A gnostic is he who Has with a capitol H, a direct experience of the divine within the true self. The realisation of the true nature cannot be discerned by intellectual dogma and doctrine. Whoever does not know self, does not know anything, but whoever knows self already has required knowledge of the depth of the uni-verse.

Some see the Bible and other scriptures such as the Koran, Veda’s etc. as historical documents, as the true life story of Buddha, Jesus and so on. While I do not dispute that throughout the ages there were those who realised this direct experience of the divine, it will remain a closed book if one merely reads these books in this way.
What do I mean by this? You may have all heard it being said, that the true knowledge is hidden within, that wisdom comes to those who know the truth within the self (and this is not the usual I, the person-”ality”), that knowing thyself is not the part or sum of your fears, desires or thoughts that describe your personality, nor is it the material knowledge experienced in your life that made you judge others and the world around you.
No matter how much information you’ve collected, it does not matter how much education, diploma’s or title’s you’ve gathered, or experiences you had, the wisdom we talk about here is far greater than the total collection of personal experiences of humanity.

Let’s say you’re born and grow to make sense of the world around you, starting with no knowledge of the world around you, and let’s say that your senses can only measure length, then in due cause you’ll be able to see different lengths and judge them accordingly. But unbeknown to your ability to see length there is also depth and volume, you would judge with only a limited point of view. In other words you would judge each following experience through the previous one, and as the previous one has a limited point of view, the next one will automatically have a blind spot in it too.

If we would be able to see the whole, then there wouldn’t be any disagreement. We might have visited a party, or gone to see a movie, or talked about the situation of the world, one thing everybody will notice is that everybody has their own point of view about it, yes you might find correlations in length, but differences there will be. You like this food, the other something else, you might be scared of snakes, the other is not, one believes in love, the other does not, different values due to having seen a limited part within the experience, which is then used to measure the next. You’re being conditioned by all that lies in your past experiences, and these become your eyes and judgment of the next experience.

Now we, or at least some of you, know that all in the world is/has a frequency, a vibration, be it light, sound and even smell or touch, so you recognise the green grass by the vibration/frequency of green and when you are standing in the field you likely pick up a molecule that vibrated the string to which the smell of grass is connected and your emotions are linked to it too, so your feeling body recognises and triggers associated thoughts: “Ah grass, mmm nice” or “pfff i need to cut the lawn” etc. Now there are millions and millions of connections, each experience therefore has an emotional link to the vibration and will start to vibrate in unison. Sometimes we pick up a smell and thoughts arise about a lost friend, simply because in an experience there was a particular smell when you once were with that friend for instance.

Now you might not have been aware of it, but in this emotional body, it picked it up and registered it, and now that the sense (you being conscious of it or not) picked it up, it triggered those associated thoughts/feelings. Now it’s a little like the dead rise again, those memories hidden far within are only alive if they experience their frequency/vibration. In some of the previous articles I said fear loves itself, fear only recognises of itself, it seeks of itself. It would be dead if it cannot vibrate.

Now let’s not try to recognise this in ourselves but in others, have you ever seen people in an argument and the emotions flare up? And that they are unable to, and often unwilling to see the others point of view, even to the point that it becomes silly? It’s the same for habits that are really unhealthy and where people have not learned from a similar mistake, or jump to conclusions, and the very reason why we don’t understand the other, because the response, the thoughts that arise, often while the other is still explaining or answering, are asking our attention, and as we listen (we call them thoughts) we don’t really fully hear the other apart from those things we judged. So when we disagreed, our tendency to disagree seeks to run the show so to speak. And this identification to those thoughts and feeling that arise makes us blind. Unable to see the bigger picture so to speak.

Some of those past experiences were from a time when our mental ability had not developed words yet and are only having emotions connected to it, like that of a baby who’s hunger made its tummy hurt, and the mother’s breast its comfort. I wonder how many men like women’s breasts for that very reason, unbeknown to them.

In the articles I use the word buckets, it’s where those emotions collect experience. Each emotion has its own bucket and each seek to recognise of itself through the senses of itself, even if it’s a fraction of what it collected. And at some point it has collected so much attachment that it becomes part of person-ality, character, so fixed in a pattern and the way they express that point of view. The more we let it run, the more we listen, the more we identify with it, the stronger it becomes. And at some point when the bucket is full, it starts to overflow and becomes the main driver.

