Kundalini (Dormant Serpent Power)

In the previous two posts, I explained about nadis and chakras. Now, I am going to continue with the last part of the astral body, Kundalini.

Kundalini is a Sanskrit word. It literally means ‘the coiled up’ or ‘coiling like snake’. Kundalini resides at muladhar (root) chakra, at the base of spine in the triangular shaped sacrum bone.  It is in the form of three and a half coils. Three coils represent three gunas of prakruti (nature): satva, rajas and tamas. The half coil represents vikrutis, the modification of prakruti. It is potential or static force energy in human beings. It lies dormant or sleeping at muladhar chakra. Due to its serpentine form, it is called dormant serpentine power. It is fiery occult power, pristine force. It is spiritual potential Shakti or cosmic power in individual bodies. It is universal energy open to everyone. There is always some degree of kundalini present and active in everyone of us. It is not a material force like electricity or magnetism.

The kundalini, when awakens, can rise from muladhar chakra through the central nadi called sushumna inside the spine and reaches the sahastrar (crown) chakra at the top of the head. The rising kundalini energy though the different chakras leads to opening of the particular chakra as it ascends. The chakras with their petals hangs downwards when kundalini is sleeping at the muladhar chakra. When kundalini gets awakened, they turn upwards towards sahastrar chakra or brahmarandhra. The chakras always face the side of kundalini. As kundalini rises step by step, it opens up layer after layers of mind or consciousness. The rising of kundalini through the different chakras leads to different levels of awakening, producing profound, spiritual or mystical experience, when it reaches at the crown chakra, the masculine energy centre.

The kundalini awakening is a process that works with energy, masculine and feminine. The kundalini is feminine energy or divine Shakti or goddess. When it rises to sahastrar chakra, it unites itself with divine masculine energy or supreme consciousness, lord Shiva or God. By some, awakening of kundalini is as awakening of inner knowledge, self-realisation or spiritual enlightment. You attain divine wisdom. You understand that you are connected with universe and you are part of it. You get filled with joy, energy and vitality. Most commonly reported awakened kundalini experience is the feeling of an electric current running along the spine.

Kundalini can be awakened by certain yoga practices such as mulbandha, uddiyanabandha, jalandharbandha etc. It can be awakened by intense meditation or intense breath control techniques such as pranayama. However one must practise yoga for quite a long time before attempting to arouse it.

You should not attempt to open kundalini if your nadis are not purified enough, or your whole astral body system, or your whole energy system is not strengthened enough to sustain the power of it. If you are not spiritually developed, you should not hurry or quicken to open this fiery power. When it is awakened forcefully, it makes a hissing sound like that of a serpent beaten with a stick. When awakening of this kundalini energy is rushed, it can cause serious problems. It can be dangerous to your mental, psychological or spiritual health. In fact, many experienced yogis warn not to intend or attempt to awaken it hurriedly or forcefully without understanding it fully. It should be a natural, moderate and gradual process while practising yoga. Your intention to awaken kundalini should be to get divine knowledge or divine power to help yourself or to help others to solve problems and to improve quality of life.

Chakras (Energy Centres)

In the previous post, I explained about nadis. Now, I am going to continue with the explanation of another part of the astral body, chakras.

In physical body, where there is interlacing of nerves, arteries and veins, the junction is called plexus. In astral body where nadis ida, pingala and sushumna are crossing each other along the spine, those junctions are called chakras or energy centres. They are along the axis of the spine. Chakra is a Sanskrit word. It means vortex, spiral or spinning wheel. The chakra system was developed in India while studying mind and consciousness for thousands of years. These are subtle centres of vital energy. The chakras are aspects of consciousness, but they are not materially real in the physical body. There are seven important chakras namely root chakra, sacral chakra, solar plexus chakra, heart chakra, throat chakra, third eye chakra, and crown chakra. Each of them is associated with one of the endocrine glands. They regulate the functioning of the endocrine glands and organs in that area. They are also associated with particular group of nerves called plexus. For example, anahat chakra is associated with cardiac plexus. Each chakra is a solid ball of energy vibrating at a certain frequency. They vibrate in a logical and orderly sequence of seven vibrations of the seven colours of the visible spectrum of light and also the same orderly sequence of musical notes starting from a low pitch to high pitch note or sound. Each chakra represents particular colour in its clear state starting from the red colour of root chakra of lowest frequency or longest wavelength and heaviest vibration at bottom. As we move up the scale, they become lighter and lightest at the top. Crown chakra with violet colour of highest frequency or shortest wavelength and lightest vibration is at the top.

