from the work of the Tibetan (Djwhal Khul),
through Alice A. Bailey
Those of you who have read my other books and treatises will know how immense is the subject with which we are concerned and how little is yet known and taught anent the chakras and their force emanations and the activity of the vital or etheric body which is the receiver and the distributor of energies. These energies determine and condition the circumstances and the physique of the human being and produce (in the last analysis) the phenomenal manifestation of man upon the physical plane, plus his inherent characteristics. All of this information I have earlier given and it can be read and studied by those who are interested to do so. They can thus clarify their knowledge anent the various chakra. One thing I would like here to point out and will later elucidate and that is the relation of the various chakras to the rays. This is as follows:
Ray one Power or Will - Head chakra.
Ray two Love-Wisdom - Heart chakra.
Ray three Active Intelligence - Throat chakra.
Ray four Harmony through Conflict - Ajna chakra.
Ray five Concrete Knowledge - Sacral chakra.
Ray six Devotion - Solar plexus.
Ray seven Ceremonial Order - Base of spine.
Much could be learned if one would gather all the data given on this subject into one book, thus relating what is known about the specific energy points to be found in the human frame. All that I can do here is to give a general idea of the subject, indicate certain lines of development and relationship anent the seven major chakras, the seven major glands and the localities and areas in the human body where these glands and chakras are to be found. I would also beg you to realise five facts:
1. That undeveloped men are energised and galvanised into outer activity through the medium of the three chakras below the diaphragm.
2. That average man is beginning to function primarily through the solar plexus chakra and to use it as a transferring chakra of force for energies which must be carried from below the diaphragm to above the diaphragm.
3. That the world aspirants are slowly being energised and controlled by the forces which are being transferred from the chakras below the diaphragm to the throat chakra and from the soul to the throat chakra. THIS LEADS TO CREATIVE ACTIVITY OF SOME KIND.
4. That the world disciples are beginning to be governed and controlled by the throat and heart chakras and are also beginning to transfer the forces which have been raised to the heart and throat, to the ajna chakra between the eyebrows, in the middle of the forehead. WHEN THIS HAS BEEN DONE, THE MAN IS THEN AN INTEGRATED PERSONALITY. THE SOUL ALSO STIMULATES THE AJNA CHAKRA.
5. That the more advanced disciples and world initiates are also energised from two sources: by means of the energies raised up and lifted into the head from all the chakras in the body, and by those which pour into the human frame from the soul, via the highest chakra at the top of the head.
The whole process is, as you can see, one of development, use and transference, as is the case in all evolutionary development. There are two major transferring chakras in the etheric body—the solar plexus and the throat—and one master chakra through which the energy of the soul must pour when the right time comes, pouring consciously and with the full awareness of the disciple. That chakra is the head chakra, called in the Eastern philosophy "the thousand-petalled lotus". The problem of the average man is, therefore, connected with the solar plexus. The problem of the disciple, the advanced aspirant and the initiate of the lower degrees is connected with the creative chakra, the throat.
Dangers to the sex organs.
The danger of the over-stimulation of these organs is well recognised theoretically, and I do not purpose to enlarge on it greatly today. I but seek to point out that this danger is very real.
The reason is that in the overstimulation of these centres the inner fire is but following the line of least resistance, owing to the polarisation of the race as a whole.
The work, therefore, that the student has to do is twofold:—
a—He has to withdraw his consciousness from those centres; this is no easy task for it means working against the results of age-long development.
b—He has to direct the attention of the creative impulse to the mental plane. In so doing, if successful, he will turn the activity of the divine fire to the throat centre and its corresponding head centre, instead of to the lower organs of generation. Therefore, it will be apparent to you why—unless a man is very advanced—it is not wise to spend much time in meditation during the earlier years. There was wisdom in the old Brahmanical rule that a man must give his early years to household endeavour, and only when he had fulfilled his function as a man could he go on to the life of the devotee. This was the rule for the average. With advanced egos, pupils and disciples, it is not so, and each must then work out his own individual problem.
I would here remind students that the following three points, related to the transference of energy, must be borne in mind:
1. That there is a transference to be made from all the lower chakras to higher ones and that this is usually done in two stages. This transference, carried on within the personality, is paralleled by the transference of spiritual energy from that reservoir of force we call the soul to the man on the physical plane. This becomes possible as the man makes the needed transference within himself. These transferences can take place in the course of the evolutionary process, or they can be hastened through the forced training given to disciples of all degrees.
2. That, within this major field of activity, the following transferences will have to be made:
a. The energy of the chakra at the base of the spine (the organ of the personal will) must be raised and carried up the spinal column to the head chakra, via the ajna chakra.
b. The energy of the sacral chakra (governing the sexual life and the organs of physical creation) must be raised to the throat chakra, which becomes the organ of creative activity of a non-physical nature.
c. The energy of the solar plexus (the organ of self-conscious personal desire) must be raised to the heart and there transmuted into group service.
3. That all these chakras are developed and brought into activity in three stages, and thus progressively condition the outer aspects of a mans life:
a. There is a period wherein the chakras are active only in a sluggish and semi-dormant manner: the forces of which they are formed, and which they express, move slowly and with a heavy inert rhythm; the light which can be seen wherever there is a chakra is dim; the point of electric potency at the chakra (the "heart of the lotus or chakra," the hub of the wheel, as it is esoterically termed in the Oriental teaching) is relatively quiescent. There is just enough energy pouring into the chakra to produce the preservation of life, the smooth functioning of the instinctual nature, plus a tendency to react, in a fluctuating and unintelligent manner to stimuli coming from the astral plane, via the individual astral body.
b. A period wherein there takes place a definite heightening and intensifying of force. The light of the chakras is brighter and the solar plexus chakra, in particular, becomes very active. As yet, all the real life of the man is focussed below the diaphragm. The chakras above the diaphragm are dim and dull and relatively inactive; the point at the chakra is, however, more electrical and dynamic. At this stage, the man is the average intelligent citizen, predominantly controlled by his lower nature and his emotional reactions, with what mind he has actively employed in bringing satisfaction to his needs. His chakras are the receivers primarily of physical and astral forces, but occasionally respond to mental impacts.
c. A period wherein the first transference is being made. This can last a long time and cover several lives. The chakras below the diaphragm are fully awakened; their activity is great; their light is vivid; their interrelation is real, so much so that a complete magnetic field has been set up involving the whole area below the diaphragm and becoming potent enough to extend its influence above the diaphragm. The solar plexus becomes the dominant organ in the place of the sacral chakra which has so long determined the life of the animal nature. It becomes the recipient of energy streams from below which it absorbs and starts on its task of deflecting them and transferring them to the higher chakras. The man is now the highly intelligent citizen and aspirant. He is conscious of the dualism of his nature, of that which is below and of that which is above, as it has been called, AND IS READY TO TREAD THE PROBATIONARY PATH.
d. A period wherein the transference is continued. The sacral forces are carried to the throat and the solar plexus forces are carried to the heart. The latter transference is as yet of so small a measure that the effect of the transference is almost negligible. THIS PERIOD IS A LONG AND VERY DIFFICULT ONE. His period is preparatory to the expression of the mystical life.
e. A PERIOD WHEREIN THE HEART AND THROAT CHAKRAS ARE BROUGHT INTO ACTIVITY. The man is creatively intelligent along some line or other and is slowly becoming group conscious. AS YET, HOWEVER, HIS REACTIONS ARE STILL SELFISHLY MOTIVATED THOUGH—AT THE SAME TIME—HE IS SUBJECT TO CYCLES OF VISION AND PERIODS OF SPIRITUAL EFFORT. THE MYSTICAL LIFE IS DEFINITELY ATTRACTING HIM. HE IS BECOMING THE MYSTIC.
f. A second period of transference ensues and the ajna chakra, which governs the integrated personality, becomes active and dominant. The life of feeling and of mystical effort is, at this time, liable to die down temporarily in its expressed fervour and ardent disciplines, and personality integration, personality ambitions personality aims and personality expression take its place. This is a right and good change and tends correctly to a rounded out development. It is only temporary, for still the mystic sleeps beneath the outer activity and the intelligent worldly effort, and will emerge again to living endeavour when the mind nature has been fully aroused and is controlling, when desire for mental satisfaction has been satiated and the "son of God is ready to arise and enter the Father's house". During this period, we find the intelligently creative or the powerful man will come to the zenith of his personality life. The chakras below the head will all be active and functioning, but the chakras below the diaphragm will be subordinated to and controlled by those found above. They are subject then to the conditioning will of the man who is governed at this time by ambition, intellectual expediency and that form of group work which tends to the expression of his personality potency. The ajna chakra is vivid and potent; the throat chakra is intensely active and the heart chakra is rapidly awakening.
g. A period wherein the highest head chakra is brought into radiant activity. This occurs as the result of the uprising (in a fresh and more potent manner) of the mystical instinct, plus, this time, an intelligent approach to reality. The result is twofold:
1. The soul begins to pour its energy into all the etheric or vital chakras, via the head chakra.
2. The point at the heart of each chakra comes into its first real activity; it becomes radiant, brilliant, magnetic and forceful, so that it "dims the light of all that lies around."
All the chakras in the body are then swept into ordered activity by the forces of love and will. Then takes place the final transference of all the bodily and psychic energies into the head chakra through the awakening of the chakra at the base of the spine. Then the great Polar opposites, as symbolised and expressed by the head chakra (the organ of spiritual energy) and the chakra at the base of the spine (the organ of the material forces) are fused and blended and from this time on the man is controlled only from above, by the soul.
There are, consequently, two points to be borne in mind as we study the mystic and his difficulties; first of all, the period of awakening and subsequent utilisation of the chakras and, secondly, the period of the transference of energy from the solar plexus to the heart, and then from all the four chakras up the spine to the throat chakra, prior to the focussing of the energy of all the chakras in the ajna chakra (between the eyebrows). This chakra is the controlling one in the personality life and from it goes all personality direction and guidance to the five lower chakras which it synthesises. EACH OF THESE STAGES BRINGS WITH IT ITS OWN DIFFICULTIES AND PROBLEMS. We shall, however, concern ourselves with these problems only as they affect present opportunity or hinder the man who finds himself upon the Path and is, therefore, taking his own evolution in hand. Then he stands "midway between the pairs of opposites" and this means (as far as our particular interest at this time is concerned) that we shall find THREE STAGES IN THE MYSTICAL WORK, EACH OF WHICH WILL MARK A DEFINITE POINT OF CRISIS, WITH ITS ATTENDANT TESTS AND TRIALS:
1. The stage wherein transference is made of all the lower energies into the solar plexus, preparatory to carrying them to the throat and heart chakras above the diaphragm. This stage covers not only the process of transference but also that of focussing the forces in the higher chakras.
Period : The later stages of the Path of Probation and the early stages of the Path of Discipleship.
Keynote Discipline.
1. Objective Idealism, plus personality effort. Purification and control.
2. The stage wherein transference is made into the ajna chakra and the personality life becomes integrated and powerful.
Period : The later stages of the Path of Discipleship and up till the time of the third initiation.
Keynote Expression of the soul, through the medium of the personality.
Objective The understanding of the Plan and consequent cooperation with it.
