The essence of understanding the centres is that wherever the greatest attention of one’s consciousness and one’s whole life focus is placed, there will be the point through which energy pours.
Robert: Welcome. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present, but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way, with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with Inner Sight. Our topic for today is the seven centres. All of the dialogue that you’ll hear on this show has been inspired by the works of Alice Bailey. Alice Bailey is the founder of the Lucis Trust organization, and she wrote twenty-four volumes of literature. The essence of that literature and that philosophy and those ideas are really the subject of this show. This thought is also from Alice Bailey: “The etheric body is composed entirely of lines of force and points where these lines of force cross each other, and thus form centres of energy. Where many such lines of force cross each other, you have a larger centre of energy, and where great streams of energy meet and cross, you have seven major centres.” I find all of this to be very complex. We started talking about this last week, and I found myself very interested in it and I’d like you to recap briefly what was said last time, if you would.
Sarah: We’ve had actually a couple of programs on this subject. We started out by talking about the etheric body, which is the energy body that is subjective, not visible, and yet is the real vehicle for bringing in and expressing energy that all of us have and use whether we know it or not. As the opening thought said, within that energy body or etheric body there are seven centres of concentrated force. Actually, there are many, many centres that make up the human being. The whole study of this subject is so complex and it’s not a topic really that I feel very comfortable talking about. First of all, I’m no expert in it, but secondly, I know enough to know that it’s quite, not dangerous, but quite serious, and one shouldn’t mess around, so to speak, with the centres trying to activate them or stimulate them, and yet so many people do. When they learn that the seven centres along the spinal column awaken or become active in response to consciousness, then they take the reverse route of wanting to activate the centres in order to heighten their consciousness. That’s not a wise idea or a safe practice; in fact, people sometimes do real damage to themselves. It really needs to be taken seriously. But knowledge of the subject, I think, is a good thing, and that’s what we’re trying to do in this program.
Dale: Yes, absolutely. I agree that there is much danger involved in opening these centres prematurely because one is exposing oneself to very potent energies, which the physical body is not yet ready to handle safely.
Sarah: Or the other bodies: the mental body or the astral body, the emotional body.
Dale: Right, and there are, I think, probably a lot of cases walking around out in the streets where this sort of thing has happened, perhaps unwittingly by some people.
Sarah: Through drugs.
Dale: Yes, and through just the excessive stimulation that we’re receiving today in the world. There is a very tenuous web around these centres that if it gets torn, then a lot of potent energies coming from the inner planes can really pour through and cause mental and emotional unbalance. That’s often the case today with so many people out there on the streets and in the hospitals.
Sarah: Last time we talked briefly about the seven centres: base of spine, sacral centre, solar plexus, heart, throat, ajna centre and head centre. Today maybe we could talk more generally but I thought it might be helpful to go into a bit more detail with just two or three of the centres because most people are functioning through those centres whether or not they know it. One is the solar plexus which is in the abdominal area. It’s associated with the pancreas gland; every centre is linked with a gland. It’s exceedingly active in humanity, and it’s the point of focus for most people. They might think they’re focused in their mind, but in fact, they work, they express themselves, they live through their emotional life. So many people do. What this means is they’re kind of like a leaf on the ocean, tossed this way and that by the emotions of people around them and by their own emotions. It’s a kind of a reactive, negative way to live because you’re responding to whatever comes at you rather than being the director of your life. It makes one very sensitive on a personal level in the sense of quick to respond to energy, quick to become agitated, quick to become angry or upset or fearful. So, it’s the kind of energy that evildoers can play upon people who want to whip up a crowd into a frenzy or to terrorize people or dominate them.
Dale: And the solar plexus is that centre that, as you say, governs the emotional nature, but if it doesn’t have any sufficient mind control or control by the mind over these emotional reactions, then as you say, one is just pushed along through life by whatever kind of reaction comes from this emotional nature through the centre.
