Greetings, my friends. Blessings in the form of love, of strength, and of understanding are coming forth. To the degree that you generate these within you, to that degree you shall be able first to perceive and then to
accept the blessing that is streaming into you.
This lecture will be the beginning of the topic I started to discuss the last time, that of the energy centers of the human structure. There is a great deal to be said about this. We shall divide this topic into three fundamental aspects. The first aspect is going to deal with what determines the general functioning of these energy centers. The second aspect will deal with the specific function of each center. In the last Question and Answer session (No 170) I was asked about some of them and I started, to a limited degree, to give a brief answer. So some of this second part will be a repetition for those who were present. The third aspect will deal with the cultivation of these centers and with some of the practices with which the clogged channels leading to them may be opened up. My friends, you must understand that this pathwork that you are engaged in -- your self-confrontation, the development of the courage to look at yourself in truth (which is not half as easy as one believes before
one starts) -- is already the most essential aspect of such a practice. For
any kind of practice that is mechanical -- that is, one which deals merely
with exercises of concentration, breathing, etc. -- cannot possibly fulfill
its purpose. So the basis is always to expand your consciousness, to expand your vision, to raise your perception of the truth of yourself, and therefore of your relationship to the universe, and therefore of your relationship
to universal law and to creation. This will be borne out by what I have to explain about the first aspect to be discussed right now.
What determines the proper functioning of man's life force, hence of the energy centers, can be understood only if we gain a view of the entire structure of the human personality. For this some recapitulation is necessary. The life force is the creative force that enlivens the whole universe. It contains all the elements of life and all the potentials to manifest and to express life in its myriad forms. This is such a powerful force that it must
be made adaptable, it must be modified so as not to explode an organism whose consciousness is not yet sufficiently strong to accept this total power. Therefore, each living organism possesses special centers which convert, assimilate, modify, and balance the power which streams into the organism.
The life force contains every possibility for life expression, for energy, for health, for bliss, and for endless modalities of self-expression. The centers of a human being are infinitely more differentiated and complicated than those, say, of a blade of grass. This is because the human being has proportionately more possibilities for varied self-expression than the blade of grass. The streaming of the life force into the organism must be metabulated, distributed, and adjusted. Otherwise the force would be too strong. If a human consciousness is divided and in conflict -- that is, if on the one hand a person is sufficiently ready to metabulate more varied power and on the other hand he is unbalanced and disturbed -- then the centers close up. They become clogged. The process of self-realization also means the opening up of those centers.
The human body, the physical body is but a crude reflection of the real body. That is, of his spiritual body, which is eternal. In the latter all functions and all organs exist to an infinitely finer and more refined degree than can be found in the physical structure. The body of the eternal being cannot be seen with the human eye. But it is much more real
than anything that can be seen with the human eye. This body has several
cruder outpicturings according to the various levels of consciousness that exist when an entity is not yet unified with its spiritual self. The other subtle bodies reflect the various states of mind and the personality levels
of the individual. The physical level is but the crudest, the most temporary outer manifestation. It expresses the level of consciousness that is
most alienated from its source, which is the spirit being.
In the spiritual body the centers exist in perfect form and in their perfect functioning. There they are visible organs, just as the heart or the kidneys are visible organs in the physical body. The various other states of consciousness, represented by specific subtle bodies, also contain these centers, but already altered in their functioning, according to the degree of disunity with the spiritual structure. In the physical organism
those centers can be detected only indirectly. The glandular system reflects them, and their functioning is also determined by them. But the opening and
the closing of the centers, their smooth functioning or their congestion, can be clearly experienced. The effect has distinct physical marks. However, the centers themselves are not visible for man.
