mind

Your conscience and your soul

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Someone asked me, ‘What does the soul contain? Where is the mind in our body? How do I know it is my higher self taking decisions in my day to day life happenings?’. Here are some points which you can think over if they make sense to you. Some of this is from standard books and some from my personal experiences and understanding.

‘What does the soul contain?’

Your Soul is your awareness, a spark of divine energy. There is an energy inside you which is aware, conscious, alert, intelligent. It is because of this awareness that you animate this ‘body’ (your ‘body’ has 5 layers, detailed post here). When the Soul’s aware energy exits the body, the body loses awareness ie dies. Your Soul is constant, unchangeable, eternal, indestructible. The body is obviously destructible. The body exists only for the sake of creating and enjoying/enduring karma and its repercussions. The horoscope can analyse just this 5-layered body. The horoscope cannot be used to analyse the Soul. The enveloping layers of the body are sometimes called ‘Maya’ ie the undefinable or ‘Deha-buddhi’ ie the intellect limited by the enveloping body. This geometric envelope obscures the light of the Soul. Thus your awareness is obscured, lowered and limited to only the body, you cannot perceive or experience your real nature. You are made to forget that you are pure awareness, pure Soul. It is like a fog drawn over your real Awareness. As you forget that you are the Soul, you start believing that you are the body.

Most of your clients will be in this category, they fully believe that they are the 5 layers of the body. Thus they create more karma, the impulses of their past karmas affect them deeply, they deeply laugh/cry and enjoy/endure Maya. You can chart out their life reasonably accurately using their own horoscope’s patterns. Your horoscope shows your Prarabdha karma ie how much karma have you have decided to go through in this life. The body will continue till this target is achieved then dissolve. And the horoscope also shows the possibility of Agami karma, ie how new karma will be created in this life. (Sanchita karma is your total karmic backlog)

Some people who have done practices to increase their ‘awareness’ understand that they are not the body but are the pure Soul. These people know this as a concept but they have not experienced this in the real sense as yet. They are working on it, doing their regular spiritual practice with intention. These people are somewhat immune to the ravages of karma on the body, but they are still influenced by it. You might see this happening to yourself if you are a spiritual aspirant. eg you are committed to your spiritual practice and in one critical transit of Saturn or Rahu/Ketu or Jupiter (slow planets), you lose all your focus. The material beckons you again, you want to go out with your girlfriend/ boyfriend or you suddenly feel that spiritual path is going well so now it is time to enjoy some material comforts. Your Deha-buddhi or Maya tries to assert itself and to pull you away from your pursuit of Awareness. These are testing times, if you lose focus now, you slip very badly.

As you advance deeper into your spiritual practice, as you increase your awareness levels, you get nearer to the pure Soul Experience. As you reach closer to your destination, the karmic impacts lessen but the karmic tests become even more subtle. If you cross all these and Realise the Soul, you are called a Jivan-mukt. At this stage, you are pure Soul, your awareness, consciousness, intelligence has reached the highest possible position, this is called the Advaita state. You experience yourself continually. You are aware of yourself all the time, in every state, in every condition of the body, you remain immersed in Intelligence, you Know you are the Soul. At this state your Soul has removed the envelope Maya, dissolved the Deha-buddhi and Seen itself forever. The fog has cleared and the light shines through. Now the Soul may remain in the body till its prarabdha karma is exhausted, ie till the physical dissolution of the body. But during this period its Awareness is Eternal. During this period from Realisation to the death of the physical body, the Soul is completely dissociated from the karma of the body. Whatever may happen to the body, You are not concerned in any way whatsoever. And you are Pure Awareness now, you do not create any more karma, ie no Agami karma is created and Sanchita karma is burnt the instant you See yourself.

So in short, Soul is Awareness. When you experience yourself as the Pure Awareness, the Nirvishesh Brahma, you attain Nirgun Moksh.

