Bridger of Worlds
The Bridger of Worlds podcast is an in-depth walkthrough between the world of matter and world of spirit. I struggled with porn addiction for close to fifteen years, and all of this led me to discovering some very crucial and beautiful things about not only the physicality of my existence, but the spirituality of it as well. Since then, I‘ve been building bridges that have served me in feeling more whole and well-integrated. I’ve now made it my mission to share with you whatever it is I’ve learned.
Themes, topics and healing modalities such as spiritual embodiment, psychosomatic practices, Shadow Work, Masculine/Feminine energetics, conscious sexuality and archetypal meanings are brought to the forefront in order to raise awareness around what is out of sight because it is only from there that new life can ever emerge.
The greatest paradox of the human condition is to live amongst duality as we seek unity. This is a podcast honoring both and in doing so, creating the loving connections and honest-to-raw conversations we so desire in our lifetimes.
Bridger of Worlds
Holy Fire and Kundalini Energy: Bridging Western and Eastern Mysticism
In this thought-provoking episode of the Bridger of Worlds Podcast, host Ioannis Kokkinos delves into the profound symbolism of Easter and Holy Fire in Christianity, drawing connections to Eastern spiritual traditions like Kundalini Yoga and Taoism. Kokkinos explores the significance of Holy Week in the Christian Orthodox tradition, shedding light on the deeper meanings behind the serpent, sexual energy, and the powerful concept of spiritual baptism by Fire.
Throughout the episode, Ioannis examines the parallels between Christian and Eastern philosophies, particularly on themes of spiritual enlightenment, the sacredness of sexual energy, and the union of Masculine and Feminine principles. He emphasizes how universal spiritual symbols—like fire, the serpent, and divine union—transcend individual traditions, offering a broader, more integrated view of human spirituality.
By bridging Christian teachings with Eastern wisdom, Ioannis presents an esoteric Christian perspective on these transformative concepts, inviting listeners to explore the deep connections between sexual energy, spiritual awakening, and universal enlightenment.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Bridger of Worlds podcast. I am your host, Ioannis Kokkinos. Thank you so much for joining me. If you are on YouTube watching, thank you for tuning in. And if you are on one of the podcast platforms, thank you for tuning in as well.
Holy Week and Easter Significance
So today I'm going to build upon the previous episode.
I did say last week, I was cooking something special for this week. It is Holy Week in the Christian Orthodox tradition. I'm not sure when Catholic Easter is this year. On some years they do coincide, but it just so happens that this year, this Sunday is Orthodox. Easter, which signifies the celebration of the Christ, Jesus Christ and the resurrection.
And, it's probably the most important week in all of Greece. So I want to talk about Easter. I want to talk about Jesus Christ. I want to talk about the Christ. I want to talk about the holy fire. I want to approach Christianity from a different vantage point, as far as this episode is concerned,
Symbolism of Fire in Different Traditions
it does connect to the previous episodes, as far as the symbolism of fire. is concerned. So I did talk about the Kundalini fire,
which is a Hindu tantric approach. The Kundalini fire starts at the root chakra, and we are to raise this fire up the energy centers, up our chakras, up our spine, up into the crown for spiritual enlightenment. I also talked about the Taoist microcosmic orbit.
And how we are to circulate qi fire through our back channel up to the top of our head down our front channel and store that qi energy, qi fire in the navel area. So as far as Christianity is concerned, there are no psychosomatic practices. There's no breathwork. Right? Like we see a lot in the Eastern schools of thought, in the Eastern religions, , there are a lot of somatic practices.
There's a lot of spiritual embodiment through the physical vessel that is the body when it comes to enhancing and furthering our spiritual nature.
Christianity and the Holy Fire
So, this is why I want to talk about Christianity today from a different lens and really focus on the symbols and really hone in on the Holy Fire because when we're talking about archetypes, we're talking about their universal meanings.
We're talking about the original essence or the original energy. Of that certain symbol and that original energy or original pattern travels through time and space travels through all civilizations through the histories of the ages. This is basically what the collective unconscious is, right? I talked about it in one of the episodes where Carl Jung stated all of the inherited symbolism and patterning of all of humanity is there and we have access to that collective unconscious, through meditation, through dreaming, through, um, astral travel and so on and so forth. So I want to talk about fire from a more esoteric Christian sense, which will go a little bit beyond the mainstream information as far as Christianity is concerned.