So how do we change that? How do we remove those blindfolds? For that I want to go back to the beginning of the article, to those scriptures, where we read them with those conditioned eyes, judging the words by our own collected judgments. So even though there is some historical significance, one should put that aside for now and read it as metaphor, as parable. To explain things you cannot see, by means of what you can see, without taking what you can see as the truth. Like a boat being a vehicle or you (your physical and mental body), the fare as the journey of life and the animals as the birth imprint that influences both on a personal/local level, as on a general and more global level, just as the 12 signs and the 12 disciples.

More on the structural knowledge later.

The old meditational practises are outdated, they were for a time when the chakra was at a lower focal point. Buddha pointed at the physical body, Jesus pointed at the heart etc. We have now reached a point whereby feeling, mind, heart and throat must become cleared. So it’s feeling that underlies thoughts, even though it is less obvious in men, and many think it’s mainly female. But men too are influenced by it, especially knowing that men are thought to suppress feelings, they don’t realise feeling has attached itself to every experience no matter how small. Feeling is a frequency, a vibration and our senses the receivers of our emotional body. So each time we receive input through eyes, ears, taste, smell and touch it finds it and recognises it in past experiences and triggers associated thoughts. But because man is born in blindness and knows not, it judges with a limited point of view, in other words mainly through outer appearances. And so it builds ideas about the world around them, and this identification (I think, I feel) becomes your blindfold. But these are but words, they are merely a guide, not unless this truth is experienced can it become a light and strength of truth. Where you find the willpower to let go of what is not and become what is.

The practise is to seek a memory with emotional attachment, see it, not as you but like looking at someone else, this to avoid identifying with it and seeing through it. Eventually it will reveal the truth in that situation, free from the view of the conditioned mind. Then this old limited point of view who could only see as it looked like, can dissolve and clear itself from its darkness. But do not think it is easy, or that seeing a little more than when you were in that experience back then is the whole truth because your judgement then came from previous ones, and even those that were judged after that experience. But when you continue to look in the way I explained, the picture might change to those other moments. Not clinging on to thoughts or feelings as truth has no need to think. It simply knows.

Now this matters, talk to those you share this journey with so it is fully understood. And shared, in experience also, and remember shame or ego that stands in the way of sharing this is also blocking your ability to see. In your practise you might recognise this too, thought was not needed to see. With this practise I have given you, your gift will become greater, and you will eventually not need someone to heal, or not to be the healer but he who will teach them to heal themselves from the greatest of illnesses of all.

One final note, this practise will lead to having seen for yourselves how these limited points of view misguided you, how it influenced you, tricked you, and were sort of whispering in your ear. Yes some will say, yes I know that now and “THINK” that’s it, I now know, wrong! It was merely a steppingstone, a little help so you do not simply follow your thoughts and feelings. What is important to realise is that there are many more such stored limited points of view, and even if you were able to see a past moment and altered its point of view, there are many more that rule your life. As thoughts and feelings still arise from deep within to which you attach yourself, I think, I feel, truth does not need thought, a shift in personality is still personality, masks (masks; see other articles explaining persona).

Remember the way you look at any given event is likely not going to be free of blind spots. And each time you had to move to a next one, and unable to see it all, but the more you detach yourself and become the pure observer the more it reveals, because that event came to be through another (judgment). So eventually the picture becomes bigger and you’ll see the chain of events that led to it and from it. All the way from your mother’s womb to this very moment. But it will be lucid moments, flashes, often too short to hold on to, or to enable you to mentally become clear and be sort of translated to a full understanding. This often is because your conditioning triggered thoughts again, trying to measure with some old ruler from the past.

The only way forward is to live this new gained insight, so each moment in the now is your moment of practise, to be alert, awake, and watchful. Thinking is not bad, it is a tool to be used and not to be used by so the past can relive itself through you. Nor is your ability to feel something to put aside, but these are not your emotional feelings, because these are due to blind spots. But feelings in its purity, even physical, but without emotional attachment.

