“The ego or ahamkara does not actually reside in the physical body, because the ego is not at all physical. It resides in the subtle body, and moves in the nadis, the ethereal nerves. The body’s 72,000 nadis act as con duits for prana, which is closely related to the ego. Numerologically, 72,000 means 7 + 2 = 9: the Nine Doors through which prana can enter or leave the body. Most of the nadis begin or terminate at these Doors, which are the sense organs: the two eyes, the two nostrils, the two ears, the mouth, the anus, and the genital organ. Prana, moving with the breaths, enkindles the body’s fire, just as a bellows is used to ignite and inflame the fire in a forge, and the mind is carried out through these Doors by prana so that it can experience the world. Control of the nadis enables you to control the ego, the mind and the senses.
“Of these thousands of nadis three are most important: the Surya Nadi
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(‘sun channel’), the Chandra Nadi (“moon channel’), and Sushumna (the ‘fire channel’). The right nostril is related to the Surya Nadi, and the left nostril to the Chandra Nadi. Sushumna is closely associated with the spine and spinal cord.”
“So, on the physical level there is a physical structure, and on the subtle level there is a nadi, and they more or less occupy the same space, so they influence one another; is that the idea?” I could visualize it, more or less.
“Yes, that is close. The sun heats things up, while the moon causes them to cool down. When your right nostril, also known as Ganga (the Ganges River), works more efficiently than does your left nostril your appetites for food and other enjoyments will increase. When your left nostril, also called Yamuna (the Ganga’s main tributary), works more efficiently than your right nostril the opposite effect is produced: your body cools and relaxes, and your appetites decrease. If you take the trouble to observe your own body you’ll find that each nostril works for about an hour and a half at a time.”
I had not observed this before, but began to do so at that moment.
“Continuously throughout the day and night your body fluctuates from excitation to relaxation and back. Yogis control this fluctuation by perform ing pranayama. They make the left nostril work when they want to be sub missive, when they worship God for example, and they make the right nostril work when they want to command. They also strive to create a bal ance between the left and right nostrils, because only when the Surya and Chandra Nadis work with equal force can prana be forced into the Sushumna Nadi to move Kundalini upward.”
Pandit Gopi Krishna suffered for weeks from an intensely overheated sys tem when the tornado of prana unleashed by his awakening Kundalini moved exclusively in his Surya Nadi; only when his Chandra Nadi finally opened and calmed him down again did he get relief.
“We must distinguish here between Bhuta Agni, the ethereal fire, and Jathara Agni, the digestive fire. Bhuta Agni is predominant; it is Bhuta Agni which causes Jathara Agni to become enkindled. Jathara Agni is in charge of physical digestion, and Bhuta Agni of mental digestion. When you take in new ideas you ’eat’ them; Bhuta Agni ‘digests’ them so that you can com prehend them. A yogi who has good control over his digestive fire can afford to use his Surya Nadi in his sadhana because he will direct the energy to inflame Bhuta Agni alone, not Jathara Agni. Ordinary people who stimulate their systems with Surya Nadi will mainly increase Jathara Agni and weaken Bhuta Agni.
“The nadis meet and connect with one another at ethereal plexuses called
AGHORA II: Kundalini
chakras. The chakras exist only in the subtle body and are perceptible only to the enlightened mind, but nowadays everyone who reads a few books writes about the chakras, parroting the Tantric descriptions without under standing the inner significance. Very few people have any idea at all of what they are writing. They talk about the chakras’ shapes and colors and speak knowingly about the Sanskrit letters which are present at each chakra, when in fact the only letters that exist at any chakra are the ones you create your self.
“I can tell you this, though; if you start meditating on your chakras directly you run a great risk of exciting the nerves and nadis in the area where you have been told the chakra is. For example, suppose some guru tells you, ‘My boy, meditate on the Muladhara Chakra, which is at the perineum.’ If you have not been thoroughly taught about the Muladhara Chakra, if you have not been told what to expect when you get there, most probably you will never locate the chakra; you will merely inflame the nerves in the perineum and intensify the force of Apana (the downward moving form of prana). This will probably turn you into a sex maniac, or some other sort of maniac.”
There are five varieties of prana in the body: Prana, which takes things in; Apana, which throws things out; Samana, which assimilates; Vyana, which circulates and distributes; and Udana, which expresses, especially in speech. (In this book “prana” [lowercase) refers to the generic life force and “Prana” (capital] that variety of prana which ingests.) Each of these forms appears in a different part of the body: Udana in the head, Apana in the pel vic region, and so on. Any obstruction to the free flow of these five pranas causes imbalance and disease.
“This is why a good guru is so important. When Kundalini begins to awaken, a tremendous rush of energy is released. Unless the guru is strong enough to control it the disciple will be overwhelmed with desires and will become strongly attached to worldly things, precisely because the chakras are still blocked. If your sex centers are inflamed, for example, you may become so infatuated with a woman that you will create a jigsaw puzzle to prove that a ranubandhana (bondage of karmic debt) exists between you and her. Probably it does exist, to have caused the attraction in the first place; but it is all imagination until you can remember your past lives, which allows you to actually know the karmic ties.
“This distortion can happen with any of the lower chakras. You know, I believe, that the Tibetans spend their lives reciting ‘Om mani padme hum,’ which is meant for the Manipura Chakra, the seat of the Fire Element. The
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vast majority of Tibetans are not perfected yogis, so the main effect of this mantra is to inflame the fire in their physical bodies. This is good for them because they live in a cold country and have very little food to eat, so a strong internal fire helps keep them warm. Those who have plenty of food available to them however tend to develop an obsessive desire for food. Even some good lamas become gluttons, thanks to overstimulation of the solar plexus.
“If lamas, who do plenty of hard penances, can fall despite all their pre cautions, what do you think could happen to you if you concentrate on the Manipura Chakra in a hot country, or in a country where you have plenty to eat? Probably you would go berserk and eat everything in sight, which would just bind you down tighter to the samsara, the universe of manifested existence.”
“I see what you mean,” I inserted, excited with a sudden realization, “Some Westerners who practice Tibetan Buddhism swear that their religion requires them to eat meat, but Buddhism believes in nonviolence, so that doesn’t seem likely to me.”
“It is absolutely ridiculous. They are not talking; their inflamed appetites, which crave the heaviness of meat, are talking. When you arouse Kundalini before your mind is firmly under control, She will very likely self-identify even more strongly with your limitations, which can wreak havoc with your evolutionary progress. A good guru will close the doors to the lowest three chakras so that the Kundalini can never fall back into them. Then there is very little danger; otherwise the disciple will be most likely overwhelmed with the desire for food, sleep, or sex.