Chapter 3: Understanding the Chakras and Kundalini

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‌Chapter 3: Understanding the Chakras and Kundalini

No theoretical knowledge ever helps and no anatomical visualization of kundalini is really meaningful for meditation. When I say this, I do not mean that there is nothing like kundalini or chakras. Kundalini is there, the chakras are there, but no knowledge helps in any way. Rather, it can hinder. It can become a barrier for so many reasons.

One reason is that any knowledge about kundalini or about esoteric paths of bioenergy – the inner paths of elan vital – is generalized. It differs from individual to individual; the root is not going to be the same. With A it will be one thing, with B it will be different, with C it will be different. Your inner life has an individuality, so when you acquire something through theoretical knowledge it is not going to help – it may hinder – because it is not about you. It cannot be about you. You will only know about yourself when you go within. There are chakras, but the number differs with each individual. One may have seven, one may have nine; one may have more, one may have less. That is the reason why so many different traditions have developed. Buddhists talk of nine chakras, Hindus talk of seven, Tibetans talk of four – and they are all

right!

The root of kundalini, the passage through which kundalini passes, is also different with each individual. The more you go in, the more individual you are. For instance, your face is the most individual part of your body, and in the face the eyes are even more individual. The face is more alive than any other part of the body; that is why it takes on an individuality. You may not have noticed that with a particular age – particularly with sexual maturity – your face begins to assume a shape that will continue, more or less, for the whole life. Before sexual maturity the face changes much, but with sexual maturity your individuality is fixed and given a pattern, and now the face will be more or less the same.

The eyes are even more alive than the face, and they are so individual that they change every moment. Unless one attains enlightenment, the eyes are never fixed. Enlightenment is another kind of maturity.

With sexual maturity the face becomes fixed, but there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed. You cannot see any change in Buddha’s eyes: his body will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change. Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same.

Eyes are expressive of the inner world.

But kundalini is still deeper.

No theoretical knowledge is helpful. When you have some theoretical knowledge, you begin to impose it on yourself. You begin to visualize things to be the way you have been taught, but they may not correspond to your individual situation. Then much confusion is created.

One has to feel the chakras, not know about them. You have to feel; you have to send feelers inside yourself. Only when you feel your chakras, and your kundalini and its passage, is it helpful; otherwise, it is not helpful. In fact, knowledge has been very destructive as far as the inner world is concerned. The more knowledge gained, the less the possibility of feeling the real, the authentic, things.

You begin to impose what you know upon yourself. If someone says, “Here is the chakra, here is the center,” then you begin to visualize your chakra at that spot; and it may not be there at all. Then you will create imaginary chakras. You can create; the mind has the capacity. You can create imaginary chakras, and then, because of your imagination, a flow will begin that will not be kundalini but will be simple imagination – a completely illusory, dreamlike phenomenon.

Once you can visualize centers and can create an imaginary kundalini, then you can create everything. Then imaginary experiences will follow, and you will develop a very false world inside you. The world that is without is illusory, but not as illusory as the one you can create inside.

All that is within is not necessarily real or true, because imagination is also within, dreams are also within. The mind has a faculty – a very powerful faculty – to dream, to create illusions, to project. That is why it is good to proceed in meditation completely unaware of kundalini, of the chakras. If you stumble upon them, then it is good. You may come to feel something; only then, ask. You may begin to feel a chakra working, but let the feeling come first. You may feel energy rising up, but let the feeling come first. Do not imagine, do not think about it, do not make any intellectual effort to understand beforehand; no pre-notion is needed. Not only is it not needed, but it is positively harmful.

And another thing: kundalini and the chakras do not belong to your anatomy, to your physiology. The chakras and kundalini belong to your subtle body, to your sukshma sharira, not to this body, the gross body. Of course, there are corresponding spots. The chakras are part of your sukshma sharira, but your physiology and anatomy have spots that correspond to them. If you feel an inner chakra, only then can you feel the corresponding spot; otherwise

you can dissect the whole body, but nothing like chakras will be found.

