"In the Hindu system, the spinal cord consists of three parallel tubes: the one on the left called the Ida, and the one on the right, the Pingala. Between them is the tiny canal known to Western science as the sixth ventricle. A curious little work, titled the Uttara Gita: Being the Initiation of Arjuna by Shri Krishna Into Yoga and Dhyana, contains a detailed account of the kundalini system. The Uttara Gita is supposed to be an esoteric commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.
From this text, we learn that the spinal column extends upward through the trunk of the body from the coccyx to the skull, like the backbone of a vina or harp. This flexible column consists of thirty-three segments, of which the sacral group is usually united in the adult. The vina is an ancient Hindu musical instrument associated with Sarasvati, the goddess of wisdom. The original vina had seven strings and a long bamboo finger, with movable frets, and a gourd resonator at each end. In the ancient Hindu system of music, both the instrument and the notation were associated with esoteric practices. The god Siva, signifying the universal life-agent, is occasionally depicted playing upon the vina.
The backbone itself containing the spinal cord is called the Meru-Danda, referring to Meru, the fabulous golden mountain.
The commentaries then go on to explain that the sun and the moon, the planets and asterisms, the fourteen worlds or planes, the ten directions, the sacred places, the seven oceans, the Himalayas and other mountains, the seven continents, the seven sacred rivers, the four Vedas and all philosophies, the sixteen vowels and twenty-four consonants, the holy mantrams, the eighteen Puranas and their glosses, the three Gunas (attributes), Mahat itself (cosmic intelligence), all the jivas (vital principles), the ten breaths, the whole world in fact consisting of all such particular activities and things exist in the Sushumna Nadi.
From these considerations, we become aware of an entirely new dimension of Oriental thinking. We suddenly realize that the Hindu concept of the cosmos is anatomical and physiological. The creation of the universe, as described in the Vishnu Purana, is based upon the development of the human embryo. Cosmogeny is an extension of the Yogic pattern, and the sacred geography is derived from the chakra system.
Thus, as an experience of consciousness, creation is indeed the operation of will and Yoga, and its inner meaning is revealed by Dhyana, or meditation. Thus, all mythologies and the reports of sacred histories are veiled accounts of the disciplines of Raja Yoga. The uninitiated accept the theological interpretation, but those who had been accepted into the Mysteries experienced the universe as the symbol of the way of regeneration.
Certain Indian sages have taught that man is conscious of the outside world merely because all external phenomena are reflected in the subtle substances which flow through the great spinal nerve. That which we appear to see in the world, we actually perceive inwardly in the luminous material which circulates through the Nadis, or nerves. It requires the power of projecting the mind outside the limitations of the bodily complex in order to attain the objective ability to see the universe directly. Until this liberation from the psychic complex of self is achieved, the external is experienced only through the mirroring power of the nerve fluid.
Here, again, is a key to a mystery. As long as man sees only through himself, he can never escape from the fixations which he has imposed upon his own mind. As these fixations differ with each human being, all come to different conclusions upon matters which appear self-evident to each. We perceive only that which is the fulfillment of our own preconceptions.
This is part of the illusion, and explains the disconcerting circumstance that persons of equal sincerity have no common vision. Only when all ulterior considerations cease in the personality can the reflection of the world in us be without distortion. I mean especially the moral or ethical sphere, in which the major differences are held and defended.
Like the Greek caduceus, the central rod of which terminates above in a winged globe, the Sushumna Nadi rises to the Sahasrara and is entwined with two undulating nerves resembling two serpents. In the Hindu system, these attendant Nadis are called the Pingala Nadi and the Ida Nadi. On the right side spreads the Pingala Nadi, from the sole of the right foot to the top of the head, the upper part of its course entwined with the central spinal nerve.
This Nadi is bright and shining, like a great circle of fire (the sun), and is called the vehicle of the deva. The term deva, meaning a resplendent celestial being, has no exact equivalent in English, but it can be understood as a divine or heavenly entity. The Pingala Nadi thus represents the solar, active principle in the human body.
The principal lesson which the average Westerner can learn from a survey of the Yogic disciplines is ethical. The sacred ethics has to do particularly with Karma Yoga, or salvation through works. The purpose of life is revealed as a natural, gracious maturing of consciousness. Evolution is the gradual awakening from a strange and disordered dream. The very circumstance of waking dispels the fantasies of sleep. The waking state is incomprehensible to the sleeper until he himself awakens. Brahma, the objective universe, is born from the navel of Vishnu (the world-soul), while the god Vishnu sleeps upon the serpent of the great time cycle. This means that the deities, like mortals, unfold the powers of consciousness through a system of chakras. Brahma is manifested by Vishnu through the Manipura chakra (the solar plexus).
