Sahashara Chakra Seventh Chakra
Sahashara Chakra Seventh or Crown Chakra
THOUGHT CHAKRA
CHAKRA SEVEN
Consciousness
Thought
Information
Knowing
Understanding
Transcendence
Immanence
Meditation
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| Thought |
Chakra Seven : Located at the top of the head , is associated with Knowledge, understanding and transcendent consciousness. Its element is thought.
Sahasrara : Literally thousand fold, the name of the (seventh or crown chakra).
Chakras are organizing centers for the reception assimilation and transmission of life energy. Our Chakras as core centers form the coordinating network of our complicated mind/body from instinctive behavior to consciously planned strategies from emotions to artistic creations.The chakras are masters programmer that governs our life, love, learning and illumination.
There are seven basic chakras that exist within the subtle body, interpreting the physical body. The subtle body is the non-physical body that is superimposed on our physical bodies. It can be measures as electro -magnetic force fields within and all around living creatures. In the aura, which is the external manifestation of the subtle body, the energy field appears as a soft glow around the physical body often made up of spindle like fibers.
In the upper chakra we reach levels of consciousness that transcend dualism, but in second chakra, dualism becomes the motivating force for movement and change.
FOOD AND THE CHAKRAS
Chakras Six and Seven- FastingIt is more difficult to recommend food for these higher chakras as they are not linked with bodily processes but with the mental states.Certain mind alerting substance like marijuana pr psychedelic drugs are known to affect these centers, sometimes beneficially and sometimes not. In relation to fod , fasting is most relevant to the upper chakras.
OPENING MEDITATION
You have gone on a journey
You have touched, you have tasted
You have seen and you have heard
You have loved and lost and loved again
You have learnt, You have grown
You have arrived at your destination intact
And now are the end of the journey, you are almost home.
There is but one step left - the biggest and the smallest them all
It is the biggest for it takes us the farthest
It is the smallest because we are already there
There is one more door to open - and it contains the key to all that lies beyond
You hold that key, but you cannot see it.
It is not a thing, it is not a way, it is a mystery.
Allow yourself to review the places you have gone
Remember the touch of flesh to earth,
the flow of movement and remembering the touch of flesh to earth,
the flow of movement and power, the song of love in your heart,
the memories imprinted in your mind
Who is it that remembers?
Who has traveled on this journey?
Is it your body Then what has guided you ? What is it that has grown?
Through what have you traveled?
Who would now hold that key that can't be seen
The key that cannot lock.
The answer to this key is the key itself.
All wisdom is within you Nothing is beyond you
The kingdom is before you, within you, around you.
It is in your mind, which is but one mind in a see of many,
connected, contained, intelligent, divine.
It is the seat of the gods, the pattern of creation,
the immensity of infinite, the endless unfolding petals of the lotus
fully blooming and connected all the way to earth.
We find it in our thoughts.
Beyond forms, beyond sounds, beyond light,
beyond space, beyond time, Our thoughts flow.
Below, behind, above, around and through our thoughts flow.
Within, without, before and after our thoughts flow
Droplets in an endless sea, the song of mind is infinite
We have come full circle and the pattern is complete.
WE are the thoughts and make the patterns
And we are the pattern that makes the thoughts.
From where do our thoughts arise?
Where do they go when we rest?
And who is it that perceives them?
Deep within ourselves we find a place to open up our mind
Through starry heavens ever climbing, matter's solid threads unbinding
Out beyond far heaven's veil, the father rules the starlit trails
In pattern bright , perceived by sight, our thoughts tuns over the day
through night,., Through our thinking, ever linking winding,
weaving wisdom's web.
Ancient patterns, flow and ebbs.
Auspicious Shiva, lord of sheep, your meditations brings us deep
To ancient wisdom found within a sacred place where we begin
An ending. here we shall return, reconnected we have learned
To know divinity inside and bring it forth with honored pride
The keys within our minds we hold to mysteries, we shall unfold
Gateway to the worlds beyond.
in sacred space and peace we bond.
ONE THOUSAND PETALED LOTUS
"The universe is just the way we think it i".
At last we culminate, the seven fold journey, climbing to the thousand petaled lotus blooming at the top of the head. Here we find the infinetly profound seat of cosmic consciousness known as the seventh or crown chakra.
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Infinite unfolding petals. |
The chakra connects us to divine intelligence and the source of all manifestations. It is the means through which we reach understanding and find meaning. As the final goal of our liberating current, it is the place of ultimate liberation.
Like a king whose crown signifies order in the kingdom, the crown chakra represents the ruling principles of life the place where underlying order and meaning of all things is ultimetly perceived. It is the pervading consciousness that thinks, reasons and gives forms and focus to our activities. It is the true essence of being as the awareness that dwells within.
"In the unconscious, it is the wisdom of the body.
