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| KUNDALINI
THE TANTRIC CONCEPT |
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Kundalini Sakti or ‘coiled feminine energy’ is the vast
potential of psychic energy, the body’s most powerful thermal
current. The arousal of Kundalini is not unique to tantric practice,
but forms the basis of all yogic disciplines, and every genuine
spiritual experience may be considered a flowering of this physio-nuclear
energy. Even music and dance can arouse the Kundalini’s dormant
force and direct it to higher planes, until its perfect unfolding
and our conscious awareness of its presence within us is realized. |
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| Tantras
commonly mention six principal holistically organized centres of
consciousness, though the number varies from text to text. Starting
from the base of the spine these centres are known as muladhara,
Svadhisthana (around the prostatic plexus), Manipura (around the
navel), Anahata (near the heart), Visuddha (behind the throat),
and Ajna (between the eyebrows). Sahasrara the seventh transcendent
chakra is situated four-fingers’ breadth above the top of the
head. The Sahasrara chakra is said to be the region of Siva pure
Consciousness, while the Muladhara chakra is the seat of Sakti,
whose form here is Kundalini. Through certain preescribed disciplines
the Kundalini Sakti rises through the psychic centres until it reaches
its full flowering – that is, fusion with the Absolute in Sahasrara
as Kula-kundalini, generating bliss-consciousness (ananda) from
the union of Siva-Sakti. |
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| Tantrikas
regard the human organism as a capsule of the whole. He who realizes
the truth of the body can then come to know the truth of the universe’
(Ratnasara). The adept accepts this with an almost existential awareness.
The psychic and physical organisms are interdendent, since each
makes the other possible. The forces governing the cosmos on the
macro-level govern the individual on the micro-level. Life is one,
and all its forms are interrelated in a vastly complicated but inseparable
whole. the underlying unity becomes a bridge between the microcosm
and the macrocosm. The human body, like the electro-magnetic bodies
of the sun of the earth, has with our present knowledge expanded
beyond its physical confines, revealing the subtle human faculties
beyond the five senses: the auras of the aetheric body, and its
organs- the ‘chakras’ of religious tradition the streams
of ‘qi’ energy which the acupuncturist traces all of which
emanations parallel and fuse with the energy rhythms of our planet
and beyond. |
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physical sheath of the body, Annamaya is connected with three of
the five elements, earth water and fire- which are represented
respectively in the Muladhara, Svadhisthana and Manipura chakras.
The Pranamaya sheath, bearing the universal life-force, prana expresses
itselt through the air and ether elements which are represented
in the Anahata and Visuddha chakras; the Manomaya and Vijnanamaya
sheaths have the Ajna chakra as their centre. It is the activation
of the Ajna chakra that gives the initiate inner vision, a simultaneous
knowledge of things as they really are, as the ‘third eye’
cosmic consciousness opens at this centre. These subtle envelopes
are related to the gross or physical particles at several psychic
points, and these points are interlinked by numerous subtle channel
known as nadis (from the Sanskrit root and meaning motion, vibration). |
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attempts have been made to identify these subtle channels with the
anatomay of the physical body, they are practically untraceable
by direct empirical observation. If the nadis were to be revealed
to the eye the body would appear as a highly complex network. The
most important of the nadis are the central channel Sushumna and
its two flanking channels: the white,’lunar’ nadi ida
on the left and the red ‘solar’ nadi, Pingala on the right
the Sushumna nadi runs from just below Muladhara, extending to the
forehead through the spinal column. Within the Sushumna nadi there
are three more subtle channels: Vajra, Chitrini, and Brahmani or
Brahma-nadi the innermost, through which Kundalini moves upwards.
Two currents of psychic energy flow through ida and Pingala from
the perineum at the base of the spine spiral them between the eyebrows.
Sushumna remains closed at its lower end as long as Kundalini is
not awakened. |
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