Your conscience and your soul

The soul is located ‘behind’ the Ajnya chakra in a dedicated ‘ashta-padma-dala-chakra, ‘eight-petalled Lotus’ chakra. This is a specialised chakra, ie the Brahmanadi within the Sushumna nadi loops around itself here and creates this specific energy vertex. These loops are in all possible dimensions. The Hamsa Upanishad describes this chakra in detail. The Soul resides here in an energy form called ‘Hamsa‘. (This Hamsa is composed of the energies of Agni, Soma Rudra, Rudrani, Kaal, Om and Bindu.)

The possible eight tendencies of this chakra are – 1. doing virtuous actions, 2. sleep, laziness etc, 3. doing cruel actions, 4. doing inauspicious deeds, 5. sensual gratification, 6. doing movement type of activities, 7. indulging in lust/sexual desires and 8. desire for accumulating material stuff. These eight tendencies are linked to the eight loops of the chakra. ie when Soul/awareness is linked to a particular loop, tendencies linked to it are activated in the body. When awareness exists ‘between’ these loops, there is indifference to material pleasures, an ascetic mindset. The three states of existence, waking state, dreaming state, deep sleep state are linked to the central axis of this ‘lotus’, at the ‘stamen’, ‘basal sepals’ and ‘innermost seed’ of this ‘lotus’. The fourth state, Turiya is possible when the Awareness leaves this chakra. And the final Turiya-teet, the beyond Turiya, ie Moksh is possible when this Awareness merges itself in the Eternal Non-dual. The Upanishad says that 1crore jaap/ repeats of the Hamsa mantra lead to Moksh.

Your conscience and your soul

Where is the mind in our body?

There are 5 layers of the body. Physical body is anna-mai-kosh. Subtle body is the three layers of pran-mai-kosh, mano-mai-kosh and vidnyan-mai-kosh. Causal body is the anand-mai-kosh. Then is the Soul within these multiple layers. This complex is called a Jiv-atma, the individual soul, as it is enveloped in this body/karmic baggage.

Mind is the Mano-mai-kosh, which is concerned with mental processes and emotions. Here emotions are on a relatively low level as the power of discrimination does not exist in this layer. ie all living animals who can understand pain have this layer active in their bodies. This layer is a part of the subtle body, sookshma sharir, controlled by the Moon in your horoscope. When you physically die, the outermost layer, physical body, anna-mai-kosh is discarded. So when you exist in the Pitr-lok, the dimension of the spirits, your soul is enveloped by a 4-layered body. Imprints stored in these 4 layers require several life-times to be rebalanced. This is why you can gauge your past lives from your horoscope especially in the Sudarshan chakra format.

Its between you and your conscience

‘How do I know it is my higher self taking decisions in my day to day life happenings?’

A personal example. Quite a few years ago, I was suffering because of an intense black ritual done by someone to damage me. A very deep damage on all levels. So I was doing healings, taking help from genuinely kind tantriks, ie using ‘white magic’. The pain was very intense, recovery was slow and I was really very scared. Someone I trusted, almost a brother, offered to do a secret ritual to help me, he did not give me the details. I asked my brother for his opinion. He in good faith said to give it a shot. So despite not being very convinced myself, I agreed and that person did the ritual. My conscience was in doubt but in the temptation of hastening my recovery, I agreed to get it done. But this was not the correct way, I actually got scolded badly by a very high level divinity. Then I suffered through these additional karmic repercussions. And it was a burden on my conscience. I had asked my brother for his opinion, the person who did it was genuine, they both wanted the best for me. But the final decision was mine, I had agreed despite the doubt raised by my conscience. Thus I suffered through the karma, I had regrets and felt very ashamed. So whoever might suggest something to you, however tempting it maybe, if your higher self/ Antaratma/ conscience is in doubt, it will come to a bad end. And it is your decision, so you alone are responsible for what happens to you.

The inner light of your Soul is your conscience, the Antar-atma. If you are doing spiritual practice, stilling your mind and emotions, the voice of your conscience is all the more audible.