In the conscious mind, it is the intellect and our belief systems.
In the super conscious, it is awareness of the divine."
In Sanskrit the crown chakra is called Sahasrara, meaning thousand fold. Referring to the infinite unfolding petals of the lotus. This chakra reveal a pattern and such magnitude, complexity and beauty, that it is almost overwhelming. Its petal bloom in fractal like patterns upon patterns., infinity embedded in each other dropping down like sunflower to drop the nectar of understanding into the awareness of being. Each perfect petal is a monad of intelligence which together forms a gestalt of overarching divine intelligence.- sensitive, aware, responsive and infinite. Its field is delicate, the slightest through will ripple through the petals like wind in a field of grass. The shining jewel deep in the lotus shine forth only in a state of ultimate stillness. To witness this miracle is profound.
When we reach this level, the seed of our soul have sprouted from its roots in the earth, and grown upwards through the elements of water, fire, air, sound and light, and now to the source of all- consciousness itself, experienced through the element of thought. Each level brings us new degree of freedom and awareness. Now the crown chakra blossoms forth with infinite awareness, its thousand petal like antennas, reaching to higher dimensions.
It is this chakra that the yoga philosophy has deem to be the seat of enlightenment. Its ultimate state of consciousness is beyond reason., beyond the senses. and beyond the limits of the world around us.
Yoga practice advises withdrawing the senses (pratyahar) in order achieve the mental stillness neccessary to perceive this ultimate state.
Tantric philosophy, on the other hand regard the senses as a gateway to awakening consciousness.
Chakra theory tells us that it is both-a stimulation of intelligence to give us information and a withdrawal to the interior were information is shifted into ultimate knowledge. One thousand petaled lotus must keep its root in the earth to maintain its blossom.
The element of this chakra is thought , a fundamentally distinct and un-measurable entity that is the first and the barest manifestation of the greater field of consciousness around us.
Accordingly the functions of
Sahasrara is knowing.-just as other chakras are related to
Seeing,
Speaking
loving,
Doing,
feeling and
Doing.
It is through the crown chakra that we reach into the infinite body of information and run it through our other chakras to bring it to reorganization and manifestation.
The seventh chakra relates to what we experience as a mind. especially the awareness that makes us use of the mind. The mind is the stage of play of consciousness. and can bring us comedy or tragedy, excitement , or boredom. We are the privileged audience that get to watch the play, although sometimes we identify so completely with the character on stage (with our thoughts) that we forget it is only a play.
Through watching this play of thought our mind assimilates experience into meaning and construct our belief system. These beliefs are the master programs from which we construct our reality.. (In this way, the crown chakra is the master chakra, and relates to the master gland of the endocrine system,, the pituitary.
Physiologically, all crown chakra relates to the brain, especially the higher brain or cerebral cortex. Our amazing human brain cortex contains some thirteen billion interconnected nerve cells, capable of making more connections among themselves than the number of stars in the entire universe.This is a remarkable statement. Our brain, as instruments of awareness, are virtually limitless.. Yet there are 100 millions sensory receptors within the body, and ten trillion synapses in the nervous system making the mind 100,000 times more sensitive to to internal environment than to its external one.
So it is truly from a place within that we receive and assimilate most of our knowledge.
From within, we access a dimension that has no locality in time and space.If we postulate that each chakra represents a dimension of smaller and faster vibrations.We hypothetically reach a plane in the crown chakra were we have a wave of infinite speed and no wave length, allowing it to be every where at once.. In this way ultimate states of consciousness are described as omnipresent- by reducing the world to a pattern system occupying no physical dimension, we have infinite storage capacity for its symbols. In other words, we carry the whole world inside our heads.
The place within is the seat of consciousness and the origin of our manifesting current. All acts of creation begin with conception. we must first conceive an idea before can enact it. This begins in the mind than descends through the chakras into manifestation. Conception gives us a pattern and manifestation fills it with substance giving it form.Pattern implies order To the Hindus order is an underlying universal reality. Indeed if we look at nature and the celestial universe, the apparent intelligence of its exquisite order is astonishing.
Pattern related to the word for father Pater. The father gives the seed (the DNA) the information or the pattern. Which stimulates the creation of form. Conception begins when the pattern is adequately received. It is than the maternal aspect that gives substance to the pattern (as well as half the DNA). Mother comes from mater. as does the English word matter. To make something matter, it must materialize manifest, be "motherhood". In this way Shiva provides the form or pattern. while Shakti as the mother of the universe provides the raw energy that materializes the form.
We may think that consciousness is inevitable but we only need to look around us.- at the structure of our cities, the furnishings in our houses or the content of our bookshelves, to see the incredible versatility of consciousness in its manifested form. If we want to know what conscious look like, our world both natural and man made - is its expression.Consciousness is the field of patterns from which manifestation emerge.