First five chakras, from muladhar to visudhi, represents five physical elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether (space) and ajna chakra, mind or subconscious or soul and highest sahastrar chakra representing super consciousness, God, or divinity. As we move up the scale, elements become more and more subtle and lighter and more powerful. The heaviest element of earth is at the bottom at root chakra and lightest and most powerful of super consciousness is at the top.

Chakras are usually represented as lotus flowers. From each chakra, number of nadis crop up. The number of petals of each chakra is determined by the number of nadis in that chakra. The chakra gives an appearance of lotus flowers, with nadis as its petals. The lowest root chakra has four petalled red lotus flower. As you go higher and higher increasing number of lotus petals in ascending order indicates rising energy or rising vibrational energy of respective chakras. The highest of crown chakra having 960 outer and 12 inner petalled violet lotus flower.

Each chakra is functioning as transformer of higher energy, so the whole process is progressive transformation with elements of higher energy. As it ascends, this ascent of energy through chakras can be viewed as refinement of physical energy or raw sexual energy to mental energy, into emotional energy and finally into spiritual energy at the top, in the brain. Each chakra has particular polarity of positive or negative, or rotating clockwise or anticlockwise. Each chakra is like solid ball of energy interpenetrating physical body in the same way the magnetic field interpenetrates physical body.

We are body, mind and spirit; none of these can function entirely alone. Each one has an effect on the other. Chakras serve as junction points between body and consciousness, or between matter and mind. These spinning wheels or vortices of energy receive, assimilates, and express our vital life force energy or pran. When flow of energy in one or more of chakras gets blocked or unbalanced, we develop problems in our emotional and mental health. Slowly it manifests as physical symptom or illness. When you feel stress or tension in your consciousness, you feel it in the chakra associated with that part of consciousness and symptoms in that part of physical body.

Some authors state two more chakras namely kundali and bindu. Kundali chakra is situated near solar plexus chakra. Kundali chakra begins to work when solar plexus chakra is cleansed and not otherwise. Bindu chakra is situated at the tip of the head, beneath the whirl of hair. This chakra is colourless.  As there is ‘black hole’ in the universe, anything that goes near it disappears. In the same way, bindu chakra is our bodies’ black hole. Thousands of impulses coming to our body disappear here. Bindu chakra gives us the power of physical and mental recuperation such as control of hunger and thirst. It is the seat of soul. The soul leaves the body from bindu chakra.

Malfunctioning chakras can be opened by yogic asanas or different body poses. Imbalanced or malfunctioning chakras can be balanced or healed by certain yogic practices such as chakra balancing, chakra healing etc.

Structure of Astral Body

In the previous post of human body. We have seen that human body is made up of physical body and astral body (subtle body). Scientist have detailed knowledge of physical body. We also learn about working of physical body in school and colleges, but we are not taught about astral body. As we know, astral body is primary body to develop illness and heal illness, detailed knowledge of its structure and its function is absolutely essential. Astral body is mainly made up of nadis(life force energy flowing channels), chakras(energy centres) and kundalini(dormant serpent power). it is necessary to study their location, function and nature.

In this post, I am going to write about nadis.

Nadis (life force energy flowing channels)

Nadis are subtle passages to flow pran or vital force energy in every cell of the body. They are astral tubes made up of astral or subtle matter. Since they are made up of astral matter they cannot be seen by naked eyes or by existing modern scientific instruments. They are not ordinary nerves or arteries or veins. They are quite different from them.

Nadis play vital part in functioning of astral body. They are innumerable so that they cannot be counted, but yogis state number of nadis between 72000 and 350000. Out of innumerable nadis, 14 nadis are said to be important. Out of those 14 nadis, 3 nadis i.e. ida , pingala and sushumana are most important. Sushumana is the main nadi.

Ida nadi start from the left testicle and pingala nadi from right testicle. Ida flows through the left nostril and pingala flows through the right nostril. Ida is associated with lunar energy, It is the Chandra(moon), nadi and has cooling effect. It is feminine energy and is associated with the right side of the brain. It controls all the mental processes. Pingala nadi is associated with solar energy. It is surya(sun) nadi and has heating effect and digests foods. It is masculine energy.