Then comes the third and final STAGE with which we need not concern ourselves wherein there is a complete blending of the bodily forces (focussed through the ajna chakra) with the Soul forces, (focussed through the head chakra). It is at this time that there comes the final evocation of the personality will (purified and consecrated) which has been "sleeping, coiled like the serpent of wisdom" at the base of the spine; this surges upward on the impulse of devotion, aspiration and enlightened will and thus fuses itself in the head with the spiritual will. This is the FINAL RAISING, by an act of discriminating determination, of the kundalini fire. This raising takes place in three stages, or impulses:
1. The stage wherein the lower energies are carried to the solar plexus chakra.
2. The stage wherein these energies, pouring through to the heart, are blended with it and carried to the throat.
3. The stage wherein all the five lower forms of energy are focussed in the ajna chakra in the head.
Students might here ask: Are there any other energies below the diaphragm, except those of the sacral chakra and those focussed in the chakra at the base of the spine which are carried up to the ajna chakra via the solar plexus chakra? There are quite a large number of lesser chakras and their energies, but I am not specifying them in detail for the sake of clarity; we shall deal here only with the major chakras and their effects and inter-relations.
The subject is abstruse and difficult in any case without our complicating it unduly. There are energies, for instance, pouring into the spleen from planetary sources as well as into two small chakras situated close to the kidneys, one on either side, besides several others and these forces must all be understood, transmuted, transformed and transferred. It is interesting to note that the two little chakras close to the kidneys are related to the lower levels of the astral plane and let loose into the system much of the fear, etc., which is the distinguishing factor in those subplanes. They are, therefore, found close to the chakra which can control them because even the modern endocrinologist knows that the adrenal glands, when stimulated, produce (as a psychological result of a physical happening) an access of courage and a form of directed will which enables achievements to be carried out that are, at other time, well-nigh impossible.
I would like here to point out that the statement so frequently made in occult books that "kundalini sleeps" is only partially true. The chakra at the base of the spine is subject to the same rhythmic life as are the other chakras. The specific period wherein "kundalini awakes" refers to that period wherein the "point at the chakra" becomes vibrant, potent and active: its forces can then penetrate throughout the entire spinal area until the highest head chakra is reached. This, however, would not be possible had there not been three earlier "uprisings of the latent force of will". These uprisings serve to clear the passage up the spine, penetrating and destroying the etheric web which separates each chakra and the area it controls from the next above.
All these transferences and interior organisation produce normally and naturally turmoil and conflict in the life of the mystic, causing difficulties of a definitely psychological nature and frequently PATHOLOGICAL TROUBLE as well. You have to note consequently, the series of transference, psychological difficulty and pathological results.
For instance, these ideas may clarify themselves in your mind if I point out certain facts, relating to the sacral chakra which for so long a period of time governs the animal and physical creative life of the human being. During the processes of evolution, the sacral chakra passes through the stages of automatic unconscious use, such as you find in purely animal man; then use under the urge of desire for pleasure and physical satisfaction, wherein the imagination is beginning to exert its influence;
next comes the period wherein there is the conscious subordination of the life to the sex impulse. This is of a different nature to the first mentioned. Sex becomes a dominating thought in the consciousness, and many people today are passing through this stage and everybody at some time or in some life passes through it. This is followed by a period of transference wherein the physical pull of sex and the urge to physical creation is not so dominant and the forces begin to be gathered up into the solar plexus. There they will be controlled largely by the astral imaginative life far more than by the unconscious animal or the conscious desire life. They blend there with the forces of the solar plexus itself and gradually are carried up to the throat chakra, but always via the heart chakra.
Here we find a major point of difficulty for the mystic who is rapidly coming into being and functioning activity. He becomes painfully conscious of duality, of the pull of the world and of the mystical vision, of divine possibilities and personality potencies, of love in place of desire and attraction, of divine relationship instead of human relations. But this whole subject is still interpreted in terms of duality. Sex is still imaginatively in his consciousness and is not relegated to a balanced place among the other instincts of the human nature; the result is an almost pathological interest in the symbolism of sex and what might be called a spiritualised sex life. This tendency is amply exemplified in the writings and experiences of many of the mystics of the middle ages. We find such expressions as the "marriage in the Heavens", the picture of "heavenly bridegroom" and many such symbols and phrases.
These and many more unpleasant examples of a sex psychology are to be found, blended with a true and pronounced mystical aspiration and yearning, and a genuine longing for union with the divine. The cause of all this lies in the stage of transference. The lower energies are subject, as you can see, to two stages of transference: first, into the solar plexus and from thence to the throat chakra. The throat chakra is not, at this period, active enough or sufficiently awakened to absorb and utilise the sacral energies. They are arrested in some cases in their upward passage and retained temporarily in the heart chakra, producing the phenomena of sex urges (accompanied at times with definitely physical sexual reactions), of religious eroticism and a generally unwholesome attitude, ranging all the way from real sexuality to fanatical celibacy. This latter is as much an undesirable extreme as the other and produces most undesirable results.
Frequently in the case of a male mystic there will be over developed sexual expression on the physical plane, perversions of different kinds or a pronounced homosexuality. In the case of women, there may be much disturbance of the solar plexus (instead of sacral disturbances) and consequent gastric trouble and an unwholesome imaginative life, ranging all the way from a feeble pruriency to definite forms of sexual insanity with (frequently) a strong religious bias at the same time. I would remind you here also of the fact that I am definitely dealing with abnormalities, and hence must touch upon that which is unpleasant.
In the early stages of mystical development, if there were right guidance of the mental life and of thought, plus courageous explanation of process, a great deal of difficulty would later be avoided. These early stages resemble closely the interest shown by the adolescent both in sex and religion. The two are closely allied in this particular period of development. If right help can be given at this time by educators, parents and those concerned with the training of the young, certain undesirable tendencies—now so prevalent—would never grow into habits and thought states as they now do.
The next question which might most correctly emerge in the students consciousness could be stated as follows: HOW CAN THIS PROCESS OF AWAKENING THE CHAKRAS, OF USING THEM AS CHANNELS FOR FORCE (AT FIRST UNCONSCIOUSLY AND LATER WITH INCREASING CONSCIOUSNESS), AND FINALLY OF TRANSFERRING THE ENERGY TO EVER HIGHER CHAKRAS,—PRODUCE PROBLEMS, DISEASE, AND THE MANY AND VARIED DIFFICULTIES of a phenomenal nature to which humanity seems heir, once the mystical experience becomes a goal and appears desirable. I would again remind you that the whole problem must be interpreted in terms of the growth of consciousness and also in terms of the bringing together, in progressive stages, of various types of energy. The human body is, in the last analysis, an aggregate of energy units. In the vital body (thus conditioning the endocrine and lymphatic systems) are certain focal points through which energy pours into the physical body, producing an impression and a stimulation upon the atoms of the body and thus having a powerful effect upon the entire nervous system which it underlies in all parts. The vital or etheric body is the subtle counterpart of the physical body in its nervous structure and the energy chakras condition and control the glandular system. Thus energies, influences, potencies and forces pour into and pass through the physical body—consciously in some cases, unconsciously in the majority of cases—from the three worlds of human enterprise and activity. When the heart chakra and the head chakras are awakened and used by the interior and the exterior forces, you have the beginning of the mystical and occult life.
THERE ARE TWO REASONS FOR THIS PERIOD OF EXCESSIVE DIFFICULTY:
1. The thread of consciousness in the head is anchored in the neighborhood of the pineal gland. The thread of life is to be found anchored in the heart. The turning of the forces into the solar plexus and from thence into the heart and the head brings those two major streams of energy (one coming from the Monad via the soul body to the heart chakra, and the other coming from the soul direct to the highest head chakra) to the attention of the mystic. He then becomes aware of life possibilities and of the wide field which consciousness can cover and of the area or the extension of its capacity. This is the period of interior awareness.
2. The inflow of planetary and solar potencies, via the head chakra to the heart and from thence to the other chakras.
THIS INFLOW PRODUCES:
a. Stimulation of all the chakras, major and minor, carried forward according to ray tendencies and influences.
b. The revelation of good and evil, that is, of the worlds of personality expression and of the world of soul expression. This dual process proceeds simultaneously.
c. The existence, therefore, of duality, which when realised and when the great opposites (soul and personality) are blended, can and will produce the at-one-ment.
The result of these realisations in consciousness leads inevitably to struggle, conflict, and aspiration plus constant frustration; this process produces those adjustments which must be made as the man becomes increasingly aware of the goal and increasingly "alive". The life expression (the threefold lower man) has to become accustomed to the new fields of consciousness and the opening areas of awareness, and to become used to the new powers which emerge, making the man able to enter more easily the wider fields of service which he is discovering. It might be stated here in a broad and general sense that—
1. Stimulation produces the awakening of the lower psychic powers if the incoming energy is directed to the solar plexus or to the throat chakra. It produces the intense activities of the chakras and this can, in the early stages, cause definite psychic trouble. In illustration of this I would like to indicate THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE DIFFICULTIES TO WHICH THE MYSTIC CAN BE PHYSICALLY PRONE:
a. The awakening of the head chakra can produce serious trouble if brought about prematurely and even lead at times to insanity. Inflammation of certain areas of the brain and certain forms of brain tumours can be induced by a too rapid inflow of the highest form of energy which a man can receive prior to initiation. This takes place, however, only in those cases where the man is a highly developed person and of a mental type. In other cases of premature soul inflow, the energy pours through the opening at the top of the head and finds its way to some one or other of the chakras, according to the ray type or stage of unfoldment. Where the greatest attention of the man's consciousness and life force is focussed (even if unconsciously) to that point the incoming energy will almost automatically flow.
b. The awakening of the ajna chakra which is, as we have seen, primarily the result of the development of a man's personality to the point of integration, can (if the energies involved are not correctly controlled) lead to serious eye trouble, to many aural difficulties, to various forms of neuritis, headache, migraine, and nerve difficulties in various parts of the body. It can produce also many difficulties connected with the pituitary body and psychological trouble emanating from this important controlling gland as well as definite physical trouble.
c. The awakening of the heart chakra (which is going on very rapidly at this time) is responsible for many forms of heart trouble and for the various difficulties connected with the autonomic nervous system, particularly in relation to the vagus nerve. The prevalence of various forms of heart disease at this time, particularly among the intelligentsia, professional and financial classes, is due to the awakening of this chakra and to the discovery of an unrecognised capacity in humanity to become group conscious, and to undertake group service. The thymus gland, which controls in a peculiar manner the life aspect in man, is closely connected with the heart chakra, as might be expected. This gland must eventually become more active in the adult than is now the case, just as the pineal gland in the coming human races will no longer be an atrophied organism with its true functions not understood and comprehended, but it will be an active and important part of man's equipment. This will take place normally and naturally as man learns to function as a soul and not just as a personality.
d. Again, much trouble among people is due at this time to the awakening of the throat chakra. This chakra governs and conditions the thyroid gland and the parathyroids. It can produce, when unduly developed or prematurely awakened, hyper-thyroidism with its attendant difficulties and its often dangerous effects upon the heart and upon the metabolism of the body. The psychological effects are well-known and recognised. These difficulties are increased and this higher creative chakra unduly stimulated and rendered a danger instead of an aid to expression by the enforced celibacy of many people, owing to the present unfortunate economic conditions. These conditions are such that people refrain from marriage and there is consequently the lack of opportunity to use (or to misuse) the energy flowing through the sacral chakra. Mystics are likewise prone to this difficulty. The throat chakra is not used creatively nor is the sacral chakra turned to its proper uses. The sacral energy is carried prematurely to the throat where it produces an intense stimulation. The equipment of the man concerned has not yet reached the point where it can be turned to creative work in any field. There is no creative expression of any kind as the development of the man does not permit him to be creative in the higher sense. The energy flowing through the thyroid gland is not used in creative art, music or writing in any outstanding manner, and hence the prevalence of goiter and thyroid difficulty. There is much energy flowing through and to the thyroid gland and, as yet, but little use made of it.
