The Chakras and their Petals - A Technical Overview

1. Introduction
2. Overview of generally well-known Data
3. How Many Chakras actually?
4. An additional eighth main Chakra?
5. The Number of Petals for each of the eight Chakras
6. Considerations affecting the Number of Chakra Petals 
7. Important Addition (with footnotes)
8. Additional Illustrations
9. Source Book Links
10. Reference Literature

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The Kechari Mudra

The Kechari Mudra - natural or artificial *

The Kechari Mudra can set-off immense spiritual / physical bliss
It is described in one of the earliest Vedic writings.
This mudra was (and still are) traditionally practiced by the original yogis.

As distinct from the artificial application of the Kechari Mudra, what happens during its natural occurrence is not only that the tongue reaches behind the uvula and above the soft palate or roof of the mouth**,  but that it can do so because the soft palate can retract on its own, thus enabling the tongue to naturally curl back upwards in order to reach up to the bottom of the base of the skull at the location of the sella turcica.
In the natural form of the Kechari Mudra the soft palate spontaneously 'pulls in' or retracts in a physical manner for a short period of time (from seconds to hours) thereby making the space (Sanskrit 'akasha') above the soft palate accessible to the tongue.
When that happens, the tongue then tends to want to touch, vibrate or lightly massage the bottom of the bony support of the brain. The resulting vibration, which also can be brought about (although more lightly) by snoring, humming, Tibetan chanting, singing, sounding the AUM mantra and sounds made during sexual intercourse can lead towards experience of:

• Ecstasy,
• Orgasmic feelings in the upper part of the body and head,
• Exalted rapture,
• Fully integrated physical, erotic, volitional, emotional, expressive, inspirational, conscious human/divine bliss,
• Conscious participation in human-divine reality and human-divine activities,
• Acute awareness of the immortality of one's being,
• The experience of human-divine glory.

Corpus Callosum

The Corpus Callosum is related to the main topic of this blog.
To discover how, click here and scroll down to the end of the article. 

This is a diffusion spectrum MR image of human brain showing curvature of two-dimensional sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross each other at right angles. (Credit: Van Wedeen, M.D., Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

"We found the brain is built from parallel and perpendicular fibers that cross each other in an orderly fashion. Finding this kind of simple organization in the forebrain of higher animals was completely unsuspected," says Van Wedeen, MD,

It is well known that neural pathways in the spinal cord and brain stem are organized in three principal directions -- head to tail, side to side, and front to back -- all of which are either parallel or perpendicular to each other and reflect the basic patterns of embryonic development.

Amrita, Soma, Ambrosia, Nectar, Elixir - Personal Experiences

(Click here to read a blog entry on the Kechari Mudra or here on Soma Rasa)

There is internal experiential evidence (corroborated by people with similar experiences) that our physical and subtle energy body contains five  major chakras that can be represented by colourful circular patterns.
In addition there is internal experiential evidence that we also have two major chakras that are localized in and around our head and which originate in and/or from the brain.

The seven main chakras
Nepal, 17th Century

Crown Chakra

(drawing by Kelly C. Anderson)

As this entry deals with some of my own intimate, internal experiences, I trust that you will see the information provided in its proper context and light.
I have been able to make 'myself' so tiny (imagine a form of internal astral travel) that it enabled me to travel through my central spinal canal and the organs and glands inside my head, to observe the presence of these chakras in all their glorious vibrational colors with patterns that very much resemble the illustrations in C.W. Leadbeater's book "The Chakras".

To help you understand the descriptions that I will offer here, see if you can follow me with the help of some simple and initially quite ordinary visualizations.

To start off with, imagine having one of those long thin balloons that clowns use to make animals out of.  Take one of those balloons and blow it up like a tube but with a large more expanded top part. When done, hold it up vertically like a snake raising its head, bobbing a bit.
(See the second illustration in the picture below.)

Now picture that this tube has the flexible curvature of a healthy, well maintained human spine.

Imagine that gentle gyrating movements of your pelvis (following a three dimensional path) activate a syringe that inserts a clear liquid substance into in your tailbone area, injecting the slender tube-like structure of your spinal chord.

(The balloon would explode of course, but... your spinal canal won’t.)

Now visualize that your spine's gyrating movements act as a kind of internal pumping mechanism in the spinal canal.

Suppose that these movements pump and circulate that clear viscous fluid (where this substance comes from will be explained a little later) into and through the already present cerebro-spinal-fluid (CSF) in the central spinal canal and meningeal structures of the spinal cord and the brain.

