People of the desert

WHEN Laurens Van der Post was travelling through the Kalahari desert, his expedition team rested from the oven-like heat under a few lone trees. Laurens could not sleep like his friends, but lay looking at the mirages.

Then soundlessly, the bushman interpreter crept up to him and said, 'Moren, there are men coming from over there. They are in trouble.'

Laurens walked with Dabé, the bushman, to where they could look over the desert. Mirages blanketed the land and sky. He could see or hear no sign of movement. 'Are you sure people are coming, Dabé?' he asked 'How do you know?'

'People are corning,' Dabé' replied. 'They are in trouble. I feel it in here' he said, and pointed to his chest. A few minutes later Laurens saw a faint movement among the mirages. Then a group of Kalahari bushmen, women and children came into view. They were walking like sleepwalkers, with eyes of the living dead They had come from a drought area, and had been without food or water for many days. When they were offered water; each of them drank a full gallon, and then slept.

What was Dabé pointing at within his chest, when he said: 'I feel it in here?' Was it perhaps the vibratory centre where the Hopi Indians said man could be 'of one heart' with God and other people? Was his heart lotus, the psychic sense organ of the Anahata Chakra functioning more fully than the white man's? The Hopi Indians say that when a man closes down his centres, he loses contact with life around him, and the creative force that made him.

Edgar Cayce taught that all the forces we express in our life, must be in harmony with our Overself or Spirit, if we are are to find peace, health and spiritual growth. When the sex forces are misapplied, he says, disease follows.

'The misuse of the forces of the adrenals results in sapped energies, and the misuse of the forces of the leydig bring about a shutting off of the forces of natural healing and supply. Misapplied love, as on the thymus (heart centre) level, reacts as a consuming force upon the individual. Love must go out not in.

Thymus gland

The thymus gland lies behind the ribs, on the midline, halfway between base of neck and sternum. In a baby it is enormous, but gradually shrinks during maturity. It inhibits the activities of the testicles and ovaries, produces the lovely rounded limbs of babyhood, and if overactive in adult life, prevents sex differentiation.

Such people lack male ruggedness, or female curvaceous, and look more like 'angel children'. They are often pathological liars, irresponsible, and like the company of their own sex. If the pituitary is fairly active, they may be brilliant, however, and Oscar Wilde is perhaps an example of this type - i.e. of unbalanced and overactive thymus.

The balanced thymus, or balanced glandular type has full sexual characteristics, is intelligent, emotional and energetic. That is, his or her gonads, adrenals, thymus, thyroid, pineal and pituitary are active in harmony.

We can see from what has been said that perhaps the heart lotus is the centre for emotional rapport. The bushman was aware through this centre, of other people's feelings, even though his physical senses had not yet received information of them. Therefore, through this lotus, when it is working, we can be aware of other people's emotional disposition, their state of being, and their love or hate. These can be perceived even if no outer sign is given. Because of this, we can be aware of the dead through this lotus.

Just as the bushman was aware of people's feelings even without seeing their physical bodies, so we can be aware of the feelings and love of those who do not have a physical body.

The reason we cannot usually be aware of the dead, is simply because we are not aware of the feelings of the living, unless they physically express them in word, gesture or expression. All these are picked up by our physical senses. But if they do not have a physical body, we are lost, because we have never learned to communicate with them on a deeper level.

Communication without speech

As plants, animals, the earth and the cosmos, all express 'feelings', moods, love or desire, we become aware of communication with the world around us, other than in speech, when this centre becomes active.

The unspoken love in the heart of a new-born baby - the yearning of a flower to the sun, or a bee - the silent and pitiful longing grown painful in the breast of many a stranger who passes, in many an eye that looks into ours, is known when our heart lotus responds to life.

Wilhelm Reich found that tensions of the diaphragm and chest block 'life' in this area. The breathing was either tensed in expiration, making it difficult to breathe in; or tensed in inspiration, making it difficult to breathe out.

These tensions are often very difficult to shift. It is difficult to release the emotion dammed up, and allow the breathing to be free. This usually involves the person in crying, sometimes in the feeling of vomiting, or in emotional longing.

As the arms are an extension of this body segment, repressed aggression may bind the back muscles in pain and tension, or produce tensions in the arms and chest through holding back the desire to hold and cuddle others to draw them to us, to our love or our body. Forced out-breathing sometimes helps to loosen the chest tensions and permit crying. Also expressing rage or anger by banging a pillow or couch with the hands helps to release the arm and back tensions.

A higher triplicity

The fifth lotus is at the base of the neck, just above the chest. This has sixteen petals, is purple (Yoga) or blue or grey blue (Cayce), and is called Vishuddha Chakra, or Throat Centre. It appears to be linked with the thyroid gland and larynx. Whereas the four lower centres were represented by the four lower elements Earth - Water - Fire - Air, this centre seems to be the beginning of a higher triplicity; perhaps the true universal forces of Creation, Preservation, and Destruction.