e. The increased activity and stimulation of the solar plexus chakra today is a most fruitful source of trouble. It produces a great deal of the nervous difficulties to which women are particularly prone, and many of the stomach ills and liver troubles of the time, as well as intestinal difficulties. One of the most powerful sources of cancer in various parts of the body (except in the head and face) can esoterically be traced to the congestion of the energy of the solar plexus chakra. This congestion has a general and widespread effect. Difficulties arising from the awakening of the heart chakra and the solar plexus chakra (for the two are closely allied and have a reciprocal action for a long time in the mystical experience) produce also a powerful effect upon the blood stream. They are connected with the life principle which is ever "carried upon the waves of desire" (as the ancient writings put it) and this, when prevented from full expression, through lack of development or other causes, leads to cancerous areas in the body wherever there is a weakness in the bodily tissue.
f. The awakening of the sacral chakra is of such ancient origin that it is not possible at this time to trace the true history of the development of the difficulties connected with sexual expression, nor is it desirable. I have dealt with the subject of sex in my other treatises, particularly in A Treatise On White Magic. In the course of the mystical life there is often a period of sexual difficulty if the mystic has not previously learnt sexual control and unless it has assumed balanced proportions to his other life activities and natural instincts in his consciousness. Else, as he touches the heights of spiritual contact and brings in the energy of his soul to the personality, that energy will pass straight down to the sacral chakra and not be arrested at the throat chakra, as it rightly should be. When this occurs, then perversions of the sex life may take place, or an undue importance may be attached to the sex activity, or the sexual imagination can be dangerously stimulated, leading to lack of control and to many of the difficulties known to physicians and psychologists. The result is ever an overactivity of the sex life in some form or another.
g. The awakening of the chakra at the base of the spine during the final stages of the higher mystical experience carries with it its own dangers. These definitely affect the spine and consequently all the nerves which branch out in all directions from the spinal column. The raising of the kundalini force—if brought about ignorantly and prematurely—may produce the rapid burning through of the protective web of etheric matter which separates the various areas of the body (controlled by the seven chakras) from each other. This causes serious nervous trouble, inflammation of the tissues, spinal disease, and brain trouble.
I have here hinted at some of the difficulties in an effort to give you a general picture of the problem of the mystic.
2. Utilisation of a chakra. Let me explain this phrase. Certain difficulties also arise when a chakra is used to such an extent that the attention is withdrawn from the activity of the other chakras and they are thus neglected. In this way, whole areas of consciousness can temporarily cease to be recognised. It should be remembered that the goal of all the mystic's efforts should be to achieve a rounded-out development which brings into use sequentially, correctly and in conformity to right ray methods, all the different chakras. Many people, however (once a chakra is awakening and is subjectively stimulated) immediately find the utilisation of the chakra to be the line of least resistance; they, therefore, begin to function almost exclusively through that chakra. This can be well illustrated by two examples.
The solar plexus chakra is, at this time, highly active among men and women everywhere. In every country millions of people are over-sensitised, emotional frequently to the point of hysteria, full of dreams, visions and fears, and highly nervous. This produces widespread gastric difficulties, indigestion, stomachic and liver ills and diseases, and intestinal disorders. To all of these the race today is exceedingly prone. To these are often coupled all kinds of skin eruptions. The cause is twofold:
a. The over-stimulation of the solar plexus chakra by its practically exclusive use, and by the consequent inflow of forces from the astral plane, to which the solar plexus is the wide open door.
b. The increased and constant use of this chakra as its rhythm and vibration get too powerful to control. The man then succumbs to the temptation to focus his life interest and attention in the astral world and to do this with increasing awareness, interest and phenomenal results.
The man is, therefore, a victim of forces which would otherwise produce a gathering together of that "which is lower" and their necessary transference into that which is higher. A needed purpose would then be served, but—in the case we are considering—these forces are all concentrated in that central area of the body which is intended to be simply the clearing house for that "which is below into that which is above". Instead of this, there is set up a tremendous whirlpool of forces which not only produces physical difficulties of many kinds (as stated above) but which is also a fruitful source of the cleavages with which modern psychology is dealing at the time. So potent are the forces generated by the over use of the solar plexus (which is one of the most powerful of all the chakras) and through the consequent flowing in of astral forces of every kind—thus augmenting the difficulties—that they assume eventually complete control of the life. The forces below and those above become separated by this vibrant and potent central force chakra. Cleavage, astralism, delusions, hallucinations, nervous disorders of every kind and difficulties of a physical nature which definitely involve the intestinal tract, the liver and the pancreas are only some of the problems which arise from the uncontrolled use of the solar plexus chakra. The man becomes controlled by it and is not the controlling factor, as he is intended to be.
The second illustration is connected with the unfoldment of the heart chakra with its recognition of the group life and consequent group responsibility. This today is rapidly growing and can be seen on every hand. Students are apt to think that the awakening of the heart chakra and its consequent group recognitions must be expressed in terms of religion, of love and of divinity. They, therefore, make of it something spiritual, as that much misused word is understood by the orthodox religious man. But it is far more than that. The heart is connected with the life aspect, for there is the seat of the life principle and there is the life energy anchored. It is connected with synthesis, with the monad, and with all that is more than the separated self. Any group which is engineered and controlled by one man or by a group of men, whether it is a nation, or a big business institution or an organisation of some kind or another (such as a great hospital) is connected with the life which is found in the heart. This remains true even when the motive or motives are mixed and undesirable, or purely selfish. A business magnate controlling vast interests who has the lives of many people dependent upon the contingencies of a business which he may have founded and over which he presides, is beginning to work through the heart chakra. Hence the prevalence of certain forms of heart trouble to which so many people of influence and power so frequently succumb. The heart becomes over-stimulated by the impact of the energies pouring in on the man who is subjected—among other things—to the directed thoughts of those connected with his organisation. Can you see why, therefore, the senior members of the Hierarchy, Who work through the head and the heart chakras, keep Themselves withdrawn from public life and much human contact? These two illustrations may help to clarify in your minds the sense in which I here use the term, "utilisation of a chakra".
3. In the period of transference wherein the forces of the body are in a state of abnormal flux and mutation, it will be obvious what danger there is for the mystic and the disciple, and how serious can be the results of any transference which is forced into effect instead of following the natural course of evolution. This accounts, partially, for the present world upheaval and chaos. The forces flowing through the masses of average intelligent men today (and by that I mean those men who are educated and able to recognise the world news and to discuss world events and trends) are constituting the experimental ground for the transference of the energy of the sacral chakra to the solar plexus. This leads inevitably to turmoil, over-stimulation, revolt and many other difficulties.
THE PROBLEMS, THEREFORE, ARE MANY BUT ARE SUBJECT TO SOLUTION. LET THAT NOT BE FORGOTTEN. The whole theme is vast, but many minds are today seeking to deal with it and are working selflessly and altruistically to bring about the needed changes, a better understanding of man's physical and psychological natures, and a new approach—both to religion and education. When the mystical approach and its consequences, good and bad, material and spiritual—are better understood, through study and experiment, we shall arrive at a more complete comprehension of our problem and a better programme for human unfoldment.
I would like to point out that I am using the words "mystic and mystical" in this section of our treatise because I want what I have to say to meet with the interest of those who recognise the fact of the mystical approach to God and the mystical life of the soul, but who refuse as yet to widen the concept so that it includes also the intellectual approach to divine identification.
The keynotes which the mystic at present recognises and which the religious writer and thinker is also willing to admit are those of feeling, sensitivity to the divine existence, the recognition of a vision of God which will suffice to meet individual need and thus bring relief, peace, understanding and the realisation of divinity without and within, plus the relationship of the man to some extraneous Factor called God, or the Self, or the Christ. This attitude is coloured always by a sense of duality; it leads to the attainment of union—a union of which the marriage relation remains still the best symbol and illustration as the writings of the mystics of all periods and nationalities will testify, and which still preserves the consciousness of the two identities.
The keynotes of the occult life have been (and rightly) the notes of knowledge, of the mental approach to the problem of divinity, the recognition of divine immanence and of the fact that "as He is so are we." There is, however, no sense of duality. The goal is the achievement of such an approved and appreciated identification that the man becomes what he is—a God and, eventually, God in manifestation. This is not the same thing as the mystical union.
And yet, the whole theme is mystical and innately subjective. The time must come when the mystic will appreciate and follow the way of the head and not only the way of the heart. He will learn to realise that he must lose his sense of the Beloved in the knowledge that he and the beloved are one and that the vision must and will disappear as he transcends it (note that phrase) in the greatest processes of identification through initiation.
The occultist, in his turn, must learn to include the mystical experience in full understanding consciousness as a recapitulatory exercise before he transcends it and passes on to a synthesis and an inclusiveness to which the mystical approach is but the beginning, and of which the mystic remains unaware.
The mystic is too apt to feel that the occultist over-estimates the way of knowledge and repeats glibly that the mind is the slayer of the real and that the intellect can give him nothing. The occultist is equally apt to despise the mystical way and to regard the mystical method as "lying far behind him". But both must learn to tread the way of wisdom. The mystic must and will inevitably become the occultist and this whether he likes the process or not. He cannot escape it in the long run, but the occultist is not a true one until he recovers the mystical experience and translates it into terms of synthesis. Note the structure of words I have used in this last paragraph for it will serve to elucidate my theme. I use therefore the words "mystic and mystical" in this section of the treatise to describe the intelligent, highly mental man and his processes upon the Path of Discipleship.
In dealing with the problems and diseases of mystics who are at the point in their evolution where they are making one of the major transferences of force, it should be pointed out that in the earlier stages quite a long period of time may elapse between the first effort to transmute and transfer the energies and that particular life wherein the energies are finally gathered up and "elevated" as the esoteric term usually employed technically expresses it. It is at this point of focussed activity (in the place of the previous fluidic and spasmodic efforts) that one finds a definite point of crisis in the life of the mystic.
The question is often asked: WHY IS THERE FREQUENTLY SO MUCH ILLNESS, NERVOUS TROUBLE AND VARIOUS PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS FOUND AMONG THE SAINTS OF THE EARTH, AND AMONG THOSE WHO ARE CLEARLY ORIENTED TOWARDS THE LIGHT?
The answer is that the strain put upon the physical vehicle by the shift of the forces is usually unduly great and so produces these undesirable conditions. These again are often augmented by the foolish things done by the aspirant as he seeks to bring his physical body under control. It is, however, far better for the undesirable results to work themselves out in the physical vehicle than in the astral or mental bodies. This point is seldom realised and hence the emphasis laid upon the idea that sickness, ill-health, and disease are indicative of individual error, of failure and of so-called sin. They can of course be all of these things, BUT, IN THE CASE OF THE TRUE ASPIRANT WHO IS ENDEAVOURING TO DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL HIS LIFE, THEY ARE OFTEN NOT DUE TO THESE CAUSES AT ALL. THEY ARE THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF THE CLASH OF FORCES—THOSE OF THE AWAKENED ENERGIES WHICH ARE IN PROCESS OF ELEVATION AND THOSE OF THE CHAKRA INTO WHICH THE ENERGIES ARE BEING RAISED. THIS CLASH PRODUCES STRAIN, PHYSICAL DISCOMFORT AND (AS WE HAVE SEEN) MANY DISTRESSING KINDS OF DISORDERS.
The widespread disease and ill-health found everywhere at this time is caused by a mass transference which is steadily going forward in the race. Through this transference, the solar plexus chakra is thrown into an abnormal activity, thereby releasing all kinds of astral forces into the consciousness of man—fear, desire of a wrong kind and many of the emotional characteristics which are causing people so much distress. The process is as follows: the consciousness first of all registers these astral impressions, then formulates them into thought forms and—as energy follows thought—a vicious circle is thus set up, involving the physical body. In the turmoil consequently evoked by these clashing forces which are
a. Mounting from below into the solar plexus,
b. Pouring into the solar plexus from the astral plane,
c. Reacting to the magnetic attractive power of the higher chakras,
the interior life of the man becomes a whirlpool of conflicting energies with disastrous effects upon the intestinal tract, upon the liver and upon the other organs. THE MYSTIC, AS IS WELL KNOWN, IS OFTEN DYSPEPTIC AND THIS IS NOT ALWAYS CAUSED BY WRONG EATING AND WRONG PHYSICAL HABITS. IT IS BROUGHT ABOUT IN MANY CASES BY THE PROCESSES OF TRANSFERENCE WHICH ARE GOING ON.