The whirlings or vortices resulting from this inflow and mixing of fluids create multidimensional interference patterns that vibrate in an upwards direction through the tube. (Illustration four in the picture below.)

 Illustrations 1 through 5

Where this begins (at the very bottom of the spine) colors can clairvoyantly be observed: usually magenta/red, the assigned colors of the Coccyx and Root chakras. (As well, energetic vibrations can be heard internally as a low hum: the lowest C of the western musical scale that we as humans can be internally aware of: the sound OM.)

This clear liquid in men and women may well be part of their male or female ejaculate, which, when could possibly become a glandular excretion that does not get ejaculated outside the body but  processed (as though injected) as described above.

When semen is held warm in the testicles, living sperm may not develop and part of the remaining fluid may play a role in 'urdhva reta' - a Sanskrit term for the upward movement through the spine of generative related fluids. There is no reason to assume that 'urdhva reta' does not occur in women, I suggest that the clitoris is also involved.

Back to our visualization now.

(Please see the second and third illustration in the picture above.)

While this, let me call it, "earth energy", moves up our slender spinal balloon, it is first claivoyantly sensed as magenta/red energy, then as orange, then as yellow.
At the same time, but now from the top down, through our fontanels (or at least where they used to be when we were still a baby), ultraviolet energy, let me call it "sun or universal energy" is being sucked in, which then turns violet, then indigo and then blue as the energy slow down in its vibrations.

These two up-and-down flows of coarser and subtler energies mix and interfere with each-other in a multidimensional way, forming those special interference patterns like the ones that Leadbeater so well depicts. Five of those patterns stand out as more harmonious, they are the lower 5 chakras (6 when the Coccyx chakra is included).

The Heart chakra, where the two flows meet and balance each other out, is sensed as green... Of course! It is the mix of blue and yellow, the color of our green nature. (chlorophyll, photosynthesis)

To get the right picture about the chakra locations and their mix of colors as seen inside the tube (remember I made myself so very tiny in order to see that), you have to visualize them as horizontal trans-sections within that colors/vibrations filled spinal tube.

Maybe all this can also be described in terms of a musical instrument, an organ pipe or one of those Tibetan horns, as internal sounds can also be clearly discernible.

When compared to the chakras that originate from or in the spine, the Brow chakra is of a different kind. Its usually assigned two large petals, not only represent the two sides of the brain, they also represent the two lobes of the pituitary body to which this chakra is directly connected. Thus, this chakra not only represents the two sides of the brain in a left /right manner, but also the pituitary gland in a front/back arrangement.

One spot particularly, at the bottom centre of the cranial base just above the uvula at the rear of the soft palate (just where the ''sella turcica'' is, inside which sits the pituitary gland) is the location of ''the nectar drop''.

When the supply of cerebro-spinal fluid exceeds the volume of the cerebro-spinal canal, the ventricles of the brain and the meningeal structures, it seeps out and bathes the nerves, resulting in the experience of an intense sense physical/spiritual bliss. 

Animated view of the flow of bliss
The flow is related to Cerebro-Spinal Fluid or Amrita.

Source: http://www.healtouch.com/csft/csf.html

When the supply is even more than that, small drops of this liquid come down the back of the throat: amrita, soma, ambrosia, nectar, elixir... what is sometimes called the ''food of the gods''.

This process is also mentioned in the ''Hatha Yoga Pradipika'' an ancient scripture on yoga.

(Click here to read the section on Kechari Mudra and Soma Rasa, slokas 48-50)

(By the way, the tongue procedure with the Kechari Mudra is not necessary.)

The pineal gland is the physical recipient of the full force of the solar, divine, spiritual, inner and outer light and energy and as such is not a chakra in the traditional sense, more on this elsewhere.

Now what about the chakras as felt at the front of the body?

(Please see the first, fourth and fifth illustration in the illustration above.)

Again Leadbeater has given us the right depiction with his treatment of nervous plexi. This man was truly amazing (if somewhat odd later on in life). The word solar "plexus" says it so well.

What we feel in the frontal chakric areas are indeed complex networks of nerves and nerve ends as they emanate from the spinal column at exactly the same locations as where the above described chakric trans-sections and their harmonious interference patterns are located.