The Serpent and Sexual Energy
And I want to, of course, talk about the serpent. Because the serpent, yet again, is a universal symbol. And what that means is that it holds the original pattern, it holds the original energy. So, we cannot say in certain instances the serpent is evil, we cannot say in certain instances the serpent is bad.
The serpent, like any other animal in the animal kingdom, is an animal. Most likely it is one of the animals we want to run in the opposite direction when we see one, especially if it's big and poisonous, but as a symbol, it actually represents our sexual energy. Through the ages, through history, through myth, through cosmology, through culture, through religion, the serpent symbolizes our sexual and this is not just part of Kundalini yoga philosophy.
This is. everywhere. It's a global phenomenon. So the serpent is present in the Christian teachings. Fire is present in the Christian teachings.
Personal Journey and Spiritual Practices
So when I opened the door to other spiritual teachings, because my wound was sexual in nature, right? So because of porn addiction, that in turn led to a sexual wound.
And basically, I wanted to learn Everything there was to learn about sexuality, what sexual energy is, what it means to have a sexual nature, what it means to be aroused by certain things, to not be aroused, so on and so forth. I mean, the list goes on. So it's tough to say, but as far as turning to God and turning to a higher power, right?
Most of us, when we are trying to heal from deep traumas, when we're trying to recover from addictions, we tend to turn towards God. And that is a very personal and unique. experience for each and every one of us. So as far as mainstream Christianity is concerned, it was not feeding me anymore.
So this is why I turned to Tantra. This is why I turned to Kundalini yoga. This is why it turned to sexual Kung Fu as part of the Taoist tradition.
Connecting Eastern and Western Symbolism
But then I started to put pieces together. I started to find. Similarities across the teachings and it's not just these three schools of thought, but because I have more experience here, I have more knowledge as far as Taoism is concerned, Kundalini yoga, and of course, Christianity, this is really where I started to connect the dots and I started to find parallels between Christian symbolism. And symbolism of the Eastern philosophies.
So let's talk about fire. The fire serpent, as far as Kundalini yoga philosophy is concerned, as I mentioned, is to be raised up the chakras and up the spine.
So the fire serpent, as far as Christianity is concerned, we can conclude that that's basically Lucifer. We can conclude that that is the devil. Why? Because it is the serpent that showed up in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve by telling her to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
And this basically depicted the fall of humankind. This also iterated that Adam and Eve were to have So, serpent, fire, sexuality. , and this is basically how separation from God happened. There is some truth to this symbolism, but the problem that I have Is that the force of evil conveyed this message.
I have a very, very big problem with that. Why? First of all, our sexual nature is totally normal, is totally healthy, and is totally sacred. It is sacred. Our sexual nature is our sacred nature, but we need to make that connection. We need to make that connection by, again, working with our inner self.
Fire and Baptism in Christianity
Now, the Christian teachings do talk about The holy fire, talk about fire.
So for the sake of today's episode, Kundalini fire basically translates to holy fire or Holy Spirit. When we are baptized as part of the Christian faith, we know from the new Testament that literal baptism happens through water. This is why we have the ceremony of baptism inside a church where the baby is dunked in the water.
This represents basically the welcoming of the body, the human, the soul into the heavenly realm. But that is, literal baptism, which happens with water. Spiritual baptism happens with fire. This is symbolic. We don't dunk any babies in the fire. This is symbolism because we are to actually. Walk the path that Jesus Christ walked during this week, during Holy Week, as he walked with the burdens and the sins of humanity, was crucified, , and then resurrected and ascended into the heavenly realm.
Symbolically. It's fire that does all of that, because if we look at the etymological meaning of Jesus Christ, Yeshua from Hebrew means salvation, and that's how we get Jesus. And Christ comes from the Greek Which translates to anointing oil. But if we look in the gospel of Philip, which is one of the gospels that were found in Egypt in 1945, among others, we also see that charisma actually translates to. Fire. And we don't only need to look at the gospel of Philip to understand this connection.
In Greek Orthodox tradition, the sermon on Holy Saturday, when midnight arrives and it's time to chant, Christ is risen, Christos Anesti, we actually spread and share the light of Christ among us outside the church, within the church, and we chant all in unison, Christos Anesti, which means Christ resurrected, Christ is risen, and we do this as we share the fire.
