Chakra

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Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) at Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia.
File:Lord of Gods Vishnu.jpg
Painting of Vishnu, Shrimad Bhagavata Mahapurana by MahaMuni, Gita Press Gorakhpur.

Chakras (from Sanskrit: m., चक्र cakra, [ʧʌkɽʌ], literally: "wheel, discus, circle"), are organs of the astral body. They are also called lotus flowers, derived from the sacred Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), because they show themselves to the clairvoyant gaze in a circular, flower-like form, which justifies their name. In modern man they stand still, but can be set in motion through spiritual training. In the advanced clairvoyant they rotate clockwise and thus open up to him the view into the spiritual world. Modern clairvoyance is associated with strict thought control.

In the Atlantean age, the lotus flowers were still mobile, in the Lemurian period they even moved very violently, but turned counterclockwise. This is also the case with today's mediums with atavistic clairvoyance. The clairvoyance of mediums, however, is an unconscious one that is not subject to thought control (Lit.:GA 94, p. 173).

Chakra or Sudarshana Chakra (Sanskrit: सुदर्शन चक्र sudarśana cakra, roughly: "easily visible wheel" or "auspicious wheel") is also the name given to the throwing disc of the Hindu god Vishnu, which, along with the mace (gada), the conch shell (shankha) and the lotus (padma), is one of his four essential insignia. Based on the Rigveda, in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism the spinning disk is considered a symbol of the wheel of time, for time running in recurring cycles, also called Kalachakra[1].

The system of the seven main chakras

There are seven main chakras and, in addition, numerous secondary chakras, e.g. in the hands, in which the 7 main chakras are reflected in a special way. The entire, closely interconnected system of main and minor chakras forms the so-called lotus tree. It corresponds to the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha received his enlightenment, but also to the fig tree cursed by Christ, which was meant to indicate that the time of atavistic clairvoyance has expired. The Prophet Muhammad also received his revelation through the Archangel Gabriel "Near Sidrat al-Muntaha (a lote tree of the utmost boundary over the seventh heaven beyond which none can pass)" (Quran 53:13-14)

Main chakras

The system of the seven main chakras, from bottom to top in Indian terms (colors according to Charles W. Leadbeater):
1. Muladhara
2. Svadhisthana
3. Nabhi-Manipura
4. Anahata
5. Vishuddhi
6. Ajna
7. Sahasrara.

In his lectures "Popular Occultism" (Lit.:GA 94, p. 129ff) Rudolf Steiner described the system of the seven main chakras as follows:

„Seven such astral organs are distinguished. The first, the two-petalled lotus, is in the region of the root of the nose; the second, the sixteen-petalled, is at the level of the larynx; the third, the twelve-petalled, at the level of the heart; the fourth, the eight to ten-petalled, near the navel; the fifth, the six-petalled, a little lower down; the sixth, the four-petalled, still lower down, the swastika, which is connected with all that is fertilisation; the seventh cannot readily be spoken of. These six organs have the same significance for the soul world as the physical senses have for the perception of the sense world.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 173)

In oriental tradition the seventh lotus flower, of which Rudolf Steiner does not speak further here, is largely unanimously called the thousand-petalled lotus flower. It is located as the parietal chakra near the pineal gland. Its activity is revealed in the head aura of the human being, in the halo.

„One should not think of these organs as something that has an imprint of its reality in the imagination of its sensual image. These organs are precisely supersensuous and consist in a definite soul-activity; and they exist only in so far and so long as this soul-activity is practised. Something that can be seen as sensuous is as little in man with these organs as there is some "vapour" around him when he thinks. Whoever wants to imagine the supersensible in a thoroughly sensuous way gets into misunderstandings.“ (Lit.:GA 13, p. 345)

Not of Indian origin is the assignment of the rainbow colours to the chakras, which was only introduced in 1927 by Charles W. Leadbeater in his book "The Chakras".

Hand chakras

The hand chakras are important secondary chakras. On the one hand, they enable the seven main chakras to radiate their special qualities in a very differentiated way, on the other hand, they can also receive fine impulses from outside and make them perceptible. As far as is known, there is no information from Rudolf Steiner as to how the seven main chakras are reflected on the inner surfaces of the hands. It is generally assumed that the root chakra is mainly expressed on the inside of the wrist, and the crown chakra in the middle of the palm. The remaining 5 chakras are usually roughly assigned to the five fingers, although not always in a consistent manner. This is hardly surprising, as the chakra system is actually much more differentiated. Each finger receives effects from all 7 main chakras, of which it expresses one more and others less depending on the situation. A rigid classification does not do justice to the living essence of the hands, which is why this is also dispensed with here.