What than a higher" consciousness"? Higher consciousness is the awareness of a higher or deeper order- one that is more inclusive. Higher consciousness is sometimes called cosmic consciousness. and refers to awareness of a cosmic or celestial order. Where the lower chakras are full of millions of bits of information about the physical world and its cycles of cause and effect, cosmic consciousness reaches far into the galaxies and beyond.opening to the awareness of unifying truths. It is the perception of meta-patterns overreaching organizational principles of our cosmic ordering system. From this place we can descend again to lesser orders with an innate understanding of their structure and functions as subsets of these meta patterns.
At Sahasrara we are further removed from the material world- and with it the limitation of space and time. In this sense the seventh chakra has the greatest versatility and can encompass the greatest scope of any of the chakras, and its state of liberation within our thought we can jump from ancient stone age to visions of the future. We can imagine in being in our backyard or think of a distant galaxy all in a mere instant. We can create destroy learn and grow, all from a place existing within and requiring no movement or change without.
Some say Sahasrara is the seat of a soul an eternal and dimensionless witness that stays with us through out lifetime.. Others say it is the point through which the divine spark of Shiva enters the body and brings intelligence. It is the master processor of all awareness The gateway to world beyond and within. the dimensionless circumference that en comprises all that is. However we choose to describe it , we must remember that its scope is far greater than our words can convey. It can only be experienced.
CONSCIOUSNESS
The universal force is a universal consciousness. This is what seekers discovers. When he has contacted this current of consciousness in himself, he can switch on to any plane. What so ever of the universal reality, at any point and perceive, understand the consciousness there, or even act upon that. Because everywhere it is the same current of consciousness with different vibratory modalities.
Each of the chakras is a manifestation of consciousness at different layers of reality, with earth being the most dense and the seventh chakra, as its opposite, the pure unmanifest consciousness, known in yoga philosophy as Purush. At chakra seven we must now ask the questions, what is this thing called consciousness? What is its purpose? How do we tap into it?
There are certainly big questions and once which have been asked by men and women since the beginning of tie, and yet to enter- our last dimension- the dimension of mind, awareness, thought, intelligence and information. We must begin an enquiry for the very faculty that is asking is consciousness itself- the object of our quest.
It is when we ask ourselves "who is minding the store" that we look inside and notice the awareness within. It does little good to grip about the stores content without asking the questions. If we want a change we want to take it willing with the manager, some call this the witness, an aware being that is always present in the mystery of the self. To witness our own awareness to begin to fathom the mysterious possession of consciousness.
The phenomenon is nothing short of miraculous, a faulty we all have.- but cannot see, touch,, measure or hold- is the inedible realty that makes us alive. Its an enormous capacity for regulating the body, playing music, speaking multiple languages, drawing pictures, reciting poetry, remembering phone numbers, appreciating a sunset,, solving a puzzle, experiencing a pleasure, loving, yearning,
acting, seeing,- a faculty of consciousness is endless in its remarkable abilities. To really turn our gaze of attention upon this miracle is to enter the endless unfolding petals of the lotus , and the true source of self.
The self maintains a storehouse of memory, a set of belief system, and a capacity to take a new data,, while somehow integrating all this information into a coherent sense of meaning. This search of meaning is the driving force of consciousness and the search for the underlying unity of experience. When our own live have meaning, they become part of a larger structure. When something lacks meaning, it doesn't match up with anything. Meaning is the pattern that connects. It brings us closer to unity. Meaning links up the individual to the universal, the true meaning of yoga. It is believed the search for this meaning is the basic drive of crown chakra in all experiences prior to Samadhi (where meaning becomes obvious)
From the mundane (earthly world) to mystical. The search for meaning is behind most activities of mind. Boss is cross with you ? you might ask, what does this mean? Is she having a bad day ? Is it something you did wrong ? Is she expecting too much from you ? Are you in the wrong job ? When people have accidents illnesses or auspicious coincidences, they search for meaning to help integrate the experience. As a therapist am told daily about events that occurs in my clients lives. Again and again they ask the question "what does this mean ?
Once we discern the meaning of a situation we know better what to do or how to operate and we can again flow with the situation. This gives us our basic operating system. It connects us to the overall sense of order, which can then integrate the rest of our experience into wholeness.
Consciousness is a force, related to a Sattva guna. This force is one of unity., order, and organisation.It is the design, the pattern, the intelligence. From crisscrossing wave forms in the brain to the structure of molecule. building and cities, consciousness is the ordering principle inherent in all things. Existing itself is but a vortex of conscious organisation.
