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To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org
From: Mark Nuttall 
Subject: Re: War God Opens Heart Chakra, Film at Eleven
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 14:56:31 +0100 (BST)

93

/me:
>> Amongst the more established traditions I find the general view to be that
>> spiritual growth requires an opening of the heart chakra, which for the
>> most part will only happen once the individual has done the necessary
>> repairs to and work with their (lower three chakras/four sephira/four
>> terrestrial circuits/ call 'em what you will.)

ata 

> I'm not sure what you mean with 'established traditions'. 

Bodies of teaching that have been around for a while. Buddhism, Yoga/Hinduism,
Christianity even, QBL, Taoism etc etc. Things you can find books on and
teachers of. 

> NewAgers talk about 'opening the heart'-chakra a lot of the time - but this
> is not what you refer to, is it? 

We do quite a few exercises in our kundalini yoga class which we're told `open
the heart chakra' .. I don't know what NewAgers refer to, but I'd guess I'm
talking about the yogic equivalent of Liber Samekh, QBListic pathworkings to
Tiphareth and/or whatever else has similar effects on consciousness. 

> You can surely 'call 'em what you will', but that doesn't make them the
> same. The chakra system differs from the Tree of Life in many ways, and in
> my view they can not be interchanged just like that. [...] But what I see
> some people doing is saying that such and such chakra is equal to such and
> such on the Tree. Which I don't think really works all that well. There may
> be 'experiential' similarities between the chakra-system and the microscopic
> tree, but they are not interchangable on a 1:1 basis, if you get my meaning.

Hmm Ok differences and similarities. 

Three worlds and general elemental models
-----------------------------------------

The first thing I'd say is that Arild is quite right: the chakratic system and
the Tree are not interchangeable. The Tree is a highly general-purpose tool,
very flexible and applicable to many situations. The chakratic system is much
more specific, dealing with the physio-psycho-spiritual makeup of man. If one
maps the tree onto the body in such a way as to effect some sort of
comparison, there are differences and similarities. Root chakra and Malkuth
are broadly similar, as are Sahaswara and Kether, in that not much can be said
about either of them and they're functionally very similar. Heart chakra and
Tiphareth do share many similarities experientially as Arild mentions. The
others fit in more or less well. 

Both Yogis and Cabalists seem broadly agreed on what seems to be a global
mystic model, that of `Three Worlds' or `planes' or whatnot. There's [1]
something broadly physical, [2] something like `chi' or `prana' or `orgone' or
`energy' or `vital force' and then there's [3] `spirit' `that which neither is
nor is is not nor neither is nor is not' `mumble mumble' `void' etc. This
division into three worlds is seen in the three triangles on the tree. In the
yogic model the lower four chakras are attributed to the elements
(earth-water-fire-air) with akasha at throat... elemental attributions to the
lower four sephira are also common, though sometimes they're all four squished
into malkuth.

So, when I referred to the `lower three chakras' and the `lower four sephira'
I was really talking about the `lower' (more immediate, physical) of the three
planes. The functions of sensing, intellection and feeling are in both
traditions assigned to this plane --- though some yogis will place
intellect/Hod-like things in throat, and some in third (fire) chakra along wth
the more personal-will-Geburah-like things. There is _not_ total agreement,
there are definite differences. Both `three world' models include some sort of
sub- or unconscious - Yesod and Qoph in (GD/Crowleyian) QBL are resonant both
of some 1st and 2nd chakra functions , broadly speaking. 

My first paragraph, queried by Arild, might be paraphrased ``Before you can
open up and love yourself and others and expand in illumination, it's broadly
a good idea to sort your subconscious out, shake up your thought patterns,
integrate your thinking and feeling selves, pay more attention to non-verbal
senses and what's going on inside your body and stop projecting your fears and
complexes out into the world at large.''

The chakratic picture does not just `map onto' the body as the Tree can - it's
an image taken from `esoteric yogic medicine' and is part of a vast body of
knowledge on the human bodies, of which there are (n) where (n) >= 3,
depending on who you talk to. Sometimes each chakra yields a body, so there
are seven. Sometimes more or less. Anyways, the Indian maps of the subtle
bodies are very well developed, and very well integrated with the
physical. What I found most useful about the chakras is that invested with a
minimal amount of belief and a few (weeks/months/maybe more) chanting the
right sounds, one soon begins to have experiences of energetic flow and such
like in the regions of the body associated with the chakra in
question. Crowley describes the body of light as the `fundamental unit of
magick' and the yogic corpus is absolutely full of practical things to do that
awaken and exercise this body - as of course are most other mystical
traditions. 

Arild:
> To tell you the truth, I don't quite get what you're driving at.

[Laughter.] I doubt you're alone. 

Mark
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