We do this as we spread the light of the fire. So Christ doesn't only translate to anointing oil. It also translates to fire. And this fire is creative. And what else is creative? Sexual energy is creative. What else is creative?
Spiritual energy is creative. Fire connects all of these processes, basically, right? Creation, sex, spirituality. It's all fire. Now, I'm not saying the Holy Spirit is sexual energy, but there is a spark there that will actually catalyze.
Because the Holy Spirit is the Holy Fire. And sorry not sorry, but when we're aroused, and when we're intimate, and when we are activated to unite with another human being physically. We get heated, we feel fire, whether we're man or woman, right?
So, fire is a part of the sexual experience, but we also have to make it a part of the spiritual experience.
So, if we look at the etymological meaning in Greek, of the Holy Fire, of the Holy Spirit from breath, right? I talked about Prana as breath, Chi as breath, Pnevma as breath from Pnoi. This means that the human body is very much connected to the Holy Fire experience.
We breathe with our body. If we have no body, We have no breath. So if we have breath, if we are breathing right in this very moment, we are working with fire, symbolically, right? If you want to touch base with the previous episode, this is what I talked about, the connection between breath and fire. This is exactly the same thing.
Masculine and Feminine Symbolism
Now, there are no Somatic practices in Christianity to, you know, do breath work and to raise the fire within our bodies But the symbolism is there and even though there's no talk of masculine and feminine Because in the Hindu tantric tradition the Kundalini Fire Serpent is the feminine sexual force that needs to reunite up at the Crown Chakra with the masculine spiritual force, Shiva.
Basically, Kundalini Yoga is the reunion of the masculine and the feminine within ourselves. Now in Christianity, there's no feminine and masculine, there's no clear cut woman symbol. and male symbol and not reunion happening, but as far as symbolism is concerned. What did I say in the earlier episodes?
Well, matter is the feminine principle of creation and spirit is the masculine principle of creation. So everything On the physical plane,
as far as the human condition is concerned, it's feminine. It doesn't matter for men, women, non binary animals, plants, that does not matter. Symbolically, it's all the feminine. Because the feminine is matter and the feminine is change. The feminine is the shift. It's the fluctuating cycles of life. It's all feminine.
Energy. Symbolism. I'm not saying we're all women. You know, that's not what I'm saying here. This is symbolism. And the masculine is the stationary container constant that holds it all. So , when we want to talk about divine union or tantric union through the Christian lens, this is the reunion of Jesus Christ, the human being, the man, so the feminine symbol.
Reuniting with God, the Father, the heavenly realm, the great spirit, the masculine principle. So what Jesus did during Holy Week, all of the suffering, all of the pain. All of the sacrifice, all of the emotion, all of the labor, all of the physical contracting, all of the bleeding, all of the crying , all of the anguish represents the feminine. When women go in labor to birth a baby, it is a very grueling, painful experience. This is what Jesus did. He went into labor for his spiritual self, his spiritual nature, which is the masculine. And this is the exact same thing as the kundalini awakening, the kundalini journey.
Because what did I say last week?
Ego Death and Spiritual Ascension
When we reach up to the solar plexus chakra, which is the fire chakra, this is where we experience crucifixion. This is where we experience ego death. So When Jesus Christ died on the cross, this represents the death of our ego with fire, with holy fire, with sexual fire, because sexual fire is creative fire.
Sexual energy is creative energy. We have to start making that connection and link within our mind. When we think sex, we have to think creation.
We cannot think of sex as a dirty, shameful act that God has kicked out of our lives. of Eden that got us kicked out of paradise anymore.
That has its place because as I mentioned, if the fire stays in the bottom energy centers, it can wreak havoc within our lives. And this through the Christian lens represents Luciferian fire. When the fire is not raised, we don't experience Christ fire. When it stays on the bottom, when our traumas are unresolved and unprocessed, when our shadow communes with that fire, it's Luciferian fire.
It's devil fire. But there's only one fire within us. There's only one fire. One side of that fire is the Christ, and the other side of that fire is the devil. It's the shadow, which we all have. We all have a shadow. The Christ journey, the Christ ascension, the Christ path. Is alive within each and every human being does not matter their religious background.
The christ is an energy There's the historical christ the man that was jesus christ that experienced everything he experienced and did what he did And taught what he taught and then there's the mystical christ the mystical christ that is alive inside Each and every one of us represented as the holy fire, the inner fire within us that we must die to.
