Param Para: Answers to Questions on the Spiritual Path  
by Swami Amar Jyoti
 

Seeker: Generally speaking, what chakras do disciples usually fluctuate between?

In evolution, the first chakra is the muladhara, the base. The second chakra is our animal nature. The third is the human being. Many human beings go back down to the second and first chakras at times, depending on their consciousness. When you rise to the fourth chakra you become a higher being: a statesman, poet, administrator, social reformer, dancer, musician—but not of the ordinary type. Many go up and down between the third and fourth charkas.

When you rise to the fifth chakra it begins to give you joy. Even on the fourth chakra you get glimpses of joy, glimpses of light, beautiful sounds, colors and your inner faculties begin to awaken. Often people say, “Oh, I had this experience, I had dreams—where have I lost those things?” That is because they go down to the third chakra again. Something that exists on the fourth, if you go down to the third, you cannot see it, just as you cannot see what you saw on the roof once you go back inside the house.

When you reach the fifth chakra, joy becomes intact. This is not ordinary happiness; it is real joy. Many saints and holy men and women are on the fifth chakra. And when you rise to the sixth chakra, you become a yogi. You become serene. You have all the qualities of joy, of peace. The third eye opens on this chakra, not only for clairvoyance and clairaudience but you also see the future and the past; you read the minds of men and guide their destinies. Such beings are higher than angels, which are on the fifth chakra. On the fourth chakra you are partly human and partly angel. When you sing beautifully sometimes, out of inspiration, you are an angel; at other times, you may be just mundane.

The fifth is generally called a safe chakra; normally you do not go down from this chakra unless you choose to. And the sixth is a yogi, the safest. Kings and emperors are often born on the fourth chakra; sometimes they touch the fifth. When a yogi falls from the sixth chakra, if at all, he will come down to the fifth or rarely to the fourth. Such souls become emperors, kings, or great statesmen or great artists, such as Shakespeare. On the seventh chakra you are Liberated.

The word chakra means “center of consciousness.” The physical body or mind is simply the location; what travels is consciousness. Chakras exist where the nerves in our body, physical and subtle, converge. The chakras control 72,000 nerves, each chakra controlling thousands, like the reins of a horse.

You talked about the oneness with all things and is that the sixth, the highest?

The oneness with all would be seventh. In sixth a subject/object relationship still exists but you have glimpses of the seventh. The Sanskrit term is shusukti—as if you are peeping through a door but not going in. You are maintaining your identity on the sixth chakra but if you open the door and plunge into That, you enter the seventh chakra.

Swamiji, at that point when you are a yogi, do you always have a choice of going in that door? Is it always available to you?

The choice is given to you. If anything obstructs you from going inside the door, it will be only you. You will obstruct yourself with fear, insecurity or ego. The Vedic scriptures have called the sixth chakra dangerous from one point of view: because it is a very, very comfortable position, hitherto never experienced at any other level of consciousness. Being so, you would not like to leave it, even for Liberation.

Is that final decision from the sixth chakra to go to the seventh really your choice or is it predestined?

Destiny ends on the fifth chakra; you are master of your destiny on the fifth, though not perfectly. On the fourth chakra your mastery is very little. On the third you are a victim of destiny. That is why souls on the fourth chakra become politicians, leaders and social reformers. They control others because they have a little mastery over destiny. On the fifth you have greater mastery of destiny. On the sixth, destiny is not there; you are nearing the Almighty; you are a yogi.

You speak so much about humility. What about those who are very humble and doing very humble jobs?

They may be on the fifth chakra—who knows? They need not be politicians and statesmen, or they could be. Let me define what I mean by the common man: those who eat, drink and make merry. A humble man is not a common or ordinary man. The disciples of St. Francis were poor and humble. The disciples of Jesus were never politicians or industrialists or bank managers or great artists. Have you not heard in each religion that God chooses the humbler ones? Go through history again—exceptions apart, like King Janak in the Upanishads. God chooses humble ones because they are not busy, on the fourth chakra, dominating others. He always chooses meek ones, insignificant ones. The rich man who came to Jesus was on the fourth chakra. Jesus wanted to pull him
up to the fifth; he didn’t agree, so Jesus sent him back.

This fluctuation between the third and fourth chakras is mostly where Americans are today. They are growing from the fourth to the fifth and sixth, gradually. India in the Golden Age was very high, from the fifth to seventh mostly, and not below fourth. Now they are down again but coming up, the consciousness being everything from the third to the seventh chakra.

Is it possible for people who are not in any way connected with this particular belief system to achieve states that would be comparable to the fifth or sixth chakra, whether they are so-called common people or those who are greatly esteemed? I think of someone like Martin Luther King, Jr, who was coming from an obviously very different religious orientation.

This is a universal phenomenon. For souls such as Martin Luther King, or any one else who has not heard about chakras, their language will simply be different. For example, when I say Liberation or Realized Soul, you may say Christ Consciousness. We’re expressing differently but we are talking about the same thing.

Another example is kundalini: even if you have never heard about the kundalini, your kundalini will rise when your consciousness rises, whether you know it or not. The universal truth is the same. God is the same, whether you call him God or Lord or Pure Consciousness. Words differ, beliefs differ, expressions differ, but what we are talking about is the same. When you meditate nicely, when you chant or pray intensely, your kundalini will rise. You call it the grace of God, someone else calls it kundalini rising. When the Grace of God descends upon you, your kundalini rises.


© 2008 by Truth Consciousness. Excerpted from the Satsang of Swami Amar Jyoti: Deserving Capacity (E-3), published in Light of Consciousness 20#2, Summer 2008.