A vision by Hildegard of Bingen  1098 - 1179 AD

What I feel now in 2010 (this article was written in 1999 when I was just about completing my own Kundalini process) is a totally glorious body/soul unit. A, so to say, ''one-grand-chakra'' entity, I experience myself very much as a being as depicted by Hildegard of Bingen's visions and pictures: sometimes like that blue person, sometimes like that egg-shaped universe with all its glorious radiation... Nectar totally, and continuously.

A vision by Hildegard of Bingen

A vision by Hildegard of Bingen

Recommended reading:

Click here for a link to Jana Dixon's physiological treatment of Kundalini: "The Biology of Kundalini - Exploring the Fire of Life".

Click here for her web page on Amrita.

A Tantric Meditation

The Size of our Soul

During the spring 2009, my wife and myself visited a large and beautiful baroque castle in Germany from the Age of Enlightenment (Frederic II, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.). Imagine huge rooms and exquisitely inspired baroque paintings and sculptures throughout. We were in awe.

While enjoying this we overheard a 6 year old German child asking her father (it sounds so special in German):

"Papa, why are the doors so big and the ceilings so high? Were the people who lived here taller than we are now?"

"Ach nein, mein Liebchen, vielleicht die Menschen waren... "

"Oh no, my dear child, people were probably a little smaller, but they had 'v e r y' large souls!"
"What's a soul Papa?"
"Your soul is what you feel love with. With your soul you see beauty... you feel happiness!"
"Do I have a big soul, Papa?"

"Aber natürlich mein Liebchen!..."

"Of course, my dear little one!"
"Then you and Mommy have big souls too!"

Nectar, Soma, Ambrosia, Amrita, Elixir of the Gods, Love Potion, etc. and Cerebro Spinal Fluid (CSF)

A discussion about the sweet sensorial culmination of the Kundalini process. *

At some point during the male Kundalini process (I have inquired with women and received some very hopeful, concurring and parallel responses) semen production does not include sperm anymore, which makes semen turn into a glandular secretion.

I suggest that one way or another** a portion of this glandular secretion goes up into the spine through a tiny orifice and is propelled up by reverse pelvic rocking. The reverse pumping, if I may say so, is directed more backwards-and-up than forward-and-up.







The flow of bliss.

This additional glandular supply increases the cerebro-spinal-fluid*****inside the cerebro-spinal-canal inside the spine, the meninges and the ventricles that are dispersed throughout the brain, from 125 cc to a possible 250 cc.
Much of this is actually minutely documented, although very poorly translated, in original Sanskrit yogic literature. Nevertheless, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika is quite clear on this. (See the picture above and references in another article on Amrita/Soma.)

When the amount of CSF (cerebro-spinal fluid) gets over a certain threshold, some of it drips down on top of the soft palate and/or on the back of the tongue. The sensation of the pressure release and the dripping is extremely sweet.
This is what is referred to as:

"nectar", "soma", "ambrosia", "amrita", "elixir", "love potion", etc.

Not that the taste of this liquid is sweet, it is not, it is actually salty, quite alkaline. It's consistency is like  watery Jell-O, or more properly stated it IS the consistency of liquefied jelly fish.

Could it be - and I suggest that it is - that at the veriest inside of us, at our very core, that the physical structure that is anatomically described as our CSF system, that it is actually still that primordial immortal sea-creature that we (primordial jelly fishes that we were - billions of years ago - and ... still are, started to surround with calcium accretions, etc. and eventually a variety of appendages?***

 For a blog article on this subject , click this line.

The following video clip is quite extraordinary, especially after one realizes that behind it's prankish-but-amazingly-spirited delivery, there is a science story about jelly fish with far-reaching implications, implications that should be considered quite seriously especially in light of the suggestion I made in the paragraph above.

Enjoy
 

When the CSF pressure is high and the spinal column is in excellent shape as to curvature and flexibility in the "three degrees of freedom" (this seems almost a prerogative) the fluid seeps from the spinal cord's central canal into the nerve pairs that extend from the spine around and forward to the front of the human body, the various nerve plexi or chakric energy centres.
I postulate, that the soma substance ("soma", I like that word because of its "somatic" connotation) gets transported in minute amounts of stuff/vibration/energy along the nerval dendrites underneath the myelin sheathing.

When the energy pulses reach the front of the body the sensation initially felt as sweetness but it can increase in intensity to the highest states of ecstasy. Orgasmic ecstasy as by nearly everyone is one-sevenths of the (at least) 7 ecstasies that can be experienced. Each ecstasy having a slightly different ring (vibration) of sweetness and intensity.

