"Religion" can be either inner looking or outer looking ..........so much of what passes for religion today is outer looking......towards the society and others.....never inward at oneself.
In the far east is a tradition of inward viewing that for a few thousand years has maintained that there are "psychic centers" in the body distributed along an enery channel.....psychic centers called Chakras.
All life forms contain energy..............this energy in humans is called Kundalini........actually from the same root as C**T......taken from the oriental goddess of wisdom, Cunti......K and C being interchangeable in most pronunciation.......it is said that Kundalini is the "coiled serpent of wisdom", and is female in nature..........the goal of those who believe this is to cause the Kundalini to rise from the base and ascend to the seventh and highest Chakra where universal wisdom/cosmic knowledge resides.....where uniting with the universe occurs.
Kundalini resides at the base of the spine....right next to the old asshole......if it resides there permanently the possessor of that kundalini is a sloth, a brute.....
the next Chakra is located in the genitals.....if the energy rises to this level and remains primarily there, then sex above all else is the goal of the individual........(one wonders about those ministers and religious leaders who are so offended by and afraid of sexuality-----they must think about it constantly)
The third Chakra is in the belly....an inch or so below the naval......in Karate this is known as Hara, the seat of power.....it is where martial arts students store their "power"...................long before Karate and other martial arts came along, practioners of Kundalini Yoga identified this third chakra as a power center.......the individual whose kundalini rises to this level and dwells primarily there will be concerned with the accumulation of power over others, with the accumulation of wealth and possessions.......
The fourth Chakra is the Heart Chakra.....positioned on the spinal column (which is the channel kundalini energy uses as it rises and descends) parallel to the physical heart.............this is the chakra of LOVE.........as if poets and songwriters didn't intuitively know this.....when the kundalini energy rises to this level we have an individual that will make sacrifices for others out of love, even to the extent of giving their own life for another.......
The fifth Chakra is the Throat Chakra....this is the level of communication, of ideas.....it is when kundalini rises to this level that IDEAS dominate the individual, at this level we find stirrings for and interest in religion, philosophy.......for music, dance, poetry, art in all forms........
The sixth Chakra is the "third eye", right smack in the forehead above and centered between the physical eyes.........this is the Chakra of INTUITION......when kundalini rises to this level we are able to connect dots and see relationships that others do not see..... all great religions and philosophies are based on someone's insights gained when the Third Eye was filled with Kundalini.......
The seventh Chakra is the Cosmic Crown ......residing at the very top of the head.....drive a train straight up the center of the spinal column through the top of the head and you are there.............Enlightenment /total enlightenment resides here....Buddhahood!
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Now looking at Human Evolution and looking at the Chakras as metaphors for our development, we see there are GENDER DIFFERENCES.........go to one of those prehistoric "hunting pits" where huge mammoths weighing two or more tons were trapped and where we can still find speak scars on their calcified bones and you get an idea of the need for the male hunters to have their kundalini accumulated in their power chakra......this was dangerous work..........a small group of puny humans versus one or more of this huge beasts, there must be a trememdous desire to assert one's own power before taking on such a task. Studies have shown that once humans appeared in an area the death of competing predators was guaranteed......humans didn't like competition for their food supply................I read recently that within a thousand years or so of humans entering North America the saber tooth tiger and other such beasts simply vanished......this would indicate that in males there were evolutionary pressures for the kundalini to rise to----and maintain itself primarily----in the third chakra, the power chakra.
The "kundalini needs" for FEMALES was quite different.........the human infant is the most totally helpless infant in all the animal kingdom......a mother has to devote years to bring this child to a reasonable level of being self-sufficient........if the kundalini hadn't risen to the heart level, the LOVE chakra, in the female then humanity would have failed as a species.......off-spring would never have survived and we would have passed from the scene like the scent of a fart in a whirlwind.
But wait! Even love is not enough to ensure the safety and upbringing of a child..................children can never tell us what is wrong when they are sick or in other forms of danger......the demands of children are such that in our long-ago prehistory children whose mothers had kundalini rising to the level of the THIRD EYE would have had a much better chance of survival......how many times would a mother have "to sense" what was wrong with her child and "to sense" what the child needed? How many children wandered from their mother's sight as she attended yet a younger child and found himself/herself in danger-----only to have a mother "sense" that his/her needs and rush to the rescue with younger child in hand?
But if the kundalini has risen to the third eye/that is the 6th chakra and that means the kundalini, has passed through the 5th chakra on its way to the 6th......and the 5th/the throat chakra/is the chakra of communication, of ideas, etc...........
