To cognize the states of mind in relation to the physical body, it is necessary to understand the nervous system and the forces operating through it.§
The mind flows through the physical body, influencing its every action. The physical body, in turn, influences the mind. Conscious awareness of the sympathetic and central nerve system is essential to progress on the path of rāja yoga.§
There are two nervous structures: the cerebral spine (brain and spinal cord), and the sympathetic or ganglionic. The sympathetic consists of a series of distinct nerve centers or ganglia, extending on each side of the spinal column from the head to the sacral plexus. §
Rāja yoga practices demand a complete understanding of all that this aphorism refers to. There are many fine treatises on these subjects, but true insight comes from one’s own chosen guru. The guru gives forth to the śishya what the śishya needs to know, when the knowing is needed to be known. Mystical knowledge comes at odd moments, in mysterious ways. Keep a watchful ear and an open mind in the guru’s presence, for he speaks to your spiritual unfoldment, not to your external mind. It is essential to have an awakened guru for rāja yoga to begin, to continue and end in the result of jñāna in the individual. The guru takes away–closes the door forever on–the lower nature of anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, worries and doubts, allowing the soul in its natural state to soar.§
The ganglia are called, in Sanskrit, chakras, or “disks.” About forty-nine have been counted, of which there are seven principal ones. §
The nerve ganglia of the physical body on the astral plane are colorful spinning disks. Those below the mūlādhāra spin from right to left, and the seven major ones, from the mūlādhāra up to the sahasrāra, spin clockwise. The rāja yogī, looking within himself, through his third eye, down through the physical body, sees these disks stacked one on top of another like phonograph records. They are not spinning out in front of him like airplane propellers, as often depicted by artists’ conceptual illustrations.§
The seven principal chakras are:§
1) sacral ganglion mūlādhāra §
2) prostatic ganglion svādhishṭhana§
3) epigastric ganglion maṇipūra§
4) cardiac ganglion anāhata§
5) pharyngeal ganglion viśuddha§
6) pineal ganglion ājñā §
7) pituitary ganglion sahasrāra §
These chakras are the chakras of light. The seven below the mūlādhāra, of the twenty-one, are the chakras of darkness. Again, a rāja-yoga guru is essential to maintain consciousness in the chakras of light. Hence the invocations “Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality” and “Awake, arise and stop not until the goal is reached.”§
These chakras are guided in their unfoldment by the sympathetic system’s three principal channels, called in Sanskrit nāḍīs, meaning tubes: 1) sushumṇā passes from the base of the spine to the pituitary through the center of the spinal cord; 2) piṅgalā, corresponding to the right sympathetic; 3) iḍā, corresponding to the left sympathetic.§
These are very important channels of consciousness and must be balanced at all times–iḍā-piṅgalā, yin-yang, feminine-masculine, moon and sun, intuitive-intellectual, left brain-right brain, passive-aggressive–for a constant intuiting of the divine twenty-four hours a day. Regular sādhana balances these forces, iḍā and piṅgalā, harmonizes the entire nerve system, stimulating the intuitive, creative area of the mind.§
The kuṇḍalinī does not begin its activity through the sushumṇā until the iḍā (negative) and piṅgalā (positive) have preceded it by forming a positive and negative current along the spinal cord powerful enough to awaken the sixth chakra–ājñā. The first chakra then awakens in its entirety as the kuṇḍalinī force is drawn through the sushumṇā, stimulating each chakra in turn, concluding with the unfoldment of the sahasrāra center in the brain.§
The iḍā and piṅgalā currents, through rāja yoga practice, begin a circular flow around the sushumṇā, the piṅgalā flowing up and iḍā flowing down, creating an electronic force field strong enough to stabilize the sushumṇā, to sustain the power of cosmic fire as the kuṇḍalinī uncoils and rises from the mūlādhāra chakra to its ajña destination. The seals are broken, irreparably broken, as consciousness journeys up the spine within the sushumṇā tube.§