One of the difficulties which tend also to increase the strain is the inability of the average mystic to divorce his mind from his physical condition. Energy inevitably follows thought and where a distressed area is found, there the mind seems to throw all its attention, with the result that the situation is not bettered but surely and steadily made worse. The best mental rule of all mystics should be to keep the mind definitely above and away from the region where the transference is going on, except in those cases where esoteric methods are being employed to force the process, to hasten and facilitate the processes of elevation. Then (under right direction and guidance plus a knowledge of the rules) the mystic can work with the chakra in the spine which is concerned. This academic technique, I will endeavor to indicate in a later Instruction, but I want first of all to deal with the psychic difficulties of the mystic, for both the psychic and physical difficulties arise from the same basic cause and can be offset and controlled by the same correct occult and psychological knowledge.
The ills with which we are dealing are, therefore, the result of a large number of causes and it might be of service if I listed them here, reminding you that the chakras up the spinal column and in the head govern definite areas in the body. These are affected and controlled by the chakras and it is in these regions that one must look for indications of trouble.
Speaking generally, diseases fall into five major categories and it is only with the last of them that we are here occupied. These five groupings of disease are:
1. Hereditary diseases:
a. Inherent in the planet itself and having a definite effect upon humanity, through contact with the soil and water.
b. Developed during past ages in mankind itself and handed on from generation to generation.
c. Characteristic of some particular family and inherited by the member of this family as part of his chosen karma. Souls come into certain families because of this opportunity.
2. Diseases invoked by tendencies in the man himself. These are governed by his astrological sign—either his sun sign or his rising sign and will be considered later.
3. Contagious diseases (epidemic or endemic) which are of group origin and involve the man as a part of his group karma, but are quite frequently unrelated to his personal karma.
4. Acquired diseases and accidents which are the result of injudicious action or unwise habits in this life and definitely condition his future karma. One interesting point in connection with accidents might here be made. Accidents are frequently caused by what might be regarded as "explosions of force". These are generated by a man or by a group of human beings through hatred or jealousy or vindictiveness, which qualities react or are "turned back" upon the individual life like a boomerang.
5. The diseases of mystics with which we are at this time concerned. Speaking generally, these are caused by the energy of an awakened and active lower chakra being transferred into a higher one. This is done in three stages and each stage brings its own physiological difficulties:
a. The stage wherein the energy of the lower chakra becomes intensely active prior to rising upward. This will produce over-activity of the organs in the physical area governed by the chakra, with consequent congestion, inflammation, and usually disease.
b. The stage wherein the "processes of elevation" are taking place, producing intense activity in the higher chakra and a lessening of activity in the lower. A fluid period intervenes in which the forces swing back and forth between the two chakras, accounting for the uneven life of the mystic in the earlier stages of his unfoldment. This is particularly the case in connection with the solar plexus. The energy is rejected at first by the higher chakra and is then reabsorbed into the lower only to be elevated again and again until the higher chakra can absorb and transmute it.
c. The stage wherein the energy is raised definitely into the higher chakra. This leads to a difficult period of adjustment and of tension, again producing physical ills but, this time, in the area controlled by the higher chakra.
When, for instance, the sacral energy is raised to the solar plexus, there will be found many ailments involving, as noted before , the intestinal tract. When the energy of the lesser chakras which (but not up the spine) are raised to the solar plexus chakra, trouble involving the gall bladder and the kidneys will often be found. Occultly speaking, any process of elevation or of "raising up" automatically involves death. This death affects the atoms in the organs involved and causes the preliminary stages of ill-health, disease and disruption, because death is nothing but a disruption and a removal of energy. When the science of the transference of energy from a lower chakra to a higher is understood, then light will be thrown upon the entire problem of dying and the true Science of Death will come into being, liberating the race from fear.
Students would do well at this stage to pause and consider the following points with care:
1. Which are the areas controlled by the five chakras up the spine and the two chakras in the head.
2. The three major points of transference:—the solar plexus, the throat chakra and the ajna chakra in the head. The heart chakra and the highest head chakra, as points of transference, only concern the initiate.
3. The fluidic and changeable condition produced by the processes of awakening, transference and the focussing of the energy in the higher chakra. These three major activities are conditioned by the intermediate stages of:
a. The active radiation of the lower chakra.
b. The responsiveness of the lower chakra to the magnetic pull of the higher.
c. The succeeding interplay between the higher and the lower chakras, conditioned at first by a rhythmic repulsion and attraction. This is a reflection of the play of the dualities in the career of the human being.
d. This is followed by a concentration of the lower energy in the higher chakra.
e. Then comes the control of the lower chakra or chakras by the higher focal points of energy and their rhythmic interplay.
Between all these different stages come "points of crisis" of greater or lesser moment. This intense interior activity which is going on all the time in the subjective life of humanity produces both good and bad effects, and psychological as well as physiological reactions. Today, the mass transference of the forces of the sacral chakra into that of the solar plexus is responsible for many of the modern and physical disabilities of the race. Because also of the slow removal on a racial scale of the sacral force to the solar plexus there is eventuating a condition which is called sometimes "race suicide", necessitating the efforts of many of the different governments to offset the rapidly falling birth rate in their countries.
The above summation of the threefold activity which is going on in the human body all the time will give some idea of the strain under which the individual man labours, and will account, therefore, for much of the discomfort and disease found in those areas in the human body which are governed and controlled by a particular chakra. I would like to add the following points to the information given above:
1. The intense activity of the sacral chakra will often produce diseases and physiological abnormalities, connected with the organs of reproduction (both male and female). These difficulties are of two kinds:
a. Those to which normal humanity is prone and which are well known to the PHYSICIAN, SURGEON AND PSYCHOLOGIST.
b. Those which are the result of over-stimulation, through the successful effort of the mystic to bring in energy from the higher chakras and from sources outside the human frame altogether.
2. In all cases of transference, the intense activity produced will cause all kinds of tensions and reactions, resulting in congestions, inflammations and diseases of the organs vitalised. This is particularly the case today in relation to the sacral and solar plexus chakras. The glands—major and minor, endocrine and lymphatic—in the abdominal area are powerfully affected and through their hypersensitivity or their "deficiency through abstraction" (as it is esoterically called) they constitute a fruitful source of difficulty.
3. The activity of the solar plexus chakra at this time, which is a result of this transference, produces the abnormal tension which characterises the race. This tension, with the average man, controls the intestinal tract and its connections, both above and below the diaphragm. With the advanced man, it produces tension in the higher chakras, definitely affecting the heart and the vagus nerve. It should be pointed out that many of the diseases inherent in the racial form to which planetary disease predisposes the human being are brought into activity as the result of the stimulation of the solar plexus. As humanity becomes less astral in its consciousness and the solar plexus, therefore, becomes less active and less dominating, these forms of difficulty will die out. As the heart chakras and the higher chakras assume control, such diseases as cancer, tuberculosis and the various syphilitic complaints (due to the age old activity of the sacral chakra) will gradually die out.
4. The activity of the heart chakra as it
a. Magnetically attracts the energies out of the solar plexus,
b. Becomes involved in a reciprocal interplay with the solar plexus, is a fruitful source of nervous trouble to the mystic and advanced
aspirant. The heart chakra powerfully affects the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system with all that that involves and we are only today beginning to understand and deal with these difficulties. Clarification will come once the premise of the existence of the chakras and their three "activities of interplay" are admitted—even if only as a possible hypothesis. The little understood thymus gland holds the key to much that concerns the activity and control of the vagus nerve—a fact not yet generally recognised. Later, a carefully controlled process with the object of stimulating the thymus gland and its secretion will be worked out by the medical profession, leading to a much better functioning of the nervous system and of the vagus nerve which controls it. I can but hint at possibilities at present because the basic premise of the existence of the chakras of force is not yet recognised. It is interesting to note, however, that the solar plexus (as a great nerve chakra) is recognised and this is due to the fact that the bulk of humanity is, at this time, transferring force to that chakra. It is, for the masses, the major recipient of forces, both from below the diaphragm, from above, and from the environment.
5. The activity of the throat chakra is steadily increasing today, owing to the creative activity and the inventive genius (which brings in the higher stimulation) and the idealistic conceptions of the intelligentsia of the world. This activity is responsible physiologically for many of the diseases of the respiratory tract. Energy is carried to the throat but is not adequately used and there is a consequent congestion and similar consequences. But, curiously enough, a great many of the difficulties connected with the entire breathing apparatus are related to group conditions. These I will touch upon later. Today, the concentration of energy is producing serious effects upon that master gland, the thyroid gland. These effects disturb the balance of the physical body and involve also the parathyroid glands. The metabolism of the body is upset bringing attendant difficulties. The race is advancing so rapidly in its development that this chakra will soon compete with the solar plexus chakra for the position of being the most important chakra and the major clearing house in the human body. I would commend this statement to your careful consideration for it carries with it much of encouragement. It indicates, nevertheless, much physiological change and many problems and above everything else much psychological difficulty.
6. The activity of the ajna chakra will increase a great deal during the coming century, bringing with it its own attendant problems. Its close relation to the pituitary body and the growing interplay between
a. The ajna chakra and the pituitary body
b. The chakra at the top of the head (involving the pineal gland) and the ajna chakra
will produce serious problems connected with the brain and the eyes. The ajna chakra focusses the abstracted energy of the five chakras up the spine and is the seat of personality power. According to the use made of that power and according to the direction of the force sent forth throughout the body by the directed, integrated personality, so will the organs of the body be affected. The solar plexus can be stimulated from that chakra with disastrous effects; the heart chakra can be swept into undue activity by the imposition of personality force, and its energy deflected downwards in a focussed selfish manner; the solar plexus can be so over-vitalised that all the forces of the personality can be turned downwards and subverted to purely selfish and separative ends, thus producing a powerful personality, but—at the same time—the temporary suspension of the spiritual life of the man. When this suspension takes place, all the forces of the body which have been "elevated" are driven downwards again, putting the man en rapport with the rank and file of humanity who are working through the lower chakras; this tends to produce an immense personality success. It is interesting to note that when this takes place, the energies—concentrated in the ajna chakra—sweep down into the solar plexus or into the sacral chakra, and seldom to the heart chakra. The heart chakra has a power all its own to produce what is called "occult isolation", because it is the seat of the life principle. The throat chakra receives stimulation in this case but seldom to the point of difficulty. The man is a powerful creative thinker, selfishly polarised and with an emotional solar plexus contact with the masses. He frequently also has a strong sexual complex in some form or another.
7. The activity of the head chakra is as yet little known and there is little that I can profitably say about it, for I would not be credited with speaking the truth. This chakra is the central factor in human life, but the focalisation of the lower and the higher bodily forces is not yet located there. Beyond producing hyper-tension (becoming so prevalent today among the more advanced people of the world) and certain forms of brain trouble and nervous disorders, its power is mostly seen in its pronounced psychological effects. With these I shall proceed to deal as we consider the unfoldment of the psychic powers, the evolution of the mystical vision and the revelation of the light and of power. This chakra controls the pineal gland and consequently certain areas of the brain. Indirectly also, the vagus nerve is affected. Consciousness and life, sensitivity and directed purpose are the great energies which express themselves through this chakra, for consciousness is a form of energy, as well you know, and life is energy itself.
through Alice A. Bailey
Those of you who have read my other books and treatises will know how immense is the subject with which we are concerned and how little is yet known and taught anent the chakras and their force emanations and the activity of the vital or etheric body which is the receiver and the distributor of energies. These energies determine and condition the circumstances and the physique of the human being and produce (in the last analysis) the phenomenal manifestation of man upon the physical plane, plus his inherent characteristics. All of this information I have earlier given and it can be read and studied by those who are interested to do so. They can thus clarify their knowledge anent the various chakra. One thing I would like here to point out and will later elucidate and that is the relation of the various chakras to the rays. This is as follows:
Ray one Power or Will - Head chakra.