Tapping into this great field of consciousness causes it to descend, where it wraps itself around existing structures and becomes information. Information is the perceived lines of order that make up one's personal operating system. The vary act of thinking is the process of following lines of order. As vehicles of consciousness our natural inclination is to express that information.- to use it and manifest it.The ultimate expression is physical form, yet it is most limited.. Because of its limitation consciousness after manifesting wants to free itself from binding of the physical and return again to its source.- the non physical where it can play with its infinite diversity.So the nature of consciousness is to both manifest and liberate, the eternal dance of Shiva and shakti.
TYPES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
That within us which seeks to know and to progress is not the
mind, but something behind it which makes use of it.
Awareness implies the focus of attention. You may speak to me while I am asleep , but i am not aware of it.- my attention is focused somewhere else. Scenes may drift by while, I am driving, but they escape my awareness. and may be unfamiliar next time I see them.To open awareness we must notice where our attention goes. then we can expand or focus it at will.
Information is around us in great multitude every moment of our lives.In order to use this information we focus our attention on small amount at a time.To be reading this blog you are focusing your attention on it.and away from other things, such as traffic, noisy children,or nearby conversation.
The consciousness of the crown chakra can be roughly divided into two types.depending upon where our attention goes.That which descends and becomes concrete information, useful for manifesting in the world. And that which expand and travel outward toward more abstract planes. The first is oriented towards the world of things, relationships and the concrete self. It is the result of limiting attention.. It is the consciousness that actively thinks, reasons, learns and stores information. It is our cognitive consciousness. We can think of it as the lower focus of the crown chakra organizing finite bits of detail into ever larger structure.
The second type of consciousness I call transcendence consciousness It interfaces to the realm beyond the world of things and relationships.It is consciousness without an object, without awareness or reference to the individual self and without the wide fluctuations that occur in the logical and comparative thought pattern of Cognitive consciousness. Instead this form of consciousness floats in a meta awareness encompassing all things simultaneously without focusing on any object in particular. It floats because it lets go off the normal object of consciousness and thus becomes weightless and free.
Cognitive consciousness requires that awareness be focused on the finite and particular sorted and assembled in logical order. Transcendent consciousness requires opening awareness beyond cognition.To perceive higher order implies a greater distancing from the minute and particular. Paradoxically, this opening beyond cognition has the result of increasing the scope of our focused attention. By emptying the mind, that which remains in more pronounced, like watching someone alone in a field of snow as opposed to finding them on a crowded street.
INFORMATION
Space / time coordinates are not primary coordinates of physical reality. but are organizing principle invoked by consciousness to put its information in order.
Through our experiences each one of us build a personal matrix of information within our minds. From the first glimpses of our mother's face to our doctoral dissertation and beyond, we spend our life trying to piece together some sense of order from what we see around us. Each bit of information we receive get incorporated into that matrix making it ever more complex. As it grows more complex it tends to periodically "recognize" itself. finding higher levels of order which simplify its system. The bottom falls out, restructuring occurs, and with it a more efficient use of energy. This is the familiar "aha"reflex.- the little enlightenment that comes when some piece falls into place allowing a new wholeness to be perceived.. Enlightenment is a progressive understanding of ever greater wholeness. In our holographic paradigm each new piece of information allows the basic picture to gain clarity.
Matrix structures are created from the meaning we drive from experience. They than become our personal belief systems and the ordering principles of our lives. We are part of this order and we organize all that we encounter according to this matrix preferably to keep our inner and outer experiences coherent. If my belief system says that women are inferior, I will manifest that in all my actions, including finding people to corroborate it. If I believe this is my lucky day I am more likely to manifest positive things in my life today.
Our belief system is comprised of the various bits of meaning we have derived from our experience. If we repeatedly fall and we tell ourselves that it means we are stupid, we eventually generate a belief in our own stupidity.. This belief system forms a matrix into which all other information is funneled.. If I tell you a bit of feedback you run that piece of data against your background knowledge and add it to your belief systems. You might say, "I can never do anything right or "I can never please you". This is a belief taken from what meaning you drive. Another person, with another belief system may drive an entirely different meaning.
The relationship between the meaning and belief is so strong that of some piece of data does not fit our inner matrix, we might say " O I don't believe you."and discard the information entirely.. If I told some some one I saw an extra terrestrial (I haven't), most people would not believe me, for they have no matrix for such an experience. If I told the same information to someone at a UFO conference, they might believe me. or give an experience entirely different meaning.
This is one of the traps of the mind.. How do we take new information and expand our consciousness. If we reject anything that does not fit the current inner paradigm.and if we disregard this inner matrix. How do we discern truth from friction or organize the vast amount of information that we receive at each moment.
The best answer to this lies in meditation, for it is a practice that allows the mind to sort through its data discard outmoded belief systems and unnecessarily information, and reset the personal matrix with an underlying unity (Meditation is like de-fragmenting your hard drive. It leaves more room to operate and record new information without crashing your system.) It is the meditation that allows our crown chakra to open the awareness ever wider without getting overwhelmed or loss in the infinite. It helps us retain our center, which is the primary organization matrix of the self.
