The Evolution of Consciousness, Part 3
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: The seven centers of instinctiveness. This material cannot generally be found elsewhere than Gurudeva's teachings. The chakras below the spine down to the feet are all seats of instinctive consciousness: fear, anger, jealousy, confusion, selfishness, absence of conscience and malice. To gain stability in the chakras above the muladhara one avails control over the chakras below the muladhara as they are related to the chakras above. The upper seven spin clockwise, the lower, counterclockwise. Before worrying about stimulating the higher chakras, close off the lower ones is Gurudeva's teaching. "Master Course Trilogy" "Merging with Siva" Lessons 292,293, plus 1989 Gurudeva Upadeshes.
Transcription:
Good Morning Everyone.
We are continuing this morning with "Merging with Siva" Chapter 42 “The Evolution of Consciousness” drawn from "The Master Course", 1967 and 70 editions plus from upadeshas given in 1989.
Lesson 292
"Seven Centers of Instinctiveness
(So this is very unusual material, trying find it anywhere else. I looked in the "Tamil Lexicon" and it has these seven centers but it just has them as the names of the locas in the Narakaloka, doesn't relate them to the chakras like this does.)
"The seven chakras, or talas, below the spine down to the feet are all seats of instinctive consciousness, the origin of fear, anger, jealousy, confusion, selfishness, absence of conscience and malice. (Quite a list!)
"The first chakra below the mūlādhāra, called atala and located in the hips, governs the state of mind called fear. When someone is in this consciousness, he fears God as well as other people—even himself at times. In the chakra below that, called vitala and located in the thighs, anger predominates. Anger comes from despair or the threatening of one’s self-will. When people are in this consciousness, they are even angry at God. With their wrath, they often strike out at those around them, leaving a trail of hurt feelings behind them. From sustained anger arises a persistent, even burning, sense of resentment.
"The third chakra below the mūlādhāra, called sutala and located in the knees, governs jealousy. Jealousy is actually a feeling of inadequacy, inferiority and helplessness. When mixed with anger it causes terrible reactions within the nerve system of the astral body. When people are in the consciousness of this chakra, they often deny the existence of God and are contentiously combative with one another.
"The fourth chakra below the mūlādhāra, called talātala and located in the calves, governs instinctive willfulness, the desire to get rather than give, to push others no matter what the reactions may be, all to benefit oneself. When people are in the consciousness of this chakra they proclaim the existence of materialistic advancement over everything else. Greed, deceit, coercion and bribery prevail. This is truly a “dog-eat-dog” state of mind.
"The fifth chakra below the mūlādhāra, called rasātala and located in the ankles, is the true home of the instinctive mind. When people are in the consciousness of this chakra they see to the well-being of “number one” first, “me, myself and I.” Memory, reason, willfulness; thoughts, feelings and actions without conscience are all motivating factors here, governed by anger and fear. To this state of mind, jealousy, anger and fear are experienced as intense, even higher states of consciousness. There are even philosophies that have been conceived based on the states of consciousness experienced in these five chakras below the mūlādhāra. One of these is existentialism. Many true atheists reside in the fifth chakra below the mūlādhāra, and it is in this chakra that a great part of the mass consciousness resides at this time in the Kali Yuga. (Still two more to go. Things aren't bad enough already, hmm?)
"There are still two more chakras below this one. The sixth chakra below the mūlādhāra, called mahātala and located in the feet, is “theft without conscience.” Persons living here feel that “the world owes them a living." They simply take what they justify to be theirs anyway. The seventh chakra below the mūlādhāra, called pātāla and located in the soles of the feet, governs revenge, murder for the sake of murder, malice expressed through the destruction of others’ goods, properties, minds, emotions and physical bodies. Hatred abides here. Malice reigns supreme. This is the consciousness of terrorists and those who support terrorists with vigor and enjoy from afar their every killing, rape and torturous act. Reason seldom influences those who live in this state of mind.
(Now we get to go up.)
"From here, at the bottom, there is no other way to go. The only way is up. Evolution takes its toll in bringing the consciousness of these wanton souls up and up into personal ego and some semblance of self-esteem, and then up into the ability of being jealous, then up into conquest of their fears and memory of their past actions, fearful that these horrific events might be repeated, then finally ascending into memory and reason, then into willpower in the maṇipūra chakra. Hence they may become religious, repentant, resistant to ever, ever wanting again to face the experiences they look back at constantly and cry about in their remorse. Yes, there is only one path. It goes up or it goes down.
(So that's a very useful summary and then the Hindu point of view is to: what in the world causes people to do these low-minded actions? And it's there in the lower chakras. But as Gurudeva says there's no other way to go but up so... That's the important Hindu point of view, there are no bad people, there are just people in the lower chakras and eventually they come up into the higher ones.)
