The Spirit-Energy: What are the lines of connection between the Overself and the body?
The first can be traced to thoughts. These express themselves through, and are in turn conditioned by, the physical brain and the spinal nerve system.
The second can be traced to emotions. These express themselves through, and are also conditioned by, the solar plexus and the sympathetic nerve system.
The third line can be traced to the vital forces. Although these permeate every organ of the body, and express themselves through every cell of it, they are specially centered in the heart, lungs, and genitals.
These three connections can plainly be seen. But they are not the whole. There is still a fourth line, although it cannot be traced in a manner acceptable to the sciences of anatomy and physiology, and very little is known about it anyway. The Indian yogis have named it variously: the Serpent Power, the Snake Force, World Energy. The Christian mystics have named it the Holy Ghost and the Pentecostal Power. To the monks of famed Mount Athos it is "the Athos Light;" to Saint John it was "the light of men;" and to Saint Luke, "the light of the body." The Chinese mystics have named it the Circulating Light.
It is really nothing other than the soul's Energy, the dynamic aspect of the still centre hidden deep in man. Its first activity is traceable in psychical and intuitive experiences outside the normal range as well as in abnormal physical phenomena; its final one is the supreme mystical experience which throws out awareness of the body altogether.
Thus through thought and feeling, physical vitality and spiritual vitality, there occurs a mutual interaction between the soul and flesh. Each affects the other. Each can, in abnormal conditions, affect the other even so dramatically as to appear miraculous in its power over the other.
The seven chief endocrine glands of the human body are associated with psychic centres in or near the spinal structure not visible to the physical eye. When the "Spirit-Force" is brought by the power of aspiration into the first centre, which is associated with the sacral gland, the body's vitality is markedly increased and its resistance to disease correspondingly increased too. The Hindu's texts picture it under the symbol of a lotus flower with four luminous petals.
With the entry of this energy into the second centre, associated with the prostate gland in men and the ovarian gland in women, the nervous system is strengthened, resistance to nervous disorders correspondingly increased, ability to concentrate mentally enhanced, and a resolute determination to rise up and succeed in some chosen endeavour manifested. In the third centre, associated with the adrenal gland, the power to influence other people's minds and even, to some extent, to heal them of sickness is developed. Along with this, the quality of fearlessness shows itself to an extraordinary degree. In the fourth centre, associated with the thymus gland, the "Spirit-Energy" ascends to the region of the heart and with that consciousness touches a higher plane of being. There is a progressive thinning down of egoism. With the fifth centre, associated with the Thyroid Gland, the emotions are at last balanced by, and poised in, the intuition. Along with this development, the illusion of time is banished. This gives a feeling of agelessness. Physically it bestows an improved power of speech in the sense that it becomes creative, forceful, and illuminating to its hearers. With the sixth centre, associated with the pituitary gland in the frontal region of the head, creative power is bestowed upon the concentrated Will and the spoken or written Word. With the seventh centre, associated with the pineal gland at the base of the brain, the illusion of the ego's reality is shattered, and the true self, or soul, is discovered. The ancient Indian books symbolize it in the form of a lotus with one thousand petals. The immense contrast of this with the small number of four of the first centre is intended to show that here at last is full and final illumination.
-- Notebooks Category 5: The Body > Chapter 8 : Kundalini > # 12