Downloading Information
Para psychological research, past life regression and other studies have shown that there are certain qualities of mind that independently of the brain. In some cases of past life regression people have been able to remember facts that are objectively provable. They accurately describe a house they have never seen, they speak a foreign language or they describe an events that are later documented by journals, letters or books. Obviously since the human body / hardware has been completely made over. , some information exists outside of the brain.
All these data implies that there is some kind of information field exiting independently of its perceiver, much as radio or the internet exists whether or not you have a computer. The body with its amazing nervous system and reactive capacity, is the receiver of this information, just as your computer can receive and download information from the internet. and causative factor, just as an invisible magnetic field causes metal shavings to take a certain shape. This is why the higher planes are often called causal plane.(high spiritual plane of existence.) When we "tune in" we can tap this information field and enter the realm of casualty.
Morpho -genetic field pertain to the relation ship between consciousness and manifestation as they form a two way link between two worlds. The field is built up through what occurs in tangible world through repetition and habit. Than the field once established dictates future forms in the material world The tendency to confirm varies with the strength of the field.
It wouldn't be possible for new field to set up in the presence of an overwhelming influence from a preexisting habit. What can happen in that higher level field can integrate lower level habits into new synthesis...Evolution proceeds not by changing habits it's given and building more an more complex pattern out of them.
An example of this is the overweight person who losses fifty pounds and has an insatiable desire to eat until just that amount of weight is regained. Have you ever noticed how heavy people tends to stay about the same, amount of heaviness most of the time, despite dieting or binges ? The morpho-genetic field of the body want to maintain its familiar form. By reaching into a different level "thinking thin" has been a more effective way to reduce, for it is changing the field that is casual to the form of the body.
When beliefs are held by large numbers of people, their field is stronger, lessening the chance for the survival of opposing belief. The field created by the belief in male supremacy is a primary example because it has been instilled so completely into our culture over the lazy several thousand years, offering greater advantage to the men who are than able to achieve more.. As more women find power through feminism, another field is been generated that allows the cultural belief system to change form. But this takes a long time and many, many women and men to involve themselves in building up the new field. As time goes by and field gets stronger, it makes it easier for the next generation of women and men to hold a new belief system.
Thoughts are structured, just like bodies and buildings. Their detail may change from moment to moment, but the overall structural matrix remain more or less the same over given amount of time- especially when held by a large number of minds. If we wish to change our consciousness, we must tap into the fields from which it arises, and search for higher degree of order within them. From a trance dental level, we can access new fields of higher order.. Then we can change our matrix and its manifestation in the physical world. This is the process of self conscious evolution., made possible only by journeys into consciousness.
TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE
"When consciousness is released from thousand of mental vital,, physical vibration in which it lies buried there s a joy."
The crown chakra is a meeting point between finite and infinite,mortal and divine, temporal and timeless. It is the gateway through which we expand beyond our personal self, beyond the limits of space time and experience primordial unity and transcendental bliss. It is also the point at which divine consciousness enters the body and descends bringing awareness to all chakras, giving us the means to operate in the world around us.
We have described these two currents as creating two types of consciousness - cognitive and transcendental. In addition the two currents produced two different but complimentary spiritual states transcendent and imminence. Once again it is ascending current that brings us liberation and the descending current that brings us manifestation. To have a true theory of wholeness one need to cultivate both.
As we have worked out way through the seven levels of awareness related to each chakra, we have progressively transcended limitation , shortsightedness, immediacy, pain and suffering. This is the direction most emphasized in Eastern thoughts, with the practice and philosophies of yoga comprising the essential gateways to universal consciousness. Pain and suffering, it is believed, occur through false identification with elements of the finite world, and obscure the ultimate reality of the infinite.. It is attachment to the limitation that forms obstacle to our spiritual growth, , hence attachment is the primary demon of crown chakra.
The most characteristic quality of Trance dense consciousness is its emptiness.. Therefore we enter it by letting go off attachment. Transcendence caries us beyond the ordinary, to the broad expanse of unity.. The observer is participant. There is no separation between self and the world, and no sense of time just as the emptiness of a cup allows us to be filled, the emptiness of our mind allows a clear channel through which to experience transcendence.
Transcendence brings liberation from the traps of illusion so that we can enter into a state of bliss and freedom. It is generally the ego that forms these attachments to maintain its sense of self hood and safety.- but the self is smaller, more limited self, apart from the underlying unity of consciousness from which we made.
The descending current of consciousness, having divine realization as its origin, brings Imminence. Imminence is the awareness of the divine within. Where transcendence is the awareness of the divine without. Imminence brings us intelligence, illumination, inspiration, radiance, power, connection, and finally manifestation.True self knowledge is to understand that Transcendence and imminence are complimentary and that inner and outer worlds are indelibly one.
