New York University; New York, New York, USA

21 February 1973

Kundalini Yoga is the Yoga of prana. Prana is the life-energy or life-principle of
the universe. There are three principal channels through which this life-energy
flows. These channels are ida, pingala and sushumna. In Sanskrit these channels
are called nadis. Ida, pingala and sushumna are inside our subtle physical body,
not inside the gross physical. Ida carries the current of life-energy in the left side
of the body. Pingala carries the current in the right side of the body. Sushumna
carries the current in the middle of the spinal column. Sushumna is the most important
of the three nadis. It receives a ceaseless stream of life-energy from the
Universal Consciousness-Light. There is an inner connection between ida and
pingala and the zodiac and planets. Ida has a special connection with the moon
and the planet Mercury; hence, its main quality is coolness and mildness. Pingala
is connected with the sun and Mars; hence, its quality is powerful and dynamic
heat.
Ida rules the left nostril. Pingala rules the right nostril. When we breathe in
and out primarily through our left nostril, we have to know that it is ida that is
functioning. When we breathe in and out through our right nostril, it is pingala
that is functioning. And when both of our nostrils are functioning satisfactorily,
we have to know that it is sushumna that is playing its role. It also happens at
times that ida breathes in and pingala breathes out.
Ida, pingala and sushumna meet together at six different places. Each meeting
place forms a centre and each centre is round like a wheel. Indian spiritual
philosophy calls these centres chakras. They are also called lotuses, because they
look like the lotus flower. The six centres, as perhaps you know, are muladhara,
svadhisthana, manipura, anahata, visuddha and ajña. There is also another
chakra that is inside the brain, called sahasrara. Because it is in the brain, and
not along the spinal column, it is not counted with the other six centres. Apart
from these six, there are many other chakras in the subtle physical body. Here in
the knee we have a chakra; even in the toes and the fingertips we have chakras.
But these chakras are minor and are not usually mentioned.
The root chakra, or the lotus muladhara, has four petals, which are red and
orange in colour. The spleen chakra, svadhisthana, has six petals. The petals are
orange, blue, green, yellow, violet and blood-red. Blood-red is the most prominent
colour in this chakra. The navel chakra, manipura, has ten petals. They are pink,
orange and green, but primarily green. The heart chakra,anahata, has twelve
petals. Here the colour is bright golden. The throat centre, the visuddha lotus, has
sixteen petals. Blue and green are the colours. The brow centre, ajña, has only
two petals, but inside each petal there are forty-eight petals. Here the colour is
rose. The crown centre, sahasrara, has 1,000 petals or, to be more precise, 972.
It has all the colours, but the violet colour is predominant.
The Universal Consciousness embodies universal music. From each chakra,
where the life-energy from the Universal Consciousness gathers, a musical note
is produced. From sahasrara the tone of shadja or sa is produced. In western
music, you call this ‘do’. From ajña, rishava or ri is produced: what you call ‘re’.
From visuddha, gandhara or ga is produced: what you call ‘mi’. From anahata,
madhyama or ma is produced: what you call ‘fa’. From manipura, panchama or
pa is produced: what you call ‘so’. From svadhisthana, dhaivata or dha is produced:
what you call ‘la’. From muladhara, nishada or ni is produced: what you
call ‘ti’.
There are seven worlds corresponding to the seven chakras. Muladhara
corresponds to Bhurloka; svadhisthana corresponds to Bhubarloka; manipura
corresponds to Svarloka; anahata corresponds to Janaloka; visuddha corresponds
to Tapoloka; ajña corresponds to Maharloka; and sahasrara corresponds to
Satyaloka. Each world is symbolised by something.Bhurloka is symbolised by
earth, Bhubarloka by water, Svarloka by heat, Janaloka by air, Tapoloka by
ether, Maharloka by energy, and Satyaloka by infinite space.
For each centre there is a special Mother-Power, which is a manifestation of
the Supreme Mother. These Mother-Powers are known as Brahmi, Parameshwari,
Kaumari, Vaishnavi, Varahi, Indrani and Chamunda. Each one has a special place
of Her own. Brahmi is the Mother-Power that embodies and pervades the infinite
space. She rules all the chakras. Brahmi stays in the sahasrara, or brain chakra,
which is the thousand-petaled lotus. From there She rules the centres that are
below Her: ajña, visuddha, anahata, manipura, svadhisthana and muladhara.
Parameshwari is located in the ajña chakra, the brow centre. There She rules
ajña and the chakras that are below Her. Kaumari is located in visuddha, the
throat centre, and rules visuddha and the chakras below Her. Vaishnavi begins
functioning from anahata, the heart centre, and rules the others below. Varahi,
who stays in the navel centre, rules the lower planes: manipura, svadhisthana and
muladhara. Indrani rules svadhisthana, at the spleen, and muladhara, at the base
of the spine. And Chamunda rules only over muladhara.