The divine love, Vishnu, gives birth to universal law, Brahma. Both love and law are redeemed by absolute truth, Siva, the eternal ascetic, who remains forever aloof from the illusion, seated on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. The Himalayas in this case represent the Yogas. The unchangeable, the immovable, and ever-pure white mountains are symbols of the ageless disciplines, of the summit at which man experiences the supreme union.
In Western religious philosophy, the devas are the inhabitants of the three worlds, or planes, directly above the abode of human beings. It is said that there are thirty-three groups or three hundred thirty million devas. The term does not necessarily imply whether these beings are good or bad, any more than the term human, applied to a kind of creature, implies a particular degree of virtue or vice. As man contains within himself a miniature of the entire cosmos, so each of the celestial regions has a vehicle or polarity within him, by virtue of which he is able to receive into his consciousness certain impressions from the universe.
On the left side of the human body stretches the Ida Nadi, from the sole of the left foot upward to the crown of the head. This is the polar opposite of the Pingala, and parallels its course along the spine. The brilliance of this Nadi is less than the Pingala, so that it is like the disk or circle of the moon. It abides with the breath of the left nostril and is called the vehicle of the Pitris. In the Manava Dharma Shastra, the Pitris are called the lunar ancestors. They belong to those races which preceded humanity in its descent into the corporeal state. In a sense, they are Elders, or those who have gone before, superior to man in certain respects, but deficient in the type of spiritual experience which humanity is perfecting through its life cycle.
It is only fair to point out that various Oriental sects are not in complete agreement on the particulars of the anatomy and physiology of Yoga. Some teachers insist that the chakras are along the spine. Others maintain that these centers are actually in the brain, and that only reflections or reflexes of them are in the body below. Some schools regard the Ida and Pingala as within the spinal cord; others, that they are the right and left sympathetic cords. One group insists that the kundalini rises in the Sushumna, while another sect maintains that it moves through the pneumogastric nerve. Nor is there complete agreement regarding the number of principal chakras, some recognizing five, others six, and still others seven. Most uncertain of all is the attempt to associate these chakras with the large ganglia and plexuses recognized by Western science. Probably the most complete works available on the subject in English are by Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon).
While differences of opinion are inevitable on any subject in which all elements are not obvious, it serves our purpose to sketch the major outlines of the doctrine. According to the Arunopanishad: "There is a chakra in which the Kundalini attains her early youth, uttering a low, deep note; a chakra in which she attains her maturity; a chakra in which she becomes fit to marry; a chakra in which she takes a husband; these and whatever happiness is conferred by her, are all due to Agni (fire)." Pranayama is that division of Yoga devoted to awakening the kundalini and causing her to rise upward through the chakras. Each of the five lower centers distributes one of the five forms of prana, or the energy of the sun. Each of these chakras also has a corresponding tattva, or breath-emotion or condition of spiritual air.
The principal chakras in ascending order, with their more familiar symbols and attributes, are as follows:
The Muladhara: a lotus of four petals and letters assigned to the rulership of Saturn, and located approximately in the network of nerves lying in the pelvis in front of the concavity of the sacral bone. Within this chakra is the phallus of Siva, and above this, resting over it in three and one-half circles, is the sleeping serpent kundalini, covering with her head the entrance to the Sushumna Nadi.
The Svadhishthana: a lotus of six petals and letters assigned to the rulership of Jupiter, and associated with the prostatic plexus of modern science. Within this lotus "is the white discus of Varuna (Neptune)." One of the Tantric writings says: "He who can realize the discus of Varuna in his mind, becomes in a moment free from individual consciousness, and, emerging from the darkness of folly, shines like the sun."
The Manipura: a lotus of ten petals and letters associated with Mars, and identified with the epigastric or solar plexus of modern science and the navel. This chakra contains within it the triangular discus of fire and three fire seeds called swastika, which lie outside the triangle. This center is related to the appetites and the organs of assimilation and excretion.
The Anahata: a lotus of twelve petals and letters associated with Venus, and appearing to correspond in a general way with the cardiac plexus situated at the base of the heart. According to Yoga, the sun, moon, and stars dwell in the heart, and the saint realizes perfect bliss by visualizing the seven Lokas (worlds) and innumerable other celestial abodes in the heart. Woodroffe says that in this place the Munis (saints) hear that "sound which comes without the striking of any two things together," which is the pulse of life.
The Vishuddha: a lotus of sixteen petals and letters associated with Mercury, and corresponding generally with the pharyngeal plexus. This is the abode of Akasha, the fifth element or ether, which is represented as mounted on a white elephant. The Tantrics tell us that within the pericarp of this lotus is a spotless disk of the moon, which is the vestibule of final emancipation. The deities throned here represent hearing and speech.