Sushumna nadi starts at first crossing of ida and pingla nadi, which is situated at the base of the spine between the anus and the root of the reproductive organs. Also at the place, muladhar [root] chakra is situated. Sushumna is dropped within the spinal canal. Ida and pinagla nadis spirals around sushumna like the double helix of our DNA, crossing each other at every chakra along the spine. All nadis meet at ajna [third eye] chakra, midway between the eyebrows. When nadis are full of impurities, the pran cannot pass through sushumna. Sushumna is activated when the breathe flows through both the nostrils simultaneously. When pran flows through sushumna, the mind becomes steady and calm, the highest state of yoga. When this system works freely and efficiently, we are vital and healthy, physically and mentally. When it becomes congested or obstructed, we become sick physically and mentally. Nadis can be cleaned or purified by certain yoga practices such as anulom vilom pranayam(alternate nostril breathing).

Human Body

In this post, I am going to write about different typed of human bodies for better understanding of how and why different ailments are caused and how they can be cured.

Our human body is made up of three different bodies:
1. Physical body
2. Astral/subtle body
3. Mental

In this post, I am going to focus more on the first two bodies, as they affect our day to day life; depending on how well we take care of them.

1. Physical body

As an ordinary person, we only know about the physical bodies. It made up of five basic elements:
- Earth
- Water
- Fire
- Air
- Ether (space)

It has several operating systems, such as, digestive, excretory, circulatory, nervous, immune, reproductory etc. All these systems work in coordination with each other and are controlled by brain. Scientists have a quite in-depth knowledge of how it works right up to cells, genes and DNA.

2. Astral body

Behind this physical body, there is another body called the astral body. It is also called the subtle/molecular body. It is called molecular body, because when it leaves the physical body, its speed is of molecular level. It is invisible, yet we can feel its presence. It cannot be seen by modern scientific instruments such as x-rays, sonography, CT scan, MRI etc but day to day experience confirms its reality. It gives us ability to have desires, emotions, and imagination and physic abilities. It is made up of senses, chakras/plexus (energy centres), nadis (life force energy circulating channels), mind, emotions, intellect etc. In the future posts, I will write more details on the astral body.

In the following table, I have tried to compare astral body and physical body:

Astral body	Physical body
It is invisible, yet we will feel its presence.	It is visible.
It has five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.	It has five sense organs: eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin.
It has chakras/plexuses such as root chakra, heart chakra, third eye chakra etc.	It has endocrine glands such as prostate gland, thymus gland, pituitary gland etc.
It has mind to control its functions.	It is brain to control its functions.
It can cause negative or positive emotions.	Different emotions can produce different chemicals in the physical body.
It takes in pran by the use of kand (subtle bulb)	It takes in air by use of lungs.
Pran is circulated in the whole body by heart chakra.	Blood is circulated in the whole body by heart.
Pran is circulating in nadis, such as ida, pingla, sushumna etc.	Blood is circulating in arteries and veins.
Nadis carry emotions and feelings of the mind to the whole astral body.	Nervous system carries impulses from brain to the whole physical body.
Debris of negative emotions causes blockages and knots in pran circulation.	Morbids collected in physical body causes blockages in blood circulation.

From the above table, we can see that different emotions produce different chemicals in the body. Negative emotions of anger, fear, doubt, jealousy, anxiety, depression produces bad hormones in the physical body. Anger, for instance, creates the urge to attack; fear causes the urge to escape and so on. These emotions involve both the mind and body. As thoughts about action to these specific urges (attack, escape), body mobilizes physiological support by producing more negative hormones, causing heighted cardiovascular reactivity. Such cardiovascular reactivity, if large, recurrent or prolonged is thought to develop coronary heart disease, initiate atherosclerosis, high B.P etc.

In the same way, positive emotions of joy, love, happiness, forgiveness, gratitude, kindness, hope, inspiration, amusement etc produces good hormones. Love and joy, for instance, causes our body to be flooded with hormones that makes us feel good, which reduces stress, heal ailments, and lengthen our lives.

Focusing on negative emotions will lead you to even more negative emotions.  It’s a vicious cycle that a lot of people try to escape from. Positive emotions also work in the same way, so focusing on positive emotions leads to more positive emotions. The benefits of positive emotions are varied such as better attention and focus, better relationships, better health etc.

As negative emotions are necessary to flourish, they should come and go. They should not be recurrent or hold for long. Rather than trying to eliminate negativity, we should balance negative feelings with positive feelings.

Recurrent, large and longer negative emotions causes imbalance of chakras and energy systems in astral body. After some time, it manifests as disease symptom in physical body. This way, the astral body is the primary body causing ailments. If you want to cure an ailment, you should first deal with the astral body causing the particular ailment.