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Kundalini shakti

A discourse on the science of nāḍīs, chakras, and Kuṇḍalinī Śakti.

"These nāḍīs are the fine channels through which cosmic energy streams into and enters this body. That energy you may call the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti."

"The first sign of the awakening of the Kuṇḍalinī, if it is going positively, is happiness—such happiness which you never had in your life."

Swami Maheshwarananda (Swamiji) provides a detailed lecture on yogic anatomy, explaining the 72,000 nāḍīs (energy channels), the major chakras linked to the elements and consciousness, and the journey of the Kuṇḍalinī energy. He describes the roles of the Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā nāḍīs, the storage of karma and life impressions in the lower chakras, and the prerequisites of mantra and discipline for a safe spiritual awakening. The talk connects these concepts to meditation practice, modern psychology, and the ultimate aim of attaining superconsciousness.

Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Seminar

In the human body, there are many different functions; among them, we call the body, the mind, the intellect, the consciousness, the emotion, the memory, and so on. Furthermore, according to yogic anatomy, there are 72,000 nāḍīs in the human body. If we look for a translation of the term nāḍīs, you do not find it, because nāḍīs are not nerves, nor are they veins. They have different names in Sanskrit. Since we lack a proper translation, we simply say "nerves." However, these nāḍīs are the fine channels through which cosmic energy streams into and enters this body. That energy you may call the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti. Kund means a deep water place; kund also means round, kuṇḍal. When you have big earrings, we call them kuṇḍal, meaning a circle, zero. Thus, the energy which comes to us like sun rays goes round. In that way, the Śakti which enters the body is like a wheel, a turning point. This Kuṇḍalinī Śakti which enters our body is a cosmic energy, a cosmic power, the cosmic Śakti, Paraśakti. This means in our body there are 72,000 chakras. Each place where the energy is entering the body is a chakra. Some of these chakras can be understood through what is now called acupuncture. In electric acupuncture, when they find the right place—what they call a reflex zone—the needle moves on the monitor. If they do not find the right place, the needle will not move. If the needle moves only halfway, they call that reflex zone or energy center blocked or not functioning, and they then add energy to awaken that center. Likewise, there are 72,000 reflex zones in this body which take care of it. That is what is called uniting with the chakra; that is a chakra. Now, we compare this with the nāḍī system: seventy-two thousand nāḍīs, among which three are very important in yoga or for the Kuṇḍalinī. These are called Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā. The Iḍā nāḍī represents the moon principle. The principle of the mind, mānasa devatā, is the moon, and the moon is constantly changing every day—from full moon to dark and new moon, then back to full moon. Similarly, our mind is always changing, our thoughts are changing. The moon is a water principle, and that is emotion. The Piṅgalā nāḍī is connected to our intellect, our activities, our temperament, the abilities of our thoughts, creativity, and it is connected to the sun. The third one is called Suṣumṇā, and that is connected to consciousness, which is itself connected to cosmic consciousness. Generally, we are traveling or oscillating between three levels of consciousness every day: Jāgrat, suṣupti, and svapna—awake, sleeping, and dream. This is a condition of your consciousness. You know what is happening in your consciousness, but as soon as you wake up, your intellect cannot coordinate what happened in your dream or sleep with you. The first practice to awaken the chakras and to understand the Kuṇḍalinī is to understand consciousness: the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. These are three levels. Through meditation and the practice of those Kuṇḍalinī exercises which we began yesterday and will continue, we are led to a higher consciousness, which you may call super consciousness. That super consciousness, after the end of this life, will open the door for you to enter into cosmic consciousness. So: unconscious, subconscious, conscious, super conscious, and cosmic consciousness. The force within this which will guide you and give you different experiences and happiness is what you call the Kuṇḍalinī. These 72,000 nāḍīs spread like a network around the whole body. The chakras are divided in our body according to qualities. First, the earth chakra is connected from the sole of the foot till the ankle joints. From the ankle joints till the knee is called the vegetation chakra. From the knee till the hip joints, where the bottom of the spine begins, is called the animal chakra. These are animal qualities. The border between human consciousness and animal consciousness is the bottom, what we call the Mūlādhāra Chakra. From the Mūlādhāra Chakra, from the bottom of the spine to the top of the