Kundalini.Tantra.by.Satyananda.Saraswati

has more circuits awakened or activated for handling life's experiences, for perceiving at
different levels, and for interpreting and acting on the demands of life.
Even within the same chakra there are different levels of evolution, balance and
activity, so that someone living at manipura might be more aware than someone else at
manipura, their center being more balanced and awakened, so that, for example, they use
their power drives constructively to help people rather than destructively and for their
own personal ego gratification. An adult generally has a more evolved manipura chakra
than a child, protecting the child from danger while the child pulls the wings off
butterflies or gaily stamps on ants and insects. Of course, this is relative and varies from
individual to individual.
Each level in the chakra system is the sum total of various physical, emotional,
mental, psychic and spiritual elements. Each chakra has its own neurological plexus and
endocrine gland and these link up to various organs and systems in the body. They in turn
are connected to the controlling mechanisms of the brain, each of which has emotional,
mental and psychic components. The chakra is like a transducer, a linking point between
the various levels of our being and it converts and channels energy either up or down to
the various levels.
In trying to understand the chakras, therefore, we can think of each level in the spinal
cord as controlling a different segment of the body, and at the same time, representing a
level of functioning in the nervous system and mind. Ajna chakra, for example, is a much
more complex center than mooladhara, or any chakra for that matter, controlling as it
does the intuitive and higher mental faculties related to the most evolved circuits in the
cerebral cortex. Ajna chakra has as its symbol the two-petalled lotus, and we can think of
this as representing the two hemispheres of the brain with the pineal gland as its main
focusing central point. Mooladhara, on the other hand, controls very deep, powerful,
primitive, animalistic, unconscious urges and instincts which are related to very simple
and primitive neurological circuits at the bottom of the brain common to all animals,
reptiles and even birds.
The chakras within the brain
Recent discoveries in neuroscience, precipitated by fantastic advances in technology,
measuring capacity, surgical technique and pure pioneering perspicacity, promise to
revolutionize our concept of man and propel us into new and better techniques in
medicine, psychology and living in general. Like Einstein's discovery of relativity, the
ramifications of these discoveries take time to percolate down into common usage.
The brain is one of the hardest of all areas to research because of the inaccessibility
and delicacy of the area to be studied. There is also an inherent and almost insoluble
problem in studying the brain. Man is using his brain to study and understand his own
brain. This is like trying to understand the mind with the mind, or grasp the hand with the
same hand, or see the eye with the same eye. We cannot know ourselves objectively as