Kundalini.Tantra.by.Satyananda.Saraswati

The third force
Another force exists in nature which is little understood or even appreciated, but
which is of vital importance to man. It is a fact that when two opposing forces are equal
and balanced a third force arises. Strike a match on a matchbox and you create fire, bring
positive and negative currents together and you can work machinery, unite body and
mind and a third force called sushumna, spiritual energy, arises. This is one of the aims of
yoga, because only when sushumna awakens can the super power of kundalini, this
maximum force, ascend safely to fuel, power and create cosmic consciousness.
Sushumna is a high tension power line and ida and pingala carry the domestic lines to
power the basic necessities.
Carl Jung outlined the tantric view when he described the driving force of selfrealization.,
which he called "individuation", as a dialectical interaction between the
opposites, beginning with conflict and culminating in synthesis and integration. When
perfect balance is achieved, stabilized and perfectedj a state of dynamic peace is
achieved, which is a paradox,a union of opposites, the synthesis of doing and not doing, a
totally new way of perceiving and experiencing life.
Few of us realise this third, spiritualized state and most of us oscillate from one state
to another. Every 90 to 180 minutes ida and pingala alternate their dominance and only
for a few seconds or minutes does sushumna come into potential being. It is the goal of
all yogic techniques to balance and harmonize ida and pingala, life force and conscious
awareness, so that they join at ajna chakra to create the inner light of knowledge and bliss
and reveal the truth.
In order to balance the flows of energy, yoga prescribes various techniques, asana,
pranayama, shatkarma and meditation, which activate either ida, pingala or sushumna.
This does not mean we are activating one structure but are, via yoga, able to manipulate
the energies underlying the three possible modes of existence.
The functional modes
Nadis are flows of energy which move through each and every part of our body, the
subtle counterpart of the physical flows such as nervous energy and blood. All of the
thousands of nadis in the body are based on ida and pingala which spiral around the
spinal cord. These are the basic two modes of function on which all of our bodily and
mental processes work. Sushumna is the royal road which takes us to higher awareness
and transforms the function of ida and pingala.
Each and every cell of our body, every organ, the brain and mind, everything is
polarized and interconnected at both the physical and subtle levels, and this allows us to
think, speak and act in a concerted, balanced, synchronous manner, every part working to
help every other part. There are two basic systems in the body that control this, ida and
pingala, and if we stimulate any component of one system we turn on the whole system.