Liberating the Consciousness from Imprisonment in the Physical Body

When we reflect on our normal state of conscious awareness, we recognise a primary seat of awareness in the mind, while also finding that we respond to impulses that originate in the other chakras, subtle energy centres, from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. Yogic science has long recognised that energy traverses the sublte channels that connect the chakras. In the practices of Kundalini Yoga, the object is to awaken the sleeping coiled ‘serpent’ energy in the Muladhara Chakra, the root chakra that governs the powers of sex and other basic forces of the vital nature,, and direct it up to meet with the Sahasrara Chakra, the 1000 petal lotus at the top of the head. This movement leads to the bursting forth of the consciousness to a range above the head, conveying liberation and expanded consciousness with this breakthrough. Various disciplines, particularly in the Chinese forms of martial arts, focus the awareness and energy to build tremendous strength and force in the solar plexus, the navel centre or Manipura Chakra in the systems of Yoga.

What we do not frequently recognise, however, is that there are additional stations of consciousness below the Muladahara as well as above the Sahasrara. Those who take up the exploration of the subconscious and unconscious ranges may find themselves at some point opening energy centres at the level of the knees or the feet.

For those who take up the practice of the integral Yoga, where the focus is on bringing down into human existence the higher powers of consciousness, the opening of the 1000 petal chakra at the top of the head represents a thoroughfare for the movement of this energy and they find, when the openings come, that they are stationed in their awareness above the head and outside the constraints of the physical body.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “The consciousness is usually imprisoned in the body, centralised in the brain and heart and navel centres (mental, emotional, sensational); when you feel it or something of it go up and take its station above the head, that is the liberation of the imprisoned consciousness from the body-formula. It is the mental in you that goes up there, gets into touch with something higher than the ordinary mind and from there puts the higher mental will on the rest for transformation. The trembling and the heat come from a resistance, an absence of habituation in the body and the vital to this demand and to this liberation. When the mental consciousness can take its stand permanently or at will above like this, then this first liberation becomes accomplished (siddha). From there the mental being can open freely to the higher planes or to the cosmic existence and its forces and can also act with greater liberty and power on the lower nature.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 3, In Difficulty, pg. 54