Talk-3: The Spiritual Anatomy

Note: This talk is given by me in a course linked to Kriyatantra Institute, yoginiashram, USA (https://kriyatantrainstitute.com/). There are many more interesting courses offered by the gurus there and many of you can benefit from those. Do get in touch with them in case you are a resident of India and need a discount for their courses.

Talk Summary:

After thoroughly understanding the secrets of Sanskrit language in terms of yoga and tantra, we now enter into exploring how verbal language – sound and meaning, is linked to the inner spiritual anatomy of humans.

Spiritual Anatomy:

We often think that it’s our physical body that alone exists and we identify ourselves with it. But we never realize the fact that we are different from it. Ancient seers have discovered our existence to be a complexly woven garment made out of physical as well as subtle bodies. They identified broadly, 5 specific layers of this one garment of existence – called Kośās which can be grouped into three functional categories.

Annamaya – Sthūla or Gross plane

Prāṇamaya + Manōmaya + Vijñānamaya – Sūkśma or Subtle plane

Ānandamaya – Kāraṇa or Causal plane

The human cerebro-spinal system acts like a junction box that connects all the aforementioned layers of our existence. It is in this system that many devās or angels reside and carry out their functions tirelessly. The result of many forces at work is what we call “our life”. 

In this cerebro spinal system, we have both physical nerves and non-physical nāḍīs. Nāḍī is that which has a movement in it. Here, the movement of prāṇa is intended because, they carry the subtle energies of Prāṇa and vitalize every nook and corner of our body. Just like a magnet has its field lines, energy or Prāṇa has its nāḍī channels governing the life.

Amongst the 72000 Nāḍīs that our ancients have discovered, three take utmost prominence

Iḍa – Lunar channel

Piñgal̥a – Solar channel

Suṣumnā – Channel of cosmic fire.

Amongst these three, we have Suṣumnā the most prominent. It carries the evolutionary energy called Kuṇḍalinī in it. The three nāḍīs meet at 6 different locations on the spinal system and we call those junctions as “Cakrās”. They are

Mūlādhāra (base center)

Svādiśṭhāna (sacral center)

Maṇipurā (navel center)

Anāhata (heart center)

Viśuddhi (throat center)

Ājñā (brow center)

The six centers govern different functionalities of our existence. Kuṇḍalinī is like center powerhouse of our life. It is said that Kuṇḍalinī initially rests at Mūlādhāra in the form of a three and a half coiled serpent. 

Lotuses/Chakrās:

As long as we live in the chain of karma, they are wheels of energies binding us to our life. When we start evolving in a spiritual path they transform to lotuses by a gradual process of petal-by-petal-evolution. 

Here we describe different chakrās, their symbols, their traits, etc. Then we enter into how Syllables – their sounds- their meanings exist in the petals of the Chakrās. This is the proof for the cosmic self print of VĀK inside our own self. Meditating on the evolved centers brings forth beauty of different syllables as utterances in our life. The easy to awaken the centers is by using those set of syllables associated with the corresponding Chakrās. 

This is how seers “realized” the mantrās and we too can experience their states of bliss by invoking the same mantrās in prescribed format. 

Hari Om 🙏🏻

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