Interestingly enough, a few evolutionary theorists now are centering upon 'women as being the developers of language'..............one theory is that language developed in the need for gossip, for banter, for passing the time among themselves as they, the women performed the boring jobs of sitting in a group picking lice off their children and each other, of cracking nuts to extract the meat inside (at xmas time if you have ever tried to do that task with the decorative bowl of nuts on a coffee table, you will know just how much work and time there is dedicated to getting even a small bite out of a single walnut).....plus, men when hunting would find "silence is golden", whereas women when gathering would go off in a group with a child on one arm and another in tow behind and they would find that talking among themselves would be a defense as it were ensure they never surprised any dangerous animal and have it turn on them out of fear...........and then there is the evolutionary "proof" built into our brains----women consistently, in all cultures, score higher in communicative skills than men...........
And as for my overall thesis that evolutionary pressures forced women to have more ascendant kundalini than men -----well, more and more we are finding that there indeed did exist FEMALE BASED RELIGIOUS MYTHS/GODDESSES/etc, that later were appropriated for and altered into male based religions/ and gods.............but first came the female ideas and concepts.
Anyway, what does this have to do with today?
Well, any examination of PATRIARCIAL SOCIETY will reveal that at its core is domination by third chakra acendancy.......power.....power over the weak is at its core....power over women is at it's core....a hierarchial organization with someone at the top, underlings below----and because the "secret" of any hierarchial organization is that most will accept their position in that order and not challenge those above them AS LONG AS THEY HAVE SOMEONE BELOW THEM...which is why women, the physically weakest were reduced to being breeding machines in burkas throughout most of our recorded history------strange when you think that they have a greater incidence of higher chakra ascents than those above them...but hey, that's the way power organizes things.
Using Kundalini and the Chakras as a point of reference, and thinking about the old Jesuit philsopher, de Chardin (who opined that evolution continues----but more upon the "soul" than upon the body)the question is where does the Kundalini reside primarily in a person? In a society?
We know there are women who are killer-mothers----obviously their kundalini is not at the heart level as a regular residing place---------and we know there are men who can and do produce insightful and original theories to explain the theretofore unexplainable, highly suggestive that their kundalini spends a lot of time in the old third eye.........
Now Kundalini can and does rise and fall in all individuals----the question is where does it spend the most time-------------I am sure that it resides primarily in the second and third chakra in a terrorist (sexual frustration seems to be one of the characteristics of a terrorist, so we know that sex occupies a great amount of interest in this individual) but it also must rise above those levels---surely there is someone they love (4th) and they seem more than willing to sacrifice themselves (4th)for an idea (5th), but still the principal motivation would seem to be residing in the 3rd as somehow their sacrifice for an idea is wrapped up in a "personal empowering" nexus of confusion.
Sooooooooooooooooo, I posit the following-------Kundalini resides primarily in the 3rd chakra among those seeking power and wealth and status.......one can safely say that though cops and soldiers can and do love their spouse and children, their kundalini primarily resides in that old power center that also was the residing place for the kundalini of ancient warriors and hunters............and one can say that corporate CEOs who cheat their companies out of money so they can buy $12,000 shower curtains are also beholden to #3.......
And I have to ask, isn't it interesting how the kundalini view of things translates into political breakdowns...........
The "Press is Liberally Biased".......no doubt, after all, communication is a 5th chakra activity........ that might also explain why "conservative" talk show hosts while proficient in talking are also so devoid of ideas and analytic thinking, they have only partly entered the realm of the 5th.........and isn't it interesting that conservatives so often point out that in a survey of a leading university (think it was American U in D.C.) 92% of the faculty voted for Clinton and only 8% voted for the GOPer.......after all, the university should be filled with 5th Chakra guys and gals...................and what about the cultural bias that conservatives find: you know, all those artists and writers and musicians and actors, all those "creative folks" who back liberal positions ------why, IT'S TRUE! Overwhelmingly, those who regularly have Kundalini visits to their 6th chakra are in fact liberal.
And who is surprised that military folks, cops, bankers, corporate execs, sex-police (especially the anti-gays), and the most extreme followers of religions where women are subordinate tend to vote GOP?
Sooooooo, the way I see it, what is playing out in America and on the world stage, is a drama about who is going to win? Those whose kundalini reside primarily at level three and below, or those whose kundalini resides primarily at level 4 and above......