What determines the smooth functioning of those energy centers, and therefore the proper assimilation of the life force? It depends entirely and exclusively on the state of consciousness. Since consciousness is the origin of all that is, then consciousness must also determine the most important system of life functioning. Every belief, every opinion, every concept, and every idea determines man's feelings, his reactions, his attitudes, and his expressions into life. It is inconceivable that an individual is unaffected by or indifferent to a deeply ingrained idea. And I do not merely mean conscious ideas and opinions. Even more important are the unconscious ones, because they cannot be reoriented. An individual who is what we call self-realized, whether still in the physical body or having already transcended the body state, is in truth. He does not know everything but he has an open mind. He is free from misconceptions. No false beliefs create fear, defensiveness, negativity, and destructive emotions. Someone who is in truth about himself perceives the benign nature of the universe. He is open, he is joyful, and he is without any trace of apprehension. Therefore he
can expand in a harmonious way. In this light, unintense, undefended, relaxed state of the body, of the mind, and of the feelings, the centers are open. They allow the life force to flow smoothly and freely. Therefore, the centers distribute the right kind of energy into the organism where specific aspects of the great force are needed. Since there is no fear, then there is no clogging and there is no blocking. And fear cannot exist if there is no negativity and no limitation of concept.
The more you develop and grow, the more aware you become of how each mistaken idea creates destructive feelings, negativities, a limited concept
of the self, and a limited concept of life. We have spoken at length of the importance of the dualistic world view, as opposed to the unified world view. A dualistic state of consciousness is one that perceives life always in terms of either/or: either good or bad, either this or that. It is always the one to the exclusion of the other. The whole human sphere is indoctrinated with this error. This is difficult to understand for someone who has not yet entered deeply into his innermost being. He who has done so to a considerable degree, and therefore has overcome some fundamental illusions about himself -- some blocks in this respect -- finds out how
the universe expands for him in all the possibilities it encompasses. Where
he first was convinced to have to lose -- in other words, to have to make unsatisfactory choices -- by growing in integrity and in objectivity he eventually comes to a state where he loses nothing. When the false, childish greed gives way, when the false, self-limiting sacrifice gives way, then out
of this duality a fullness of experience arises.
The proper functioning of the life centers is not possible when the human being is still involved in the dualistic conflict. Perhaps the most basic dualism is the question of morality versus pleasure, of selfishness versus altruism, of self-deprivation versus depriving others. The whole concept of good and evil stems from this arbitrary, unnecessary, and mistaken concept of life. All human civilizations and almost all philosophies are poisoned by this basic split in the human consciousness. As long as
you believe that you have to make a choice between either being good or obtaining your advantages, then you must find yourself in a terrible conflict. You will be free of this conflict only when you arrive at
the realization -- at the experience of the truth -- that depriving yourself must ultimately deprive others and, conversely, that by obtaining your real advantages (which may not be the shortsighted, childish ones stemming from the limited, fearful outlook that says: "Either this or nothing at all.") you ultimately also benefit others. In order to reach this wider state of consciousness it is necessary to understand that because of your deeply ingrained conviction of limitation -- in other words, of constantly having to make the decision of the self versus others -- at first you will experience precisely such situations in which it truly seems to be unavoidable to have to give up the one for the sake of the other. For according to your belief you must experience. In other words, your belief creates the condition. Thus a false belief must continue to be proven true until one begins to perceive the relationship between the belief and the experience. If you accept the premise that your inner, invisible belief creates this particular predicament of constantly having to balance between your advantage versus the advantages of others, then you will have to deal with these self-created limited conditions. You will have to handle each instance separately. You have to do this with intelligence, with the whole investment of yourself, with decency, and with integrity. No fearful sentimentality must blur your view of your own rights.
