The Seven Kundalini Chakras

The following excerpt is from Kundalini Yoga: The Mother Power, by Sri Chinmoy.

Now let us start from the beginning: muladhara, the root chakra. When one has acquired mastery over the muladhara centre, one can become invisible at his sweet will. One can conquer all diseases. One can know whatever one wants to know and discover whatever one wants to discover. If one wants to discover God’s Compassion, God’s Light, God’s Love for him, then he is in a position to do so. But if one uses the same power in order to know what is happening in others’ minds or what is going on in their outer life, or if one uses it to discover out of curiosity if a third world war is going to break out, then this power is misused.

When a person with mastery over the muladhara sees that someone has a particular disease, he has to know whether that individual deserves the disease or whether it is the result of a hostile attack. If he has done something wrong, naturally under the law of karma he deserves to pay the penalty. But if the disease is not from the law of karma but rather from the attack of some hostile force, and if it is God’s Will that his disease should be cured, then naturally a spiritual person who has the capacity should cure it. But if he does it at his own sweet will, or if he acts in an undivine way and just shows off, then he breaks the cosmic law. He will cure the person, but this very cure will act eventually against both the healer and the sick person. It will add to their ignorant and self-destructive quality. So the healer has to know if it is the Will of God that the person be cured. Only then will he cure; otherwise he has to remain silent and do nothing. You may ask, how can he see somebody else suffering and still do nothing? If his heart is very big, let him go deep within and see who it is that is suffering in and through the individual. He will see that it is God who is purposely having a special experience in and through that person.

Svadhisthana, the spleen chakra. When one has mastery over svadhisthana, one acquires the power of love. He loves everyone and he is loved by everyone: by men and women and by animals. It is here that people very often fall from the path of Light and Truth. Divine love is expansion and expansion is illumination. Love can be expressed as an expansion of our divine awareness or it can be expressed as pleasure. When the svadhisthana centre is opened, the lower vital, the sex forces will try to lower the consciousness of the seeker. But if at that time he can bring down abundant purity from the anahata centre, the heart centre, then this impurity will be transformed into purity. And purity is eventually transformed into ever-fulfilling and everlasting divinity. But if he cannot bring down purity, then there is real destruction, destruction of the seeker’s life. The lower vital acts most vehemently and powerfully and sometimes it becomes worse than the lower vital in ordinary human beings. An ordinary human being does not enjoy the vital life the way some seekers enjoy it after opening their svadhisthana centre.

Manipura, the navel chakra. If one acquires mastery over this centre, one conquers sorrow and suffering. No matter what happens in his life, he will not feel sad or miserable. But this centre can create a problem like the svadhisthana chakra. This centre is also dangerous. One can create suffering for others if one misuses the power from the manipura chakra and he will thereby incur the world’s curse. This centre, like the ajna chakra, can show the seeker where a relative or dear one has gone after he dies. It lets one see how the person is passing through the vital world and entering into the subtle world and the higher planes. It shows how he passes from one sheath to another after death. This centre also gives one the power of transmutation. One can magnify an object or one can reduce it to an infinitesimal size. In addition, this centre has healing power. As I said before, if one can use this power properly, in accordance with the Will of God, then it is a real blessing. Otherwise it is a curse.

Anahata, the heart centre. Here the power is unbelievable. A seeker with mastery over the anahata centre has free access to both the visible and the invisible worlds. Time surrenders to him; space surrenders to him. If he uses this centre, he can travel to any part of the world in a few seconds in his subtle body. But if he does this, he takes a great risk, Suppose he wants to travel occultly and spiritually to Europe to see what is happening there. If he does not get the proper sanction from the other centres, or if the other centres do not cooperate, then the other centres may not allow the soul to come back to the body after its journey. In India, I know of quite a few cases where Yogis leave their bodies through the heart centre without taking help or getting permission and without even informing the other centres. They feel that the other centres do not have the same special capacity as the heart centre and so they should use the heart centre. Then the other centres become jealous. Jealousy is everywhere, in the outer world and in the inner world as well. Even the cosmic gods enjoy jealousy. So the other centres, because they are jealous, do not let the soul come back. If one uses this power, one has to take permission from the Inner Pilot first. If the Inner Pilot sanctions it, then the other centres cannot do any harm, since the Inner Pilot has infinitely more power than these centres.

In the anahata centre, one can enjoy the deepest bliss of oneness; one can have pure Joy. Any person can look at a flower and get joy, but the intensity of joy that the flower embodies we cannot all enjoy. But if one opens the heart centre and looks at a flower, immediately all the joy, all the beauty that the flower has will become his. If the seeker looks at the vast ocean, inside his heart he is bound to feel the vast ocean. He looks at the vast sky and he enters into the sky, he becomes the sky. Anything vast, pure, divine, sublime that he sees, he can immediately feel as his very own and he can become that thing. There is no yawning gulf between what he sees and what he is. He just becomes in his consciousness what he sees.

This is not his imagination. Far from it! His heart is a divine heart which embodies the universal Consciousness. The spiritual heart is not the heart that we find in our physical body. The spiritual heart is larger than the largest, it is larger than the universal Consciousness itself. We always say that there cannot be anything superior to the universal Consciousness, but this is a mistake. The heart the spiritual heart, houses the universal Consciousness. This centre is very safe when we use it to identify ourselves with the vast, with the beauty of nature. But when we use it to travel outside the limitations of the body, we take a risk.

