Preface As I look over today's new consciousness landscape, especially in regard to male spirituality, I see a segmentation between the yin aspect of self-transcendence and the separate yang arena of recovery from trauma and addiction, whatever the program. While my own path started out with yoga in my late teens, it had more of a recovery focus to loosen tight muscles, the residue of psychological pressure from unresolved issues. It was only after I had cleared enough of my human trauma through various practices over the years that I came to appreciate and apply the higher aspects of this practice, which of course has been the thrust of Hatha yoga for centuries. This later led to a premature kundalini awakening in my early forties, which required even more years of clearing the chakras to open the sushumna nadi and allow this flow to rise into the upper chakras. So recently I began to wonder about writing a book that employed some of the clearing practices I had learned over the years, and most prominently the practice of recapitulation, which first came to my attention while reading Castaneda's The Eagle's Gift in the late 1980s, and later Victor Sanchez's The Teachings of Don Carlos. What I discovered from self-healing and sharing this energetic technique with others is that it excels at clearing intractable emotional "knots" that can usually be traced back to our interaction with others. This applies to the customary trauma we all experience growing up, but also for some, the deep wounds of sexual and/or physical abuse and the dark trauma the repentant perpetrators of major offenses experience. Talk psychology, which many will attest to, can't clear this kind of deeply rooted trauma.

But then the idea came to me that this is not enough, especially for those coming to such a book needing not only a clearing of such histories but also a developmental path to follow during it and afterwards. Having edited two prominent books on recovery, The 12-Step Buddhist and Yoga and the Twelve- Step Path, which deal with the limitations of standard 12-Step programs and try to infuse a more expansive spiritual purpose, I saw the need to outline another such path. But, I asked myself--to be true to my own process--why stop with an adjustment of the ego/mind when the whole thrust of spiritual development, as any yogi master will tell you, is to awaken the kundalini energy and ride it to higher states of consciousness. So, I wondered, is it possible to write a book that helps people clear intractable emotional histories, even those with great abuse issues, and moves them along a path to this ultimate activation--or at least gives them a path and a glimmer of hope for this life or their next one? I once had a palmist read my palms, which intrigued her, given that my left palm--what I came in with from past lives--was riddled with numerous broken lines, or negative past karma, and my right hand--what we make of what we brought in--was fairly clear. She turned to me and asked: "How did you do it?" Well, this is how I created a psychospiritual developmental awakening program, a task still in progress, as others will attest to, that I think can help others, especially men.