While the liberating current brings us liberation or MUKTI. It is the descending current that brings enjoyment or BHUKTI. Serpent power the fastidious translation of chaktas according to tantric philosophy :
One of the cardinal principles of the Shakti- Tantra is to secure by its Sadhana both liberation and Enjoyment. This is possible by the identification of the self when in enjoyment with the self with the soul of the world.
Just as the Muladhara chakra is both the source point of the rising kundalini and the place where we press our roots deep into the grounds., the Sahasrara is the origin of all manifestation and the gateway to the beyond. Transcendence and the Imminence are not mutually exclusive They represents the basic oscillation of consciousness. The inhale and exhale of the crown chakra the entry and the exit point of human life.
MEDITATION - KEY TO THE LOTUS
Gracious One pray, your head is an empty shell,wherein your mind, frolics infinetly.
There is no greater practice for developing the seventh chakra than meditation. It is the very act through which consciousness realizes itself, it is as essential to nourishing the spirit as eating as rest of the body.
There are countless techniques for meditation.
- You can regulate your breath.
- Recite Mantras.
- Visualize colors, shapes and Deities.
- Move energy through chakras.
- Walk or move with awareness.
- Hook your self up to a brain machine.
- Or just stare blankly in front of you.
- To be worth while all of these forms must have one thing in common- they must enhance sooth and harmonize the vibrational aspect of the mind and body, cleansing the mind of its habitual clutter.
We take it for granted that, we need to take showers, clean our houses, and wash our cloths. We'd be uncomfortable if we didn't, to say nothing of being the object of social criticism. Yet the mind and its thoughts need cleansing, perhaps more than our bodies. The mind works longer, encounters wider dimensions and runs the operating system of our life as well.. While few of us will consider eating dinner on yesterdays dirty dishes, we think of nothing of tacking a new problem with yesterdays cluttered mind. No wonder we feel tired, confused and ignorant.
Meditation is both an end and a means. We may achieve better clarity, mood elevation,or simply better physical co-ordination. But the mind as an inseparable commander of all else, deserves the best treatment we can give it.
As the seventh chakra exist in the dimension of the "withiness" . Meditation is the key to the inner world. Through meditation we can systematically tune the outside world and cultivate the sensitivity to to the inner. Through the sensitivity we can than enter the point of singularity which connects all things. We are the vortex of all that we experience. At the center of that vortex lies understanding.
Through harmonization of our bodies, breath and thoughts, we can line up our chakras and perceive the unifying essence of all creation. But this is not an alignment of physical reality as much as it is an inner alignment of archetypal energies, a spiritual alignment with the underlying unity we have come to discover in each chakra.
But what exactly does meditation do ? What are the physiological effects, psychological states and resulting benefits? And why is this strange practice of doing nothing so valuable ?
The widespread practice of TM or Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharshi Mahesh Yogi has enabled some systematic study of mental and physical effects over a wide variety of subjects. Transcendental Meditation as taught by TM association involves a simple practice of spending 20 minutes twice a day sitting quietly, and internally uttering a mantras, given to the meditator by the teacher..There are no strange postures, breathing patterns or dietary recommendations, making this practice easy to learn and easy to study. The most noteworthy finding of these studies seems to show up :
- In the ECG measuring brain wave pattern.
- In ordinary waking consciousness, brain wave are random and chaotic and most commonly in the beta frequency. The two hemisphere of the brain may generate different wave lengths, and their may be further differences from the front to the back of the brain as well.
Meditation changes this dramatically, immediatly upon beginning, the meditation subjects shows increased alpha waves (brain wave characteristic of a relaxed state of mind) which began at the back of the brain and moved forward. After a few minutes the alpha wave increased in amplitude. The back and front of the brain become synchronized in phase as did the left and right hemisphere. The resonance continued and in many cases theta waves appeared. (a deeper state than alpha) specially in those more experienced with practice.In the most advance meditation, alpha was found to occur more frequently in a normal, waking state and with greater amplitude. With these people theta was more prevalent during meditation and even occurred during normal waking states. Meditation has a physiological effects as well. Oxygen intake decreased by 16-18 percent, heart rate decreased by 25% and blood pressure was lowered, all of which is controlled by the autonomic nervous system (control of the involuntary processes). This allows the body to enter a state of deep rest - for deeper than what it receives in sleep.This rest than allows for greater alertness in waking consciousness.
It is interesting to note that while mediators do enter the state of deep rest the attention / awareness increases rather than deceases. When a sound was produced periodically to a non meditator the brain wave showed a gradual acclamation to the noise less and less reaction until it was effectively 'turned out". The meditator on the other hand, while meditating reacted freshly to the sound each time it was made. Therefore while the body diminishes all its activities the mind is essentially released from the body's limitation and freer to expand to new horizons.
