(The body as microcosm and the two paths of kundalini)
According to Tantric teachings, each human body is a microcosmic model or “holographic” sub-pattern of the total universe, and therefore, the body incarnates and contains vast cosmic power.
Thus, the seeker’s journey, as traditionally portrayed, appears to be a one-way trip: that of activating the sleeping spiritual-power by heroic self-effort or by a guru’s grace, and then rising with the Kundalini energy into the bliss of the undifferentiated light of Brahman, and (to a greater or lesser degree) abandoning the body, vital mind and all worldly preoccupations. In contrast to this traditional paradigm and path, a number of teachers, both classical and modern, have stressed the significance of the descending kundalini, and have depicted the ultimate seat of spirit not as the Thousand-Petalled Lotus of Light above and beyond the body, but as Hridayam (the Heart), which is felt or “located” in the right side of the chest.
I have selected four representative teachers of what I shall call (for the purposes of this exposition) The Path of the Heart and Descending Spirit: Abhinavagupta, a Shaivite of Kashmir (10th Century c.e.); Sri Aurobindo, a sage of Pondicherry, India (1872-1950); Ramana Maharshi, a sage of Tiruvannamalai, India (1879-1950); and Adi Da Samraj, a contemporary American siddha yogi (1939-2008). This essay briefly introduces and compares their related teachings on three key subjects: 1) the Heart, 2) the descending spiritual power, 3) the Amrita Nadi.
(Abhinavagupta: the Heart as the totality of consciousness)
In Abhinavagupta’s terminology, the Heart (Hridaya) is the central symbol of enlightenment and True Identity, the very self of Shiva-Shakti (pure consciousness and unlimited bliss) and the abode of their timeless embrace.
His summary view is that the Heart is the totality of consciousness, the power and support of all manifest reality, at once utterly free and transcendent, while perfectly immanent in and as all forms.
explains Paul Muller-Ortega, a scholar of Abhinavagupta and Non-Dual Shaivism. “It can be discovered anywhere, not as an additional content of awareness, but as the uncovering of the very nature of consciousness itself… [The Heart] is always the ‘third’ element that transcends, undercuts, and in the end, unifies all possible oppositions.” Because the Heart is pure Center, Abhinavagupta never refers to it as being “above” the body or world; rather he knows the Heart as a dimensionless threshold or point of junction (another possible translation of the term madhya). “Madhya is that point from which the finite realities emerge from the Ultimate and also continuously dissolve back into the Ultimate…This condition of liminality is the precise nature of the Heart.”
By means of this triple function, “Shiva is free to create, enjoy and destroy the myriad universes that appear in the great ocean of consciousness.”
the Heart-awake adept understands the essence of all rituals even without knowing their specific rules. Abhinavagupta explains, “with respect to the Ultimate, which is only consciousness, all other things are extraneous.”
“The Ultimate…is always present everywhere, and is devoid of spatial or temporal dimensions, of prior and subsequent; it is undeniable and unconcealed. What then can be said of it?”
Such an orientation is decidedly Tantric, and indeed, Sri Aurobindo once stated that the Tantric system “is in its aspiration one of the greatest attempts yet made to embrace the whole of God manifested and unmanifested in the adoration, self-discipline, and knowledge of a single human soul.” However, he criticized classical yoga systems as one-sided paths leading only upward to the divine (which he called “Supermind”), arguing that the more important activity is opening to the descending divine power and thus bringing down and integrating the Supermind into the physical human body and society.
In actual practice, Sri Aurobindo preached that the most important principle is total surrender to the Mother Force. “In our yoga,” he wrote, “there is no willed opening of the chakras; they open of themselves by the descent of the Force.
(Ramana, Aurobindo, and Adi Da on the descending spirit and the Heart-throne)
(Maharshi) “Really, there is no Shakti manifestation apart from the Self. The Self has become all this Shakti… When the yogin rises to the highest center of trance, Samadhi, it is the Self in the Heart that supports him in that state, whether he is aware of it or not. But if he is aware of the Heart, he knows that whatever states or whatever context he is in, it is always the same truth, the same Heart, the one Self, the Spirit that is present throughout, eternal and immutable. The Tantra Shastra calls the Heart Suryamandala or solar orb, and the Sahasrara, Chandramandala, or lunar orb. These symbols present the relative importance of the two: the Atmasthana (Place of the Self) and the Shakti Sthana (Place of the Shakti)”
From the Heart, a current of energy rises to the deep center of the head (the “Eye”). This is the relationship of Shiva (the Heart—Father-God, the Void) and Shakti (the Power—Mother-Goddess, the Brightness). The Heart is the God-Throne and Shakti is the Goddess-Light that radiates as the Eye and shines all over the crown and infinitely above. The Heart, the Light Above, and the Life Below are One Wholeness, the Person of Reality.
Because Hridaya Shakti is not merely private and internal, only conscious participation in the all-pervading field of cosmic Energy can arouse it. The method of awakening this ultimate Shakti is through self-surrender in love of the guru (ishta-guru-bhakti yoga). Da stressed repeatedly that devotional surrender to him is sufficient for divine awakening.
Da insisted that only this completed system of Amrita Nadi is “the Form of Reality,” the highest form of conscious being: Only the regenerated Form of the Amrita Nadi is the Source, the Container, and the First (or Original) Form of all Energy, all centers, and all life-currents… the Source of all experiences, all conditional states, and all levels (or functional sheaths) of conditionally manifested being. Its Nature is unqualified Enjoyment, or Love-Bliss. It is Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Being, or unqualified Presence. It is even every one’s Real Condition at this moment, and, by grace, It is experienced as such when true understanding arises and becomes the radical (and, ultimately, the most perfect) basis of one’s conscious life. Da taught that when self-realization of the Heart becomes most profound, beyond all ordinary and extraordinary experiences, the natural “regeneration” of the Amrita Nadi occurs. Da called this complete awakening of spiritual energy in the body-mind, “transfiguration” or “the enlightenment of the whole body.” This ultimate level of conscious awareness does not require for its existence or maintenance any gesture of exclusion or rejection of ordinary life experience. Rather, the Heart is utterly compatible with cosmic and bodily life—which are its own forms and processes. On this point, it is worth quoting Da’s own words at length: When Consciousness arises from the heart as Spiritual Force (or Love-Bliss) and draws into the sahasrar, while retaining its “Foothold” in the heart, It brings the ultimate Realization of Reality to life. Then the Source of conscious life in the heart moves into life, and, thus and thereby, reverses the current that moves from life in the effort of return to the heart. When this occurs, life becomes Conscious as no-dilemma. No-dilemma becomes the Conscious presumption that lives as life and enjoys all experience. And such Conscious living is never separated from the Disposition of no-seeking, which is the Reality-Disposition of the Heart Itself. The Amrita Nadi, or the “Bright,” is felt by seekers as a separate “Other.” Superconsciousness is felt by seekers as “God” above. The centers below consciousness and the parts of the mind are felt by seekers as the “world.” The heart (apart from Conscious Reality) is felt by seekers as the “ego.” But the Self that is Reality Consciously Supports all bodies (or functional sheaths) and conditional forms of consciousness… in the Form of Amrita Nadi.
All four teachers—Abhinavagupta, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Adi Da Samraj—proclaim as the final goal of spiritual practice the bliss of jivan-mukti, or “liberation while alive.” This is the freedom in which the Heart is always directly felt (anubhava), even in the theater of everyday worldly experience.