Relationship between Chakras and the five elements

 The mooladhara chakra has its sensory path, or organ of sense, the nose, the

sense of smell. So any of the kriyas that involve the nose and the sense of

smell, are automatically going to allow that earth element, mooladhara chakra,

to open up. Why? The sense of smell is man’s most primitive sensory avenue, and

it short circuits straight through to the brain in a very special way. The sense

of smell is related to the primal sexuality of the human being.

 

Perfume is a sexual signal related to the mooladhara chakra, and we are reminded

of Freud’s famous case about a middle-aged man who fell hopelessly in love with

his wife’s maid. The maid was anything but attractive, and they couldn’t work

out why he was suddenly absolutely in love with her. Freud finally discovered

that she wore the same perfume as the man’s mother had. What he had actually

fallen in love with was his mother! And this love was triggered off through his

mooladhara chakra. So this chakra is powerful, very powerful. Perfume, incense,

smell is the mooladhara trigger, and the legs are the output. The process of

walking, of ambulation. Once you are upright you move from the infantile state

of crawling on all fours to an erect position. Then your physical evolution is

ended, and there is only spiritual evolution left.

 

In swadhisthana chakra the sense of taste is the sensory avenue or input. In

tasting we use the hands, which are the motor output of swadhisthana, to take

food to the mouth, and to drink. There is a very interesting relationship

between the sensation of taste, the sexual fluids of the body and the awakening

of swadhisthana chakra. How do you think we got the expression, ‘She’s a dish!’

or ‘He is good enough to eat?’ This swadhisthana chakra controls the water

element, and twenty-five hundred years ago the Hindu scientists worked out

empirically that there is no sense of taste unless the water element is present.

This is true. The taste buds will not function without the water element being

present. If your mouth is dried up, and I blindfold you and plug your nostrils,

you can’t tell whether you’re eating apple or onion.

 

Manipura chakra- the navel centre, the fire centre- is related to the element

heat, incandescence, and its sensory avenue is sight. Without light we can see

nothing. Also, when we are warm and jovial that is manipura chakra giving forth

the warmth of human contact.

 

Anahata chakra, the heart centre, has as its sensory avenue the element of

touch. It is perhaps the most beautiful centre in all traditions. If you

meditate on anahata, it is something very special. In tantra, the heart centre

is opened through the sensory element of touch. It is an area that represents

the deepest psychological significance. We say, ‘I am touched’ or ‘I am moved’.

The element of the area is air; its sensory avenue is touch. Its motor output or

organ of action is the procreative action, the act of reproduction, but that

reproduction can take place in the mind as well as the body.

 

In tantra and kriya the movement of consciousness, the rotation of consciousness

around the body, is a tactile experience in which you create your own sensation

of movement, heat, cold, pressure. Yoga nidra is an opening up of anahata chakra

through learning to experience the tactile sensations of heat, cold, touch,

pain, light pressure, deep pressure; all these sensations are deliberately

activated. In this Western society we are out of touch. We are afraid of

touching for to touch is to be involved. We don’t even know how to focus our

tactile sensations. There is an interesting experiment you can do that relates

to anahata chakra. Reach out to the person next to you and have a brand new

tactile sensation, by a very simple maneuver. Touch forefingers. Stroke from

below to above with your forefinger and thumb, and your nervous system will have

a new tactile experience. Stoke gently.

 

In tantra it says that you should reject nothing, you should integrate

everything. One of the things we do with human sexual experience is that we take

it and integrate it. We say that it is not necessary, or it may come as a holy

sadhana, and then there is joy, there is bliss, it becomes a spiritual

experience. The rabbit is better off than the human being. There is a little

philosophical problem that goes, ‘Why are there more rabbits than people?’ The

answer is, ‘Because rabbits have more fun than people’. Then it goes on, ‘But

why do rabbits have more fun?’ Answer, ‘Because there are more rabbits’.

 

So we go to the throat, vishuddhi chakra. The sensory element is hearing, and

its motor output is talking, the tongue. There is a relationship between what we

hear and what we say. Hence we have the saying ‘deaf and dumb’. In order to be

able to speak, one must actually first have heard. You cannot speak that which

you have not heard. There is the relationship between input and output again.

 

These chakras, these centres, represent an input and an output system, which is

awakened through the practice of kriya yoga, beginning at mooladhara, and ending

in the throat at vishuddhi. There are many subtle things, which I will leave you

to think about. These chakras all interrelate between the sensory avenue and the

motor avenue. For instance, we used to have a saying many years ago in England

that somebody gets ‘vapours’, meaning they get dizzy or faint. If you over

breathe you will alter the circulation of the blood to the brain, and you will

produce fainting. Or, if you don’t breathe fully enough you will faint. It has

something to do with the ‘vapours’. That is how the popular saying arose. When

somebody gets the vapours and faints, smelling salts are pressed upon them. The

sense of smell is stimulated, mooladhara chakra is awakened. Then they are

grounded; they are earthed, and they come to.