Suppose you are in a situation and you have to choose between options. Naturally you will have evaluated the material aspects of both the options in depth. You know what will give you your desired material results. Now you put it to your conscience. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Focus between your eyebrows, look in your third eye. Do some Pranayam. Recite Soham (or any other mantra you prefer) a few times with your breath in your mind, manasik jaap. Still your emotions and your scattered thoughts. Then gently think about the option you propose to take. Do you feel right about it? What kind of visions are triggered by this thought? Do you see a flash of bright happy colors, bright lights or depressed dark colors, blackness? Does your heart feel lighter or heavier. You might have physical signs like hair standing on end or feeling cold or a constriction at your throat or something. Your conscience will find some way and give you a sign that the action you chose is appropriate or not. And it will give you very clear signals. Once you have your answer do not ask your question again and again. And once you are clear about your decision, do not listen to others who might try to sway or convince you to go against your conscience. However tempting it may be do not go against your inner voice. This voice comes from your Soul itself.

I do not advocate using horoscope, runes, cards or any divination tools for these conscience related decisions. These divination tools are more linked to the sub-conscious mind. Sometimes cards show you what you consciously want to see, I have seen this happen several times. Or you choose to see those meanings in them which you desire on the material front. So you deceive yourself, attracted by the temporary gains you think you see.

(Classic example, you get 4 of Cups ‘Luxury’ in the Thoth tarot, for a relationship question. This card can show a potentially emotionally nurturing relationship but there is a very deep imbalance in it. This card indicates that you desire deep emotional fulfilment, but this relationship under question is the wrong way to go about it. This card represents temporary superficial attractiveness with an undercurrent of deep stagnation. You have deep emotional needs but you are aggravating the imbalance by desiring things which you don’t really need! This relationship in question is a dead end and you need to focus on something else which gives you real and deep emotional satisfaction. Now which Tarot reader has read so much into the energies of the cards to give this sort of interpretation? And the name ‘Luxury’ can tempt you to get into the relationship and then into emotional trouble later.)

Your conscience goes deeper than the conscious or the sub-conscious mind. It is your actual Soul showing you its Light. For a brief moment the Light of the Soul pierces through the enveloping fog and shows you the direction most appropriate for you. And finally you are responsible for your decisions, whatever happens to you, happens by your choice.

So Choose well.

Its between you and your conscience

Chakra Healing, stepwise

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Since I wrote on the possible risks involved in getting initiated in energy-healing modalities like Reiki, there was a question on how to safely self-heal. Your energy is a part of yourself. You can easily sense your chakras or manipulate your energies even without initiation of any sort. Self healing is generally intuitive but for newbies it can seem a bit confusing so here is a very simple step-wise process you can perform on yourself once a week or once a month or as you feel like.

Your mind is your most powerful tool. If you can do three things at once using the infinite ability of your mind, try healing yourself with your mind? Watching TV while eating dinner and simultaneously texting your bff is very routine. Challenge your mind! Ask it to become aware of your personal energy, the flow of your inner energy and if there is something doing wrong to fix it.

pexels-photo-414860-min.jpeg

Chakra healing

This is how you clean and energize your every individual chakra.

In your darkened room, preferably on your asan, in a yogic posture with your hands in the gnyan mudra (just as you would do to sit for doing Dhyan). Or if this is too much, sit as you feel comfortable. Just keep your head, neck and back aligned, do not slouch. (If you are a woman in your 5 days cycle or if pregnant, do not sit on your asan, sit somewhere else.)

Close your eyes. Call on your source of faith. Focus at the third eye chakra/ ajnya chakra, tell your mind to still itself, take a few deep breaths, recite your mantra etc for a few minutes. The Ajnya is always the focus chakra, you will always work through it.