Each centre also has a presiding Deity, a Cosmic God. Brahma is the presiding
Deity of muladhara; Rudra is the presiding Deity of svadhisthana; Vishnu, of
manipura; Ishwara, of anahata; Sadashiva, of visuddha, Shambhu, of ajña; and
Paramashiva is the presiding Deity of sahasrara.
These centres can be opened in various ways. The usual method for those who
practise Kundalini Yoga is to concentrate firmly on each centre, invoking the
Mother-Power or the presiding deity most soulfully. However, all real spiritual
Masters, from the very depth of their experience, say that it is better to open the
heart centre first and then try to open the other centres. If one opens the heart
centre first, there is practically no risk. But if one starts with the muladhara or
svadhisthana or ajña chakra, it is very dangerous. Again, there are some seekers
who do not follow this method at all. They do not care for occult power; they care
only for God’s Love, Light and Truth, They learn how to meditate most soulfully;
and when they make considerable progress in their meditation, these centres open
automatically. Through the Grace of the Absolute Supreme, these centres may
open even without meditation.
If these centres are opened without proper purification, the seeker will
encounter great pain. It will be like playing with fire or a sharp knife. He may
destroy others or he may himself be destroyed. We have to know that the
miraculous powers that one gets when his centres are opened are not actually
miraculous or unusual at all in the inner world. The powers that the centres hold
are absolutely normal. In the inner world these powers are constantly used by
spiritual Masters. There in the inner world they are normal and natural. Only
when they are used on the physical plane do they seem unusual or miraculous.
Any real spiritual Master will have these powers. But again, one need not be
a spiritual Master of the highest order in order to have them. One need not be
even a great seeker. Even someone who leads a normal, ordinary, undivine life
can develop these powers.
In India I came across a few seekers—I cannot call them sincere seekers—who
had some occult or kundalini power. But most of the time they misused it. They
opened their third eye in order to know what their girlfriends were thinking of
them. Now this is ridiculous. The same third eye they could have used to destroy
their dark, obscure, impure thoughts. They had the capacity, but they did not use
it. I also know of someone who used his occult power to threaten his enemies at
night and compel them to do whatever he wanted them to do the following
morning. By using his occult power, his third eye, he made his enemies his slaves.
Instead, he could have used his third eye to know God’s Will in his own life and
in others’ lives. If it had been God’s Will to expedite somebody’s spiritual
progress, then he could have used his third eye to help. Each centre has
something special to offer when it is properly used. It becomes a veritable boon
to the Inner Pilot and to all mankind.
I want to make it very clear that the opening of the centres does not mean that
one is realising God or that he is about to realise God. The opening of the centres
is not necessarily the precursor of God-realisation. No, not at all! God-realisation
has nothing to do with the opening of the centres. No matter how many centres
one has opened, even if one has opened all the seven centres, it does not indicate
that one is on the verge of realisation or that one is realised. From the highest
spiritual point of view, the opening of the chakras is like the games a mother
plays with her children in the playground. Children are fond of games and the
mother is showing her capacity. It is not her pride or her vanity, no. It is just that
the mother knows that this will amuse the children. She can give some joy, some
pleasure to the children, so she plays these games. It is usually Lord Shiva on the
sahasrara plane and His consort, Shivani from the muladhara plane, where the
kundalini is fast asleep, who play. When they play with their children in the
inner world, the occult powers start functioning.
Now let us start from the beginning: muladhara, the root chakra. When one
has acquired mastery over the muladhara centre, one can become invisible at his
sweet will. One can conquer all diseases. One can know whatever one wants to
know and discover whatever one wants to discover. If one wants to discover
God’s Compassion, God’s Light, God’s Love for him, then he is in a position to do
so. But if one uses the same power in order to know what is happening in others’
minds or what is going on in their outer life, or if one uses it to discover out of
curiosity if a third world war is going to break out, then this power is misused.
When a person with mastery over the muladhara sees that someone has a
particular disease, he has to know whether that individual deserves the disease
or whether it is the result of a hostile attack. If he has done something wrong,
naturally under the law of karma he deserves to pay the penalty. But if the disease
is not from the law of karma but rather from the attack of some hostile force, and
if it is God’s Will that his disease should be cured, then naturally a spiritual
person who has the capacity should cure it. But if he does it at his own sweet
will, or if he acts in an undivine way and just shows off, then he breaks the
Cosmic Law. He will cure the person, but this very cure will act eventually
against both the healer and the sick person. It will add to their ignorant and selfdestructive
quality. So the healer has to know if it is the Will of God that the
person be cured. Only then will he cure; otherwise, he has to remain silent and
do nothing. You may ask, how can he see somebody else suffering and still do
nothing? If his heart is very big, let him go deep within and see who it is that is
suffering in and through the individual. He will see that it is God who is
purposely having a special experience in and through that person.
