Course XL - Teaching 5: “SVÂDHISHTHÂNA”

Verse 14

.“There is other Wheel sited in the spine, in the root of genital organs, with a beautiful vermilion color. The Sacred Letters are on its petals with the superposed Sign, with the shining color of a lightening.”

Commentary

The Shatchakra Nirupana places the Svâdhishthanâ in the root of the spine, between the anus and genital organs; but Westerners locate it in the spleen and assign it power of assimilation and distribution of solar beams in the human system. As for its effects, some Hindus take this wheel as supplementary to the Sacred Wheel.
More exactly, the Control Wheel has its seat in the physical body over genital organs, at the pubis area, and filaments start from there, go up as a bifurcated branch to spleen and liver, and later unite in the spleen plexus and manifest themselves on the astral as a wheel of changing colors.
According to the text, it has a beautiful vermilion color, because the astral color of this wheel is like that when is at rest. It has six petals, and the Purandara is written on each one of them: they are characteristic letters of this wheel. These letters are as follows: Ba and Bha, Ma and Ya, Ra and La.
The Bindu, or Holy Sign, or a point over each letter of the Purandara, symbolizes the divine statement of these letters; it means that throughout centuries, sages and ascetics who have uttered it properly, have succeeded in realizing with them the powers of this center and have attributed them certain divine source in the wake of their extraordinary efficacy.

Verse 15

“It is in this Wheel that there is the white, shining and watery region of the God of the Water Element with form of a crescent Moon; and there in, seated on a holy crocodile, there is the stainless and white Symbol of the water, like the Moon in autumn.”

Commentary

Varuna, God of the Water, watches over this wheel because the essential part of this center is water, whatever liquid. It is delimited by two quarters of the Moon, and forms a Crescent Moon.
The seed of the letter V, Vam, a synonym for Apas, water, is sited over the crocodile or Makara, which is located on the lowest part of the Crescent Moon, like a higher guardian willing to impede the lower powers to enter the higher place of Humanity. In Sanskrit, it is said Bìja-vam, seed of the element water.
It is stainless and white like the autumn Moon, because the element water, symbol of cosmic power, is of immaculate, or potential, purity.
Autumn Moon means that not only you find there the control of all powers, but also the control of influences from the past of the being, since Moon and autumn are an image of the past or ancestral destiny of the being.

Verse 16

“Oh God, You vanish fear; You abide at the Control Wheel; You are pride of the early youth; You whose luminous blue body is beautiful to behold; You wear yellow attires, and have two arms and two suits: bodily and divine! Protect us!”

Commentary

The God that dissipates fear and abides at the Control Wheel is Vishnû behind his characteristic form of May Hari.
In this verse the author of the Shatchakra Nirupana uses a different syntax from all the rest.. His verse is like a prayer or invocation, and suggests extreme care and circumspection as for knowledge and use of this wheel. This center can be properly used only by a man identified with the God May Hari, and the one who overcame fear is protected by Him.
May Hari is pride of the early youth because courage is a virtue of the young, and they admire exceedingly a brave man.
His body is luminous blue like the sky, like the infiniteness, because this wheel reflects in itself the whole Cosmos, the whole power of the Universe. But this bluish skin –image of a controlled Cosmos– has a yellow suit; the disciple has to possess the fearlessness of a brave young man, and the wisdom and prudence of an old man; the yellow suit is an emblem of wisdom and prudence. The four arms denote the same thing: they are like four cardinal points, like a lever, for a proper use and control of universal powers.
Besides his yellow attires, the God has the Shrî Vasta, bodily suit, and the Kaustubha, divine suit. Neither a very materialistic person nor a very spiritual individual can control this center that can be controlled by the one who is able to reconcile the material and the divine, and to make of the matter, mind, and of the mind, matter.

Verse 17

“It is at this Wheel that the Goddess Rakini always abides. Her color is that of a blue lotus; her arms carrying various weapons enhance her bodily beauty. She wears heavenly attires and adornments, and exalts her mind by drinking ambrosia.”

Commentary

Rakini, Goddess of this lotus, is the image of the Eternal Femininity, overcoming lower powers. It is the Madonna with her crown of stars, covered by a blue robe, and treading on the head of the serpent. Her arms, which are weapons, denote fit power and strength for controlling and dominating diverse elements.
The heavenly adornments denote that right intentions and ever-conscious mind of the Eternal are indispensable to control and overcome fear.
This Goddess even can drink ambrosia; every desire and pleasure can come near Her because She knows, like a disciple that has controlled this center, how to transform all things into primordial substance, and how to obtain from anything an element to exalt his mind.
According to ancient texts, a person intensely concentrated on this lotus transforms the color of his skin that becomes bluish. Modern science has proved this, since this center acts on suprarenal glands, which secrete corticosterone, an element that controls skin pigmentation and nervous vigor. An overabundant secretion produces a bluish color, such as in Addison disease.
So, seemingly any suprarenal glands disease is produced by nervous troubles; for instance, fear, that is hostile to this center, causes all these diseases.
The individual being goes out and enters the astral world at will, and also when he is sleeping, through this Control Wheel when the latter is strongly and properly handled. Every cosmic power and constructive-destructive elements penetrate through this Control Wheel, and overabundant or negative elements are eliminated through it when the individual is sleeping. It is the control of the whole system of man that keeps in tune both the physical and astral, and its power is of contraction like a diaphragm.
This is the center of personal control; the individual being confines his being in himself or is open to life through this center.

Verse 18

“The one who meditates on the immaculate Control Wheel is immediately liberated from all enemies, such as formless passions, and so on. He is able to become a Lord among ascetics, and is like the Sun illuminating the thick shadow of ignorance. He is fluent, as for prose and poetry, by means of well-reasoned speeches, and his precious word is like nectar.”

Commentary

A brave man has no external enemies; but the one who meditates rightly on this center knows that these enemies are not only external, but also, and mainly, internal.
According to the text, those main internal enemies that he overcomes are Ahamkâra, which are six forms tying a man to terrestrial miseries and impeding him to achieve the divine life. These miseries are: selfishness, individuality, egotism, personality, egoentia and beginning-consciousness-will.