No childish greed must rationalize your self-centeredness. Both must be seen and both must be overcome. Out of this many decisions will be made, each one different. Soon each apparent loss will be discovered to be illusory. Then in one instance you will gladly forsake your own advantage because what is on the scale warrants your temporary self-deprivation. More and more you will be governed by true considerations, and less and less by the fear of disapproval, by dependency on the good opinion of others, by the fear of frustration, and by the inability to stand non-gratification. As this work proceeds, you will have a vision of the truth, namely that there is no division between your own fulfillment and your own interest and the happiness and the interest of others. In the long run they all merge. The underlying truth conciliates both. But you cannot reach this state of consciousness cheaply. It requires your whole investment and your total involvement into each issue, no matter how insignificant it may appear at first sight. In that way, dualism is transcended. Consequently, fear, greed, and a sense of deprivation, and therefore anger and hostility, with all of their derivatives, are also transcended. When you know the truth, then your consciousness first perceives, then obtains, and thus you experience the limitless abundance which the universe has in store for all creatures. The first step must be knowing of its potential existence.
But as long as you live IN this basic human conflict -- in this split of your consciousness -- then you must believe that you have to deprive yourself in order to be a decent and loving human being.
It is natural that such a predicament induces feelings of resentment, of frustration, of anger, of self-hate, of guilt. It is also natural that such feelings close up the psychic faculties, the streamings of the healthy energy flow. When the energy centers are tightened up due to the presence of such negative feelings, then the physical structure must eventually tighten
up as well. The tightness of the centers, both in the body and in
the spirit, is always a reflection of negative emotions such as apprehension, anger, guilt, hate, and fear.
This fundamental duality creates the chain reaction mentioned here: a negative outlook on life, a limited concept of the self, the conflict of the self vs. others, and negative emotions. Hence, the limitation of the ability to experience. A state of consciousness must set in in which you prohibit your own expansion. As you become more aware of yourself in the course of your self-exploration, you also begin to detect those subtle little reactions that indicate how you prevent yourself from expanding and from delightful experience. You also detect how you are afraid of using the utmost of your potentials.
Any limited idea of your possibilities is the result of such a chain reaction. The real human sickness is the result of not using one's full potentials to create a good life. In other words, to create the best of circumstances. When you hold back your potential to expand, your potential to create better conditions, your potential to experience deeper feelings of delight in every possible way, then you perpetuate a vicious circle. The result must be limitation, and hence frustration. Then these are assumed to be the nature of life -- at least as far as you are concerned. The deep inner conviction -- the image -- that you have to deprive yourself in order to be a decent, loving human being increases the negative feelings and the tight defenses. Therefore, it closes your centers. As long as you feel obligated to make the tragic decision between goodness and joy, between morality and pleasure, between self-interest and love, then you can never decide fully. As a result, you become so confused and so disturbed that you react blindly and rigidly. In other words, without knowing what governs you.
The greatest sin, if we want to use this word, is ignoring your innate potentials, it is ignoring your own possibilities for happiness, it
is setting up for yourself unnecessary fences beyond which you think that
you cannot go.
How does all this affect the specific centers? In order
to understand that, we must first learn the meaning of each center and its particular function. Here I have to repeat some of what I said in the last Question and Answer session so as not to break the continuity.
The first center is the sexual center, located at the base of the spine. When I mention sexuality, I mean something that goes beyond limited genital pleasure. It comprises the extending of personal love
to the opposite sex. It is the individual's capacity to experience pleasure on all levels -- the physical level, the emotional level, the mental level, and the spiritual level -- without a trace of apprehension, of tension, of tight greed, of separateness. It is the capacity to undefendedly give, and therefore to receive. It is the ability to give yourself to the involuntary processes of feeling without the ego's need to be in control. It implies a trustful, accepting attitude toward one's own unconscious, with all its responses and all its movements. This is very difficult for all human beings. But if it is attained, then the sexual center will be open.
It will not be clogged up by the ego's need to be in control.
How can a person react without fear in this respect when his whole consciousness and his perception of life are geared to limitation, hence to deprivation, and therefore to negative feelings which he must fear to expose? Therefore the center must be closed -- either partially or completely. Hence deprivation must be engendered because the full flow of the life force --
with all its regenerating, life-bringing, health-furthering, and energetic faculties -- cannot be activated.