Svadhisthana, the spleen chakra. When one has mastery over svadhisthana,
one acquires the power of love. He loves everyone and he is loved by everyone:
by men and women and by animals. It is here that people very often fall from the
path of light and truth. Divine love is expansion and expansion is illumination.
Love can be expressed as an expansion of our divine awareness or it can be
expressed as pleasure. When the svadhisthana centre is opened, the lower vital,
the sex forces will try to lower the consciousness of the seeker. But if at that time
he can bring down abundant purity from theanahata centre, the heart centre,
then this impurity will be transformed into purity. And purity is eventually
transformed into ever-fulfilling and everlasting divinity. But if he cannot bring
down purity, then there is real destruction, destruction of the seeker’s life. The
lower vital acts most vehemently and powerfully and sometimes it becomes worse
than the lower vital in ordinary human beings. An ordinary human being does
not enjoy the vital life the way some seekers enjoy it after opening their
svadhisthana centre.
Manipura, the navel chakra. If one acquires mastery over this centre, one
conquers sorrow and suffering. No matter what happens in his life, he will not
feel sad or miserable. But this centre can create a problem like the svadhisthana
chakra. This centre is also dangerous. One can create suffering for others if one
misuses the power from themanipura chakra and he will thereby incur the
world’s curse. This centre, like the ajña chakra, can show the seeker where a
relative or dear one has gone after he dies. It lets one see how the person is
passing through the vital world and entering into the subtle world and the higher
planes. It shows how he passes from one sheath to another after death. This
centre also gives one the power of transmutation. One can magnify an object or
one can reduce it to an infinitesimal size. In addition, this centre has healing
power. As I said before, if one can use this power properly, in accordance with
the Will of God, then it is a real blessing. Otherwise it is a curse.
Anahata, the heart centre. Here the power is unbelievable. A seeker with
mastery over the anahata centre has free access to both the visible and the
invisible worlds. Time surrenders to him; space surrenders to him. If he uses this
centre, he can travel to any part of the world in a few seconds in his subtle body.
But if he does this, he takes a great risk, Suppose he wants to travel occultly and
spiritually to Europe to see what is happening there. If he does not get the proper
sanction from the other centres, or if the other centres do not co-operate, then the
other centres may not allow the soul to come back into the body after its journey.
In India, I know of quite a few cases where Yogis leave their bodies through the
heart centre without taking help or getting permission and without even informing
the other centres. They feel that the other centres do not have the same
special capacity as the heart centre and so they should use the heart centre. Then
the other centres become jealous. Jealousy is everywhere, in the outer world and
in the inner world as well. Even the Cosmic Gods enjoy jealousy. So the other
centres, because they are jealous, do not let the soul come back. If one uses this
power, one has to take permission from the Inner Pilot first. If the Inner Pilot
sanctions it, then the other centres cannot do any harm, since the Inner Pilot has
infinitely more power than these centres.
In the anahata centre, one can enjoy the deepest bliss of oneness; one can have
pure joy. Any person can look at a flower and get joy, but the intensity of joy that
the flower embodies we cannot all enjoy. But if one opens the heart centre and
looks at a flower, immediately all the joy, all the beauty that the flower has, will
become his. If the seeker looks at the vast ocean, inside his heart he is bound to
feel the vast ocean. He looks at the vast sky and he enters into the sky, he
becomes the sky. Anything vast, pure, divine, sublime that he sees, he can
immediately feel as his very own and he can become that thing. There is no
yawning gulf between what he sees and what he is. He just becomes in his
consciousness what he sees.
This is not his imagination. Far from it! His heart is a divine heart which
embodies the Universal Consciousness. The spiritual heart is not the heart that
we find in our physical body. The spiritual heart is larger than the largest, it is
larger than the Universal Consciousness itself. We always say that there cannot
be anything superior to the Universal Consciousness, but this is a mistake. The
heart, the spiritual heart, houses the Universal Consciousness. This centre is very
safe when we use it to identify ourselves with the vast, with the beauty of nature.
But when we use it to travel outside the limitations of the body, we take a risk.
Visuddha, the throat chakra. He who has mastery over visuddha has the capacity
to offer divine messages to the world. Universal nature discloses its agelong
hidden mysteries to him. Here nature bows to the seeker. He can retain eternal
youth. The outer world surrenders to him. The inner world embraces him. We
get messages from various planes of consciousness, but when one gets a message
from the visuddha centre, the message is sublime and everlasting. When this
centre is open, one receives direct messages from the Highest and becomes a
mouthpiece for the Highest. One becomes a poet, a singer or an artist. All forms
of art are expressed from this centre. This centre is open in many individuals. It
functions according to the degree to which it is open, according to one’s
development. There is very little risk in this centre. It is a mild centre; it does not
interfere with other centres and the other centres leave it alone.