Then ‘look’ internally at the lowest Muladhar chakra at the lowest tip of your spine where your legs join your body. You will see a reddish color here. With time you will see a reddish lotus like figure with four petals. Visualise pouring brilliant red light and flooding this region with its red energy. A light, transparent, rich, beautiful red color. As beautiful as you can visualise it. Visualise the ‘petals’ of the lotus getting longer, bigger, stronger, more vibrant as the red light washes over it. If you see any dirt, murkiness, brown/black stuff sticking here, clean it out. ‘Wash’ out this lotus in the red light. Spend some time admiring the beauty of this lotus, feel happy about everything here. With time you will also feel the whirring of the energy vertex here, it will be in the clockwise direction for men and women always. (Only in women, just for the 5-days of the cycle it will be anti-clockwise. Your chakras going anti-clockwise indicate physical destruction occurring in the body.) As you increase your focus, you will also sense the nadi-s from the chakra moving out from the chakra to the concerned organs. As this chakra controls the sense of smell you might briefly experience the ‘essence’ of smell-sense while you are focussed here. You might briefly sense a ‘solidity’ here. Take about 2 mins over this chakra. Infuse joy in every action you  perform in your energy work.

Now I have used words like ‘wash’, ‘clean-up’ etc. You can visualise your hands covered with shimmery energy, touching the chakra-petals. Visualise your hands washing this lotus under a flowing light. Or visualise brushing off the murky stuff using an actual brush. Do your visualisations as you feel comfortable.

Next bring your focus to the Swadhisthan chakra, 4 fingers below your navel. Here you will do the same thing as you did at the Muladhar, except you will wash this lotus-chakra with a beautiful orange color. It has 6 petals. I always see this lotus ‘underwater’. As your mind ripples with emotions, you will actually see these ripples moving over this area. Here there is a sense of coolness and also of strength.

The Manipur is at your solar plexus a golden yellow colored lotus with 10 petals. Do the same healing here. Pour golden yellow color over this lotus and make it radiant. This is the seat of fire so you might feel a warmth enveloping you as you do its energy-clean-up.

Focus at the Anahata and do its similar healing. It is exactly at the center of the line joining the nipples. It has 12 loops/petals and emerald green colored. Visualise this lotus petals taking in the energy of the Vayu/air. You might even sense a gust of air moving around you at this chakra.

Then the Vishuddhi chakra at your voice box, it is sky-blue in color, very attractive pleasing. This lotus has 16 petals looping around it. The petals are like transparent overlays, soft glowy light and very ethereal. They move with a very gentle swaying motion, its very beautiful soothing. This chakra is also to be healed same as the rest. As you expand its energies you might feel ligher, more subtle, more vast like the Akash/ ether.

And back to Ajnya chakra, the middle of the eyebrows, a dark violet lotus with only 2 petals. Heal this too. As you clean and refresh your chakras, all their associated nadi/ vital energy channels will feel the positive effects. Thus your energy body as a whole will be rejuvenated.

Give about 2 mins to each chakra. You are supposed to just ‘wash’ them with their associated light and try to feel them getting all glowy, shimmery and radiant. This is all that you should do.

In this state of mental relaxation coupled with deep focus, if you look upwards at the top of your head, you will see your Sahasrara chakra too. Do not attempt to ‘heal’ this or try to manipulate it in any way. If you are doing your regular spiritual practice, then you will see this chakra as a lovely ethereal flower with infinite, long ‘petals’, curling and curving around as if in a gentle water current. They are pearly shimmery utterly beautiful. If you ‘look’ at this especially after doing your Dhyan, they stretch forever, they are then infinite in length and number.

Colors of the Aura

Specific organ healing

Now part 2 of the healing process. If you are suffering from some medical condition, you can direct a flow of silvery-golden light to this body part. Even if you are quite healthy, there might be some small injury to your body maybe a sprain or a backache or your eyes may feel tired after staring at the computer screens through out the day? Try this. Visualise your back covered with a golden-silvery healing cocoon. ‘Wash’ your back with this shimmery light, try to feel it covered with golden silvery pearly sort of a radiance. While doing the healing, you might see specks of darkness/ greyness in your back. So if you have a very good control over your mind then you can try this visualisation. Imagine two glowing magnetic orbs on the front and back of your body. Visualise that these orbs are now attracting the grey/black negativity. Their magnetic pull is pulling the grey specks out of the back into themselves. Now send these orbs as far away from you as you can and visualise a beautiful golden fire consuming them. If you do this regularly, just for 2 mins, your back will ache less with time.