All the talk and all the so-called evidence and all the scientific claims that your gross body has something like kundalini and chakras is nonsense, absolute nonsense. There are corresponding spots, but those spots can only be felt when you feel the real chakras. With the dissection of your gross body, nothing can be found; there is nothing. So the question is not of anatomy.

One more thing: it is not necessary to pass through the chakras. It is not necessary; one can just bypass them. It is also not necessary that you will feel kundalini before enlightenment. The phenomenon is very different from what you may think. Kundalini is not felt because it is rising; kundalini is only felt if you do not have a very clear passage. If the passage is completely clear-cut, then the energy flows but you cannot feel it.

You feel it when there is something there that resists the flow. If the energy flows upward and you have blocks in the passage, only then do you feel it. So the person who feels more kundalini is really blocked: there are many blocks in the passage, so the kundalini cannot flow.

When there is resistance, then the kundalini is felt. You cannot feel energy directly unless there is resistance. If I move my hand and there is no resistance, the movement will not be felt. The movement is felt because the air resists, but it is not felt as much as when a stone resists; then I will feel the movement more. And in a vacuum I will not feel the movement at all – so it is relative.

Buddha never talked about kundalini. It is not that there was no kundalini in his body, but the passage was so clear that there was no resistance. Thus, he never felt it. Mahavira never talked about kundalini. Because of this, a very false notion was created, and then Jainas, who followed Mahavira, thought that kundalini was all nonsense, that there was nothing like it. Thus, because Mahavira himself did not feel kundalini, twenty-five centuries of Jaina tradition has continued to deny it, claiming it does not exist. But Mahavira’s reason for not talking about it was very different. Because there were no blocks in his body, he never felt it.

So it is not necessary for you to feel kundalini. You may not feel it at all. And if you do not feel kundalini, then you will bypass the chakras, because the working of the chakras is needed only to break the blocks. Otherwise, they are not needed.

When there is a block, and the kundalini is blocked, then the nearby chakra begins to move because of the blocked kundalini. It becomes dynamic. The chakra begins to move because of the blocked kundalini and it moves so fast that, because of the movement, a particular energy is created which breaks the block.

If the passage is clear, no chakra is needed and you will never feel anything. Really, the existence of chakras is just to help you. If kundalini is blocked, then the help is just nearby. Some chakra will take the energy that is being blocked. If the energy cannot move further it will fall back. Before it falls back, the chakra will absorb the energy completely, and the kundalini will move in the chakra. Through movement the energy becomes more vital, it becomes more alive, and when it again comes to the block it can break it. So it is just an arrangement, a help.

If kundalini moves and there are no blocks, then you will never feel any of the chakras. That is why someone may feel nine chakras, someone else may feel ten chakras, and someone else may feel only three or four, or one, or none. It depends. In actual fact, there are infinite chakras and at every movement, every step of the kundalini, a chakra is by the side to help. If the help is needed, it can be given.

That is why I insist that a theoretical acquaintance is not helpful. And meditation as such is not really concerned with kundalini at all. If kundalini comes, that is another thing – but meditation has nothing to do with it. Meditation can be explained without even mentioning kundalini; there is no need. And by mentioning kundalini it creates even more conflicts to explaining meditation. Meditation can be explained directly; you need not bother about chakras, you begin with meditation. If the passage is blocked you may come to feel kundalini, and chakras will be there, but that is completely nonvoluntary. You must remember that it is nonvoluntary; your volition is not needed at all.

The deeper the path, the more nonvoluntary. I can move my hand – this is a voluntary path – but I cannot move my blood. I can try. Years and years of training can make a person capable of making the blood circulation voluntary – hatha yoga can do that; it has been done, it is not impossible, but it is futile. Thirty years of training just to control the movement of the blood is meaningless and stupid because with the control comes nothing. The blood circulation is nonvoluntary; your will is not needed. You take in food and the moment it goes in, your will is not needed: the body machinery, the body mechanism, has taken over, and it goes on doing whatever is needed. Your sleep is not voluntary, your birth is not voluntary, your death is not voluntary. These are nonvoluntary mechanisms.