The second center is in the solar plexus. Its opening creates a connection with the consciousness of the Universal Being. Hence, it gives you access to spiritual wisdom. It also furthers general love feelings. For when you are in truth, then you love. The opening of the sexual center enables the entity to partake of the ever-present, ever-ongoing process of creation in regard to pleasure supreme, to ecstasy. This contact is made in conjunction with a beloved other human being. The opening of the solar plexus channel makes possible the connection with the ongoing, ever-present, ever-existing truth and goodness of ultimate reality. This ongoing real life can be detected, perceived, and sensed occasionally. It usually happens when you really love, and thus have transcended the dualistic struggle. Or it happens when you discover -- often as a result of apparently insignificant events -- your inner truth where hitherto you have not seen it. Then the spirit of such a discovery is accepting of the self and accepting of life. In other words, it is no longer rejecting.
The perception of the ever-ongoing life process in its infinite marvel of greatness, of wisdom, of love, and of pleasure is an altogether different perception from the usual one, which is: "I must attain a new state." Such attainment would be impossible if it did not exist already on another level of reality. What you have to do is to discover its existence by first considering its possibility. Therefore you must perceive all states of bliss as existing already; you must perceive all the wisdom that you ever need as existing already; you must perceive all the harmonious and balanced functioning as existing already; you must perceive all the new attitudes as existing already; you must perceive the realization of your own power as existing already; you must perceive the realization of your creative potentials as existing already. See yourself as being separated from it by a wall. You must remove this wall. But the ongoing process of another life is already there. In your good moments, you are aware of this. You are aware that you have contacted another dimension of reality that is always there. In this dimension there is utter peace, there is joy, there are all the answers, there is life eternal, and there is nothing to fear. It is only when you are disconnected from this reality -- and therefore you begin either to doubt it or you forget it -- that you find yourself in real strife.
Anxiety-less pleasure supreme is an ever-existing reality in you already now. All that separates you from it is your lack of knowing this, your fears, and your apprehensions. In other words, the lack of your
own permission, as it were, to experience this reality. So it is true that the ever-alive and appropriate wisdom, as you need it at any given instant of your life, is already there. You are merely separated from it by your not knowing it, and therefore by identifying with other sources of wisdom which are poor substitutes at best. These may be your intellect, your unexplored emotions -- which are merely reactive to attitudes whose nature you have not yet explored -- other peoples' dicta over you, or all of these mixed up together. Often you desist from establishing contact with this channel -- even when you have already experienced its immediate availability -- because you are afraid of the good feelings that result from its deep wisdom. You do not want to open up all these channels and centers and let yourself flow in unison with the universal cosmic movements. You are too afraid and too angry to do so. First of all, this fear and this anger must be made conscious. Then you will see that your fear of disappointment and your lack of the courage to be happy hold you back from expanding into that realm of reality where you find solutions for everything.
In the solar plexus is the center that connects you with the supreme wisdom in relation to anything you ever need to know, or that you could ever want to know. Such deep wisdom removes fear, and therefore makes love flow.
I want to interject here that the centers have some subdivisions, or counter-reflections. Sometimes this is interpreted as separate centers. For example, the center at the base of the spine has other projecting or concentration points in the pelvis and in the genitalia. Or the center in the back has other concentration points, both higher and lower, in the back. This is to avoid confusion.
The next center is in the back. Its faculty is the will.
So far we can see that we have dealt with three basic human functions: feeling, knowing, and willing. If harmony exists among these three functions, then there is perfect interplay and no overweight on one
at the expense of the other. The willing-center is also the center of the
ego, of aggression, of self-assertion, of backbone, of selfhood, of self-responsibility, of autonomy. All these attitudes are centered in the
back and come from the back. As indicated just before, there are
two subdivisions -- one in the nape of the neck, the other further down, approximately between the shoulder blades. They are both reflections from
the center which is located more internally in the spiritual body, perhaps somewhere in-between. In the physical body it manifests primarily in these
two places.