When listening to someone for instance listen to him/her and not to the thoughts that arise while listening that are already wanting to reply or interpret in accordance with its own agenda, this way you don’t divide your attention. When you walk, you don’t give it any thought, it comes naturally so to speak, it’s on auto drive. But when you were learning to walk it wasn’t that easy was it? Or driving a car, it wasn’t that flued at first, some even had difficulty remembering all, forgetting to look in the mirror etc. Your thought processes were not able to keep up or remember all until the images and actions were engraved over time and practise. Now don’t think of each step or move, but be aware of each of them. It is due to practise that it becomes natural to not identify with those thoughts, and do not worry if there are a few moments before you reply after listening, the worst thing that could happen is that the other can feel he or she is listened to. Meditation is not something you set a time for, it’s 24/7.

Throat, heart and pineal third eye.

The right order of course is HTP. At the base of the spine lies the serpent curled up, when stirred it moves up the tree, each of the branches or chakras have a level we could call a brain, some are to be compared to instinct, ”Animal like” and sexual drive.

I will first give you a few points that will explain part two, and then mention the basics of each chakra.

The word ‘chakra’ is derived from the Sanskrit word meaning ‘wheel’. Literally translated from the Hindi it means ‘Wheel of spinning Energy’. A chakra is like a whirling, vortex-like, powerhouse of energy. Within our bodies, we have seven of these major energy centres and many more minor ones. They are charged and recharged through contact with the stream of cosmic energy in the atmosphere in much the same way that your home is connected to a central power source within a city – the only difference is that this cosmic energy source is free. But they are coloured too, in part two we will talk about these planetary and zodiacal signs and the structure.

Imagine this, a vertical power current rather like a fluorescent tube that runs up and down the spine, from the top of the head to the base of the spine. Think of this as your main source of energy. The seven major chakras are in the centre of the body and are aligned with this vertical “power line”. They regulate the flow of energy throughout the electrical network (meridians) that runs through the physical body. The body’s electrical system resembles the wiring in a house. It allows electrical current to be sent to every part, and it is ready for use when needed. Most chakras become blocked or partly blocked because of stress, emotional or physical impurities and problems. If the body’s ‘energy system’ cannot flow freely it is likely that problems will occur. The consequence of irregular energy flow may result in physical illness and discomfort or a sense of being mentally and emotionally out of balance.

So from one to seven:

Chakra 1- the Base (or Root Chakra)

Its colour is red and it is located at the perineum, base of your spine. It is the Chakra closest to the earth. Its function is concerned with earthly grounding and physical survival. This Chakra is associated with your legs, feet, bones, large intestine and adrenal glands. It controls your fight or flight response. Blockage may manifest as paranoia, fear, procrastination and defensiveness.

Chakra 2- the Sacral (or Navel Chakra)

Its colour is orange and it is located between the base of your spine and your navel. It is associated with your lower abdomen, kidneys, bladder, circulatory system and your reproductive organs and glands. It is concerned with emotion. This chakra represents desire, pleasure, sexuality, procreation and creativity. Blockage may manifest as emotional problems, compulsive or obsessive behaviour and sexual guilt.

Chakra 3- the Solar Plexus

Its colour is yellow and it is located a couple of centimetres above the navel in the solar plexus area. This chakra is concerned with your digestive system, muscles, pancreas and adrenals. It is the seat of your emotional life. Feelings of personal power, laughter, joy and anger are associated with this centre. Your sensitivity, ambition and ability to achieve are stored here. Blockage may manifest as anger, frustration, lack of direction or a sense of victimisation.

Chakra 4- the Heart

Its colour is green and it is located within your heart. It is the centre of love, compassion, harmony and peace. The Asians say that this is the house of the soul. This Chakra is associated with your lungs, heart, arms, hands and thymus gland. We fall in love through our heart Chakra, then that feeling of unconditional love moves to the emotional centre commonly known as the solar plexus. After that it moves into the sexual centre or Base Chakra where strong feelings of attraction can be released. When these energies move into the Base Chakra we may have the desire to marry and settle down. Blockage can show itself as immune system, lung and heart problems, or manifest as inhumanity, lack of compassion or unprincipled behaviour.