Kundalini is still deeper, deeper than your death, deeper than your birth, deeper than your blood, because kundalini is a circulation of your second body. Blood is the circulation of your physiological body; kundalini is the circulation of your etheric body. It is absolutely nonvoluntary; even a hatha yogi cannot do anything with it voluntarily.

One has to go into meditation, then the energy begins to move. The part that is to be done by you is meditation. If you are deeply in in it, then the inner energy begins to move upward, and you will feel the change of flow. It will be felt in so many ways: the change can even be known physiologically.

For example, ordinarily, biologically, it is a sign of good health for your feet to be warm and your head to be cool. Biologically it is a healthy sign. When the reverse occurs – the feet become cool and the head becomes warm – a person is ill. But the same thing happens when the kundalini flows upward: the feet become cool.

Really, the warmth in the feet is nothing but sex energy flowing downward. The moment the vital energy, the kundalini, begins to flow upward, sex energy follows. It begins to flow upward: the feet become cool and the head becomes warm. Biologically it is better for the feet to be warmer than the head, but spiritually it is healthier for the feet to be cooler because this is a sign that the energy is flowing upward.

Many diseases may begin to occur once the energy begins to flow upward, because biologically you have disturbed the whole organism. Buddha died very ill, Mahavira died very ill, Raman Maharshi died with cancer; Ramakrishna died with cancer. And the reason is that the whole biological system is disturbed. Many other reasons are given, but they are nonsense.

Jainas have created many stories because they could not conceive that Mahavira could have been ill. For me, the contrary is the case: I cannot conceive how he could have been completely healthy. He couldn’t be, because this was going to be his last birth, and the whole biological system had to break down. A system that had been continuous for millennia had to break down. He could not be healthy; in the end he had to be very ill. And he was! But it was very difficult for his followers to conceive that Mahavira was ill.

There was only one explanation for illness in those days. If you were suffering from a particular disease, it meant your karmas your past deeds, had been bad. If Mahavira was suffering from a disease, then it would have meant that he was still under his karmic influence. This could not be so, so an ingenious story was invented: that Goshalak, a competitor of Mahavira, was using evil forces against him. But this was not the case at all.

The biological, natural flow is downward; the spiritual flow is upward. And the whole organism is meant for a downward flow.

You may begin to feel many changes in the body, but the first changes will come in the subtle body. Meditation is just the means to create a bridge from the gross to the subtle. When I say meditation, I mean only that: if you can jump out of your gross body – that is what is meant by meditation. But to take

this jump you will need the help of your gross body; you will have to use it as a stepping-stone.

From any extreme point, you can take the jump. Fasting has been used to take one to an extreme. With long, continuous fasting, you come to the verge. The human body can ordinarily sustain a ninety-day fast, but then, the moment the body is completely exhausted, the moment the reservoir that has been accumulated for emergencies has been depleted – at that moment, one of two things is possible. If you do nothing, death may occur, but if you use this moment for meditation, the jump may occur.

If you do not do anything, if you just go on fasting, death may occur. Then it will be suicide. Mahavira, who experimented more deeply with fasting than anyone else in the whole history of human evolution, is the only man who allowed his followers a spiritual suicide. He called it santhara: that on-the- verge point when both things are possible. In a single moment, you may either die or you can jump. If you use a technique, you can jump; then, Mahavira says, it is not suicide, but a very great spiritual explosion. Mahavira was the only man – the only one – who has said that if you have the courage, even suicide can be used for your spiritual progress.

From any point on the verge, the jump is possible. Sufis have used dancing. A moment comes in dancing when you begin to feel unearthly. With a real Sufi dancer, even the audience begins to feel unearthly. Through body movements, rhythmic movements, the dancer soon begins to feel that he is different from the body, separate from the body. One has to begin the movement but soon a nonvoluntary mechanism of the body takes over.

