Swamiji enters.
He draws a small diagram on the whiteboard, marking the three lower chakras of the human body – Muladhara, Swadishthana, Manipuraka.
What are the chakras?
The chakras are the subtle energy centers of our body. We don't have only one body, as we think. We have seven bodies! Here we will deal with the first three bodies. The first body – the one in which you have come to this class, in which you are moving, talking, writing – this is called the jagrat shareera (the waking body). The next body, the sukshma shareera or swapna shareera (the dream body) is the body you use in your dream state. It is the body which you employ to travel from place to place in your dreams! The third body is the kaarana shareera (causal body), which you use in deep sleep. This body doesn't move, it is made completely of tamas.
The other two bodies meet the physical body at seven points along the length of the physical body. These points are what is known as the chakras.
These are the three lower chakras:
The Muladhara chakra, located at the base of the spine. The Swadishthana chakra, located two inches below the navel.
The Manipuraka chakra, located in the navel region.
The chakras were discovered in ancient times. Today science has proved that there is a gland located near, and corresponding to, each chakra. The chakras supply energy to the glands. There are 7 major chakras. They deeply influence our physical, emotional and mental activities. The chakras have great power. Right now, most of us use our bodies as if they were bullock carts! If we know how to utilize the chakras properly, we can use our body as aircrafts.
Let me tell you a small story. In fact, you could say this is a modern fable!
After World War I, a biplane was found abandoned near a remote tribal settlement in Asia.
Never having seen an aircraft up close earlier, the tribal folk assumed that it must be some strange sort of bullock cart - which was all they had seen on wheels. News spread in the village about the new bullock cart. The biplane was proudly taken around the settlement yoked to bullocks, and people came to see and admire it.
Some weeks later, one intelligent young tribal boy who had returned from a trip to civilization, inferred that all those buttons and switches on the display panel must have some purpose. So he fiddled around with them till he got the biplane to taxi around a bit. This amazed the tribals - the bullock cart could move around on its own! The young lad, who had seen tractors at work in the faraway villages, declared that this was no bullock cart, but a tractor! The bewildered tribal folk agreed, and the biplane began to be used as such. (Quite an inconvenient tractor, it must have been!)
But it took a war veteran, stumbling upon the settlement many months later, to rev up the engine, operate the gears and fly the biplane right up into the sky, fulfilling the purpose for which it was made.
This is the story of your life! Most of us treat our life, our potential, like a bullock cart. Some use it like a tractor. But how many of us can transform it into an aircraft? The power to fly is there within you, but can lie latent forever unless you learn how to operate the gears. These 'gears' are the techniques I teach you, to raise your energy from the lowest plane to the highest. The science of flying is nothing but the science of learning how to handle the chakras.
There are two ways to activate the chakras - through jnaana (maturity or wisdom), and through meditation.
What is meant by maturity?
As a child, if someone took a toy away from you, how would you react? By screaming and crying as if your life depended upon it. And now? Now you would hardly bother, because you are no longer attached to the toy. So when knowledge descends on you, maturity happens naturally. This has nothing to do with physical age. Research has found ways of detecting a man's mental age. They have found that the average man's mental age is not more than 14!
A beautiful story about Swami Brahmananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna: one day Swami Brahmananda was meditating in Brindavana. A devotee came and placed a costly blanket before him as an offering. Swami Brahmananda said nothing, he just silently noticed the act. A couple of hours later, a thief who spotted the blanket came up to him and took away the blanket. Still the Swami watched in the same way, silently, with no reaction! The gaining and losing of the blanket had made no difference whatsoever to him.
In the same way, they say of Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi that one day some thieves entered his ashram. They took whatever little they could find, and before leaving even gave a blow to Ramana. It is said that not only did Bhagwan show no reaction, even the pace of his breathing did not alter during the incident! He was supremely unperturbed by the whole incident. When maturity descends upon us, precisely this will be the reaction in us! This will happen only when we learn how to operate the gears, handle the mechanisms of our 'aircraft'. Can you understand me?