We must transmute through. We must transform through that we must become more spiritual in nature. So do you see the parallels between the Christ journey and the Kundalini journey
And let's not forget that there's also mention of the serpent in the New Testament that every man must raise the serpent, just like Moses did. So, what's serpent raising? Right? And then Revelation speaks of the seven churches, which according to esoteric traditions, speak to the seven chakras of the human body.
So, what's that connection there? What does that mean? Why are there seven churches in Revelation, and why are there seven chakras in the human body? Why is the east talking about seven energy centers and why is the west not talking about seven energy centers?
They're there. Science tells us. So, as I said in the previous episode, each of these chakras are clusters of biological networks where hormones, neurons, and chemical reactions occur. Where the seven glands of the human body are.
These are energy centers. These are chakras.
Esoteric Christian Perspective
So I know this is a more different aspect to the Christian faith, but this is where I'm at as far as my faith is concerned, and it is an important week, it is a very powerful week because it is a reminder and indication of rebirth and what it takes to go through that rebirth, right?
It always happens in the springtime, Easter. And if you remember back at the spring Equinox episode where I read my poem, there were some Christian elements in there as well, speaking very much to this interpretation of Christianity.
Just to touch a little bit about, you know, the fall of humankind as far as Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden because Eve and Adam ended up eating the forbidden fruit. This is a part of our human condition. We need to separate from God. We have separated from God by incarnating into human form because we are to reunite with God in our human form.
That is the journey for every single human being. It's too bad that they used sexual energy. They use the serpents to depict this message because I don't agree with that at all.
Our sexual energy can lead us to shadowy paths. Our sexual energy can be a source of detriment in our lives if we don't work with that fire. I know firsthand with porn addiction, I very well know what not being able to work with that fire can mean as far as our sexual nature is concerned. But having understood that that is an act of shame and a reason to get kicked out of paradise perhaps maybe would have helped shape better conversations as far as sex and sexual health is concerned But no matter, I'm here to share what I've learned because I'm very pro sex, very pro healthy sex life.
consensual communication, safety, containers, exploring kinks, exploring that part of us that is so generationally shamed, guilted, and condemned. For years and years and years,
so it is holy Thursday today. And the next few days are going to be very activating, right? When a collective is experiencing anything, it does ripple out into the rest of the collective. So obviously here in Greece, the energy right now is incredibly. potent especially the next three days, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and of course, Easter Sunday. So this is where really Jesus experienced the worst. and basically we are walking this path with him. And we remember that everything we need is within ourselves already, that Jesus Christ is within ourselves already, and that we are to burn, become baptized through the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Fire.
That's the ego death and basically resurrect and ascend in order to come to meet the heavenly father a. k. a. Embody more of our spiritual nature. This is not about perfection. This is not about becoming God, right? What Jesus did was monumental But he did lead the way in order for all of us each and every one of us to walk that path Within ourselves.
So this is a more esoteric Christian perspective
I focus much more on the symbolism. I also do believe the church is our body. This is, this is our church right here. This is where we come to pray. This is where we come to meditate. This is where we come to meet the Christ, to meet all that we need in order to commune with God. This is our church. This is the host of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Fire.
Conclusion and Farewell
So I hope that served you in any way, shape, or form. If you're Christian, if you're not Christian, um I always do love to read about all sorts of different teachings, all sorts of different esoteric schools of thought, especially because it's through esotericism where we make the most connections because Actually, all the symbols across the esoteric teachings are universally the same.
So I love to find the common ground between all of these teachings. This served me very much throughout my healing journey, um, discovering Kundalini Yoga, learning the theory, learning the practice, and then making these connections with the symbols of Christianity.
And this is why I'm here. This is why I've created this podcast to connect the dots, to bridge worlds. And I'm so grateful and happy that you've joined me, that you've come along for the ride. you are on YouTube watching, please hit that like subscribe button. If you feel like somebody needs to hear this information, please share this content.
Um, I so greatly appreciate that if you are on one of the podcast platforms. Thank you for tuning in I will be back next week if you are Celebrating easter this sunday. Happy easter I won't say Christos Anesti because it's not time.
So I will say Kalo Paska for now. And as always, please remember that you are the medicine and I am just the messenger. Thank you very much.