Sarah: The main objective, if one is working, living through the solar plexus, is to transfer those energies to lift them up into the heart centre. This happens as one learns to love unselfishly in an impersonal, more universal way. To operate through the heart means to have a consciousness of group relationships, to be someone who can live and thrive within a family, within a group, within any kind of larger context and not see himself as totally isolated and independent from others. That’s one way to elevate the energies of the solar plexus. Is there anything more we need to say about that centre?
Dale: Well, this whole process of transference of energies is a very long, long process, and it goes along with the evolutionary unfoldment of every human being. All the energies that flow through the centres, from the bottom centres all the way up through to the head centre, is a long evolutionary process, and as long as we allow that process to work itself out in a balanced way, then we will be okay.
Sarah: And as long as it happens in reaction to the change within our own consciousness. In other words, rather than doing techniques or practices to force that energy up from the solar plexus into the heart or into the higher centres, it comes through a life rightly lived. In fact, it’s said that the best way to elevate the energy of the solar plexus to the heart is through service. Because again, service expands one’s sense of the group, makes one attuned to and identified with a larger whole and not just focused totally within one’s own desires and consciousness. So that’s the slow way, like you say. It’s the evolutionary way, but it’s the only right way to elevate that energy. Another centre that I think a lot of people would understand and be familiar with is the sacral centre, which is the centre that governs the sex life. It’s associated with the gonads. As we said last time, it’s necessary for the reproduction of the species. All of these centres serve a purpose, but the problem is when one is totally focused within a centre that is low in vibration. In other words, you want to be able to use these centres as necessary and yet not let your consciousness be imprisoned in them. I think the sacral centre is overstimulated in modern Western society. If you look at our culture—what passes for mass culture, not high culture—the constant bemoaning of the fact that television is full of programs that are so obsessed with sex. I was reading an article just this week where they’ve done a study of primetime television which used to be off limits between seven and eight or nine for sexual content because that was the so-called family hour but now programs concern—well, they don’t just concern, they focus on—sex. I think this is an indication of the whole society being focused in the sacral centre.
Dale: And the society allows it and encourages it, apparently.
Sarah: They watch! Even as they complain, they watch that television.
Dale: So, that is an indication, perhaps, of just where the focus of consciousness is and where there’s this sacral centre and the solar plexus centre that are working, and they’re very active and vivid in their expression.
Sarah: Music reflects it; listen to the lyrics of rock music. So, the sacral centre, the solar plexus are familiar to a lot of people, but the higher centres, the heart, the throat, the ajna centre, the head centre, awaken with the spiritual life.
Robert: I was just thinking that most people go through their whole lives not knowing about the chakras or centres. Even before meeting you, I’ve explored this, unhappily so, because I think I did it the wrong way and kind of forced the chakras to open, which wasn’t good for me, so I thoroughly agree with you, it did have an effect on me. But I see a definite reason and purpose for knowing about the chakras, even though most people do go through their whole lives like this without knowing it. What would your opinion be about the purpose of the individual knowing what the chakras are?
Sarah: Well, I think it gives one a sense of control of one’s spiritual destiny, because there’s a great law that says, “as above so below” and it applies in so many ways. Here that law means that the soul is a reservoir of energy that each individual belongs to and which seeks to take possession of this entity, this vehicle called the personality—which is how most of us think of ourselves, this physical, emotional, mental being—who lives in the world. The soul takes possession of that vehicle, that mechanism, to express its energy, which is love and light, as the centres awaken, because the centres reflect consciousness. As they awaken, the soul can tighten its grip, so to speak, upon the outer personality or mechanism. So, that gives me hope.
Dale: And the soul’s grip on the personality really begins to take effect as the heart centre opens—the heart and the throat and the higher centres—because those are the ones that are the most responsive to soul energy. Those are the ones where—particularly when the heart centre begins to open—group consciousness develops in the individual, and his whole outlook turns away from his own little self, his own little ego self, to the world around him, to the needs of the world, to service, and to the needs of others. This is when the soul really begins to take an interest and can really work through this individual because the focus is now on the things that concern the soul.