Ray two Love-Wisdom - Heart chakra.
Ray three Active Intelligence - Throat chakra.
Ray four Harmony through Conflict - Ajna chakra.
Ray five Concrete Knowledge - Sacral chakra.
Ray six Devotion - Solar plexus.
Ray seven Ceremonial Order - Base of spine.
Much could be learned if one would gather all the data given on this subject into one book, thus relating what is known about the specific energy points to be found in the human frame. All that I can do here is to give a general idea of the subject, indicate certain lines of development and relationship anent the seven major chakras, the seven major glands and the localities and areas in the human body where these glands and chakras are to be found. I would also beg you to realise five facts:
1. That undeveloped men are energised and galvanised into outer activity through the medium of the three chakras below the diaphragm.
2. That average man is beginning to function primarily through the solar plexus chakra and to use it as a transferring chakra of force for energies which must be carried from below the diaphragm to above the diaphragm.
3. That the world aspirants are slowly being energised and controlled by the forces which are being transferred from the chakras below the diaphragm to the throat chakra and from the soul to the throat chakra. THIS LEADS TO CREATIVE ACTIVITY OF SOME KIND.
4. That the world disciples are beginning to be governed and controlled by the throat and heart chakras and are also beginning to transfer the forces which have been raised to the heart and throat, to the ajna chakra between the eyebrows, in the middle of the forehead. WHEN THIS HAS BEEN DONE, THE MAN IS THEN AN INTEGRATED PERSONALITY. THE SOUL ALSO STIMULATES THE AJNA CHAKRA.
5. That the more advanced disciples and world initiates are also energised from two sources: by means of the energies raised up and lifted into the head from all the chakras in the body, and by those which pour into the human frame from the soul, via the highest chakra at the top of the head.
The whole process is, as you can see, one of development, use and transference, as is the case in all evolutionary development. There are two major transferring chakras in the etheric body—the solar plexus and the throat—and one master chakra through which the energy of the soul must pour when the right time comes, pouring consciously and with the full awareness of the disciple. That chakra is the head chakra, called in the Eastern philosophy "the thousand-petalled lotus". The problem of the average man is, therefore, connected with the solar plexus. The problem of the disciple, the advanced aspirant and the initiate of the lower degrees is connected with the creative chakra, the throat.
Dangers to the sex organs.
The danger of the over-stimulation of these organs is well recognised theoretically, and I do not purpose to enlarge on it greatly today. I but seek to point out that this danger is very real.
The reason is that in the overstimulation of these centres the inner fire is but following the line of least resistance, owing to the polarisation of the race as a whole.
The work, therefore, that the student has to do is twofold:—
a—He has to withdraw his consciousness from those centres; this is no easy task for it means working against the results of age-long development.
b—He has to direct the attention of the creative impulse to the mental plane. In so doing, if successful, he will turn the activity of the divine fire to the throat centre and its corresponding head centre, instead of to the lower organs of generation. Therefore, it will be apparent to you why—unless a man is very advanced—it is not wise to spend much time in meditation during the earlier years. There was wisdom in the old Brahmanical rule that a man must give his early years to household endeavour, and only when he had fulfilled his function as a man could he go on to the life of the devotee. This was the rule for the average. With advanced egos, pupils and disciples, it is not so, and each must then work out his own individual problem.
I would here remind students that the following three points, related to the transference of energy, must be borne in mind:
1. That there is a transference to be made from all the lower chakras to higher ones and that this is usually done in two stages. This transference, carried on within the personality, is paralleled by the transference of spiritual energy from that reservoir of force we call the soul to the man on the physical plane. This becomes possible as the man makes the needed transference within himself. These transferences can take place in the course of the evolutionary process, or they can be hastened through the forced training given to disciples of all degrees.
2. That, within this major field of activity, the following transferences will have to be made:
a. The energy of the chakra at the base of the spine (the organ of the personal will) must be raised and carried up the spinal column to the head chakra, via the ajna chakra.
b. The energy of the sacral chakra (governing the sexual life and the organs of physical creation) must be raised to the throat chakra, which becomes the organ of creative activity of a non-physical nature.
c. The energy of the solar plexus (the organ of self-conscious personal desire) must be raised to the heart and there transmuted into group service.
3. That all these chakras are developed and brought into activity in three stages, and thus progressively condition the outer aspects of a mans life:
a. There is a period wherein the chakras are active only in a sluggish and semi-dormant manner: the forces of which they are formed, and which they express, move slowly and with a heavy inert rhythm; the light which can be seen wherever there is a chakra is dim; the point of electric potency at the chakra (the "heart of the lotus or chakra," the hub of the wheel, as it is esoterically termed in the Oriental teaching) is relatively quiescent. There is just enough energy pouring into the chakra to produce the preservation of life, the smooth functioning of the instinctual nature, plus a tendency to react, in a fluctuating and unintelligent manner to stimuli coming from the astral plane, via the individual astral body.
b. A period wherein there takes place a definite heightening and intensifying of force. The light of the chakras is brighter and the solar plexus chakra, in particular, becomes very active. As yet, all the real life of the man is focussed below the diaphragm. The chakras above the diaphragm are dim and dull and relatively inactive; the point at the chakra is, however, more electrical and dynamic. At this stage, the man is the average intelligent citizen, predominantly controlled by his lower nature and his emotional reactions, with what mind he has actively employed in bringing satisfaction to his needs. His chakras are the receivers primarily of physical and astral forces, but occasionally respond to mental impacts.
c. A period wherein the first transference is being made. This can last a long time and cover several lives. The chakras below the diaphragm are fully awakened; their activity is great; their light is vivid; their interrelation is real, so much so that a complete magnetic field has been set up involving the whole area below the diaphragm and becoming potent enough to extend its influence above the diaphragm. The solar plexus becomes the dominant organ in the place of the sacral chakra which has so long determined the life of the animal nature. It becomes the recipient of energy streams from below which it absorbs and starts on its task of deflecting them and transferring them to the higher chakras. The man is now the highly intelligent citizen and aspirant. He is conscious of the dualism of his nature, of that which is below and of that which is above, as it has been called, AND IS READY TO TREAD THE PROBATIONARY PATH.
d. A period wherein the transference is continued. The sacral forces are carried to the throat and the solar plexus forces are carried to the heart. The latter transference is as yet of so small a measure that the effect of the transference is almost negligible. THIS PERIOD IS A LONG AND VERY DIFFICULT ONE. His period is preparatory to the expression of the mystical life.
e. A PERIOD WHEREIN THE HEART AND THROAT CHAKRAS ARE BROUGHT INTO ACTIVITY. The man is creatively intelligent along some line or other and is slowly becoming group conscious. AS YET, HOWEVER, HIS REACTIONS ARE STILL SELFISHLY MOTIVATED THOUGH—AT THE SAME TIME—HE IS SUBJECT TO CYCLES OF VISION AND PERIODS OF SPIRITUAL EFFORT. THE MYSTICAL LIFE IS DEFINITELY ATTRACTING HIM. HE IS BECOMING THE MYSTIC.
f. A second period of transference ensues and the ajna chakra, which governs the integrated personality, becomes active and dominant. The life of feeling and of mystical effort is, at this time, liable to die down temporarily in its expressed fervour and ardent disciplines, and personality integration, personality ambitions personality aims and personality expression take its place. This is a right and good change and tends correctly to a rounded out development. It is only temporary, for still the mystic sleeps beneath the outer activity and the intelligent worldly effort, and will emerge again to living endeavour when the mind nature has been fully aroused and is controlling, when desire for mental satisfaction has been satiated and the "son of God is ready to arise and enter the Father's house". During this period, we find the intelligently creative or the powerful man will come to the zenith of his personality life. The chakras below the head will all be active and functioning, but the chakras below the diaphragm will be subordinated to and controlled by those found above. They are subject then to the conditioning will of the man who is governed at this time by ambition, intellectual expediency and that form of group work which tends to the expression of his personality potency. The ajna chakra is vivid and potent; the throat chakra is intensely active and the heart chakra is rapidly awakening.
g. A period wherein the highest head chakra is brought into radiant activity. This occurs as the result of the uprising (in a fresh and more potent manner) of the mystical instinct, plus, this time, an intelligent approach to reality. The result is twofold:
1. The soul begins to pour its energy into all the etheric or vital chakras, via the head chakra.
2. The point at the heart of each chakra comes into its first real activity; it becomes radiant, brilliant, magnetic and forceful, so that it "dims the light of all that lies around."
All the chakras in the body are then swept into ordered activity by the forces of love and will. Then takes place the final transference of all the bodily and psychic energies into the head chakra through the awakening of the chakra at the base of the spine. Then the great Polar opposites, as symbolised and expressed by the head chakra (the organ of spiritual energy) and the chakra at the base of the spine (the organ of the material forces) are fused and blended and from this time on the man is controlled only from above, by the soul.
There are, consequently, two points to be borne in mind as we study the mystic and his difficulties; first of all, the period of awakening and subsequent utilisation of the chakras and, secondly, the period of the transference of energy from the solar plexus to the heart, and then from all the four chakras up the spine to the throat chakra, prior to the focussing of the energy of all the chakras in the ajna chakra (between the eyebrows). This chakra is the controlling one in the personality life and from it goes all personality direction and guidance to the five lower chakras which it synthesises. EACH OF THESE STAGES BRINGS WITH IT ITS OWN DIFFICULTIES AND PROBLEMS. We shall, however, concern ourselves with these problems only as they affect present opportunity or hinder the man who finds himself upon the Path and is, therefore, taking his own evolution in hand. Then he stands "midway between the pairs of opposites" and this means (as far as our particular interest at this time is concerned) that we shall find THREE STAGES IN THE MYSTICAL WORK, EACH OF WHICH WILL MARK A DEFINITE POINT OF CRISIS, WITH ITS ATTENDANT TESTS AND TRIALS:
1. The stage wherein transference is made of all the lower energies into the solar plexus, preparatory to carrying them to the throat and heart chakras above the diaphragm. This stage covers not only the process of transference but also that of focussing the forces in the higher chakras.
Period : The later stages of the Path of Probation and the early stages of the Path of Discipleship.
Keynote Discipline.
1. Objective Idealism, plus personality effort. Purification and control.
2. The stage wherein transference is made into the ajna chakra and the personality life becomes integrated and powerful.
Period : The later stages of the Path of Discipleship and up till the time of the third initiation.
Keynote Expression of the soul, through the medium of the personality.
Objective The understanding of the Plan and consequent cooperation with it.
Then comes the third and final STAGE with which we need not concern ourselves wherein there is a complete blending of the bodily forces (focussed through the ajna chakra) with the Soul forces, (focussed through the head chakra). It is at this time that there comes the final evocation of the personality will (purified and consecrated) which has been "sleeping, coiled like the serpent of wisdom" at the base of the spine; this surges upward on the impulse of devotion, aspiration and enlightened will and thus fuses itself in the head with the spiritual will. This is the FINAL RAISING, by an act of discriminating determination, of the kundalini fire. This raising takes place in three stages, or impulses:
1. The stage wherein the lower energies are carried to the solar plexus chakra.
2. The stage wherein these energies, pouring through to the heart, are blended with it and carried to the throat.
3. The stage wherein all the five lower forms of energy are focussed in the ajna chakra in the head.
Students might here ask: Are there any other energies below the diaphragm, except those of the sacral chakra and those focussed in the chakra at the base of the spine which are carried up to the ajna chakra via the solar plexus chakra? There are quite a large number of lesser chakras and their energies, but I am not specifying them in detail for the sake of clarity; we shall deal here only with the major chakras and their effects and inter-relations.