Then if you ever get caught in an emergency situation, eg an accident or surgery etc, and you are in intense pain. You cannot focus your mind. So first visualise an envelope of a beautiful transparent emerald green light covering your entire body. This will reduce the pain faster, so that your mind will soon be able to recover and focus on the healing. Then focus your mind on the damaged body part and intend healing as above. As always contact a medical professional after you do your SOS with the energy.

The washing cycle!

Clean out your entire body with the power of your mind and intention. Literally wash it out. This is how you do it. Visualise half a glass of pure water in your hand. (eg Ganga water or any other pure spring water). Now top up the glass with silvery-gold shimmery energy. Mix the water and the energy in the glass. Visualise the water and the energy mixing completely and you have a glass full of highly pure water charged with a high level of shimmery energy. Visualise yourself drinking this water/energy. See it entering your stomach, intestines, liver, entering your blood, the organs in your abdomen, ovary/testes, pancreas, adrenals, your chest, your lungs, your neck, thyroid, head, hands, feet etc. Visualise it entering the important endocrine glands etc. Visualise that it cleans out the organs and removes all the negative material, toxic influences, foreign stuff etc. When it finishes this clean-up intend that the energy-water moves out through the kidneys and the bowel.

Be prepared for rather intensive bowel and urine movements over the next few hours. Drink a lot of water during these few hours and eat simple light food, no non-veg, no alcohol, no stimulants. Plan this energy-water washing-out on your holiday. This is quite an intense experience so you should do this once in 3-6 months.

Everything you do is powered by your focussed intention. So if you do some spiritual practice you will see faster and more visible results. Spiritual practice is anything that stills your chattering mind and allows you to focus. This focus point is always your third eye chakra. Even Silence can be a very effective focussing tool. Follow whichever practice which appeals to you for 21 days and see the difference in your ability to focus and intend.

Your mind is your most powerful tool, and a tool needs to be used. If you don’t, it will rust and spoil. Then later re-activating it will require more effort. We have let our minds rust for too long. So a tiny regular practice is essential, slowly you will hone your mind and then use it, for restoring your health and energy.

Kundalini and the Shatchakra

Working in the Psychic realms

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The psychic world is all about mind, intention and the energy that you drive your intention with. If you are able to visualise clearly and have the energy to power it with, you will be a success in any psychic activity you undertake.

Are rituals and ceremonies important? There are several books on ‘ceremonial magic’ (eg Goetic spirits). All rituals are designed to make your mind work in a specific direction. If you control your mind, you control everything. Ceremonial magic is a short-cut which diverts you from the main thing which is strengthening your mind. Eg in some rituals your mind is stilled by using essential oils, incense, etc. These are effective and do work. If you are just starting with this you should use the rituals. But do realise that these are tools. Use the tools if you want, but never get dependant on them.

Focus on your mind, train your mind and you wont need to use physical tools. Your mind is your most important tool. Invest time in Dhyan, this is all important as the mental strength you develop carries with you in your next lives too. The time spent on spiritual practice is an investment. If you invest in ceremonial magic and rituals instead and ignore your mind, you will sooner or later be in psychic trouble.

A single puff of marijuana will definitely calm the mind and increase focus (More than one puff will fry your brain and down your spiritual potential). But why remain dependant on this external factor? It is more advisable, safer and more long-term if you can achieve this state of mind without the chemical intake. Do your regular Dhyan, and within 6 months you will get immune to all substances which give a ‘high’. The mental stillness produced in Dhyan is more deep than anything that any substance can produce. Avoid chemicals, these damage eventually.

Is group activity better? Another thing I have seen is that some people prefer working in a group rather than alone. This, in my opinion, is very dangerous. When you do anything connected to the astral, you are required to be very alert all the time. It is your mind, intentions and your energy. You should be quite aware of your own strengths and weaknesses. You should not venture into more than you can handle. The astral is not a place to take risks in.