spine, that is called the human chakra, which is also connected with some qualities of animals—some kinds of behavior and feelings we have from time to time, according to these chakras. Now, these five chakras are connected to the five elements. Mūlādhāra to the earth element, Svādhiṣṭhāna to the water element, Maṇipūra to the fire element, Anāhata to the air element, and the fifth one, the Viśuddhi Chakra, to the space element. The Viśuddhi Chakra is the border between the human chakras and the divine or devic chakras. There begins the Ājñā Chakra, the third eye, and then here are all these divine chakras. All these divine chakras are linked or concentrated directly to the Sahasrāra Chakra. That is the eighth chakra, the most powerful chakra, which we call Brahma-Randhra. Brahma is the supreme, the Brahman; randhra you can say is a hole or a door. The door to Brahman is the Sahasrāra Chakra, here on the top of the crown of the head. The Bindu Chakra is here in the middle center of the head where we have the śikhā. To have the śikhā here does not signify being a Hindu or belonging to a particular religion. This is the technique and research work of the ṛṣis: to have here a śikhā choṭī means to awaken your Bindu Chakra, which is the center of the nectar. You can awaken and receive that nectar through the Khecarī Mudrā in yoga technique. These three nāḍīs—Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā—begin from the Ājñā Chakra, the third eye. The Iḍā nāḍī begins from the left side of our hemisphere and immediately turns to the right. The Piṅgalā nāḍī begins from the right and immediately turns to the left. The rest of the body, as medical science also states, is such that the right hemisphere controls more the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls more the right side. The Suṣumṇā nāḍī goes straight. Now, where both are crossing—Iḍā goes to the right and Piṅgalā to the left—there becomes a very strong crossing or junction. That becomes a very strong chakra which we call the first center, Viśuddhi. Likewise, the second cross is near the heart, that is called the Anāhata Chakra; the third is in the Maṇipūra. The Maṇipūra Chakra is very important for the awakening of the Kuṇḍalinī, or to guide the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti from the Mūlādhāra through that Maṇipūra Chakra into the Suṣumṇā Nāḍī. Now, this may sometimes look funny or complicated. How? This is a problem; how? It is a technique, a mental technique requiring years-long concentration to lead that energy in a particular direction—discipline. Discipline in life, many different kinds of disciplines: eating, sleeping, walking, talking, thinking, behaviors. Āhāra, vihāra, ācāra, and vicāra: āhāra is diet; vihāra is where to go and where not to go; ācāra is attitude and behavior; vicāra is the thoughts. You master your thoughts when you meditate; you are able to direct your thoughts to that particular chakra. For that aim—what is your aim? Individually, everyone has a different aim. Likewise, when these nāḍīs are moving, they finally come to the end of the spinal column down, and there they form a very fine knot. It is these three streams of energy—Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā—that come and block there. Now, that center, the Mūlādhāra, is the seat of the unconscious. The unconscious is the storeroom of our past lives: many, many past lives, experiences, actions, behaviors—what we call karma. Karma means not only bad; it is good karma too. But whatever happens in your past lives is reserved or stored in the Mūlādhāra Chakra. The Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra is the subconscious. That subconscious means it began from the first moment of your physical entry on this planet. Meaning, when the male and female come together for the first time, what was the psychic condition of him or her? What was mental? What was physical? Which emotion? Which condition? Aggression, hate, jealousy—many different things; one never knows. Or a very divine, beautiful, harmonic state—that is a very important point, the beginning of a new life on this planet. That goes and reflects then slowly to the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra. It also means: How was her condition during the nine months of pregnancy? How was the relation with the partners? Was he left alone, or was he angry, or was he there all the time? There are many, many things; you know much better than I can tell you what happened, and mostly the ladies know that's it. How was the birth, and how was your childhood? How happy? How were your friends? So, all this is a reflection; it is reflecting on the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra, and that is a subconscious level. Now, in modern times, when you go to a doctor and tell them about some problems you have, but they cannot find any physical problem—all diagnoses are negative, but still you have a problem—the doctor will tell you it is psychic. Ask the doctor, what is psychic? He may say mental. You go home and look in the mirror and say, "Oh God, I am psychic." You come and tell your wife, "The doctor said I am psychic." So, we all have the psychic. Psychic means our subconscious—what has happened or is