The subject is abstruse and difficult in any case without our complicating it unduly. There are energies, for instance, pouring into the spleen from planetary sources as well as into two small chakras situated close to the kidneys, one on either side, besides several others and these forces must all be understood, transmuted, transformed and transferred. It is interesting to note that the two little chakras close to the kidneys are related to the lower levels of the astral plane and let loose into the system much of the fear, etc., which is the distinguishing factor in those subplanes. They are, therefore, found close to the chakra which can control them because even the modern endocrinologist knows that the adrenal glands, when stimulated, produce (as a psychological result of a physical happening) an access of courage and a form of directed will which enables achievements to be carried out that are, at other time, well-nigh impossible.
I would like here to point out that the statement so frequently made in occult books that "kundalini sleeps" is only partially true. The chakra at the base of the spine is subject to the same rhythmic life as are the other chakras. The specific period wherein "kundalini awakes" refers to that period wherein the "point at the chakra" becomes vibrant, potent and active: its forces can then penetrate throughout the entire spinal area until the highest head chakra is reached. This, however, would not be possible had there not been three earlier "uprisings of the latent force of will". These uprisings serve to clear the passage up the spine, penetrating and destroying the etheric web which separates each chakra and the area it controls from the next above.
All these transferences and interior organisation produce normally and naturally turmoil and conflict in the life of the mystic, causing difficulties of a definitely psychological nature and frequently PATHOLOGICAL TROUBLE as well. You have to note consequently, the series of transference, psychological difficulty and pathological results.
For instance, these ideas may clarify themselves in your mind if I point out certain facts, relating to the sacral chakra which for so long a period of time governs the animal and physical creative life of the human being. During the processes of evolution, the sacral chakra passes through the stages of automatic unconscious use, such as you find in purely animal man; then use under the urge of desire for pleasure and physical satisfaction, wherein the imagination is beginning to exert its influence;
next comes the period wherein there is the conscious subordination of the life to the sex impulse. This is of a different nature to the first mentioned. Sex becomes a dominating thought in the consciousness, and many people today are passing through this stage and everybody at some time or in some life passes through it. This is followed by a period of transference wherein the physical pull of sex and the urge to physical creation is not so dominant and the forces begin to be gathered up into the solar plexus. There they will be controlled largely by the astral imaginative life far more than by the unconscious animal or the conscious desire life. They blend there with the forces of the solar plexus itself and gradually are carried up to the throat chakra, but always via the heart chakra.
Here we find a major point of difficulty for the mystic who is rapidly coming into being and functioning activity. He becomes painfully conscious of duality, of the pull of the world and of the mystical vision, of divine possibilities and personality potencies, of love in place of desire and attraction, of divine relationship instead of human relations. But this whole subject is still interpreted in terms of duality. Sex is still imaginatively in his consciousness and is not relegated to a balanced place among the other instincts of the human nature; the result is an almost pathological interest in the symbolism of sex and what might be called a spiritualised sex life. This tendency is amply exemplified in the writings and experiences of many of the mystics of the middle ages. We find such expressions as the "marriage in the Heavens", the picture of "heavenly bridegroom" and many such symbols and phrases.
These and many more unpleasant examples of a sex psychology are to be found, blended with a true and pronounced mystical aspiration and yearning, and a genuine longing for union with the divine. The cause of all this lies in the stage of transference. The lower energies are subject, as you can see, to two stages of transference: first, into the solar plexus and from thence to the throat chakra. The throat chakra is not, at this period, active enough or sufficiently awakened to absorb and utilise the sacral energies. They are arrested in some cases in their upward passage and retained temporarily in the heart chakra, producing the phenomena of sex urges (accompanied at times with definitely physical sexual reactions), of religious eroticism and a generally unwholesome attitude, ranging all the way from real sexuality to fanatical celibacy. This latter is as much an undesirable extreme as the other and produces most undesirable results.
Frequently in the case of a male mystic there will be over developed sexual expression on the physical plane, perversions of different kinds or a pronounced homosexuality. In the case of women, there may be much disturbance of the solar plexus (instead of sacral disturbances) and consequent gastric trouble and an unwholesome imaginative life, ranging all the way from a feeble pruriency to definite forms of sexual insanity with (frequently) a strong religious bias at the same time. I would remind you here also of the fact that I am definitely dealing with abnormalities, and hence must touch upon that which is unpleasant.
In the early stages of mystical development, if there were right guidance of the mental life and of thought, plus courageous explanation of process, a great deal of difficulty would later be avoided. These early stages resemble closely the interest shown by the adolescent both in sex and religion. The two are closely allied in this particular period of development. If right help can be given at this time by educators, parents and those concerned with the training of the young, certain undesirable tendencies—now so prevalent—would never grow into habits and thought states as they now do.
The next question which might most correctly emerge in the students consciousness could be stated as follows: HOW CAN THIS PROCESS OF AWAKENING THE CHAKRAS, OF USING THEM AS CHANNELS FOR FORCE (AT FIRST UNCONSCIOUSLY AND LATER WITH INCREASING CONSCIOUSNESS), AND FINALLY OF TRANSFERRING THE ENERGY TO EVER HIGHER CHAKRAS,—PRODUCE PROBLEMS, DISEASE, AND THE MANY AND VARIED DIFFICULTIES of a phenomenal nature to which humanity seems heir, once the mystical experience becomes a goal and appears desirable. I would again remind you that the whole problem must be interpreted in terms of the growth of consciousness and also in terms of the bringing together, in progressive stages, of various types of energy. The human body is, in the last analysis, an aggregate of energy units. In the vital body (thus conditioning the endocrine and lymphatic systems) are certain focal points through which energy pours into the physical body, producing an impression and a stimulation upon the atoms of the body and thus having a powerful effect upon the entire nervous system which it underlies in all parts. The vital or etheric body is the subtle counterpart of the physical body in its nervous structure and the energy chakras condition and control the glandular system. Thus energies, influences, potencies and forces pour into and pass through the physical body—consciously in some cases, unconsciously in the majority of cases—from the three worlds of human enterprise and activity. When the heart chakra and the head chakras are awakened and used by the interior and the exterior forces, you have the beginning of the mystical and occult life.
THERE ARE TWO REASONS FOR THIS PERIOD OF EXCESSIVE DIFFICULTY:
1. The thread of consciousness in the head is anchored in the neighborhood of the pineal gland. The thread of life is to be found anchored in the heart. The turning of the forces into the solar plexus and from thence into the heart and the head brings those two major streams of energy (one coming from the Monad via the soul body to the heart chakra, and the other coming from the soul direct to the highest head chakra) to the attention of the mystic. He then becomes aware of life possibilities and of the wide field which consciousness can cover and of the area or the extension of its capacity. This is the period of interior awareness.
2. The inflow of planetary and solar potencies, via the head chakra to the heart and from thence to the other chakras.
THIS INFLOW PRODUCES:
a. Stimulation of all the chakras, major and minor, carried forward according to ray tendencies and influences.
b. The revelation of good and evil, that is, of the worlds of personality expression and of the world of soul expression. This dual process proceeds simultaneously.
c. The existence, therefore, of duality, which when realised and when the great opposites (soul and personality) are blended, can and will produce the at-one-ment.
The result of these realisations in consciousness leads inevitably to struggle, conflict, and aspiration plus constant frustration; this process produces those adjustments which must be made as the man becomes increasingly aware of the goal and increasingly "alive". The life expression (the threefold lower man) has to become accustomed to the new fields of consciousness and the opening areas of awareness, and to become used to the new powers which emerge, making the man able to enter more easily the wider fields of service which he is discovering. It might be stated here in a broad and general sense that—
1. Stimulation produces the awakening of the lower psychic powers if the incoming energy is directed to the solar plexus or to the throat chakra. It produces the intense activities of the chakras and this can, in the early stages, cause definite psychic trouble. In illustration of this I would like to indicate THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE DIFFICULTIES TO WHICH THE MYSTIC CAN BE PHYSICALLY PRONE:
a. The awakening of the head chakra can produce serious trouble if brought about prematurely and even lead at times to insanity. Inflammation of certain areas of the brain and certain forms of brain tumours can be induced by a too rapid inflow of the highest form of energy which a man can receive prior to initiation. This takes place, however, only in those cases where the man is a highly developed person and of a mental type. In other cases of premature soul inflow, the energy pours through the opening at the top of the head and finds its way to some one or other of the chakras, according to the ray type or stage of unfoldment. Where the greatest attention of the man's consciousness and life force is focussed (even if unconsciously) to that point the incoming energy will almost automatically flow.
b. The awakening of the ajna chakra which is, as we have seen, primarily the result of the development of a man's personality to the point of integration, can (if the energies involved are not correctly controlled) lead to serious eye trouble, to many aural difficulties, to various forms of neuritis, headache, migraine, and nerve difficulties in various parts of the body. It can produce also many difficulties connected with the pituitary body and psychological trouble emanating from this important controlling gland as well as definite physical trouble.
c. The awakening of the heart chakra (which is going on very rapidly at this time) is responsible for many forms of heart trouble and for the various difficulties connected with the autonomic nervous system, particularly in relation to the vagus nerve. The prevalence of various forms of heart disease at this time, particularly among the intelligentsia, professional and financial classes, is due to the awakening of this chakra and to the discovery of an unrecognised capacity in humanity to become group conscious, and to undertake group service. The thymus gland, which controls in a peculiar manner the life aspect in man, is closely connected with the heart chakra, as might be expected. This gland must eventually become more active in the adult than is now the case, just as the pineal gland in the coming human races will no longer be an atrophied organism with its true functions not understood and comprehended, but it will be an active and important part of man's equipment. This will take place normally and naturally as man learns to function as a soul and not just as a personality.
d. Again, much trouble among people is due at this time to the awakening of the throat chakra. This chakra governs and conditions the thyroid gland and the parathyroids. It can produce, when unduly developed or prematurely awakened, hyper-thyroidism with its attendant difficulties and its often dangerous effects upon the heart and upon the metabolism of the body. The psychological effects are well-known and recognised. These difficulties are increased and this higher creative chakra unduly stimulated and rendered a danger instead of an aid to expression by the enforced celibacy of many people, owing to the present unfortunate economic conditions. These conditions are such that people refrain from marriage and there is consequently the lack of opportunity to use (or to misuse) the energy flowing through the sacral chakra. Mystics are likewise prone to this difficulty. The throat chakra is not used creatively nor is the sacral chakra turned to its proper uses. The sacral energy is carried prematurely to the throat where it produces an intense stimulation. The equipment of the man concerned has not yet reached the point where it can be turned to creative work in any field. There is no creative expression of any kind as the development of the man does not permit him to be creative in the higher sense. The energy flowing through the thyroid gland is not used in creative art, music or writing in any outstanding manner, and hence the prevalence of goiter and thyroid difficulty. There is much energy flowing through and to the thyroid gland and, as yet, but little use made of it.
