Chapter Three: The Madhura Disposition in India's Inner (Esoteric) Religious Disciplines
—regard innate practice as free of every display and founded upon inward power.
It is clear that the separation of Shiva and Shakti is the cause of this entire manifested world, and that manifestation ends in their union. As long as Shiva and Shakti do not become samarasa, the living being remains caught in manifestation. Their perfect harmony is therefore the principal goal. This harmony has many forms; the various sahaja doctrines each describe their own means of attaining it.
The practice of Kundalini Yoga
The Shakta Tantras say much about the practice of Kundalini Yoga. It is also widely discussed in Kaula and Nath doctrine. The practitioner's primary duty is to awaken Kundalini, the power of the living being. As Maha-Kundalini, Shakti pervades the world; within the human body she is established as Kundalini. The living being enters material embodiment only through Kundalini and vital power.
Living beings ordinarily remain in three states: waking, deep sleep, and dream. Kundalini Shakti remains inactive in all three.
The process of piercing the centres
Where the spinal column descends straight down the back and ends in the region between the anus and genitals stands a self-born liṅga within a triangular centre called the fire-centre. Kundalini rests in this triangle, coiled like a serpent around the self-born liṅga in three and a half turns.
Above it is a four-petalled lotus called the mūlādhāra. Next comes the six-petalled svādhiṣṭhāna. Above it are the ten-petalled maṇipūra near the navel and the twelve-petalled anāhata near the heart.1 Higher still, near the throat, is the sixteen-petalled centre called viśuddha. Above that, between the eyebrows, is the centre called ājñā, with only two petals.
These are the six lower centres. Passing successively through them, the awakened Kundalini Shakti unites with Supreme Shiva in the seventh and highest centre. Because it possesses a thousand petals, this centre is called the sahasrāra; because Supreme Shiva dwells there, it is also called Kailasa.2
Thus Supreme Shiva abides in the sahasrāra, the living self in the lotus of the heart, and Kundalini in the mūlādhāra. The living self receives consciousness from Supreme Shiva and power from Kundalini. Therefore—
Footnotes
-
The printed sentence compresses this sequence and omits the name maṇipūra while immediately assigning ten and twelve petals to the two centres above svādhiṣṭhāna. The translation restores the standard sequence required by the page's own petal counts. ↩
-
Ata ūrdhvaṃ divya-rūpaṃ sahasrāraṃ saroruham / brahmāṇḍa-vyasta-dehasya tatra tiṣṭhati sarvadā / kailāso nāma tasyaiva maheśo yatra tiṣṭhati //—“Above is the divine thousand-petalled lotus. It always stands in the body that contains the cosmos. It is called Kailasa, for Mahesha dwells there.” Śiva Saṃhitā 5.151–152. ↩