Vishuddha, the throat chakra. He who has mastery over vishuddha has the capacity to offer divine messages to the world. Universal nature discloses its agelong hidden mysteries to him. Here nature bows to the seeker. He can retain eternal youth. The outer world surrenders to him. The inner world embraces him. We get messages from various planes of consciousness. But when one gets a message from the vishuddha centre, the message is sublime and everlasting. When this centre is open, one receives direct messages from the Highest and becomes a mouthpiece for the Highest. One becomes a poet, a singer or an artist. All forms of art are expressed from this centre. This centre is open in many individuals. It functions according to the degree to which it is open, according to one’s development. There is very little risk in this centre. It is a mild centre; it does not interfere with other centres and the other centres leave it alone.

Ajna, the brow chakra. He who has mastery over the ajna chakra destroys his dark past, hastens the golden future and manifests the present in a supremely fulfilling way. His psychic and occult powers defy all limits; they are endless. The ajna chakra, which is located between and a little above the eyebrows, is the most powerful centre. The first thing one does when his third eye opens, if it is opened properly, is to destroy the unlit, unaspiring and undivine past. Now we see something and we have an experience. But there is a difference between our experience and the thing that we are experiencing. When the ajna centre is opened, however, we experience the thing itself. We become one with the thing that we are experiencing. At that time, seeing and becoming go together. Seeing itself is becoming and becoming is seeing. For this reason the aspirant who has opened his third eye wants to destroy the past from his memory. In this incarnation suppose one has become a Yogi. When he looks back to his previous incarnation, he sees that he was a thief, or something worse. Since he does not now want to enter into that experience again, he will try to destroy that part of his past. He now has the necessary power.

When one realises God, the past is automatically deleted. As I said before, when one opens the third eye or any other centre, it does not mean that one has realised God. When one realises God, the obscure, impure or undivine past is illumined and nullified all at once. At the moment of God-realisation, illumination takes place. It is like coming out of a dark room into an illumined room. It becomes light where before it was all dark. God-realisation is immediate illumination.

With the ajna chakra, the past can be nullified and the future can be brought into the immediacy of today. If one knows that ten years from now he is going to do something, achieve something or grow into something, then by using the third eye he can achieve that very thing today. He does not have to wait for ten, fifteen, twenty years.

But if one brings the future result to the fore, this can sometimes be dangerous. It has happened many, many times that the future of an individual is very bright, very luminous. But when the future is brought right into the immediacy of the present, the enormity of the result puzzles and frightens the seeker. The seeker is like a young elephant. He is growing in strength and in ten years he will be very powerful. But if the power comes right now, there may be no receptivity, no inner receptivity. The power comes, but it cannot be brought under control or it cannot be contained in a safe vessel. At that time power itself acts like an enemy and destroys the person who invoked it. So there is a great danger when one takes the future and brings it into the present.

Let the present grow and play its role. The past has played its role; now the present wants to play its role. Only in some cases, when God wants a seeker to make very fast progress, instead of going systematically he can run extremely fast. It is just like the situation of a student in school. Sometimes a student does not go through all the grades of kindergarten, primary school and high school. Sometimes he skips grades. In the spiritual life also, if it is God’s Will that the future be brought into the present, then there is no danger. But otherwise there is great danger.

With the third eye, one can accomplish much. The third eye has what God, the ultimate Power, is. If the ultimate Power is misused by the third eye, then it is all destruction. But if the third eye uses the ultimate, transcendental Power properly and divinely, then it will be a great blessing, the greatest blessing that humanity can imagine.

Sahasrara, the crown chakra. The sahasrara is the silent one which does not interfere in anything. It is like the eldest member in the family: it does not bother anyone and does not want to be bothered by anyone. When this centre is opened permanently, one enjoys infinite Bliss and becomes inseparably one with the ever-transcending Beyond, one comes to know that he is birthless and deathless. He is always dealing with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. These are not vague terms for him; they are all reality. This moment he sees himself as Eternity and he grows into Eternity: the next moment he sees himself as Infinity and he grows into Infinity; a few moments later he sees himself as Immortality and grows into Immortality in his consciousness. And at times it happens that Infinity, Eternity and Immortality all go together in his consciousness.

When the sahasrara chakra is open, the Inner Pilot becomes a true friend. Here the Infinite and His chosen son become very good friends to fulfil a specific mission for their mutual manifestation. They share many secrets, millions of secrets, in the twinkling of an eye. On the one hand Father and son are enjoying infinite Peace and Bliss; on the other hand they are discussing world problems, universal problems, all in the twinkling of an eye. But their problems are not problems as such. Their problems are only experiences in their cosmic game.

Of all the centres, the highest, the most peaceful, the most soulful, the most fruitful is sahasrara. There Infinity, Eternity and Immortality have become one. The Source becomes one with the creation, and the creation becomes one with the Source. Here the knower and the Known, the lover and the Beloved, the slave and the Master, the son and the Father, all become one. Together the Creator and the creation transcend their Dream and Reality. Their Dream makes them feel what they are and their Reality makes them feel what they can do. Reality and Dream become one.

– Sri Chinmoy

– Writings on Kundalini