Shaktipat

Shaktipat or Śaktipāta (Sanskrit, from shakti - "(psychic) energy" - and pāta, "to fall") refers in Hinduism to the conferring of spiritual "energy" upon one person by another. Shaktipat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch – the last usually to the ajna chakra or third eye of the recipient.

Saktipat is considered an act of grace (anugraha) on the part of the guru or the divine. It cannot be imposed by force, nor can a receiver make it happen. The very consciousness of the god or guru is held to enter into the Self of the disciple, constituting an initiation into the school or the spiritual family (kula) of the guru. It is held that Shaktipat can be transmitted in person or at a distance, through an object such as a flower or fruit.

In Kashmir Shaivism, depending on its intensity, Śaktipāt can be classified as:

Swami Muktananda, in his book Play of Consciousness, describes in great detail his experience of receiving shaktipat initiation from his guru Bhagavan Nityananda and his spiritual development that unfolded after this event.

Paul Zweig has written of his experience of receiving shaktipat from Muktananda. In the same book Itzhak Bentov describes his laboratory measurements of kundalini-awakening through shaktipat, a study held in high regard by the late Satyananda Saraswati, founder of the Bihar School of Yoga, and by Hiroshi Motoyama, author of Theories of the Chakras.

Barbara Brennan describes shaktipat as the projection of the guru's "aura" on the disciple who thereby acquires the same mental state, hence the importance of the high spiritual level of the guru. The physiological phenomena of rising kundalini then naturally manifest.

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Wikipedia