You begin, but if the end is also yours then the dancing was just ordinary dancing. But if you begin and by the end you feel as if somewhere in between the dancing was taken over by a nonvoluntary mechanism, then it has become a dervish dance. You move so fast that the body shakes and becomes nonvoluntary.

That is the point where you can go crazy or you can jump. You may go mad, because a nonvoluntary mechanism has taken over your body movement. It is beyond your control: you cannot do anything. You may just go mad and never be able to come back again from this nonvoluntary movement. This is the point where there is either madness or, if you know the technique to jump, meditation.

That is why Sufis have always been known as mad people. They have been known as mad. Ordinarily, they are mad. There is also a sect in Bengal that is just like the Sufis: Baul fakirs. They move from village to village dancing and singing. The very word baul means bawla, mad. They are people who are mad.

Madness happens many times, but if you know the technique, then meditation can happen. It always happens on the verge; that is why mystics have always used the term “the sword’s edge.” Either madness may happen or meditation may happen, and every method uses your body as a sword’s edge from which either one or the other is possible.

Then what is the technique to jump into meditation? I have talked about two: fasting and dancing. All techniques of meditation are to push you to the verge where you can take the jump, but the jump itself can be taken only through a very simple, very non-methodical method.

If you can be aware at the very moment when fasting has led you to the precipice of death, if you can be aware at the moment when death is going to set in, if you can be aware, then there is no death. And not only is there no death this time, then there is no death forever. You have jumped! When the moment is so intense that you know in one second it will be beyond you, when you know that should a second be lost you will not be able to come back again, be aware – and then jump. Awareness is the method. And because awareness is the method, Zen people say that there is no method. Awareness is not a method at all. That is why Krishnamurti will go on saying that there is no method.

Of course, awareness is not really a method at all; but I still call it a method because if you cannot be aware, then at the exact moment that the jump is possible, you will be lost. So if someone says, “Only awareness will do,” that may be true for one out of ten thousand people, but that one will be one who has come to the point where either madness is possible or death is possible. He has come to that point anyway.

And with the others, the majority of people, just talking about awareness will not do. First, they must be trained. To be aware in ordinary situations will not do. And you cannot be aware in ordinary situations. The mind’s stupidity has such a long history – the lethargy of it, the laziness of it, the unconsciousness of it, has been going on for so long, that just by hearing Krishnamurti or me or anyone else you can never hope to be aware. And it will be difficult to be aware of those same things that you have done without awareness so many times.

You have come to your office completely unaware that you have been moving: you have turned, you have walked, you have opened the door. For your whole life you have been doing it. Now it has become a nonvoluntary mechanism; it has been removed from your consciousness completely.

Then Krishnamurti says, “Be aware when you are walking.” But you have been walking without ever being aware. The habit has set in so deeply, it has become a part of the bones and blood; now it is very difficult.

You can only be aware in emergencies, in sudden emergencies. Someone puts a gun to your chest: you can be aware because it is a situation that you have never practiced. But if you are familiar with the situation, you will not be aware at all.

Fasting is to create an emergency, and such an emergency as you have never known. So one who has been practicing fasting may not be helped through it; he will need longer periods to fast. Or, if you have never danced, you can be helped easily through dancing; but if you are an expert dancer, Sufi dervish dancing will not do. It will not do at all because you are so perfect, so efficient, and efficiency means that the thing is now being done by the nonvoluntary part of the mind. Efficiency always means that.

That is why one hundred and twelve methods of meditation have been developed. One may not do for you; another may. And the one which will be most helpful is the one which is completely unknown to you. If you have never been trained in a particular method at all, then an emergency is created very soon. And in that emergency, be aware!

So be concerned with meditation and not with kundalini. And when you are aware, things will begin to happen in you. For the first time you will become aware of an inner world that is greater, vaster, more extensive than the universe; energies unknown, completely unknown, will begin to flow in you. Phenomena never heard of, never imagined, or dreamed of, will begin to happen. But with each person they differ, so it is good not to talk about them.

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