The Evolution of Consciousness, Part 4
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: The chakras relate to our immediate universe. All souls are inwardly perfect; perfect inside of you, the soul, imperfect on the outside, which while never perfect we can make it more refined. Three chakras are the most active in any one individual. It is up to the individual to lift consciousness to higher chakras through sadhana, heeding instructions from the satguru, closing off the lower chakras below the muladhara. "Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva", Chapter 42.
Transcription:
Good morning everyone.
And this morning we're continuing Chapter 42 entitled "The Evolution of Consciousness" from "Merging with Siva" and we're continuing with the Lesson 293 on:
"Consciousness and the Chakras
"As awareness flows through the first three higher chakras, we are in memory and reason patterns. We see the past and the future vividly and reside strongly in the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind. When awareness flows through the anāhata and viśuddha chakras, our point of view changes. We begin to see ourselves as the center of the universe, for now we are looking out and seeing through the external world from within ourselves. We look into the primal force within ourselves and see that this same energy is in and through everything.
"The chakras also relate to our immediate universe. Put the sun in the center, representing the golden light of sushumṇā. The Earth is the conscious mind; the moon is the subconscious mind. The vibratory rates of the planets are then related to the seven chakras: the first chakra, mūlādhāra, to Mercury; the second chakra, svādhishṭhāna, to Venus; the third chakra, maṇipūra, to Mars; and so forth. In this way, if you know something of Vedic astrology, you can understand the relationship of the influence of the planets as to the formation of the individual nature, depending upon the astrological signs, for they have the same rate of vibration as the planets. Now you can see how it all ties together.
"Through the knowledge of the chakras you can watch people and see what state of consciousness they are functioning in. It is helpful to know that all souls are inwardly perfect, but they are functioning through one force center or another most of the time, and these force centers determine their attitudes, their experiences, how they react to them and more."
That's an important point Gurudeva made there:"...all souls are inwardly perfect..." It's natural to think "I'm perfect" or "I'm imperfect" that one or the other is the choice. To think that we're both at the same time, that's what Gurudeva's saying; we're perfect, inside of you, the soul, but we're imperfect, the outside. So, the outside is never perfect we just make it more refined. So, imperfect but perfect on the inside.
Lesson 294:
"Closing the Door To Lower Realms
"When at the moment of death you enter the astral plane, you only are in the consciousness of the chakras that were most active within you during the later part of your lifetime and, accordingly, you function in one of the astral lokas until the impetus of these chakras is expended. (Beautiful statement there.) It is the chakras that manufacture the bodies. It is not the body that manufactures the chakras. Since you have fourteen chakras, at least three are the most powerful in any one individual—for example, memory, will and cognition. Each chakra is a vast area of the mind, or a vast collective area of many, many different thought strata. Generally, most people who gather together socially, intellectually or spiritually are flowing through the same predominant chakra, or several of them collectively. Therefore, they are thinking alike and share the same perspective in looking at life.
"The chakras exist as nerve ganglia that have a direct impact on organs in the physical body, as psychic nerve ganglia in the astral body and as spinning disks of consciousness in the body of the soul, ānandamaya kośa. The power to close off the lower chakras—to seal off the doorway at the lower end of sushumṇā—exists when the soul is presently incarnated in a physical body. All fourteen chakras, plus seven more above and within the sahasrāra, are always there. It is up to the individual to lift consciousness from one to another through right thought, right speech, right action, showing remorse for errors committed, performing regular sādhana, worship, pilgrimage and heeding other instructions the satguru or swāmī might offer for personal guidance. All this and more teaches the prāṇas of consciousness, and most importantly, individual awareness, the art of flowing up through the higher centers through the process of closing off the lower ones..."
So my comment is: The image of climbing the ladder of consciousness, each step on the ladder being a chakra, is one way to create a visual image of the concept of spiritual unfoldment. So climbing the ladder of consciousness, each rung is a chakra.
Back to the text:
"...Spiritual unfoldment is not a process of awakening the higher chakras, but of closing the chakras below the mūlādhāra. Once this happens, the aspirant’s consciousness slowly expands into the higher chakras, which are always there.
So, comment: That's a deeper way of looking at the statement I make regularly, that in Gurudeva's approach to the chakras, we're not trying to work on the higher ones we're trying to close off the lower ones. That he's saying, simply closing off the lower ones the higher ones become more and more, more and more accessible, shall we say. Could in that in sound, all kinds of sounds going on during the day but it's the loudest one that you're drawn to. That's the one we hear and sometimes it's the only one we hear because it's so loud but we take away the loudest one you hear the other sounds, right? Then we take away the next loudest then you other sounds. So all the sounds are always there and the lower chakras are like the loudest sounds they just, they dominate. So you're not aware of the other ones.
"...The only thing that keeps the lower chakras closed is regular sādhana, japa, worship and working within oneself. This is demonstrated by the fact that even great yogīs and ṛishis who have awakened into the higher chakras continue to do more and more sādhana. They are constantly working to keep the forces flowing through the higher centers so that the lower ones do not claim their awareness. Now, all of this perhaps seems very complex and esoteric. But these are aspects of our nature that we use every day. We use our arms and hands every day without thinking. If we study the physiology of the hands, we encounter layer after layer of intricate relationships of tissues, cells, plasma. We examine the engineering of the structural system of bones and joints, the energy transmission of the muscular system, the biochemistry of growth and healing, the biophysics of nerve action and reaction. Suddenly a simple and natural part of human life, the function of the hands, seems complex. Similarly, we use the various functions of consciousness, the chakras, every day without even thinking about them. But now we are studying them in their depths to gain a more mature understanding of their nature.
"Actually, there are more chakras above and within the sahasrāra. Buddhist literature cites thirty-two chakras above. Āgamic Hindu tradition cites seven levels of the rarefied dimensions of Paranāda, the first tattva, as chanted daily by hundreds of thousands of priests during pūjā in temples all over the world. Their names are: vyāpinī, vyomāṅga, anantā, anāthā, anāśṛitā, samanā and unmanā. I have experienced these higher chakras or nāḍīs, as they are in this subtle region, as conglomerates of nāḍīs.
"These force centers are not exactly chakras, as they are not connected to any organ or part of the physical body. They are chakras or nāḍīs of the body of the soul, which when developed as a result of many, many, many Paraśiva experiences, slowly descend into the mental and astral bodies. The mental body becomes permanently different in its philosophical outlook, and the astral body begins to absorb and be transformed by the golden body, or svarṇaśarīra."
And my commentary, this is something you may not know:
In the Shum Tyeif language these seven nadi chakras relate to the eighth through the fourteenth dimensions. It's right in the lexicon.
unmana nada is the fourteenth dimension,
samana nada, thirteenth dimension,
anasrita nada, twelfth dimension,
anatha nada or eleventh dimension,
ananta nada or tenth dimension,
vyomanga nada or ninth dimension,
vyapini nada or eighth dimension.
And then in the Shum-Tyeif Lexicon it defines what's in these various dimensions. Very interesting accent to Shum-Tyeif but Gurudeva developed it, if you've not one who's studied it in depth but it's there if you're interested.
Have a wonderful day.