If the ego is not fully developed in the healthiest sense, then this energy center is underactive. As a result, the energy does not flow through it smoothly. By the same token, if the ego is overly tight, too stiff, too anxious, too rigid, and too selfwilled, then it implies another facet of the same predicament. Some personalities find it more expedient to dramatize their weakness, and thus they attempt to make an asset out of it. Others counteract the fear of their weak ego by overstressing a false strength. Both attitudes may result in similar problems that manifest both in the body
and in the mind. Tensions in the back distort the smooth flow and congest it.
Let us examine how the weak ego must influence the function of the two aforementioned centers. If you are weak -- and therefore you are dependent -- then you must be fearful. Hence you must lack the courage necessary for the great experience of living and for the deeper wisdom that transcends the ego. The weak ego makes you hold on so tightly that you cannot open up for what lies beyond its scope. It requires strength to trust. It requires strength to love. It requires strength to be happy. It requires strength to let the involuntary processes do their part in the business of living. The perception of the greater reality of life
must be hindered if the ego is not flexible, strong, and independent --
without believing that it is the only function to count on, to rely on.
The next center is in the throat. This center symbolizes the capacity to take in, to ingest, to digest, to assimilate. In other words, to accept. A rigid individual -- whose unconscious problems create havoc
-- must set himself against a flexible, accepting attitude toward life, toward circumstances, toward unexpected developments, toward people, and toward his own unconscious inconsistencies and unpredictabilities. The weakness of the ego -- in other words, the lack of independent self-responsibility -- refuses to take in and to swallow anything. Such a personality type fears the possibility of being gullible because deep down he does not wish to stand on his own two feet. He fears his lack of backbone because he craves for approval more than for the integrity of being true to the self -- to truth, as it were. Hence, much of what life brings cannot be first accepted and then dealt with.
The next center is between the eyes. In Oriental philosophy great stress is put on this center. It is often called the "Third Eye." This center is a preliminary manifestation of total spiritual wholeness and fulfillment, of the total realization of the divine self. Then this is expressed in the center at the top of the head. The center between
the eyes holds a vast capacity to visualize, to see, to comprehend. If the other centers are open, flowing, and harmonious, then a spiritual vision and perception comes about that gives one an entirely new outlook on life, an entirely new outlook on the universe, an entirely new outlook on the self, an entirely new outlook on everything that is. The opening of this center heralds the total integration expressed in the center at the top of the head. The latter -- the so-called crown chakra -- combines all. When this occurs, then one knows that there is no limit and that all is one.
The opening of each center requires a great deal of work. It requires a total change of your unconscious being. Often your conscious being has the right knowledge, but this is not sustained by your unconscious perceptions and by yor unconscious reactions. So the work is long and concentrated. But the pathwork becomes joyful after your main resistances have been overcome. You can do so only by becoming fully aware of them. When these resistances give way after a certain period, then your expansion becomes a joyful expression of living.