Chakra 5- the Throat

Its colour is blue or turquoise and it is located within the throat. It is the Chakra of communication, creativity, self-expression and judgement. It is associated with your neck, shoulders, arms, hands, thyroid and parathyroid glands. It is concerned with the senses of inner and outer hearing, the synthesising of ideas, healing, transformation and purification. Blockage can show up as creative blocks, dishonesty or general problems in communicating ones needs to others.

Chakra 6- the Third Eye (or Brow Chakra)

Its colour is Indigo (a combination of red and blue). It is located at the centre of your forehead at eye level or slightly above. This Chakra is used to question the spiritual nature of our life. It is the Chakra of question, perception and knowing. It is concerned with inner vision, intuition and wisdom. Your dreams for this life and recollections of other lifetimes are held in this Chakra. Blockage may manifest as problems like lack of foresight, mental rigidity, selective memory and depression.

Chakra 7- the Crown

Its colour is violet and it is located at the top of your head. It is associated with the cerebral cortex, central nervous system and the pituitary gland. It is concerned with information, understanding, acceptance and bliss. It is the place of connection to God, the Chakra of Divine purpose and personal destiny. Blockage can manifest as psychological problems.

Back to the 6th chakra:

SOMA, NECTAR OF THE GODS

The substance secreted from the pineal gland during profoundly deep meditative states is known under various names in different traditions. Ambrosia, Nectar of the Gods, White Drop or Amrita (Sanskrit) – as ‘elixir of immortality’. This nectar, produced by the reactivation of the gland (through initiation, inner awakening or shaktipat), drips down the throat and into the heart centre. This opens the heart and synchronises the brain with the heart (in Tibetan Buddhism, when ‘white drop’ mixes with the ascending ‘red drop’ one attains an enlightened mind and body). The pineal gland releases pure white liquid light that impregnates the pituitary gland, which releases hormones in the blood that creates Spiritual rebirth in the body (and is the meaning of the Tibetan Buddhist images of couples embraced in yogic sexual intercourse).

The centre of the brain, between the pineal and the pituitary, is known in Taoist culture as the ‘Crystal Palace’. Positioned crucially between the left and the right hemispheres, between the old (back of the head) and the new (frontal lobes) brain, connecting the basic instinctual behaviour with the highly intuitive insight. When access to the Crystal Palace is granted, the pituitary gland releases hormones including oxytocin and vasopressin into the blood stream to facilitate the metamorphic birth.

What is in the actual mixture of the nectar is a subject of speculation and perhaps of the scientific researches of the near future, it’s sufficient to say that it releases a whole load of hormones and chemicals into the body some of which are hallucinogenic in nature. Yes the, pineal gland ‘normally’ produces melatonin and serotonin. Melatonin as hormone that communicates information about light, regulates bio-rhythm of sleep-wake cycles and reproduction. Although melatonin is the primary pineal hormone, the gland when activated produces DMT (chemical compound relative of serotonin & psychoactive part in for instance ayahuasca) which gives that euphoric feeling beyond the body.

Does the above describe the process of Soma? No. Yet, if we are to take the root of the term ‘to press’ it could well be the process of pressing the fruit of our embodiment as human beings into the juice of universal substance, filtered through the ‘wool’ of refinement and mixed with the ‘clarified butter’ to quench the divine thirst… Pffff, no matter how I would try to describe, they remain merely words.

All these metaphors reflect the Anatomy of the Spirit in such a profound way that I understand the hesitation of some students to pin point the exact meaning of diverse interpretations perhaps as the mark of a respect towards a tradition which kept the clandestine knowledge and managed to pass it over at times without uttering word (of explanations).

Equally is that without the direct partaking in the mysteries, theorizing would always betray the lack of proper understanding when compared to the insight gained in the self-transformational act in nature, so practise, practise, practise.

In my case, I’ve experienced it first and got the ‘explanation’ about the mechanics of the process later. (The meaning of) Soma is a much more complex term, but known in Tantra as rekindling of the two principle glands, Pineal – as the ‘command centre’ of ajna chakra- and Pituitary (represented by a crescent moon) as Bindu point.

