Considering the Chakras and keeping spiritual perspective
I’m standing on my balcony at the very highest residence I can find, halfway up a mountain near Rishikesh.
When my gaze is downcast, I see the room I’m living in and my humanity. The comfortable four walls, my bed, my material luxuries and dependencies. I see food and coffee, and the laptop computer.
What does Chakra mean?
The yogis use the word chakra to indicate a centre of activity in the human body, and the six main chakras are linked to these worldly aspects. It is very similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The human drives for survival, social harmony, career and influence, recreation and expression – these are the first six chakras, and they are all represented in my room.
The sixth chakra in fact controls all of the lower chakras. It is called ajna, which means control centre. My computer is attached to a fibre optic cable no wider than a single hair. It connects my brain to all the other brains of the material world, all my students, my girlfriend and my cat. There I pull the strings of administration, banking, and marketing.
The beauty of nature and the connection of all things
When I remember to lift my gaze, I notice the Himalayan Mountains bearing down over the town, and the river, and me. I instantly forget all of the world and feel a swooning state of awareness. The familiar rapture, like crossing the threshold to sleep, or traversing consciousness in meditation. With this swoon, the concept of human legs buckle, the concept of a human head with a brain inside it is replaced by a vibration and a feeling. An overpowering undercurrent. A substrate that it is thrilling and at the same time a nurturing warm bath. The thin line that demarcates the forms and the formless is right here.
For weeks now, students and friends have been sending messages to me, concerned about their fellow Australians, who are in a state of grinding panic. Aside from that concern, students have sent personal accounts of surreal awareness and dream-like epiphanies, subtle understandings of the opportunities for collective growth that are appearing, albeit peppered with tension.
The perpetual grace of our world
Here, however, the vibrations of the mountains are unaffected by the whole production. The Himalayas are resolute in maternal grandeur, untouched by worrying minds, and yet supporting and nourishing the very same. There is a seventh chakra, above the physical brain, called sahasrara, the crown. This one indicates infinity, the unmanifest, the potential of multi-versal connectivity. Unfathomable by a chattering brain and yet the source of the brain.
Peaceful acceptance and a pure perspective
For me, India has been temporarily upgraded beyond its already sublime nature. There are fewer vehicles on the road, most shops are closed. The residents have heard that it’s time to stay indoors, so they do, without a struggle. The peaceful personality of the populace that I first encountered nearly a decade ago shines forth.
The mountains make the statement. They remind me that I can cast my gaze up, that no matter how captivating and hypnotising the material world may become, it will always be dwarfed by the ultimate love and creativity that we struggle to describe. This is the crown chakra, we can give it a name but we can’t describe it.
All we can do is remember to look up.
And help each other to do the same.
