Kundalini is a bunch of feelings?!?!

I haven't had a full-blown conscious experience, but I have been woken up in the middle of the night feeling like I've been connected to the mains, so much energy surging through me. I've had experiences in meditation where the energy was overwhelming and I've had to stop.

Could this be the gateway to some more profound experience? I certainly find it believable and intend to find out.

Re 'the purpose of emptiness' - I completely agree it's a difficult subject and I certainly don't claim to be all the way down the path or have all the answers. However, I've had glimpses. See my other comments.

Emptiness can have this negative pursuit of denial, but in fact I believe that's not the correct practice. Of course a person is a person, and trying to deny that is a fallacy. I think it comes from misunderstanding teachings. It can be useful to have a knowledgeable teacher to discuss questions like this so we don't stray too far from the path. Meditation is a difficult thing to put into words so it's easy to get the wrong end of the stick and sometimes stray a bit, especially when you take into account the confusion of translating subtle concepts between languages, and a lot of parroting from people with little direct experience. Still, the good news is there are more and more Westerners having experiences who can help clarify things.

Meditation should make our lives richer. Looking at my own past behaviours, I realised I do what I do because I want to feel amazing. Some part of me believes I should be able to have peak experiences, and meditation has given me some. This begs the question - is this yearning to feel amazing because it's possible to live like that permanently, and I intuitively know this? That'd be a game changer. I mean, if I naturally just felt totally contented and ecstatically happy (incidentally I didn't understand what 'ecstasy' meant until just a few weeks ago when I began to experience that too), how would I live?

I certainly wouldn't drift trying to be 'nothing'. I'd have to share it. Or enjoy it. Or do something with it I imagine. But it would certainly make my life richer and more enjoyable.

Right now there are a lot of people who claim to teach yoga but just know a few postures. Also, if we look to the past, many of the traditions have been kept secret for hundreds of years. I've heard rumours that some schools of Zen eventually secretly teach the microcosmic orbit to their higher-level students after decades of practice. I've heard of Eastern Taoists being astonished at some of the practices that Westerners know, saying that some of them are still highly secret in the East.

So one problem is in the traditions. You were expected to take this lifelong pledge to a guru who drip-fed you (partly because the student could be seen as the guru's 'pension'), and that doesn't work for us now. Some of the more effective practices should be taught earlier to give both sides of a practice, energetic and meditative, and so we are rewarded with improvements in our lives which stimulates more desire to practice. I put a link to the excellent AYP in my other comment and I really suggest you check it out for a complete resource.

But one thing is certain: Kundalini can in no way be classified as "just a bunch of feelings". You only need to read Gopi Krishna to learn that.