Ajña, the brow chakra. He who has mastery over the ajña chakra destroys his
dark past, hastens the golden future and manifests the present in a supremely
fulfilling way. His psychic and occult powers defy all limits; they are endless. The
ajña chakra, which is located between and a little above the eyebrows, is the most
powerful centre. The first thing one does when his third eye opens, if it is opened
properly, is to destroy the unlit, unaspiring and undivine past. Now we see
something and we have an experience, but there is a difference between our
experience and the thing that we are experiencing. When the ajña centre is
opened, however, we experience the thing itself. We become one with the thing
that we are experiencing. At that time, seeing and becoming go together. Seeing
itself is becoming and becoming is seeing. For this reason the aspirant who has
opened his third eye wants to destroy the past from his memory. In this
incarnation suppose one has become a Yogi. When he looks back to his previous
incarnation, he sees that he was a thief, or something worse. Since he does not
now want to enter into that experience again, he will try to destroy that part of
his past. He now has the necessary power.
When one realises God, the past is automatically deleted. As I said before,
when one opens the third eye or any other centre, it does not mean that one has
realised God. When one realises God, the obscure, impure or undivine past is
illumined and nullified all at once. At the moment of God-realisation, illumination
takes place. It is like coming out of a dark room into an illumined room.
It becomes light where before it was all dark. God-realisation is immediate
illumination.
With the ajña chakra, the past can be nullified and the future can be brought
into the immediacy of today. If one knows that ten years from now he is going to
do something, achieve something or grow into something, then by using the third
eye he can achieve that very thing today. He does not have to wait for ten, fifteen
or twenty years.
But if one brings the future result to the fore, this can sometimes be
dangerous. It has happened many, many times that in certain cases the future of
an individual is very bright, very luminous. But when the future is brought right
into the immediacy of the present, the enormity of the result puzzles and frightens
the seeker. The seeker is like a young elephant. He is growing in strength and in
ten years he will be very powerful. But if the power comes right now, there may
be no receptivity, no inner receptivity. The power comes, but it cannot be brought
under control or it cannot be contained in a safe vessel. At that time power itself
acts like an enemy and destroys the person who invoked it. So there is a great
danger when one takes the future and brings it into the present.
Let the present grow and play its role. The past has played its role; now the
present wants to play its role. Only in some cases, when God wants a seeker to
make very fast progress, instead of going systematically, the seeker can run
extremely fast. It is just like the situation of a student in school. Sometimes a
student does not go through all the grades of kindergarten, primary school and
high school. Sometimes he skips grades. In the spiritual life also, if it is God’s Will
that the future be brought into the present, then there is no danger. But otherwise
there is great danger.
With the third eye, one can accomplish much. The third eye has what God, the
ultimate Power, is. If the ultimate Power is misused by the third eye, then it is all
destruction. But if the third eye uses the ultimate, transcendental Power properly
and divinely, then it will be a great blessing, the greatest blessing that humanity
can imagine.
Sahasrara, the crown chakra. The sahasrara is the silent one which does not
interfere in anything. It is like the eldest member in the family: it does not bother
anyone and does not want to be bothered by anyone. When this centre is opened
permanently, one enjoys infinite Bliss and becomes inseparably one with the
ever-transcending Beyond, One comes to know that he is birthless and deathless.
He is always dealing with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. These are not vague
terms for him; they are all reality. This moment he sees himself as Eternity and
he grows into Eternity; the next moment he sees himself as Infinity and he grows
into Infinity; a few moments later he sees himself as Immortality and grows into
Immortality in his consciousness. And at times it happens that Infinity, Eternity
and Immortality all go together in his consciousness.
When the sahasrara chakra is open, the Inner Pilot becomes a true Friend.
Here the Infinite and His chosen son become very good friends to fulfil a specific
mission for their mutual manifestation. They share many secrets, millions of
secrets, in the twinkling of an eye. On the one hand, Father and son are enjoying
infinite Peace and Bliss; on the other hand, they are discussing world problems,
universal problems, all in the twinkling of an eye. But their problems are not
problems as such. Their problems are only experiences in their Cosmic Game.
Of all the centres, the highest, the most peaceful, the most soulful, the most
fruitful is sahasrara. There Infinity, Eternity and Immortality have become one.
The Source becomes one with the Creation, and the Creation becomes one with
the Source. Here the knower and the Known, the lover and the Beloved, the slave
and the Master, the son and the Father, all become one. Together the Creator and
the Creation transcend their Dream and Reality. Their Dream makes them feel
what they are and their Reality makes them feel what they can do. Reality and
Dream become one.