A group is just as strong as its weakest member. There are so many variables, so many minds involved. Why link up with others minds so intimately? You do not know what karmic baggage your other group members are under. You cannot be certain when their mind/ intention/ energy will crack under the strain. Why should you put yourself in this uncertainty? When you are in the psychic states, your deepest buried emotions, feelings, experiences come out to challenge you. Why put your safety in the hands of others? Spiritual ability is affected by several things, the worst being intake of alcohol and drugs, the tiniest bit will put the person out of balance. You do not know the deepest background of your group-members, so group-activity is a needless risk.

The best way is to learn from a proper teacher and then do your psychic stuff alone. You can take guidance from others but ultimately all this is between you and your mind.

Using the Ida and Pingala

Another thing is entrainment of the mind. If, in your group, one member has very good control over his mind/intention/energy, he will dominate everyone else. It is not always a conscious domination, it is just that a weaker mind ‘follows’ a stronger one automatically. (I have written a post on this) This is bad for the person with the weaker mind. He loses his individuality and sort of resembles the other like a shadow or something faded. If the person with the strongest mind is not malevolent, the drain on the others will be less. But if he is actively unscrupulous he can drain the others without any effort at all. Now this drain can work the other way round too, with the weakest member requesting energy on the astral levels and you giving it to him. Both these cases would be a type of subtle psychic attack.

Then during such group activity involving the astral, if one of the group members is not trust-worthy, he can insert suggestions into the minds of the others. This is a sort of a hypnotic suggestion which can germinate later and cause problems. This is, in short, a malevolent psychic attack. If you are used to participating in a group, take 21 days off, do not contact your group members. Cut the energy cords and relax. If you feel better and more energetic after this time period, it means that the group was draining your energy. Avoid any psychic activity or spiritual activity in groups. A very big No to any sort of common group meditations.

Anything that you do with your mind/ intention/ energy is strictly a personal process. No one else should even see you while you are performing it. Shut the door to your room while you do your Dhyan and other spiritual practices too.

Now telepathic links are different. If I want to get the attention of my brothers (We Indians address cousins also as ‘brothers’.), I simply think of him, call his name and visualise my heart/Anahat chakra amplifying this energy of thought. This draws his attention immediately. He receives my thought-call via his third eye chakra. We can then exchange thoughts, energy, healing etc.

It is your mind and your wish. You are in charge, remember this always. Whatever you call with your intention, you can dismiss it with your intention equally easily. If you have created it you are capable of destroying it. If by chance or ill-luck you have got yourself into a situation, you have the potential to get out of it too. Just clear your mind and focus.

It is important to have a source of faith which acts a source of energy for you. All Hindus/ followers of Sanatan Dharma, are required to recite the Gayatri Mantra for just this reason, it is a source of unlimited energy. Another useful mantra is the Nav-avarna mantra. (Btw Sanskrit Mantras are also tools but tools made from conscious intelligent energy). If you do Jaap of such a mantra, the energy remains available to you in all states. If you get stuck, you can literally throw the mantra’s energy at your opponent and escape. During your regular spiritual practice make it a point to make one mantra your own. Pull the energy of the mantra deep into yourself so that you can use it when ever you want. (A few nights ago there was a particularly nasty entity waiting at the gate of my house for me and wouldn’t leave. I got rid of it, then recited the entire Tantroka Ratri Sukta over myself. All this in my dream state. You can programme your mind and then sleep. You will do whatever you had intended in the dream state. This ability is very useful). One thing which happens with regular spiritual practice is that the awake state and the dream state or the active astral states become seamless. You retain complete awareness during all these states. The only time when you really rest and rejuvenate is when you are in the deep sleep/ sushupti state.

The astral realms and the energies of the psyche are different to what we normally experience in our physical life. Some people can access these easily while some are completely unaware of them. You will be drawn to these only if your karmic balance is linked to it. But it always helps to be aware of things. Your psychic energy is very precious, be very careful with it.