"The nectar phenomenon that you describe may actually have to do with saliva and the salivary glands, or, if not that, than with the production of phlegm in the nasal area." ~ Tony Syndrome

The nectar phenomenon has nothing at all to do with saliva and the salivary glands...
and also... 'Snot it's not!"

• The taste of the "material of nectar" is saline (salty). When you collect and taste it with the tongue it tastes and smells like a light kind of sea-water. (Watered down sea-water so to say.)
• It is very clear, no color, brightly transparent.
• The consistency is that of liquefied jelly-fish.The stuff is in no way the same as phlegm that one gets from colds and that comes from nasal passages.
• Nor is it the same as phlegm that one might get from dairy allergies or the like.
• The place of exudation is at the back of the mouth just above the soft palate, from the bottom centre of the skull.
• The physical feeling when exudation takes place is like a sweet release from some subtle muscular structure.
• The spot where it drops, with that sweet feeling, is often on the very back of the tongue or can be felt while swallowing.
• Where / when the drop(s) touches, one can feel a sweet erotic light touch.
• It feels like having a sweet taste, but the word "taste" is not accurate. The sweet sensation resembles the taste of quince jelly.
• When in a meditative visionary state one can actually see a beautiful fiery glowing orange red conglomeration of droplets.
• In my case I can regulate the amount of release with spinal movements. Also manipulating certain spots on the spine affects the amount of release.
• With the nectar release, the spinal movement is at the bottom of the spine, a gyrating 3.5 turn, clock and counter clock wise is sometimes taking place. Most often however, simple backward tilting of the pelvis will do.
• The mental state one is in does not affect the release. I experimented with that a lot. I can be angry (have to work hard to get angry though), I can be sad (have to work hard at that too), I can be neutral, make myself despondent, it makes no difference, the nectar drop is always there. The only thing that can negatively affect it, is when the spine is not aligned properly.
• Tiredness does not affect the release. I purposely created headaches, even though neck induced, the nectar drop is still there.
• One can regulate the amount of the nectar release.
• It seems an unconditioned response to "nothing", (however strange that may sound.)
• I used to think that one should not be sexually active to increase the amount, or to affect the exudation. Although initially that may have been the case, now I'm sure there is no strong relationship. 

The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) had the same experience. In a visionary meeting with him nectar and unconditional bliss phenomena were discussed:

1. It was noted that this nectar release and the concomitant ecstasy was UN-conditional.
2. That it also came with the realization that morality is an acquired set of behavior and mental patterns.
3. That a realized person is indeed "non-moral". (Not to be confused with "immoral".)
   
4. It was found though that, what we now call psychopathic behavior can indeed come with the same nectar and ecstasy release.

To safeguard un-social, a-social or even anti-social behavior, rules were set up to make sure that the "prospective practitioners of this yoga" (not the right word at all, but it will have to do) had to go through rigorous pre-training. Hinayana and Mahayana approaches resulted from this. Loving kindness became an absolute prerequisite "behavior" as to ensure that when the un-moral, non-social, non-god realization came through that no social harm would result.

This may sound strange and almost contradictory.

When one, at one point, near the end of the kundalini process of "re-origination", tackles fearless-ness and non-morality, one goes through a final test.**** This test is not in any way like an academic test. It is totally non judgmental. One actually gives up judgmentalism radically. It is the scariest and free-est of realizations, the test of all tests.

One eventually gives up on the whole idea of God as .... fill in any and all of the usual attributes.

That's why final (if there is such a thing) realization is non-theistic. Non-theistic realization is not the same as or does not lead to atheism.

Ah... nectar, ambrosia, soma, elixir of the gods, amrita or.... the taste of immortality!


* This article was originally in response to Tony Syndrome's questioning of Dan Winter's: "I tried to explain how large scale harvesting of human glandular juices, uv blue fire aura / ecstatic/sex juice, was the raw material Sai Baba needed for Vibuti production.

** Dan Winter spotted the same process, he refers to it in one of his web pages. 

*** I brought this idea forward at an introductory lecture in Hartford, Connecticut in 2001.

**** I recall that in the "Aquarian Gospel" Jesus goes through similar tests. Whatever one thinks about channeled (re)sources, this book is very inspiring and may be authentically vision based.
"Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ" by Levi, Devorss & Co isbn 0875161685

***** An important article that gets more and more interesting by the end: http://www.healtouch.com/csft/CSF_stasis.html