The hands of the human being are in the process of ascending development. They are destined to become new organs of thought on the New Jupiter (Lit.:GA 156, p. 80ff). Already today they are exceedingly fine sensitive organs of feeling. Frequent hand washing promotes this subtle sensitivity of the hands. Furthermore, they are also subtle organs of thought for destiny, karma (Lit.:GA 181, p. 94ff).

To the clairvoyant gaze, the hands appear as particularly wonderful entities. They emit etheric radiations through the fingers, the back of the hand and especially through the inner surfaces of the hands, which can have an invigorating, healing effect in people with a correspondingly high spiritual development. The hand chakras also play an essential role in this. This is the real basis of blessing and laying on of hands.

Foot chakras

The foot chakras reflect all seven main chakras on the soles of the feet in a similar way to the hand chakras on the inner surfaces of the hands, for example the root chakra in the heel area, the heart chakra in the middle of the sole of the foot and the crown chakra in the upper toe area.

The chakras as spiritual organs of perception

„The spiritual-soul organs, the lotus flowers, are formed in such a way that they appear to the supersensible consciousness in the person undergoing training as if they were near certain physical bodily organs. From the series of these soul organs, the following should be mentioned here: the one that is felt as if near the centre of the eyebrow (the so-called two-petalled lotus flower), the one in the region of the larynx (the sixteen-petalled lotus flower), the third in the region of the heart (the twelve-petalled lotus flower), the fourth in the region of the pit of the stomach. Other such organs appear near other physical parts of the body. (The names "two-" or "sixteen-petalled" can be used because the organs in question can be compared to flowers with the corresponding number of petals).

The lotus flowers become conscious in the astral body. At the moment when one has developed one or the other, one also knows that one has it. One feels that one can use them and that through their use one really enters a higher world. The impressions one receives from this world are in some respects still similar to those of the physical-sensual world. He who recognises imaginatively will be able to speak of the new higher world in such a way that he describes the impressions as sensations of warmth or cold, perceptions of sound or words, effects of light or colour. For he experiences them as such. But he is aware that these perceptions express something different in the imaginative world from what they do in the sensuous and real world. He recognises that behind them there are not physical-material causes, but spiritual-spiritual causes. If he has something like an impression of warmth, he does not, for example, attribute it to a hot piece of iron, but he regards it as the outflow of a mental process such as he has hitherto known only in his inner mental life. He knows that behind the imaginative perceptions there are spiritual things and processes, just as behind the physical perceptions there are material-physical beings and facts. - In addition to this similarity between the imaginative and the physical world, however, there is a significant difference. There is something in the physical world that appears quite differently in the imaginative. In the physical world, we can observe a continual coming into being and passing away of things, an alternation of birth and death. In the imaginative world, a continuous transformation of one into the other takes the place of this appearance. For example, in the physical world one sees a plant perish. In the imaginative world, to the same extent that the plant withers away, the emergence of another form appears, which is physically imperceptible and into which the dying plant gradually transforms itself. When the plant has disappeared, this structure is fully developed in its place. Birth and death are concepts that lose their meaning in the imaginative world. In their place comes the concept of the transformation of one into the other. - Because this is so, those truths about the essence of man which have been communicated in this book in the chapter "Essence of Humanity" become accessible for imaginative cognition. For physical-sensual perception only the processes of the physical body are perceptible. They take place in the "area of birth and death". The other members of human nature: the life body, the sentient body and the I are subject to the law of transformation, and their perception is opened up to imaginative cognition. He who has advanced to this realisation perceives how that which lives on with death in a different mode of existence dissolves, as it were, out of the physical body.“ (Lit.:GA 13, p. 258ff)

Just as physical sense organs are necessary for sensual perception, spiritual perception requires soul organs of perception. In humanity's present state of development, they are not active during our earthly life. When the human being discards his physical body - and thus also his physical senses - with death, they begin to awaken. However, they can also be put into activity during our earthly existence through specific spiritual training:

„These organs are the seven lotus flowers, chakras. Thus, at the root of the nose, between the eyebrows, the two-petalled lotus flower is formed. Clairvoyant artists have known this and given their works of art the symbol for it: Michelangelo formed his "Moses" with two horns. The lotus flowers are distributed in the following way:

the sixteen-petalled lotus flower near the larynx,
the twelve-petalled lotus near the heart,
the eight- or ten-petalled lotus near the pit of the stomach,
a six- and a four-petalled one are further down.