The Ajna: a lotus of two petals and letters associated with the moon, and located somewhat vaguely in the cavernous plexus of the brain. The Uttara Gita says that the Ajna is between the eyebrows, is silvery like moonbeams, and is the place of communion of Yogis. Here is located, a little above the eyebrows, the seat of the intellect. According to the commentaries, the seat of the Knower and Seer of all "is the brain (at the mouth of the Sushumna nerve where the two brains meet, and over it the Brahmans keep a long braid of hair)." The Ajna shines in the glory of meditation.
The Sahasrara: a lotus of a thousand petals and letters associated with the sun. It is difficult to identify this chakra directly with any area recognized by Western science. Some writers have attempted to identify it with the pineal gland; others with the higher brain ventricles, and still others with the nerve centers in the upper part of the cerebral hemispheres. In the midst of this discus dwells the great deity Siva, whose form is Akashic, and who is the destroyer of ignorance and illusion.
The practice of Yoga leads to Samadhi, which means self-possession. It is a state of complete and blissful trance, including absolute control over all physical, psychical, or mental faculties. The term is subject to numerous misinterpretations. Under no conditions should it be interpreted as a negative or static state. The two principal purposes of Yoga are the organization of the outer life in accordance with virtue, and the organization of the inner life in accordance with the divine will. Vivekananda defines Samadhi as superconsciousness. The actual state of Samadhi cannot be communicated; it must be experienced.
Vivekananda explains that when a man goes to sleep he enters a state of unconsciousness, but when he awakens, the sum total of his inner understanding has not been increased. When he enters Samadhi, however, he goes into a superconsciousness from which he returns with his entire character and life changed by internal illumination. Therefore Samadhi cannot be negative or static. It is a positive suspension of objectivity, in no way to be confused with a loss or diminution of the self. It is a positive escape from the limitations imposed by the ego. It is in no way a defeating of the natural propensities of the ego.
An analogy may clarify. Two men are subjected to abuse; neither retaliates. The first is patient because he is afraid, and the second, because he is consecrated to a concept of nonviolence. The unenlightened assailant distinguishes no difference in the conduct of these two men, and assumes that both are cowards. In Yoga, there is positive nonaction, but this has no resemblance to the inertia which results from an inability to act. Only those who have experienced these states of consciousness have any right to pass judgment upon them. The unenlightened gain a reputation for being informed, because they have opinions about everything. The enlightened may gain a reputation for being ignorant, because they are too wise to indulge in fruitless argument and contention. The classics say there are two kinds of silence: the silence of God, which contains all wisdom, and the silence of fools, which contains nothing.
The proper disciplines of Yoga teach the disciple how to attain that state of internal consciousness by which the power of illusion is overcome. For this reason, in many of the native drawings the god Siva is identified with the higher cranial chakras. Occidentals think of Siva as the third person of the Brahmanic triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. In this classification, Brahma is conceived to be the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the Destroyer of the world. Actually, Siva is not a destroying principle, for Nature has within it no principle of destruction. Siva is the dispeller of illusion. He turns his trident against the productions of the mortal, or false, mind. In Yoga, therefore, he appears as the divine, or perfect, mendicant, the eternal ascetic.
Yoga is a way of liberation, by which the consciousness is raised gradually through the ascending degrees of the world-experience until it reaches an internal strength, in which it is capable of casting off the illusion by the power of illumined will. When reality reveals the dimensions of maya (illusion) and overcomes Mara (worldliness), consciousness as Siva slays the adversary.
The principal lesson which the average Westerner can learn from a survey of the Yogic disciplines is ethical. The sacred ethics has to do particularly with Karma Yoga, or salvation through works. The purpose of life is revealed as a natural, gracious maturing of consciousness. Evolution is the gradual awakening from a strange and disordered dream. The very circumstance of awaking dispels the fantasies of sleep. The waking state is incomprehensible to the sleeper until he himself awakens.
Brahma, the objective universe, is born from the navel of Vishnu (the world-soul), while the god Vishnu sleeps upon the serpent of the great time cycle. This means that the deities, like mortals, unfold the powers of consciousness through a system of chakras. Brahma is manifested by Vishnu through the Manipura chakra (the solar plexus). The divine love, Vishnu, gives birth to universal law, Brahma. Both love and law are redeemed by absolute truth, Siva, the eternal ascetic, who remains forever aloof from the illusion, seated on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. The Himalayas, in this case, represent the Yogas. The unchangeable, the immovable, and ever-pure white mountains are symbols of the ageless disciplines, on the summit of which, man experiences the supreme union."
— Horizon Journal, Manly P. Hall, 1949-Summer, Vol 9