One more word about the personality split of mankind, the dualism that wrecks a person's inner faculties to cope with anything. This
is for the purpose of helping you to grow out of it so that your fears and your defenses can begin to relax deep within you. The first step must be to become aware of your hitherto unconscious fears. This is not as easy as it sounds. But once you are fully aware of them, then you have to find a way to let go of the tightness which these fears create. This can be done only when you accept instead of resist. But what should you accept? Should you accept deprivation, unfulfillment, sacrifice? Religion has taught this over the centuries, out of its own misunderstanding. It is true that acceptance must take place, for as long as you say "I must have this
and I must not experience the other," then you are in a state of tight, anxious defense. You are in an insurmountable struggle. This is perhaps the hardest lesson for the human state to transcend. How can you not
adhere to I must without giving up on your own happiness? This is often confused with negativity, with resignation, and even with masochistic self-denial. Religion's postulate that the good person must sacrifice is an error. The original meaning has two facets: (1) sometimes selfishness must be overcome if what is at stake for the other is more important than what the self can gain. The feeling of love will experience such acts as not depriving at all. But such love cannot develop in a climate of fear and of coercion. (2) Even more important is the fact that here the attitude of letting go is emphasized. Every genuine spiritual visionary has tried to convey this to mankind. Only within the duality of the mind does letting go imply, "I must relinquish what I want." Beyond the duality this is not so. If
you can learn to let go, to give up if necessary, without relinquishing the realization of yourself -- your own fulfillment -- then you might first have to accept the fact that a specific manifestation of your desire cannot be fulfilled now as you have it in your mind. This is the result of
your inner limitated concepts and of your closed energy centers, which do not permit your expansion. You still suffer from those results. Therefore, those results must be temporarily accepted (swallowed), without however losing out altogether. If you let go in an attitude of fearful, resigned, obedient, sacrificial deprivation, then you remain in the duality. The untightening movement can only be temporary.
But if you can let go in a spirit of trusting expectation, then your necessary momentary loss will soon turn out to be a gain. If you do not insist on a limited form of what you want right now, then you make room for
new and different possibilities of experience. If you learn to let go in that way, then you transcend your duality. In other words, you come out of your struggle to deal with fear and with deprivation on the one hand versus tightly holding on -- with guilt and anxiety -- on the other. If you can let
go in the trusting spirit of "if it cannot be had this way, then perhaps another way, if not now, then later," then you will lose your fear, the tightness of your centers, and therefore your sense of loss. Then your life forces will bubble up and surge through your entire system, through your entire organism: your physical organism, your mental organism, your emotional organism, and your spiritual organism. They will work in full harmony, functioning in the way in which life is meant to function, which is utter bliss and forever greater expansion. Then the energy centers will function in harmony and they will dispose of the waste energy that is held within your system now. There can be no greater toxic psychic poisoning than undisposed waste material of energy that should leave the system.
This holds true about everything else -- food, water, air. So the identical principle must apply to the metabulation of energy and of mind material. All that functions as it should must be constantly renewed, disposed of, and gone on from there to gathering new material.
[After this, questions were asked about the third aspect of the centers, specifically about practices to open them up. Some answers were given, too long to print here. We are sure that a recapitulation of these answers will appear in a following lecture.]
Try to digest some of what I have said here. Study these words, make use of them, go with them, and make them your own. Let them be
an incentive to realize that life can be so different from what it is now for you. What you experience now is at best only a small token of what still
lies in store for you. And the difficulties that you experience now
are a kind of disease, as it were, and therefore are unnecessary. In other words, they are something that can be eliminated if you learn to
properly understand their meaning. And that is the most important thing. For the majority of human beings experience their difficulties as if they came to them by accident. The commonly accepted belief that "this
is life" prevents the consciousness from seeing the difficulty as being a vital expression of the self. No matter how much it seems to be inflicted upon the self from the outside, it is never so. To the degree that you can understand your life experience as being an expression of that part of yourself that you are not yet familiar with, to that degree you will overcome the obstruction to your happiness. In order to do this, you will need
help. The victory, the liberation, the surge of joy, and the peace that come from that are incomparable. No good that comes to you from the outside -- perhaps because others happen to act according to your will -- could ever be
as peace-giving and as joy-bringing as the understanding of the real meaning
of your difficulties. That is the transcendence and the evolution of your personal being. Then the joy will expand forever more and life will become more and more as it is meant to be, as it already is, as a potential that exists in this other dimension from which you are still separated in
your consciousness.
Be blessed, all my dear ones. The love of the universe encompasses and envelopes all of you, wherever you may be.
August 25, 1969
Copyright 1969 by Center for the Living Force, Inc.