It is suggested that meditation de-stimulates the cerebral cortex and the limbic system and through the brain wave resonance heals the split between the old and the new brain. This split has been suspected to be a cause of alienated emotional state and schizoid behavior. difficulties particular to humans and essentially to non existence to animals. Better co-ordination between the two hemispheres can also lead to increased cognitive and perpetual ability.
And the physiological effects ? Aside from general feeling of relaxation, inner piece and increased well being. Mediators were found to have improved academic performances increased job satisfaction and production.a decrease in drug use (both prescription and recreational) and faster reaction times. All this form simply sitting still and doing nothing.
In the face of this evidence it is hard to deny that meditation has great rewards. Who wouldn't want greater health, mood elevation and increased performance. And all that for a practice that cost nothing, requires no equipment, and can be done anywhere. Yet why is it that so few people actually, do take the time to meditate and that even those who do find it difficult to practice as often as they would like to ?
We have spoken to rhythms, resonance and morpho -genetic fields and how all three of them tend to perpetuate themselves just as they are. In a world whose vibrational level is largely oriented around the first three chakras, placing greater value on materiality. It is difficult to find a time, validation and even desire to go off and enter a different wave length-especially one whose reward is so subjective. The idea that one "should" meditate add to the thousands of other "should s" hammering on us each day almost makes the practice repugnant.
Yes true meditation is a state of mind- not an effort. Once the state is achieved a few times it begins to create its own self perpetuating rhythm., its own morphological field and its own effects on vibrations around us. Than it becomes an integral part of life staying with us through waking consciousness, sleep and other activities. At this point meditation becomes a joy not a discipline, but until than we can only describe the effects and hopes they are enough to fire the will's curiosity. At least the prize is right.
Meditation Techniques
So now we come to the how to do: and here we find that meditations has many techniques as there are mediators.
It is important to find a quiet comfortable environment where you won't be disturbed. Make sure you don't have clothing that is binding that you won't be too hot or too cold and that distracting noices are kept to a minimum. Meditation is generally better on a slightly empty stomach., through intense hunger pangs can also be distracted.
Most meditations are done while sitting comfortably with the spine straight, but not tense.. This can be done in a chair or sitting cross legged on a floor, in either full or half lotus or simple Indian style. The reason for this is that the body need to be in a low maintenance position. It can relax, yet not so comfortable, yet not so comfortable that you fall asleep.. Further more a straight back allows alignment of all chakras, and better transmission of energy up and down in sushumna.
When in the half lotus position you can do any number of things, you can follow your breath in and out tuning your self to its rhythms. You can gaze at a mandala, a candle flame or some other appropriate visual stimulus or you can simply watch your thoughts as they go by neither following them, stopping them nor judging them.The separation of self and thoughts help to achieve the transcendental state.
ENLIGHTENMENT-HOME AT LAST
Nirvana in my liberated consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realization. A first step towards the complete things not the sole true attainment possible or even a culminating finale.
Enlightenment is not a thing, it is a process. A thing is something to acquire, a process is something to be. If enlightenment were a thing it would be contradiction in terms to have "found it. for it is inseparable for the self who is looking. Upon realization, we find that it was never lost.
Just as love is difficult concept to describe, yet intrinsically part of a natural, healthy state, enlightenment can also be thought of as a natural state, and equally difficult to describe. In this way enlightenment would be achieved by a process of undoing rather than doing. We keep ourselves from enlightenment by our own mental block, just as a roof blocks the sun from shining down on us.
But to say that we have enlightenment already does not mean there is nothing to be gained from cultivating it. Just because it exist within us does not always mean it is intact. For there are always deeper states, higher places and more to explore in the beyond and when we can do this from the where we are right now we will indeed have achieved something as a state of knowing all the answers, we could also think of it as arriving finally at the right question.. In experiencing beyond, and when can do this form where we are right now we will indeed have achieved something.
While most people think of enlightenment are a state of knowing all the answers we would also think of it arriving finally at the right questions. In experiencing the beyond, we can only be left with a sense of awe and wonder. Answers can be things, but it is a question that are the process.
In term of chakras when the path through the chakras is complete. It is more than just an opening of the crown chakra or of any other chakra on the Sushumna. It is an experience of unity among all things, and the integration of that experience with the self. Only if the self is connected can this occur., it is the process of becoming.
And so we come at last to the end and find that it is only another beginning. But for what other reason do ends exists ?
SEVENTH CHAKRA EXERCISE
Following your thoughts
Lie or sit in a comfortable position. Allow your mind to become relatively calm and quiet, using what ever technique is most effective for you.