‘Bindu Visarga’ (flow of fluid) is the point of emanation of the sound, it is there where amrita, the drop of nectar, is produced but falls down to the gut consumed by the fire element. (One can find references to that ”fall” in many esoteric traditions).

Tantra Yoga is about reversal of that process, aimed at retaining the nectar at the throat (chakra) level or send from the solar (chakra Manipura) plexus back to Bindu.

Soma is that subtle substance which elides to comprehension of logic. It is precisely that connection between (the first emanating) sound and (the nectar of) moon at Bindu that makes the meaning of the term in its profound association with the essence of plants and the essence of vibrations. And therefore there is a connection between Soma Pavamana to the 9th Mandala of the Rig Veda. The sounds of the hymns hummed in a precise meter are capable of producing kindling effect similar to the secretion at the point of origination. The pressing of the soma to quench the thirst of the gods faculties who sustain this body.

But now back to the heart.

Research has demonstrated that different patterns of heart activity (which accompany different emotional states) have distinct effects on cognitive and emotional function. During stress and negative emotions, when the heart rhythm pattern is erratic and disordered, the corresponding pattern of neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain inhibits higher cognitive functions. This limits our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason, and make effective decisions. (This helps explain why we may often act impulsively and unwisely when we’re under stress.) The heart’s input to the brain during stressful or negative emotions also has a profound effect on the brain’s emotional processes—actually serving to reinforce the emotional experience of stress.

The opposite effect-it facilitates cognitive function and reinforces positive feelings and emotional stability. This in contrast, the more ordered and stable pattern of the heart’s input to the brain during positive emotional states has means that learning to generate increased heart rhythm coherence, by sustaining positive emotions, not only benefits the entire body, but also profoundly affects how we perceive, think, feel, and perform.

The Intelligent Heart

Many of the changes in bodily function that occur during the coherence state revolve around changes in the heart’s pattern of activity. While the heart is certainly a remarkable pump, interestingly, it is only relatively recently in the course of human history, around the past three centuries or so, that the heart’s function has been defined (by Western scientific thought) as only that of pumping blood. Historically, in almost every culture of the world, the heart was ascribed a far more multifaceted role in the human system, being regarded as a source of wisdom, spiritual insight, thought, and emotion. Intriguingly, scientific research over the past several decades has begun to provide evidence that many of these long-surviving associations may well be more than simply metaphorical.

These developments have led science to once again revise and expand its understanding of the heart and the role of this amazing organ. In the new field of neurocardiology, for example, scientists have discovered that the heart possesses its own intrinsic nervous system—a network of nerves so functionally sophisticated as to earn the description of a “heart brain”. Containing over 40.000 neurons, this “little brain” gives the heart the ability to independently sense, process information, make decisions, and even to demonstrate a type of learning and memory. In essence, it appears that the heart is truly an intelligent system.

Research has also revealed that the heart is a hormonal gland, manufacturing and secreting numerous hormones and neurotransmitters that profoundly affect brain and body function. Among the hormones the heart produces is oxytocin—well known as the “love” or “bonding hormone”. Science has only begun to understand the effects of the electromagnetic fields produced by the heart, but there is evidence that the information contained in the heart’s powerful field may play a vital synchronizing role in the human body—and that it may affect others around us as well. Research has also shown that the heart is a key component of the emotional system. Scientists now understand that the heart not only responds to emotion, but that the signals generated by its rhythmic activity actually play a major part in determining the quality of our emotional experience from moment to moment. As described next, these heart signals also profoundly impact perception and cognitive function by virtue of the heart’s extensive communication network with the brain. Finally, rigorous electrophysiological studies conducted in research have even indicated that the heart appears to play a key role in intuition. Although there is much yet to be understood they say, it appears that the age-old associations of the heart with thought, feeling, and insight may indeed have a basis in science.

A purified heart that rules the brain and speaks through the throat.

These are merely the basics, and there is at this stage no need to go any deeper into them or delve into an extensive study about them as we should always place experience above reading about it. As it is most important to clear it of its blindness, the blockages.

 

18-01-2018

Moshiya van den Broek