All around we see signs of this conflict.......the feminization of areas of our society show that the male/patriarchial society and its institutions are under attack...............but look at how the war is being fought on the other side.........war/the institutionalization of war, which is always an appeal to the third chakra/"we are at war with terrorism" says Bush------"and this war will go on for decades" says Bush.......always the appeal to the emotion/us against them/always the charge that liberals are nuanced and too filled with ideas and not enough with conviction and courage to carry the day.........and ultimately with the DUMBING DOWN of the population.
Two things caused me to write this polemic: one was the iconization of reagan........and the reminder that it was he who pushed the "fairness doctrine" out of the public domain, and he who began the massive deregulation that allows the media and public discussion to fall into fewer and fewer hands/corporate hands/corporate hands whose kundalini reside overwhelmingly in the 3rd chakra WHERE POWER AND WEALTH AND DOMINATION TRUMPS ALL............
And Friedman of the NYTimes who has written a new book praising "outsourcing" and declaring it good for america because as the good american jobs disappear overseas we will be forced to create new and better jobs here at home and thus remain the driving force in the world economy.........and I say Balderdash to that reasoning!
Why?
Well, I come from Illinois-----haven't been back there much----once in the last 41 years----but that last visit was in '98 and I flew into Champagne-Uraban, the home of the U of Illinois.....small airport, and I arrived after midnight, and I was amazed that there were a dozen people standing around holding signs for arriving passengers----all the incoming names were foreign sounding--------------seems the U of Illinois is a real hub for research and development----------people from all over the world come to study and teach there or to do research..................sadly, the patriot act is probably reducing the number of signs being held currently for incoming visitors.
The U of Illinois is also one of the great centers for computer science.......offer Ph.D.'s in the subject.........I actually know someone (a brother-in-law of a Brother-in-Law)who has such a degree from the U of Illinois..........he has a top secret clearance and works at Los Alamos, so his job is secure.....but two of his friends from his graduating class had great programming jobs in private industry and now they are out of work---their jobs outsourced to India----and their hiring prospects are very low now if they hope to get hired for prior pay and benefits--------and what is interesting and scary is that they got their high degrees in computer science ONLY SEVEN YEARS AGO----- "creative destruction" of jobs is excelerating fast-----------so what is the situtation if AMERICA creates an industry with AMERICAN TALENT that can be outsourced to other nations paying lower wages and the whole cycle takes but a few years? Can we expect the U of I grads in computer science to now go back and retrain in a new area? One that can be obsolete as well in ten yers? And how can we continue to create NEW INDUSTRIES if the import of foreign talent is stymied by such as the Patriot Act (as we become more and more xenophobic and isolationist----all characteristics of the third chakra) and our own school systems are being dumbed down by rightwing assaults demanding creationism be taught, as all the while school budgets are cut (while prison budgets rise----we have more people in prison today than even China with 4 times the population-----more people in prison and a HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF OUR POPULATION IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER INDUSTRIAL NATION) and the Leave No Child Behind mentality imposes rote teaching to tests instead of individual development of critical faculties? How are we going to constantly recreate a new economy if less and less money goes to education and more and more goes to the military? From the 5th chakra to the 3rd chakra?
And with more and more of our resources dedicated to the 3rd chakra and less and less to the 5th, we will have ever more citizens susceptible to the propaganda and the slogans of the residents of chakra #3, and fewer and fewer who will say with both surprise and outrage: "You want to put RONALD REAGAN ON MOUNT RUSHMORE!"
(Is it really any surpise that conservatives have always attacked the tiny federal support for the arts? When looked through the "prism" of the chakras, it is inevitable/whatever the rationale ultimately offered up/that #3 guys and gals will opppose any support for #5 guys and gals because the #5ers are "the enemies"....they are the pacifists in the world of the warriors.
So, how high has the kundalini risen in our society as a whole? I can be thankful that it resides so high in so many-----but I am ohhhh soooooooo fearful that their numbers are insufficent to carry the day....... especially when #3 has such emotional appeal.....when it is so easy to push slogans that energize the #3 chakra/where an appeal to hate or fear is so successful/where jingoistic words and flag embracing carry the day over reason and detached nuanced thinking.................
Listen to ANY Bush speech and you find the appeal going directly to the third chakra.......listen to any rightwing talkmeister on TV or radio and the appeal goes straight to the 3rd chakra/whether it be attacking Spain for withdrawing its troops or discusssing the environment, the appeal will somehow always be couched in language to activate the #3 chakra and shut down the higher reaches.
That's where our society is....where the world is.....and only when that #3 chakra is overcomed will we see a better world.
A/j
===== "Incompetents, when faced with a problem, will always find a solution that makes the problem worse."
Jean McEvoy |