happening. Their medical treatment is little. They made research work on the two hemispheres, and when they came to the problem of psychic or these psychic mental problems, they said there is no medicine for it. They taught that three different kinds of techniques can help. They taught some Eastern kind of techniques; they did not dare to say yoga, but it was automatically understood by everybody: yoga. Second, go to the temple or the church and pray. And third, they said meditation. These are the three techniques which help. Then, they also found out what could be the cause. There were many reasons for psychic problems, but mostly they call those negative energies or thinking: hate, jealousy, anger, greediness, arrogance. These kinds of problems within you, they taught, can even cause cancer or schizophrenia or hallucination and such diseases. There were many other reasons too. But I remember what I can tell you, as much as I remember. There was a beautiful program on television, I think once a week about ten years ago; the research work was done in America, somewhere near San Francisco University, Berkeley. More information you can get from there. So, this is a problem of the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra. That is, all our past experiences of this life—whom you met, what you saw, what you ate—all these impressions, like a video is running, and every second or half second or quarter second, the picture is taken from objects which are in the print. All impressions are printed in your Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra. First, when the Kuṇḍalinī wheel begins to activate, this energy will take with it those impressions from the past life, what we call the unconscious. Take the example of a carrot from the garden. You hold the carrot and pull it out of the earth; it will come out, but will take some part of the earth with it, and will leave emptiness there. It means when the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti begins to awaken from the Mūlādhāra, it will take the past life's experiences. Some had a painful life, some had a very divine one—many, many things. This individual soul, since its individual existence in this endless universe, is fluttering on the waves of time through darkness and light, happiness and unhappiness. It remains there for a while. There, it collects again the qualities, again departs and goes. When it begins to go from this planet, something follows with you. Someone said very nicely: when you have pizza with cheese, and you cut one slice and take it, the cheese comes with it, but becomes thinner and thinner; after a while, it will break. Similarly, when you go from this world—let's say die—then this one slice of the pizza is taken. But also, what is on the plate is still connected to both. So it means our friends and parents will also be crying and have emotional feelings, but you will also have them. After a certain time, this thread of attachment, this thread of emotion, will be separated. So we are twice separated from this attachment. Once, when we were born, we were separated from our navel, from the mother's body. The second time, the separation is when we go from this world to the next. Both separations are painful emotionally in every aspect. So when the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti, through Prāṇāyāma or through the kriyās we are doing, awakens, then it brings many, many memories. Particularly at that time, you need some protection. First of all, your mantra. A mantra is that energy, a positive sentence which can help you and will definitely help you throughout the whole universe. Nothing will go with you but that power, that energy of your mantra. Every word, every sentence has a particular meaning. If you tell someone, "Dear sir, please be so kind, can you do this for me?" He may not want to do it, he may be in a hurry, but you were so kind. "Dear sir, please." These three words touched his heart in such a way, creating a beautiful atmosphere. Instead, if you said, "Hey, bloody one, do it!" it will not touch his heart. It will touch his brain, and he will become so angry; the whole atmosphere will be destroyed. Speak a language which makes others happy, and it makes you also happy. So, a mantra is that which was researched by ṛṣis, by great sages, by self-realized saints, or gods—which kind of sound, the language they created, makes positive energy for an individual. Therefore, without a mantra, without a Gurū mantra, you cannot awaken your Kuṇḍalinī. If you do, then there can be complications. Second, anytime you have a connection to your master or your teachers, when you have particular feelings, you know what to do. But according to those techniques—the self-inquiry meditation of Yoga in Daily Life and the kriyās which we did yesterday and will continue—that will awaken only positive energy and will neutralize negative energy. How? Let's say in the basement it is very dark. You go down and put on the light. The negative darkness disappears. Similarly, when you go with your kriyā to the Mūlādhāra Chakra and do that kriyā technique, the negative energy will be purified and positive energy will remain. The first sign of the awakening of the Kuṇḍalinī, if it is going positively, is