Kundalini.Tantra.by.Satyananda.Saraswati

called hiranyagarbha, the womb of consciousness. It corresponds to the pituitary body,
the master gland situated within the brain.
Immediately below this center of supreme consciousness, there is another psychic
center - "the third eye" or ajna chakra, which corresponds to the pineal gland. This is the
seat of intuitive knowledge. This center lies on top of the spinal column, at the level of
bhrumadhya, the eyebrow center. Ajna chakra is important because it is simultaneously
connected with the seat of supreme consciousness in sahasrara and with mooladhara, the
seat of the unconscious, at the base of the spine, via sushumna, the psychic passage
within the spinal column. Therefore, it is the connecting link between the lowest
unconscious seat of power and the highest center of illumination within the individual.
Kundalini yoga is not abstract. It considers this very physical body as the basis. For a
kundalini yogi, the supreme consciousness represents the highest possible manifestation
of physical matter in this body. The matter of this physical body is being transformed into
subtle forces - such as feeling, thinking, reasoning, remembering, postulating and
doubting, in the gradual process of evolution. This psychic, suprasensory or
transcendental power in man is the ultimate point of human evolution.
The chakras
The literal meaning of the word chakra is 'wheel or circle', but in the yogic context a
better translation of the Sanskrit word is 'vortex or whirlpool'. The chakras are vortices of
psychic energy and they are visualized and experienced as circular movements of energy
at particular rates of vibration.
In each person there are myriads of chakras, but in the practices of tantra and yoga,
only a few principal ones are utilized. These chakras span the full spectrum of man's
being from the gross to the subtle.
The chakras are physiological as well as psychic centers whose structures correspond
more or less with the traditional descriptions. These nerve centers are not situated inside
the spinal cord itself, but lie like junctions on the interior walls of the spinal column. If
you cut the spinal cord transversely at different levels you can see that the grey matter in
the cross section resembles the lotus shape and the ascending and descending tracts of
nerve fibers correspond to the nadis. These communicating nerve fibers control the
different physiological functions of that portion of the body. Many books state that the
chakras are reservoirs of power, but this is not true.