e. The increased activity and stimulation of the solar plexus chakra today is a most fruitful source of trouble. It produces a great deal of the nervous difficulties to which women are particularly prone, and many of the stomach ills and liver troubles of the time, as well as intestinal difficulties. One of the most powerful sources of cancer in various parts of the body (except in the head and face) can esoterically be traced to the congestion of the energy of the solar plexus chakra. This congestion has a general and widespread effect. Difficulties arising from the awakening of the heart chakra and the solar plexus chakra (for the two are closely allied and have a reciprocal action for a long time in the mystical experience) produce also a powerful effect upon the blood stream. They are connected with the life principle which is ever "carried upon the waves of desire" (as the ancient writings put it) and this, when prevented from full expression, through lack of development or other causes, leads to cancerous areas in the body wherever there is a weakness in the bodily tissue.
f. The awakening of the sacral chakra is of such ancient origin that it is not possible at this time to trace the true history of the development of the difficulties connected with sexual expression, nor is it desirable. I have dealt with the subject of sex in my other treatises, particularly in A Treatise On White Magic. In the course of the mystical life there is often a period of sexual difficulty if the mystic has not previously learnt sexual control and unless it has assumed balanced proportions to his other life activities and natural instincts in his consciousness. Else, as he touches the heights of spiritual contact and brings in the energy of his soul to the personality, that energy will pass straight down to the sacral chakra and not be arrested at the throat chakra, as it rightly should be. When this occurs, then perversions of the sex life may take place, or an undue importance may be attached to the sex activity, or the sexual imagination can be dangerously stimulated, leading to lack of control and to many of the difficulties known to physicians and psychologists. The result is ever an overactivity of the sex life in some form or another.
g. The awakening of the chakra at the base of the spine during the final stages of the higher mystical experience carries with it its own dangers. These definitely affect the spine and consequently all the nerves which branch out in all directions from the spinal column. The raising of the kundalini force—if brought about ignorantly and prematurely—may produce the rapid burning through of the protective web of etheric matter which separates the various areas of the body (controlled by the seven chakras) from each other. This causes serious nervous trouble, inflammation of the tissues, spinal disease, and brain trouble.
I have here hinted at some of the difficulties in an effort to give you a general picture of the problem of the mystic.
2. Utilisation of a chakra. Let me explain this phrase. Certain difficulties also arise when a chakra is used to such an extent that the attention is withdrawn from the activity of the other chakras and they are thus neglected. In this way, whole areas of consciousness can temporarily cease to be recognised. It should be remembered that the goal of all the mystic's efforts should be to achieve a rounded-out development which brings into use sequentially, correctly and in conformity to right ray methods, all the different chakras. Many people, however (once a chakra is awakening and is subjectively stimulated) immediately find the utilisation of the chakra to be the line of least resistance; they, therefore, begin to function almost exclusively through that chakra. This can be well illustrated by two examples.
The solar plexus chakra is, at this time, highly active among men and women everywhere. In every country millions of people are over-sensitised, emotional frequently to the point of hysteria, full of dreams, visions and fears, and highly nervous. This produces widespread gastric difficulties, indigestion, stomachic and liver ills and diseases, and intestinal disorders. To all of these the race today is exceedingly prone. To these are often coupled all kinds of skin eruptions. The cause is twofold:
a. The over-stimulation of the solar plexus chakra by its practically exclusive use, and by the consequent inflow of forces from the astral plane, to which the solar plexus is the wide open door.
b. The increased and constant use of this chakra as its rhythm and vibration get too powerful to control. The man then succumbs to the temptation to focus his life interest and attention in the astral world and to do this with increasing awareness, interest and phenomenal results.
The man is, therefore, a victim of forces which would otherwise produce a gathering together of that "which is lower" and their necessary transference into that which is higher. A needed purpose would then be served, but—in the case we are considering—these forces are all concentrated in that central area of the body which is intended to be simply the clearing house for that "which is below into that which is above". Instead of this, there is set up a tremendous whirlpool of forces which not only produces physical difficulties of many kinds (as stated above) but which is also a fruitful source of the cleavages with which modern psychology is dealing at the time. So potent are the forces generated by the over use of the solar plexus (which is one of the most powerful of all the chakras) and through the consequent flowing in of astral forces of every kind—thus augmenting the difficulties—that they assume eventually complete control of the life. The forces below and those above become separated by this vibrant and potent central force chakra. Cleavage, astralism, delusions, hallucinations, nervous disorders of every kind and difficulties of a physical nature which definitely involve the intestinal tract, the liver and the pancreas are only some of the problems which arise from the uncontrolled use of the solar plexus chakra. The man becomes controlled by it and is not the controlling factor, as he is intended to be.
The second illustration is connected with the unfoldment of the heart chakra with its recognition of the group life and consequent group responsibility. This today is rapidly growing and can be seen on every hand. Students are apt to think that the awakening of the heart chakra and its consequent group recognitions must be expressed in terms of religion, of love and of divinity. They, therefore, make of it something spiritual, as that much misused word is understood by the orthodox religious man. But it is far more than that. The heart is connected with the life aspect, for there is the seat of the life principle and there is the life energy anchored. It is connected with synthesis, with the monad, and with all that is more than the separated self. Any group which is engineered and controlled by one man or by a group of men, whether it is a nation, or a big business institution or an organisation of some kind or another (such as a great hospital) is connected with the life which is found in the heart. This remains true even when the motive or motives are mixed and undesirable, or purely selfish. A business magnate controlling vast interests who has the lives of many people dependent upon the contingencies of a business which he may have founded and over which he presides, is beginning to work through the heart chakra. Hence the prevalence of certain forms of heart trouble to which so many people of influence and power so frequently succumb. The heart becomes over-stimulated by the impact of the energies pouring in on the man who is subjected—among other things—to the directed thoughts of those connected with his organisation. Can you see why, therefore, the senior members of the Hierarchy, Who work through the head and the heart chakras, keep Themselves withdrawn from public life and much human contact? These two illustrations may help to clarify in your minds the sense in which I here use the term, "utilisation of a chakra".
3. In the period of transference wherein the forces of the body are in a state of abnormal flux and mutation, it will be obvious what danger there is for the mystic and the disciple, and how serious can be the results of any transference which is forced into effect instead of following the natural course of evolution. This accounts, partially, for the present world upheaval and chaos. The forces flowing through the masses of average intelligent men today (and by that I mean those men who are educated and able to recognise the world news and to discuss world events and trends) are constituting the experimental ground for the transference of the energy of the sacral chakra to the solar plexus. This leads inevitably to turmoil, over-stimulation, revolt and many other difficulties.
THE PROBLEMS, THEREFORE, ARE MANY BUT ARE SUBJECT TO SOLUTION. LET THAT NOT BE FORGOTTEN. The whole theme is vast, but many minds are today seeking to deal with it and are working selflessly and altruistically to bring about the needed changes, a better understanding of man's physical and psychological natures, and a new approach—both to religion and education. When the mystical approach and its consequences, good and bad, material and spiritual—are better understood, through study and experiment, we shall arrive at a more complete comprehension of our problem and a better programme for human unfoldment.
I would like to point out that I am using the words "mystic and mystical" in this section of our treatise because I want what I have to say to meet with the interest of those who recognise the fact of the mystical approach to God and the mystical life of the soul, but who refuse as yet to widen the concept so that it includes also the intellectual approach to divine identification.
The keynotes which the mystic at present recognises and which the religious writer and thinker is also willing to admit are those of feeling, sensitivity to the divine existence, the recognition of a vision of God which will suffice to meet individual need and thus bring relief, peace, understanding and the realisation of divinity without and within, plus the relationship of the man to some extraneous Factor called God, or the Self, or the Christ. This attitude is coloured always by a sense of duality; it leads to the attainment of union—a union of which the marriage relation remains still the best symbol and illustration as the writings of the mystics of all periods and nationalities will testify, and which still preserves the consciousness of the two identities.
The keynotes of the occult life have been (and rightly) the notes of knowledge, of the mental approach to the problem of divinity, the recognition of divine immanence and of the fact that "as He is so are we." There is, however, no sense of duality. The goal is the achievement of such an approved and appreciated identification that the man becomes what he is—a God and, eventually, God in manifestation. This is not the same thing as the mystical union.
And yet, the whole theme is mystical and innately subjective. The time must come when the mystic will appreciate and follow the way of the head and not only the way of the heart. He will learn to realise that he must lose his sense of the Beloved in the knowledge that he and the beloved are one and that the vision must and will disappear as he transcends it (note that phrase) in the greatest processes of identification through initiation.
The occultist, in his turn, must learn to include the mystical experience in full understanding consciousness as a recapitulatory exercise before he transcends it and passes on to a synthesis and an inclusiveness to which the mystical approach is but the beginning, and of which the mystic remains unaware.
The mystic is too apt to feel that the occultist over-estimates the way of knowledge and repeats glibly that the mind is the slayer of the real and that the intellect can give him nothing. The occultist is equally apt to despise the mystical way and to regard the mystical method as "lying far behind him". But both must learn to tread the way of wisdom. The mystic must and will inevitably become the occultist and this whether he likes the process or not. He cannot escape it in the long run, but the occultist is not a true one until he recovers the mystical experience and translates it into terms of synthesis. Note the structure of words I have used in this last paragraph for it will serve to elucidate my theme. I use therefore the words "mystic and mystical" in this section of the treatise to describe the intelligent, highly mental man and his processes upon the Path of Discipleship.
In dealing with the problems and diseases of mystics who are at the point in their evolution where they are making one of the major transferences of force, it should be pointed out that in the earlier stages quite a long period of time may elapse between the first effort to transmute and transfer the energies and that particular life wherein the energies are finally gathered up and "elevated" as the esoteric term usually employed technically expresses it. It is at this point of focussed activity (in the place of the previous fluidic and spasmodic efforts) that one finds a definite point of crisis in the life of the mystic.
The question is often asked: WHY IS THERE FREQUENTLY SO MUCH ILLNESS, NERVOUS TROUBLE AND VARIOUS PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS FOUND AMONG THE SAINTS OF THE EARTH, AND AMONG THOSE WHO ARE CLEARLY ORIENTED TOWARDS THE LIGHT?
The answer is that the strain put upon the physical vehicle by the shift of the forces is usually unduly great and so produces these undesirable conditions. These again are often augmented by the foolish things done by the aspirant as he seeks to bring his physical body under control. It is, however, far better for the undesirable results to work themselves out in the physical vehicle than in the astral or mental bodies. This point is seldom realised and hence the emphasis laid upon the idea that sickness, ill-health, and disease are indicative of individual error, of failure and of so-called sin. They can of course be all of these things, BUT, IN THE CASE OF THE TRUE ASPIRANT WHO IS ENDEAVOURING TO DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL HIS LIFE, THEY ARE OFTEN NOT DUE TO THESE CAUSES AT ALL. THEY ARE THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF THE CLASH OF FORCES—THOSE OF THE AWAKENED ENERGIES WHICH ARE IN PROCESS OF ELEVATION AND THOSE OF THE CHAKRA INTO WHICH THE ENERGIES ARE BEING RAISED. THIS CLASH PRODUCES STRAIN, PHYSICAL DISCOMFORT AND (AS WE HAVE SEEN) MANY DISTRESSING KINDS OF DISORDERS.
The widespread disease and ill-health found everywhere at this time is caused by a mass transference which is steadily going forward in the race. Through this transference, the solar plexus chakra is thrown into an abnormal activity, thereby releasing all kinds of astral forces into the consciousness of man—fear, desire of a wrong kind and many of the emotional characteristics which are causing people so much distress. The process is as follows: the consciousness first of all registers these astral impressions, then formulates them into thought forms and—as energy follows thought—a vicious circle is thus set up, involving the physical body. In the turmoil consequently evoked by these clashing forces which are
a. Mounting from below into the solar plexus,
b. Pouring into the solar plexus from the astral plane,
c. Reacting to the magnetic attractive power of the higher chakras,
the interior life of the man becomes a whirlpool of conflicting energies with disastrous effects upon the intestinal tract, upon the liver and upon the other organs. THE MYSTIC, AS IS WELL KNOWN, IS OFTEN DYSPEPTIC AND THIS IS NOT ALWAYS CAUSED BY WRONG EATING AND WRONG PHYSICAL HABITS. IT IS BROUGHT ABOUT IN MANY CASES BY THE PROCESSES OF TRANSFERENCE WHICH ARE GOING ON.
