Moses and Yoga

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta on an unknown date

Continued from part 1, part 2 and part 3

The most important channel is the suṣumnā nadī, which runs like a hollow channel through the centre of the spinal column, meeting idā and piñgalā in the perineum at the base of the spine. The suṣumnā is not only able to cause a synthesis between the solar and lunar currents, which are forms of praṇā, but also of the seven centres vertically, upwards from the base of the spine to the brain. This integration is experienced successively through the cakras. The suṣumnā is a symbol of all potentialities lying dormant in every human being, and which are realized by the yogi. One such potentiality is the faculty of becoming directly conscious of the inner relationship between ideas, things, facts, sense data and forces.

Now, you see, your Chairman sits in one of the postures which we learn and practise in yoga. The postures are called āsanas, and the point I want to emphasis is this, that in this posture Mūlādhāra is in touch with Earth. The old yogis, of course, used to sit out in the open on the earth. So, we have the contact of earth to earth, because Mūlādhāra represents earth. It is the root — earth to earth — the microcosm touches the macrocosm. Similarly, earth in relation to space is the microcosm related to the macrocosm. So all the psychic energies which emanate out we call matter in the ordinary way, and the psychic energies which are concerned with man, the living person, are in right relationship — earth to earth. Now the spinal column is called the merudaṇḍa — daṇḍa means a stick, and in this case it happens to be a living stick, the vertebral column — and it’s called the merudaṇḍa. Mount Meru is the mystical, sacred mount where the ultimate realization takes place and it is this daṇḍa which leads right up to the top which is Mount Meru, the Mount Meru of the individual, which is the point at which Transcendence itself makes contact with you, the living person. So now, the merudaṇḍa is upright, as if it were a lightning conductor, and Sahasrāra, the topmost cakra, points to the celestial zenith. So, earth to earth, and, just as the earth is related to the celestial zenith, so is the individual yogi related through Sahasrāra to the celestial zenith. The energy praṇā of matter radiates out macroscopically from the earth to cosmos, and in the person up microscopically from Mūlādhāra to Sahasrāra. The energy of Transcendence responds through Sahasrāra down to Mūlādhāra, sensitizing, refining and transforming you. That is why if you sit properly at ease, elastic, still and silent, you experience all the extraordinary benefit that comes out of such practice. But never forget the indispensable preliminary of the purity of the mind and the heart, and of daily life. When this is accomplished, the finite you is fully subsumed in the infinite. The divorce between Man and God is out. Once again there is the primordial Unity. Benediction floods your being and spreads through you all over the earth. Merudaṇḍa, whilst you are still caught fast in worldliness, was as the Tree of Good and Evil, Merudaṇḍa, after the complete reversal of worldliness, and consequently living in the state of holiness, is the Tree of Life.

We must consider just a few points more. We must deal very briefly with the transformation of consciousness, which is the fundamental objective of the yogi. When Kuṇḍalinī Śaktī, the latent energy lying dormant at the root centre, is awakened by the purified one, by means of meditation and physical techniques which are kept secret, Śaktī — that is Power — is led upwards from Mūlādhāra to Sahasrāra, the crown centre, step by step through all the cakras. Each of these stages marks a transformation of consciousness. As you go upwards and emerge into a profounder state of consciousness, the old is not destroyed or annihilated, but all its essence is taken up into the new state. There is no annihilation whatsoever. The ascent spans the entire range from worldly consciousness to Transcendence itself.

Now, Mūlādhāra to Maṇipūra, the navel centre, deals with the worldly life. As we have already seen, our daily life is concerned fundamentally, primarily because of our animal descent, as far as the body is concerned, with the preservation of oneself and the species. That means, all that is bound up with food and drink and sex. So, these three centres belong to this world, so to say, and to all that is involved with this world of everyday physical living.

Continued in part 5

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