 

24 Tattva, essences of existence

Of the Sun and the Moon

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I have always wondered why we Indians focus on the Moon sign more and the western civilisation is into Sun signs.

Personally when I get a horoscope chart, my order of preference is, first check out the birth Moon sign then the ascendant sign and its lord, then a quick analysis of the 4 triangles/ trikon. Analysing the Sun would be after this, sort of clubbed with all the other planetary forces. To counsel someone, I need to know first and foremost what sort of mind this client has. If I know his mind, then I know how to talk to him. Then the ascendant stuff gives me his personality, his environment and how he fits in into his environment. The 4 trikon are a sort of a summary report of the four aspects of life (foundation, meaning, desire and exit). Then the rest of the planets a quick once-over all of them. This takes about 5 mins and then I am ready for detailed Q & A with the client.

Finally realised that this basic Sun/Moon, India/West divide is real and it drives the thought process of an entire set of people. The Moon is more inclusive, mild, receptive, introspective and cooler. Sun is more heated-up, self-referential, genius, focussed outwards and always on the move.

Of the Sun and the Moon

The Sun is self-ego, your individuality. Your personal jivatma/soul is represented by the Sun, your personal spark of the Divine. We are all Parabrahma/Ultimate ourselves. Why are we here then, apparently separated from our Reality? It is because of the Sun! The Sun’s energy represents our first initial split from the Ultimate. The Sun is derived from the Matrika named Braahmi the ruler of the topmost Sahasrara chakra. This Sun of your horoscope is the closest you are to the Ultimate but because of the light of self-ego is so bright that it is impossible to look behind it and see the Ultimate.

Sun represents the father, and yes he represents the divine spark/soul that we recieve from the Ultimate Father/Parabrahma. He is the creative potential that we have within us.

Now Saturn is called Ravinandan/ Son of the Sun, but ‘nandan’ has a lot of interesting meanings, one of which is ‘intelligence’. (Ravi also means ‘churning’, it is also a reference to the Samudra manthan story, will write more on this later). So ‘Ego’ is the father/creator of karma. You do an action with the tag, ‘I did this’ and it gets registered as karma, good/bad, in your balance book. Saturn’s energy resides at the lowest Muladhar chakra, produced by the Matrika Chaamundaa. Your entire existence, your energy structure is thus between the Sun/ego and his son, Saturn/ karma.

(Ever wonder what is inside our star, the Sun? Our scientists have lot of data about the Sun’s surface but nothing definite about its interior. The interior of the ball of energy/Sun does not exist in the dimension we live in.)

Of the Sun and the Moon

Now the Moon, the other luminary, he is the sum total of all your lives, (past, present, future, parallel), all the experiences, everyone you have been, is the Moon. He is your mind, the deepest recesses. This ‘Moon’ energy is produced by the Ajnya chakra by the Matrika named Maaheshwari. The Moon decides how you function in this life. He allocates the vital energy/pran to your gross body when awake and to the subtle body when you are asleep. He ensures that you are on the job completing your karma even when you travel astrally.

In the Vedic stories/allegories he is the husband/’pati’ of the 27 lunar mansions/nakshatra. 33 types of energies bind the jivatma/individual soul thus create our ‘body’ in time and space. Now ‘pati’ in Sanskrit is not merely ‘husband’, it means – honor of, responsible to, going with, owner of, possessor of, protector of, ruler of, male spouse of etc. ‘Pati’, is the energy which ‘enters and causes change’. Thus the Moon’s energies are responsible for all the change that occurs in our existence. The Moon takes the potential/energy offered by the Sun/individual soul and puts it to use. He is the way we look at our world, thus he creates our world, he is our perception.