One of the difficulties which tend also to increase the strain is the inability of the average mystic to divorce his mind from his physical condition. Energy inevitably follows thought and where a distressed area is found, there the mind seems to throw all its attention, with the result that the situation is not bettered but surely and steadily made worse. The best mental rule of all mystics should be to keep the mind definitely above and away from the region where the transference is going on, except in those cases where esoteric methods are being employed to force the process, to hasten and facilitate the processes of elevation. Then (under right direction and guidance plus a knowledge of the rules) the mystic can work with the chakra in the spine which is concerned. This academic technique, I will endeavor to indicate in a later Instruction, but I want first of all to deal with the psychic difficulties of the mystic, for both the psychic and physical difficulties arise from the same basic cause and can be offset and controlled by the same correct occult and psychological knowledge.
The ills with which we are dealing are, therefore, the result of a large number of causes and it might be of service if I listed them here, reminding you that the chakras up the spinal column and in the head govern definite areas in the body. These are affected and controlled by the chakras and it is in these regions that one must look for indications of trouble.
Speaking generally, diseases fall into five major categories and it is only with the last of them that we are here occupied. These five groupings of disease are:
1. Hereditary diseases:
a. Inherent in the planet itself and having a definite effect upon humanity, through contact with the soil and water.
b. Developed during past ages in mankind itself and handed on from generation to generation.
c. Characteristic of some particular family and inherited by the member of this family as part of his chosen karma. Souls come into certain families because of this opportunity.
2. Diseases invoked by tendencies in the man himself. These are governed by his astrological sign—either his sun sign or his rising sign and will be considered later.
3. Contagious diseases (epidemic or endemic) which are of group origin and involve the man as a part of his group karma, but are quite frequently unrelated to his personal karma.
4. Acquired diseases and accidents which are the result of injudicious action or unwise habits in this life and definitely condition his future karma. One interesting point in connection with accidents might here be made. Accidents are frequently caused by what might be regarded as "explosions of force". These are generated by a man or by a group of human beings through hatred or jealousy or vindictiveness, which qualities react or are "turned back" upon the individual life like a boomerang.
5. The diseases of mystics with which we are at this time concerned. Speaking generally, these are caused by the energy of an awakened and active lower chakra being transferred into a higher one. This is done in three stages and each stage brings its own physiological difficulties:
a. The stage wherein the energy of the lower chakra becomes intensely active prior to rising upward. This will produce over-activity of the organs in the physical area governed by the chakra, with consequent congestion, inflammation, and usually disease.
b. The stage wherein the "processes of elevation" are taking place, producing intense activity in the higher chakra and a lessening of activity in the lower. A fluid period intervenes in which the forces swing back and forth between the two chakras, accounting for the uneven life of the mystic in the earlier stages of his unfoldment. This is particularly the case in connection with the solar plexus. The energy is rejected at first by the higher chakra and is then reabsorbed into the lower only to be elevated again and again until the higher chakra can absorb and transmute it.
c. The stage wherein the energy is raised definitely into the higher chakra. This leads to a difficult period of adjustment and of tension, again producing physical ills but, this time, in the area controlled by the higher chakra.
When, for instance, the sacral energy is raised to the solar plexus, there will be found many ailments involving, as noted before , the intestinal tract. When the energy of the lesser chakras which (but not up the spine) are raised to the solar plexus chakra, trouble involving the gall bladder and the kidneys will often be found. Occultly speaking, any process of elevation or of "raising up" automatically involves death. This death affects the atoms in the organs involved and causes the preliminary stages of ill-health, disease and disruption, because death is nothing but a disruption and a removal of energy. When the science of the transference of energy from a lower chakra to a higher is understood, then light will be thrown upon the entire problem of dying and the true Science of Death will come into being, liberating the race from fear.
Students would do well at this stage to pause and consider the following points with care:
1. Which are the areas controlled by the five chakras up the spine and the two chakras in the head.
2. The three major points of transference:—the solar plexus, the throat chakra and the ajna chakra in the head. The heart chakra and the highest head chakra, as points of transference, only concern the initiate.
3. The fluidic and changeable condition produced by the processes of awakening, transference and the focussing of the energy in the higher chakra. These three major activities are conditioned by the intermediate stages of:
a. The active radiation of the lower chakra.
b. The responsiveness of the lower chakra to the magnetic pull of the higher.
c. The succeeding interplay between the higher and the lower chakras, conditioned at first by a rhythmic repulsion and attraction. This is a reflection of the play of the dualities in the career of the human being.
d. This is followed by a concentration of the lower energy in the higher chakra.
e. Then comes the control of the lower chakra or chakras by the higher focal points of energy and their rhythmic interplay.
Between all these different stages come "points of crisis" of greater or lesser moment. This intense interior activity which is going on all the time in the subjective life of humanity produces both good and bad effects, and psychological as well as physiological reactions. Today, the mass transference of the forces of the sacral chakra into that of the solar plexus is responsible for many of the modern and physical disabilities of the race. Because also of the slow removal on a racial scale of the sacral force to the solar plexus there is eventuating a condition which is called sometimes "race suicide", necessitating the efforts of many of the different governments to offset the rapidly falling birth rate in their countries.
The above summation of the threefold activity which is going on in the human body all the time will give some idea of the strain under which the individual man labours, and will account, therefore, for much of the discomfort and disease found in those areas in the human body which are governed and controlled by a particular chakra. I would like to add the following points to the information given above:
1. The intense activity of the sacral chakra will often produce diseases and physiological abnormalities, connected with the organs of reproduction (both male and female). These difficulties are of two kinds:
a. Those to which normal humanity is prone and which are well known to the PHYSICIAN, SURGEON AND PSYCHOLOGIST.
b. Those which are the result of over-stimulation, through the successful effort of the mystic to bring in energy from the higher chakras and from sources outside the human frame altogether.
2. In all cases of transference, the intense activity produced will cause all kinds of tensions and reactions, resulting in congestions, inflammations and diseases of the organs vitalised. This is particularly the case today in relation to the sacral and solar plexus chakras. The glands—major and minor, endocrine and lymphatic—in the abdominal area are powerfully affected and through their hypersensitivity or their "deficiency through abstraction" (as it is esoterically called) they constitute a fruitful source of difficulty.
3. The activity of the solar plexus chakra at this time, which is a result of this transference, produces the abnormal tension which characterises the race. This tension, with the average man, controls the intestinal tract and its connections, both above and below the diaphragm. With the advanced man, it produces tension in the higher chakras, definitely affecting the heart and the vagus nerve. It should be pointed out that many of the diseases inherent in the racial form to which planetary disease predisposes the human being are brought into activity as the result of the stimulation of the solar plexus. As humanity becomes less astral in its consciousness and the solar plexus, therefore, becomes less active and less dominating, these forms of difficulty will die out. As the heart chakras and the higher chakras assume control, such diseases as cancer, tuberculosis and the various syphilitic complaints (due to the age old activity of the sacral chakra) will gradually die out.
4. The activity of the heart chakra as it
a. Magnetically attracts the energies out of the solar plexus,
b. Becomes involved in a reciprocal interplay with the solar plexus, is a fruitful source of nervous trouble to the mystic and advanced
aspirant. The heart chakra powerfully affects the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system with all that that involves and we are only today beginning to understand and deal with these difficulties. Clarification will come once the premise of the existence of the chakras and their three "activities of interplay" are admitted—even if only as a possible hypothesis. The little understood thymus gland holds the key to much that concerns the activity and control of the vagus nerve—a fact not yet generally recognised. Later, a carefully controlled process with the object of stimulating the thymus gland and its secretion will be worked out by the medical profession, leading to a much better functioning of the nervous system and of the vagus nerve which controls it. I can but hint at possibilities at present because the basic premise of the existence of the chakras of force is not yet recognised. It is interesting to note, however, that the solar plexus (as a great nerve chakra) is recognised and this is due to the fact that the bulk of humanity is, at this time, transferring force to that chakra. It is, for the masses, the major recipient of forces, both from below the diaphragm, from above, and from the environment.
5. The activity of the throat chakra is steadily increasing today, owing to the creative activity and the inventive genius (which brings in the higher stimulation) and the idealistic conceptions of the intelligentsia of the world. This activity is responsible physiologically for many of the diseases of the respiratory tract. Energy is carried to the throat but is not adequately used and there is a consequent congestion and similar consequences. But, curiously enough, a great many of the difficulties connected with the entire breathing apparatus are related to group conditions. These I will touch upon later. Today, the concentration of energy is producing serious effects upon that master gland, the thyroid gland. These effects disturb the balance of the physical body and involve also the parathyroid glands. The metabolism of the body is upset bringing attendant difficulties. The race is advancing so rapidly in its development that this chakra will soon compete with the solar plexus chakra for the position of being the most important chakra and the major clearing house in the human body. I would commend this statement to your careful consideration for it carries with it much of encouragement. It indicates, nevertheless, much physiological change and many problems and above everything else much psychological difficulty.
6. The activity of the ajna chakra will increase a great deal during the coming century, bringing with it its own attendant problems. Its close relation to the pituitary body and the growing interplay between
a. The ajna chakra and the pituitary body
b. The chakra at the top of the head (involving the pineal gland) and the ajna chakra
will produce serious problems connected with the brain and the eyes. The ajna chakra focusses the abstracted energy of the five chakras up the spine and is the seat of personality power. According to the use made of that power and according to the direction of the force sent forth throughout the body by the directed, integrated personality, so will the organs of the body be affected. The solar plexus can be stimulated from that chakra with disastrous effects; the heart chakra can be swept into undue activity by the imposition of personality force, and its energy deflected downwards in a focussed selfish manner; the solar plexus can be so over-vitalised that all the forces of the personality can be turned downwards and subverted to purely selfish and separative ends, thus producing a powerful personality, but—at the same time—the temporary suspension of the spiritual life of the man. When this suspension takes place, all the forces of the body which have been "elevated" are driven downwards again, putting the man en rapport with the rank and file of humanity who are working through the lower chakras; this tends to produce an immense personality success. It is interesting to note that when this takes place, the energies—concentrated in the ajna chakra—sweep down into the solar plexus or into the sacral chakra, and seldom to the heart chakra. The heart chakra has a power all its own to produce what is called "occult isolation", because it is the seat of the life principle. The throat chakra receives stimulation in this case but seldom to the point of difficulty. The man is a powerful creative thinker, selfishly polarised and with an emotional solar plexus contact with the masses. He frequently also has a strong sexual complex in some form or another.
7. The activity of the head chakra is as yet little known and there is little that I can profitably say about it, for I would not be credited with speaking the truth. This chakra is the central factor in human life, but the focalisation of the lower and the higher bodily forces is not yet located there. Beyond producing hyper-tension (becoming so prevalent today among the more advanced people of the world) and certain forms of brain trouble and nervous disorders, its power is mostly seen in its pronounced psychological effects. With these I shall proceed to deal as we consider the unfoldment of the psychic powers, the evolution of the mystical vision and the revelation of the light and of power. This chakra controls the pineal gland and consequently certain areas of the brain. Indirectly also, the vagus nerve is affected. Consciousness and life, sensitivity and directed purpose are the great energies which express themselves through this chakra, for consciousness is a form of energy, as well you know, and life is energy itself.
Source: http://www.mindlight.info/aab/dk-problems.htm