The ancient Hebrews felt that the formless emotions and dispositions in the human heart take form in the throat and through the larynx emerge as words. So the throat or larynx is thought of in many ancient cultures as a higher form of womb, in which the human spirit is incarnated or takes form.

This is mentioned because of the experiences of some people when the life force of Kundalini works on the throat lotus. The Hopi Indians say that the throat centre ties together 'those openings in the nose and mouth through which we receive the breath of life and the vibratory organs that enable us to give back breath in sound. This primordial sound, as coming from the vibratory centres of the body of earth, was attuned to the universal vibration of all Creation. New and diverse sounds can be given forth by these vocal organs in the form of speech and song. But its primary function is to express in sound, the individual response to the Creator.'

One sound

In other words, through it, we can echo the Creative Sound or Word - or weave songs to harmonise with the workings of life, by singing aspects of the one sound.

Eileen Garrett describes her experience of activity at this level as 'a clearing and expansion at the back of the neck.' Another person says, 'when it reaches this point, it causes me to cough and it feels sore as when with a cold, but it passes off when it (kundalini) leaves this point.'

Two other men agree with this, but add something else: 'At one point it seemed to produce coughing. But once while sitting in meditation, my mouth came open spontaneously as my head went back and back. This felt as if my being were offering my open mouth as a womb or entry for something wonderful to enter. Or perhaps there was a great and rich sound I wanted to make but couldn't.'

The other man describes it thus. 'Often in meditation the energy released seems, after going up and hitting the middle of the brain behind the eyes, to work on the throat. Sometimes the head goes back quite by itself and the mouth opens. This is usually accompanied by a strange sensation at the back of, or above the larynx, like a tickling, irritating feeling - or as if something were emerging or being pushed out or sore at that point.

'I have the intuitive or irrational feeling that I have to offer my throat and voice to Spirit or God, and this is why my mouth opens. The open mouth is like a posture of offering, or giving oneself. When the sensation becomes intense it produces coughing, but it passes off immediately the power leaves the area, and my throat is never sore as a consequence.

Considering the remark about 'giving oneself', it is interesting that Edgar Cayce considers this centre as the expression of human will, which can oppose or cooperate with the divine will. He says that misuse of these forces result in stubbornness, self will or bullheadedness. When this aspect of self is allowed to be directed by the overself, or higher consciousness, instead of intellect, emotion or passion, the contents of the unconscious and old regrets, guilt, lusts, desires are released to be dealt with.

Excess thyroid activity produces rapid pulse, nervousness, excitability, protruding eyes, and an overactive mind and emotions. An underactive thyroid produces mental backwardness, coarse skin, lack of growth, slowness. The thyroid arises from the same tissue and almost from the same spot as the anterior lobe of the pituitary. In lower life forms, the thyroid is a sex gland, and even in humans, links the sex glands with the brain. It seems to control or regulate the speed at which we live.

Halfway between emotion and abstract thought

In the heart lotus, we are dealing with love, and a sympathetic entrance into other lives. Sympathy or compassion is the keynote. Through it we can look into another heart. In the throat centre, sympathy is transmitted by the blending of a yet higher centre, into empathy, the direct experience of the inner condition of another.

But this centre does not deal in pure emotion or feelings. It is a half way house between emotion and abstract thought. Whereas the Kalahari bushman felt the troubled feelings of others at the heart centre, the throat centre is sensitive to thoughts and decisions, to the things we 'will'.

Sometimes this centre translates impressions into sound, much as a wireless does to radio waves. Sometimes the impressions received here are seen as descriptive colours or forms. To quote Rudolph Steiner, a revengeful thought, for example, assumes an arrow-like or pronged form, while a kindly thought is often formed like an opening flower. Clear cut, significant thoughts are regular and symmetrical in form, while confused thoughts have wavy outlines.'

Creative energy

This may seem fairly understandable, that the throat centre senses the thought radiations or mental energy of others, in or out of the body, but there is a more interior function also. One is reminded of the yearly miracle of Satya Sai Baba, who produces a beautiful jewel like lingam (Shiva symbol) out of his throat.

Just as the sexual organs express creative energy in a physical sense, the throat lotus seems to have the capacity for expressing creative energy of a more subtle nature. We can see something of this in the power that arises from some people's speech or words. Such words can have the power to move others in a variety of ways.

But perhaps, considering the experiences quoted, where the throat is offered to the Overself or higher awareness, this is a womb in which the child is formed, resulting from human will offering itself to the Infinite will. In other words, there might grow here, a non- physical organ which links the activities of our body with the influence of the Infinite. This would harmonise our physical life with the life around us, so that our actions blended with the activities of nature instead of being a disturbing and destructive influence in the life of our planet.

Chakras Seven

Tony's in print Books in the UK and USA

Books - Stories - Poems - Articles/Features - Links - One Stop Shop - Home