Moses and Yoga

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta on an unknown date

Continued from part 1 and part 2

The next cakra is called the Viśuddi cakra, and Viśuddi means “made pure.” It is called the throat centre sometimes. It is concerned with speech, and with mantric sound — that is, the use of the voice to produce deep, psychical effects. It is concerned with speech, but do not understand speech here in the ordinary sense, as for instance speech in the sense of “I am talking to you now, and that is speech.” True, that is speech. But the speech with which they were concerned, as far as the Viśuddi cakra was concerned, was Prophetic Speech. He who could take Kuṇḍalinī safely up to the Viśuddi cakra was very much in tune now with the realm of Transcendence, and whatsoever he said, or any gesture he made, which somehow inspired the listener or onlooker, to get a sense of Transcendence thereby, that was Prophetic Speech. So you see, the Viśuddi cakra, as far as its mantric effect is concerned, must be regarded as the source of the Word of Power, and it represents very definitely ākāśa as ether.

Next we come to the Ajñācakra, associated with the Medala, so called because the command of the Teacher is received from above. That is the symbolic language in which it is put. I would prefer to put it this way; it is heard from within, because you yourself are both disciple and teacher, learner and master. What you receive from someone else stimulates you, and if the stimulation is of the right sort, then that which enlightens you is within yourself; and if you are quiet and alert and sensitive, you learn, and you learn the deep things that are beyond words, and beyond concepts, and all the limitations of discursive thinking. So this is what Ajñā deals with. It represents insight into the Truth which is Transcendence.

Finally, the Sahasrāra, the crown centre, or the thousand-petalled lotus as it is called. It represents the infinite variety and sum total of all that is represented by all the six cakras already mentioned. It is as if a new octave of being and consciousness begins with Sahasrāra. It is the abode of Śiva Sadāśiva. Śiva, as you know, is the name of the third person of the Hindu Trinity, and Śiva means “the Auspicious One.” Sadāśiva means “the Ever Auspicious One.” It is the abode of the Supreme Deity within your own being. The transition from Ajñā to Sahasrara represents the liberation out of all separate selfhood into Transcendence. One is no longer in charge of oneself. That means the separate self-consciousness is no longer in charge of one’s total being, because Transcendence itself has taken over. In Christian terminology, “the Manhood is taken up into the Godhead.” This is the transition from Ajñā to Sahasrāra. Since Ajñā and Sahasrāra are so close to each other, they are sometimes, as in Buddhist yoga, regarded as a single crown centre. The word cakra means a wheel, the crown and throat centres are the front wheels, and the heart and navel centres are the rear wheels of the fiery chariot of the spirit in its ascent to Transcendence. Think of Elijah being taken up to heaven in the fiery chariot.

Now a few words about the Nadīs — the channels.

Prāṇa reveals itself in the form of two dynamic tendencies. The polar currents of force which flow through the body are Solar energies, and the vehicle is piñgalā nadī, which is on the right side of the vertebral column. These represent the forces of the day (remember, not day in the purely physical sense of the term, but in the sense which I suggested at the beginning of this talk). That is, centrifugal forces which tend towards conscious awareness, objective knowledge, differentiation, intellectual discrimination. Those are the Solar energies. And there are the Lunar energies, of which the vehicle is the idā nadī, which is on the left side of the vertebral column. These symbolize the forces of the night, working in the darkness of the subconscious mind. They are the undifferentiated, regenerative, centripetal forces, flowing from the all-encompassing source of Life, and tending towards re-unification, for example in the impulses of love, of all that had been separated by the intellect.

Continued in part 4 and part 5

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