"Here, in the maṇipūra chakra, which coordinates with the chakra of memory, they are ready to practice prāyaśchitta, penance—whatever it takes to extract the emotion from the memories which are tangled together deep in the subconscious. (So that'a always what we have to remember when it comes to Vasana Daha Tantra; we're not trying to forget what happened; we're not trying to erase the memory, we're trying to take the emotion out of it. ;...extract the emotion from the memories which are tangled together deep in the subconscious.') This is a painful process. But evolution makes it necessary to be lived through. Once accomplished—and practically speaking it is not easily or always accomplished—this changes for the better the course of the prāṇas that flow through the subconscious, the sub of the subconscious and subsuperconscious mind for themselves, their family, ancestors and progeny several generations back and many generations into the future.
(So that's an interesting idea, how when an individual changes himself or herself in this way it's actually effecting lots of other people. The "Tirukural" has that idea. I think it's seven generations in the "Tirukural" that you do something, a certain nature and it's benefiting your progeny for seven generations.)
"To further explain, those who are well settled in consciousness within these seven chakras below the mūlādhāra are not interested in religion. They are irreverent and deny the existence of God. It is here that superstitious fears often prevail. There are no rules. There is no conscience. The various interrelated states of consciousness found within these seven chakras foster chaos, confusion, feelings of hopelessness, despair—all adharmic states of mind. These are the rates of vibration of the instinctive mind below the mūlādhāra, where Lord Gaṇeśa sits in all His majesty."
So what, what I found is that it's the top three of those seven that below, that individuals who are interested in religion still can experience on occasion, could, they don't go below that so the ones that religious people are still dealing with to one degree or another are:
The first one.
Atala Fear and lust.
2. Vitala Raging anger.
3. Sutala Retaliatory jealousy.
So sometimes people think because they got slightly angry they must be down in that chakra. But this is raging anger, this is when somebody is really out of control, you know, breaking things and might not even remember what he or she did the next cause they've lost to below memory.
So those are the ones we're trying to close off.
And the next, Lesson 293.
"Consciousness And the Chakras
"Gaining stability in any of the chakras above the mūlādhāra avails a certain control over the related chakras below the mūlādhāra. For example, the mūlādhāra has power over the second, fourth and sixth chakras below the base of the spine, the centers of anger, confusion and absence of conscience. Maṇipūra, the third chakra, has power over the mūlādhāra and the same Naralaka centers in an even more expansive way. (So that is something that relates in a practical way the, so that, willpower chakra is related to memory which is related to anger. So a common reason that people become angry is their will is thwarted. Something didn't work out the way they wanted it to work out so they end up in anger. Very interesting. And likewise when a person's reason is strong they can reason themselves out of starting to get fearful. So that every other one is connected.) The reason center, svādhishṭhāna, chakra two, controls the centers of fear, jealousy and so on. The cognition, seeing-through-worldliness chakra—anāhata—the fourth center above the mūlādhāra, controls the reason chakra and the centers of fear, jealousy, egotistic self-preservation and so on.
(So one other point is the Manipura-memory, Muladhara-anger, divine love, are more outgoing. Whereas the ājñā, anāhata, svādhishṭhāna and fear are more internalized. So they have a similar nature.)
"All the chakras, indeed, are functioning in everyone, as everyone has willpower, memory, reason and so on. But each soul has a home base. The ahiṁsā person whose home base is anāhata chakra would not harm others, because he perceives the unity of all. The person living in the ājñā chakra above could never harm others, because he is immersed in divine love. The home base of the terrorist who takes pleasure, joy and pride and receives medals of honor for his disdain of human rights is the pātāla chakra, at the bottom. The average person, and this is what makes him average, functions predominantly in about six chakras. These would be six below the mūlādhāra for someone for whom fear is the high point. Three within that six are the sustaining elements."
(So that's an important point there that, elsewhere in "Merging with Siva" Gurudeva says that individuals live predominantly in three chakras, adjacent chakras, but here he's saying there's a total of six but of the six you're predominantly in three. So, you could say the three are in the middle. So one or two above or one or two below you'd sometimes go into but you're predominantly in your day to day consciousness in the same three chakras.)
And back to the text:
"The upper seven chakras spin clockwise, and this spinning creates the śānti, or ever-growing peace, within an individual dominated by them. The lower seven spin counterclockwise, and this produces an ever-growing turmoil within one so affected. The vulnerable part of spiritual unfoldment is when someone is in the higher chakras—for example will and reason—and has one or more lower chakras open as well. This means one set of chakras is spinning clockwise and the other is spinning counterclockwise, which accounts for great mood swings, elation, depression, self adulation, self condemnation. So, Brahmadvara, the doorway to the Narakaloka just below the mūlādhāra, has to be sealed off so that it becomes impossible for fears, hatreds, angers and jealousies to arise. Once this begins to happen, the mūlādhāra chakra is stabilized and the renegade becomes a devotee of Lord Gaṇeśa. You cannot come to Gaṇeśa in love and respect if you are an angry or jealous person. That is our religion."
And my comment is: that is a very important theme in Gurudeva's presentation of the chakras is lets, let's not worry about stimulating the higher ones, let's close off the lower ones first here. So, how do we do that? Let's follow techniques in "Merging with Siva" but one of the important points is worship of Lord Ganesha you know in a very, you need to worship Lord Ganesha and really attune to his vibration and that helps us to stabilize awareness in the muladhara chakra and drop the lower [seven chakras].
Thank you very much; have a wonderful day.