happiness—such happiness which you never had in your life. But please, do not run in the street and say, "Hey, I am happy, I am happy!" Then they will say you have something wrong here. Do not demonstrate your personal feelings. Do not tell your personal experiences to anyone. Keep it for you. It is yours and only yours and personal for you. Second, the awakening of love, bhakti, devotion to God, devotion to everyone. Third, contentment. No more desires, content. Even if someone is angry with you, you will not become angry. You are above everything, because that is the divine Śakti which is moving up and guiding you. And fourth, light—the light of wisdom. During meditation, if the eyes are closed, it will give you beautiful visions, beautiful lights. If you are meditating on a particular divine form, what you call God, definitely at that time you will have visions of God. And, of course, you will feel that divine mother, because only that mother is the real mother. That mother is the real mother of everyone. The other mother is only a temporary mother, birth and death, Hari Oṃ, that sort. So it is that divine Paraśakti in our body and outside of the body. And we are in that divine mother's hands. We come to the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra. The Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra has its own form and own qualities. It is like you have to go from one border to another border, security control. There are many. One place you pass, a second place they make complications. You argue, you say no, then you come to a third. Everywhere there are problems. Gurū Nānak Sāhib said, "The whole world is unhappy and troublesome. I went on the roof of my house and looked; in every house there is quarreling, husband and wife and children and parents and these and that, quarreling, quarreling, ye saṃsāra." The Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra is a center where the crocodiles are inside, because it is a lake, water; in the water is a crocodile. Which crocodiles? Kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, and ahaṅkāra. These are the crocodiles of the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra: kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, and ahaṅkāra. So when the crocodiles are hungry in the lake and you want to cross the lake swimming, I wish you all the best. You are lucky if you come or not. So first we have to purify this chakra, then we come to the fire, Maṇipūra, then Anāhata Chakra, and so on further. So Kuṇḍalinī is that cosmic energy, the Cosmic Mother, which will lead us directly to Brahman again through the Suṣumṇā Nāḍī, coming to the Sahasrāra Chakra. There are nine doors in the body. A normal person, when he dies, the Ātmā, or what you call Jīvātmā, goes out through one of those nine doors: two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, mouth, and the gender system. The tenth one is the Sahasrāra Chakra. It is not that when a yogī dies, it opens here, tuck. That is not that it opens here, but the Jīvātmā goes from here. And that means from Brahmaloka to Brahman. That person, we do not say, went to Swarga, no. Swarga, Naraka, these are one-one rooms in this universe; when the Naraka room is overloaded, then they open the door to Swarga. Okay, happy, go there, upgrading. But when a yogī or self-realized person, a spiritual saint or a spiritual sādhaka dies or passes away, we call it Brahmalīna. Brahmalīna means became one with Brahman. So this Kuṇḍalinī science and the science of the chakras is very safe, very clear, very divine, and it will lead you through many, many beautiful experiences which you cannot describe. Everyone has different experiences. The experiences which I have, you cannot have that maybe. And what you have, perhaps I will not have. The Strilky Āshram: one came from Prague and one came from Ostrava, another came from Olomouc, the other one came from Vienna. Every path, road is different—different landscape, different villages, different road conditions. Who came from Prague had a beautiful road and came very quick because of the highway. Who came from the other side, from the Upava perhaps or Ostrava, came on the land's road which was not so comfortable; they were working. So it is individual again. There is nothing which you can say in general. General is only after you reach the highest level of consciousness; then you can say it is general. Otherwise, general is this: born, grown, and die—that's very general. Be sure, these three things we will experience: born, growing, and dying. But that is not our aim. So the Kuṇḍalinī awakening is with the resonance, with the sound. Yesterday we had two meditations, and now we will have the third level of that meditation. So please everybody get ready. And I want to tell all our friends, brothers, sisters, bhaktas and other spiritual seekers who are on the webcasting: now I wish you all the best. Next time, the practical technique will be done only here. Wish you all the best. God bless you. ARIO. Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Seminar

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt, what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

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