An evolutionary leap is happening within humanity!
This leap is causing much fear, chaos and confusion within our cultures, spiritual systems and ourselves. It is difficult for many people to understand what is happening and to know where to stand. Much of humanity is regressing into fear and desperation instead of evolving into love and creativity.
The great Tantrik tradition of the evolutionary power of Consciousness, or Kundalini Shakti, helps us understand what is happening in the world today. According to this system, the evolution of human consciousness occurs when the resting Kundalini awakens in the first chakra ( chakra = center of consciousness) in the base of the body and unfolds through the subtle spinal line (the sushumna) awakening dormant capacities within the other chakras, including the fourth chakra awareness, “God dwells within me as me” and “God dwells as each other.” This awareness is the beginning of unconditional love and human cooperation instead of aggression and competition
Each ascending chakra includes and yet transcends the previous ones.
The primal function of the first three chakras is about the survival, reproduction and the thriving of “I”, “Me”, “Mine,” the encapsulated sense of being a separate self. The basic driver of these chakras is fear. Fear runs the show. It does not feel safe for fear not to run the show because we are afraid of what would then happen to us. Everything would be out of our control!
THE FIRST CHAKRA is about basic SURVIVAL, getting the essential needs of food, shelter and protection met so the biological being survives. FEAR drives this center. We fear “the other.” More guns are better! PARANOIA is often predominate at this chakra. We tend to fear anyone that is not like us.
After we survive, the next impulse is to reproduce, or the sexual impulse.This impulse arises in THE SECOND CHAKRA located near the reproductive organs. This SEXUAL IMPULSE is not a simple one. So much of society is a function of this chakra manifesting as the ever-changing fashions of clothing, hair, shoes, food, drugs, alcohol, cars, sexual/gender issues, religious repression of sexuality, pornography, and the whole angst of being a teenager. Most of us know the impulses of this chakra very well. The concern of, “looking good,” and “keeping up appearances,” is this impulse. And then there are the multi-billion dollar industries everywhere that help us think we can look better and be sexier if we just buy and use…! If you want to get very rich, very quickly, create a product that feeds this chakra! JUDGEMENT of self and others, and DESIRE drive this center. We often do things so others will LOOK AT ME!
Now that we have survived and reproduced, the next impulse is to control ourselves, others and our environment. This is THE THIRD CHAKRA, our center of POWER, CONTROL, and COMPETITION manifesting mainly as DOMINATION OR SUBMISSION. This is about winning or losing. A tribe is formed out of our surviving family and relatives and we go out and get as much as we can in terms of food, possessions, territory, sexual partners, etc. If we are not successful, we are subjugated by those who are, the winners. For most of us, this currently manifests as being an employee or boss to others. FEAR, JUDGEMENT, COMPETITION, and DESIRE drive this center. Your boss may threaten you with, “YOU’RE FIRED!” You don’t want to get fired, do you? Because then you won’t have any money or health insurance. So you’d better behave the way your boss wants you to. We are essentially slaves. Or you may be the one who is Top Dog at the top of the heap. And you know there will always be someone trying to take your place. So watch out!
Most of human consciousness is encapsulated within these first three chakras. If you have a conversation with somebody, watch TV, look at the magazines on the news stand, pay attention to religion, politics, or spend much time surfing the internet, you will quickly see that most of the issues that concern human consciouness arise within these first three chakras. Most of our language is conversation about the concerns of these chakras.
Politics and politicians, with very few exceptions, are all about these first three chakras.
There is a psychic knot (granthi) in the area of the diaphragm above the first three chakras. This knot tends to lock most of our evolutionary intelligence, the Kundalini, into the lower chakras. This knot tightens as we get caught into identifying with the dramas (karmas) of life and society. It is why so many people have difficulty taking full, deep breaths as when you actually breath fully, the spiritual power starts moving and all sorts of strange and uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that have been successfully repressed begin to surface into our awareness. Better not to breath or feel. Freeze your diaphragm, the spiritual muscle! Lets keep all of our inner demons suppressed and repressed. Got to look good and keep up appearances if we are to be a successful part of the herd!
Becoming more aware is always stepping from the known into the unknown. Fear and confusion maya very well arise. The first three chakras suggest we stay in well charted territory. Our mind, religion and society, which are products of these chakras, totally agree.
When the knot of self-contraction in the area of the diaphragm begins to release, Kundalini moves through into the FOURTH CHAKRA, or THE SPIRITUAL HEART. As our heart awakens, our consciousness undergoes a profound transformation. Although the concerns of the first three chakras remain present, a more powerful and yet apparently confusing impulse arises. It is LOVING KINDNESS AND ACCEPTANCE. Life is no longer about “ME!”, but becomes about “WE!” All of us! And not just about other human beings, but plants, animals, environment, and yes, trees, whales, gays, extra- terrestrial beings, the whole manifest universe. Everything and everyone is interdependent and interconnected. In fact different expressions of all inclusive Being.
Competition is now replaced by cooperation. The fundamental question of the first three chakras, “What’s in this for me?” is now replaced with an awareness of the unity of all life. It becomes completely obvious that we are all interdependent and interconnected with everything and every being, like different waves in the eternal ocean of being. “I” am all of us! We are all reflections of each other.
As the heart awakens, the loving kindness that arises extends to those still completely hooked by the first three chakras. They are loved, included and accepted as they are. The irony is that loving kindness, cooperation and acceptance is not on the territorial maps of the lower chakras and is thus experienced as very threatening and irrational. The response is fear-based and manifests as judgement, indignity, anger, rage, and attack! It does not feel safe to be kind and loving, especially to those who are not of our tribe!
When we are attacked, it is very easy for those of us not stable in the heart to contract back into fear and aggression and attack back. This simply creates more fear, violence and chaos. It does not solve anything.
It is the problem, not the solution.
The old ways of the human are dying and they are not dying easily. They are dying with resistance, fear and hatred. Religion, politics, economics, sexuality and society as many of us have known them, are rapidly disappearing. True evolution is a movement into the new and unknown. How could it be otherwise? But the driver of this evolutionary impulse is LOVING KINDNESS. It is an expression of our higher truth. This is a time for great faith in this powerful shift. The human mind is mostly a product of the lower chakras and it will not know what to do! It will experience fear, anxiety, depression and confusion as it tries to make the new fit an old map that has not worked.
There is hope and guidance. For millennia, there have been some who have evolved beyond the first three chakras to awaken in the heart and even beyond. They have left us sign posts, but these sign posts have all too often been interpreted by the programming of the first three chakras so we end up with more of the same. Fortunately, there are always people alive on earth awake in the heart. They offer us a simple truth. Our mind will all too often defend its territory against this truth with the latest conspiracy theory or responses such as, “Yeah, but… “, or “What if…. ”
The way of the awakened heart is simple. It is living from loving kindness, compassion, acceptance, cooperation and joy. It is fearless. It does not make any sense to the lower chakras as it seems there is nothing here for them.
One living example of the awakened heart is Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. When asked what his religion is, he replied, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
Are we able to say the same thing? Can we overcome our fear and confusion, accept the invitation of evolution, and allow this loving intelligence to flow into our hearts and awaken loving kindness for ourselves and for all beings everywhere?
It is not too late. It can happen now. Relax, breathe, open your Heart and it will happen.
Love Is The Answer. It is effortless. And all inclusive.
The Heart of Conscious Living 