakra of the crown chakra, which has twelve golden petals. The heart chakra is the lower correspondence of the crown chakra. The crown chakra is the centre of illumination and divine love or oneness with all.
To explain what is divine love and illumination to an ordinary person is just like trying to explain 
what is colour to a blind man. The heart chakra is the centre of higher emotions. It is the centre for compassion, joy, affection, consideration, mercy and other refined emotions. Without developing higher refined emotions, how can one possibly experience divine love?
There are many ways of activating the heart chakra and crown chakra. You can use physical movements or Hatha yoga, yogic breathing techniques, mantras or words of power, and visualization techniques. All of these techniques are effective but are not fast enough. One of the most effective and fastest ways to activate these chakras is to do meditation on loving-kindness or to bless the whole earth with loving-kindness. By using the heart chakra and the crown chakra in blessing the earth with loving-kindness, they become channels for spiritual energies; thereby, becoming activated in the process. By blessing the earth with loving-kindness, you are doing a form of world service. And by blessing the earth with loving-kindness, you are in turn blessed many times. It is in blessing that you are blessed. It is in giving that you receive. That is the law!
A person with a fully activated crown chakra does not necessarily achieve illumination for he has yet to learn how to make use of the crown chakra to achieve illumination. It is just like having a sophisticated computer but not knowing how to operate it. Once the crown chakra has been fully activated, then you should have meditation on the light, on the mantra Aum, and on the gap between the two Aums. Intense concentration should be focused not only on the mantra Aum but especially on the gap between the two Aums. It is by fully and intensely concentrating on the light and the gap between the two Aums that illumination or Samadhi is achieved!
With most people, their other chakras are quite activated. The basic chakra, sex chakra, and solar plexus are activated in practically all persons. With these people, their instinct for self-survival, sex drive and their tendency to react with their lower emotions are very active. With the pervasiveness of modern education and works that require also the use of the mental faculty, the ajna chakra and throat chakra are developed in a lot of people. What is not so developed in most people are the heart chakra and the crown chakra. Modern education, unfortunately, tends to over emphasise the development of the throat chakra and the ajna chakra or the development of the concrete and the abstract mind. The development of the heart has been neglected. Because of this, you may encounter persons who are quite intelligent but very abrasive. This type of person has not yet matured emotionally or the heart chakra is quite underdeveloped. Though he is intelligent and may be successful, his human relationship is very poor, with hardly any friend and no family or broken family.
So by using the meditation on the two hearts, a person becomes harmoniously balanced. It means the major chakras are more or less evenly balanced and developed.
Whether the abstract and concrete mind will be used constructively or destructively depends upon the development of the heart. When the solar plexus is over developed and the heart chakra is under developed or when the lower emotions are active and the higher emotions are underdeveloped, then the mind would likely to be used destructively. Without the development of the heart in most people, world peace would be an unattainable dream. This is why the development of the heart should be emphasised in the educational system.
Persons below eighteen years old should not practice the illumination technique since their body cannot yet withstand too much subtle energies. This may manifest as physical paralysis in the long run. Persons with heart ailment should also not practice Meditation on the Two Hearts since it may result in severe pranic heart congestion. It is important that persons who intend to practice Meditation on the Two Hearts should practice self-purification or character building through daily inner reflection. Meditation on the Two Hearts not only activates the heart chakra and the crown chakra but also the other chakras. Because of this, both the positive and the negative characteristics of the practitioner will be magnified or activated. This can be easily verified by the practitioner himself and through clairvoyant observation.