Sarah: The throat centre can be used for the soul’s purposes because the throat is the creative centre. The soul works through this mechanism—which is us living in the outer world—by expressing its quality through our mind, our thoughts, through our creative works, through our responses to life. All of this is creative living. It doesn’t mean just painting a picture or writing a poem. Creative living is the expression of soul purpose in a multitude of ways. The throat centre awakens as one begins to live creatively and to make the adaptations and the adjustments to outer circumstances that can enable the soul to express itself no matter what is going on in the outer life. It’s a way of molding life to suit the soul rather than just wishing you had a better set of circumstances and then you could live as a soul. It’s a creative view of life. The ajna centre, the centre between the eyebrows, awakens because the soul needs an integrated, organized mechanism that has an equilibrium to it. How would you express that?
Dale: Well, it needs an integrated personality, where the mind is functioning.
Sarah: And everything’s in balance.
Dale: And the throat centre, the creative aspect, is alive and well. The ajna centre is a great distribution centre also.
Sarah: For the soul energy.
Dale: For that transference of the energies, and as we’ve said before, it’s located in the region between the eyebrows, in the forehead, and the gland that is associated with the ajna centre is the pituitary gland. The other gland, the pineal gland, is associated with the head centre. So, it’s the interaction between these two centres that’s very important, too.
Sarah: But if you try to activate them, stimulate them before your consciousness is really functioning through those centres, you can give yourself migraine headaches, eye trouble, brain difficulties. It’s not a good idea to try to force those centres open. They open through living a redemptive spiritual life, lifetime after lifetime; it is a long, slow process. People really have to understand it’s not wise to force them open any more than you would pry open the jaws of an alligator before it’s ready to open its mouth. (laughter)
Dale: Well, I like to liken it to forcing open the blossom or a bud of a flower.
Sarah: That’s a much better analogy.
Dale: If you try to force open this little bud, it won’t open up. It’ll look terrible. It just destroys it, and that’s what it will do to you if you open up one of your chakras prematurely, because they open up from inside, naturally, as the flower does. In fact, in esoteric literature, the lotus flower is often used as a symbol of the chakras, of the centres.
Sarah: Each centre is a lotus bud or a blossom with a certain number of petals which make up that centre. The key notes of these petals are sacrifice, love, and knowledge.
Robert: More or less what you’re saying then is that opening up these chakra centres is a matter of a state of mind that one is in. Is that what you’re saying?
Sarah: Yes, a state of consciousness.
Robert: That’s so interesting because prior to meeting both of you, I was being affected by spiritual gurus, if you will, who were very well-meaning, but they were very much into the idea of more or less forcing them open, and as I said, you were right, it did me harm.
Sarah: They’re always convinced they’re right. They always are convinced that they have the technique that can help you and they know what they’re doing. But I would be very suspicious of that. If you are living a life that is totally emotional, based on desire, on craving, on feeling, on reactiveness, your solar plexus is going to be the centre through which energy comes into you and through which you express yourself.
Dale: Energy follows thought. Wherever your thoughts are, that’s where the energy is going to be attracted.
Sarah: If you are immersed in sexual thought, desire, all of that focus, then your sacral centre is going to be the basic focal point of your consciousness. Even though you think you’re working through your mind, your whole life is driven by sexual urges, and you’re, in a sense, a prisoner of them.
Robert: That’s interesting. So, they’ll open naturally, depending on one’s state of consciousness. I guess the bottom line is that there’s no shortcuts to anything and especially opening up the chakras. I would think also that if we are really to know ourselves, understanding the etheric body and the chakras is highly important. Would you agree on that?
Sarah: Yes.
Robert: You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called The Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of The Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
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