Gradually let yourself pay attention to the thoughts that pass through your mind. Pick one and ask yourself where it came from, what thought proceed it. Then follow to the origin of that thought. It may be something that occurred years ago. or something that is pressing on you right now. Then again follow that thought to its source and on to each thoughts origin.Eventually we come to a kind of infinite source that has no objective origin.
Return and pick another thought that passes through. Repeat the same sequence going further and further back. See how many of you thoughts emanates from a similar source- either an issue you are working with your life right now, a past teacher, or your own place of connection with the infinite.
After following a few thoughts to their origin, begin watching your thoughts go by without tracing them. Simply let them pass, neither denying them or neither retaining them. Let them return to the source until there are few or no thoughts passing through. and you too have returned to that source. Remain there as long as seems appropriate and return slowly to normal consciousness.
Journey to the Akashic Records
To be done as a guided meditation:
Lie comfortably on the floor face up, head and neck relaxed, and slowly relax each part of your body Let the floor beneath you give support as you relax your legs... your back,,, your stomach... your arms and your shoulders. Make fist with your hands and then release them. flexing each finger. Point your toes and release them giving them each foot a little wiggle. Slowly focus on the rhythm of your breathing... in..and ..out. Let your body float lightly on the floor., each muscle go of its tension.
As you watch your breathing become aware of your thoughts . Watch them as they slowly twist through your mind. Effortlessly playing their images in you mind's eye and as you watch your thoughts become aware of some piece of information you would like to know.. Some questions you have burred within you.. It may be a question about a lover, a present dilemma or an information about a past life.. Take a moment to focus on your question, to become clear on what it is your wish to know.
When your question is clear let it go from your mind. It will return at your appropriate time.
As you lie effortlessly on the floor, imagine you body getting lighter.. The solid mass of your flesh gradually lightens and you experience a swirling feeling, like rising into a mist. You fly upward , twisting and running into mist shapeless and formless as it is. Eventually the mist begins to take more form and you perceive a spiral staircase leading upward. You follow the staircase higher and higher as it becomes more solid. Each step lets you feel a sense of you own destiny each steps brings you closer to that what you wish to know.
Soon your steps widens and you arrive at a larger building stretching as high as far as you can see. It has one large door and you enter it.. Effortlessly you see many stairways, long hallways, and many rooms with doors opening to them. You stand in a foyer and ask your question hearing it echo throughout the whole building, the question comes back to you.
You begin to walk, listening to the echo of your question following where the sound is the loudest and the clearest.. Follow your foot steps where ever they may take you, repeating your questions as you walk, eventually you will find yourself in a room. Notice the doorway, the furnishing,. Is their any thing written on the doorway ? What colors are the furnishings. What time period are they from.?
As you look around you notice a large bookshelf with volumes and volumes of books. Examine the library and see if any books stand out, beckoning to you.. Find one with your name on it.. It may not be the name you use in this life., but it shall fall into your hands effortlessly. Phrase your questions once more and open the book. letting it fall upon where it will. Read the passage you have opened to . Pause for a moment and reflect on its meaning and then turn the next few pages.browsing. Open your awareness to the information around you- the room full of books. The ancient wisdom buried throughout the building, and pull it into your heart. Don't try to analyse it , just let it be.
Then when you are ready, return your book to its shelf, knowing that you can find it again, whenever you want. Slowly turn and leave the room..
CHAKRA SEVEN
SYMBOLS AND CORRESPONDENCES
Name : Sahashara
Meaning : Thousandfold
Location : Top of the head
Element : Thought
Manifestation : Information
Personal Function : Understanding
Psychological State : Bliss
Glands : Pituitary.
Other Body Parts : Cerebral cortex, Central nervous system
Malfunctions : Depression,inability to learn, confusion, Apathy, alienation,boredom.
Color : Violet to white
Seed Sound : None
Vowel Sound : Ngngng, as in sing (again not really a vowel)
Petals : Some say 960, some say 1000. To the Hindus, numbers with once and zeroes as in 100, 1000 and 10,000 indicated infinity. One thousand petal is a metaphor of infinity. Where as 960 is a mathematical equivalent of the first five chakras added together (4+6+10+12+16) multiplied by two petals of chakra six, ten times.
Sephiroth : Kether
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| Kabbalah -Tree of Life |
Planet : Uranus
Metal : Gold
Food : None, Fasting
Corresponding Verb : To Know
Yoga Path : Jnana Yoga
Herb For Incense : Lotus, Gotu Kola
Guna : Sattvas.
Mineral : Diamond, Amethyst.
Lotus Symbol : Within Sahashara is the full moon, without the mark of the hare, resplendent as in clear sky
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| Moon in a clear sky |
Hindu Deities : Shiva,Ama- Kala (Upward moving Shakti)
Other Pantheons : Zeus,Allah, Nut, Inanna, Odin, Mimir, Innoia.
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