These astral organs can hardly be seen in the ordinary man of today, but when he becomes clairvoyant, or in a state of trance, they stand out sharply in vivid, luminous colours and move.

The moment the lotus flowers move, man perceives in the astral world. The difference between physical and astral organs is that the physical sense organs of man are passive; they allow everything to act upon them from outside. The eye, ear and so on are at first in a state of rest, they have to wait until something is offered to them, light, sounds and so on. The mental organs, on the contrary, are active, they embrace the object like a clamp. But this activity can only awaken when the powers of the astral body are not needed elsewhere; then, however, they flow into the lotus flowers. Even in Kamaloka, as long as the lower parts of the astral body are still connected with the human being, an opacity still takes place. But when the astral corpse is cast off and only that which is permanently acquired remains, that is, at the gate of Devachan, then these astral sense organs are awakened to full activity, and in Devachan man lives to a high degree consciously with these sense organs.“ (Lit.:GA 95, p. 42f)

The same astral forces that refresh the physical body and the etheric body during the night in sleep are used by the spiritual disciple to train and activate his astral sense organs. To do this, he draws parts of these powers from his lower bodily members and transforms them into spiritual organs of perception. He will only be successful if he gives his whole life a rhythmic course. Rhythm saves strength!

„When man has attained this devachanic state, then the lotus flowers, the chakras or wheels, at certain points in the astral body begin to turn from left to right like the hand of a clock. They are the sense organs of the astral body, but their perception is an active one. The eye, for example, is at rest, it lets the light come into it and then perceives it. The lotus flowers, on the other hand, only perceive when they move, when they embrace an object. The vibrations excited by the turning of the lotus flowers then cause astral matter to be touched, and thus perception arises on the astral plane.

Now, what are the forces that the lotus flowers form? Where do these forces come from? We know that during sleep the exhausted powers of the physical and etheric bodies are replaced by the astral body; through its regularity it can compensate for irregularities of the physical and etheric body during sleep. But it is these powers, which are used to overcome fatigue, that form the lotus flowers. A human being who begins his occult development thus actually withdraws forces from his physical and etheric body. If these forces were to be permanently withdrawn from the physical body, the human being would have to fall ill, indeed, complete exhaustion would set in. If he does not want to harm himself physically and morally, he must replace these powers with something else.

One must remember a general rule of the world: rhythm replaces strength! This is an important occult principle. Today man lives most irregularly, especially in imagination and action. A man who merely allowed the distracting outer world to have an effect on him and joined in, could not escape this danger into which his physical body is plunged by the occult development because of the withdrawal of strength. Therefore man must work to bring rhythm into his life. Of course he cannot arrange it so that one day runs like the other. But there is one thing he can do: he can carry out certain activities quite regularly, and this is what he who is undergoing occult development must do. For example, he should perform meditation and concentration exercises every morning at a time fixed by himself. Rhythm also comes into his life through an evening review of the day. If one can then introduce other regularities, this is all the better, because in this way everything runs according to the world laws, so to speak. The whole world system runs rhythmically. Everything in nature is rhythm: the course of the sun, the course of the seasons, of day and night and so on. Plants grow rhythmically. However, the higher we climb, the less the rhythm becomes apparent, but even in animals we can still perceive a certain rhythm. The animal, for example, still mates at regular times. Only man enters into an unrhythmic, chaotic life: nature has released him.

This chaotic life must now be consciously made rhythmic again, and in order to achieve this he is given certain means by which he can bring this harmony, this rhythm into his physical and etheric body. Little by little these two bodies are then set into such vibrations that they correct themselves when the astral body emerges. Even if they are driven out of rhythm during the day, they push themselves back into the right movement when at rest.“ (Lit.:GA 95, p. 111ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Agarwala, Vasudeva Sharana (1965). Indian Art: A history of Indian art from the earliest times up to the third century A.D, Volume 1 of Indian Art. Prithivi Prakashan. p. 101.
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