The Moon represents security, emotional comfort, nutrition and the things which protect you. Try to see these the keywords now in energy. Devi ensures that the construct created by her remains protected, the body remains manifested, pran is distributed to the lower chakras, the mind remains engrossed in the objects, mind finds security in the physical universe, the the lens of perception is not open, the true reality does not intrude, the veil remains in place. And when your soul wants to Know its reality, she again teaches through life events, experiences and deep knowledge till you are ready to enter the Brahmanadi and then she guides. The mind will stop its frantic work, of maintaining the construct. Finally the Moon will stop allocating pran to the lower chakras and energise only the upper chakras of the head, this state is called samadhi.

Moon in popular imagination represents the Mother which is quite true, he represents the Devi, the Mother of Creation. Moon reflects the light of the Sun, true! He is thus the reflected light of the Internal Sun. The sixteen phases of the Moon are the 16 Kala which give rise to the vibrations/seed sounds of the Sanskrit language i.e. the seeds of creation (have written about it in an earlier post).

Jyotish is the Science of Illumination so has these energy/spiritual aspects too. The ultimate objective of Jyotish is also to make you realise Yourself. You can do this only when your karmic balance is balanced. So from this point of view, in the chart, the Moon is more important than the Sun.

Only when you understand the Moon/the Creation in your chart, will the Sun/the Creator make any sense.

 

I didn’t t think this post would get technical all over again. But I hope it was intelligible. Will continue on the self-improvement posts again, as one of my readers pointed out writing about to-do things is better as it actually helps. Esoteric stuff is ok but just once in a while! 😉 

 

Practicing Tratak using Shri Yantra

astrologerbydefault2 Comments

Tratak is a very simple and common exercise used to train the mind to remain absolutely still and without thoughts. This is how you do it.

On a white paper take a print of the Shriyantra. (preferably a line diagram) This is the energy geometry of your own self, use this always for any mediation etc where you need a focus point. While choosing an image to print remember that the central triangle is perfectly equilateral and the central dot/Bindu is in its exact center. Mark the central dot with a pen to make it clearly visible (If you use this image below, shade in the central dot completely and dark black.)shri yantra black and whiteDecide where you will sit, be comfortable. Paste this paper on the wall a few feet away from your seat at the eye level. Now steadily gaze at the central dot/Bindu without blinking your eyes, till your eyes start tearing up. When it becomes too much, close your eyes, you will see the after image of the dot and the geometry in your closed eyes. Then again open your eyes and stare at the dot without blinking. Repeat this exercise till you can stare for longer and longer times. The after-image in your closed eyes will become stronger and stronger and eventually the entire Yantra will remain imprinted in your closed eyes as an after image. (If you can sit in on your asan in a yogic posture like Siddhasan or Padmasan it will be faster, if you cannot for some reason, that also is ok.)

Here you are training your internal geometry also. You are showing your energy how it looks in its perfectly balanced state. You should do this steady gazing/Tratak as much as you can, start for one minute a day and gradually increase it. (One of my friends used to do this for hours and hours when we were children in school!) Soon your personal energy will start entraining itself with the Shri yantra geometry and resonating with it. Later you will also see how the 2-D paper geometry changes, becomes deeper adding more depth and dimensions to it. It is a wonderful experience!

When you do Dhyan and search for the gold/silver – flame/point of the third eye chakra within yourself, the forces of aakshep and vikshep interfere and push/pull your focus away from that specific point. (Aakshep means the energy which tosses aside, throws away with force, presents a challenge i.e. the tossing mind. Vikshep is the wandering mind, it means to scatter, to repel (exactly like same pole magnets), to disperse.)

If you have practiced doing Tratak on the Shriyantra these forces will be overcome faster and you will be able to access the opening of the Brahmanadi faster. And it is such a simple exercise!

 

Pranayam, the basic 3 methods

 

(Got this Comment on the contact form: Hello, I live in the USA. I grew up Christian but I am interested in the Indian Spirituality. It is difficult finding an Indian friend here because most live in India. Many times I have questions. Would you be interested in giving me direction when I have questions/maybe we can connect on facebook or email?? Your English is good! :).. 

Hi there, I do not interact individually on fb/ email but if you have questions you can ask, and if I know the answer, I will respond. You can ask on this blog in any of the comment forms under the posts. 🙂