“My karma just ran over my dogma.”

— as seen on a bumper sticker

Dogma is the tool used to prevent individuals from looking inside. What is that human tendency that would rather have someone figure it out for you, rather than explore your true nature for the divine that is in all of us and every bit of creation? Philosophies and Religions that would gain power by attempting to place themselves between the individual and God — these are the closest thing to evil, because they would delay the natural process of self discovery embodying personal familiarity with our Godhead.

The answers are within each of us, and a true teaching doesn’t pretend to offer answers, rather suggestions of how and where to look. Anyone offering to do for you what is your most satisfying and joyous undertaking is no friend. Especially be cautious of any teaching that promotes fear. As an example both Catholicism and Tibetan Buddhism put forth elaborate versions of ‘hell’.

Be calm, at peace, and open your inner eye — that you may know the Divine through your own direct experience.

WISDOM BLOSSOMS WITHIN

Victorious Breath, Ujayi, can be incorporated into asana practice. You breathe so the breath is purposefully audible. The breath resonates in the back of the throat, nose and mouth in such a way as to resemble the sound of waves and wind at an ocean beach. As well as maintaining attention on the breath, Victorious Breath energizes and strengthens the physical body.                                     WEIGHT LOSS THROUGH YOGA, JEWEL IN THE LOTUS     page 114.

A BEAUTIFUL CHLOROPHYLL GREEN

The fourth, or heart chakra’s, color is a beautiful chlorophyll green and its element is air. The lower three chakras are the material universe and the fourth chakra is the transition point to our divine spiritual manifestation. The heart chakra is the point of transition and the upper three chakras are the higher, or spiritual centers. The ascending line of energy through the Sushumna parallels the evolutionary ascent of humankind from animal to spiritual being. A horizontal line, the point of transition, forms a cross. This is the symbol of the fourth chakra. The teachings of Jesus are fourth chakra teachings. “…And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” The Beatles’ ‘All You Need is Love’ is also an expression of fourth chakra teaching. Astrology, based on observations of earth in relationship to its slowly changing stellar influences, divided earthly time into two thousand year segments, or ages. We are now leaving the segment when the teachings of Jesus were to manifest as the prevailing order. This era, the Piscean Age, shares with Jesus the symbol of the fish. The new age we’re starting to enter is the Aquarian Age, the age of understanding. If we can get our tails over the fence, we will begin to share the promise of the miracles Jesus taught are our birthright.

TRANSITION FROM MATERIAL TO SPIRITUAL IS REPRESENTED BY THE SYMBOL OF THE FOURTH CHAKRA — THE CROSS

BEAUTIFUL BRIGHT RED

The first chakra is a beautiful bright red and is representative of the element earth. The first time the meditator may feel fear. The first chakra is associated with the birth process and entering the world for the first time. Everything is new. This experience mirrors the aspirant’s entrance into meditation. Both are natural processes and promise wonder and growth.

This is the part of the body housing the organs of digestion and elimination. The sacrum center is primordial. It has to do with our most animal nature, sexual passion, which brings forth human form to clothe another soul. As the most inherently physical of the chakras its realm is that most physical of pleasures, sexual ecstasy.

SEXUAL

I won’t be posting for a couple days because I’m going on Mt Rainier.

Base Camp Muir

A VIBRANT ORANGE, AND ITS ELEMENT IS WATER

The second chakra is a vibrant orange and its element is water. Its location is the center of the physical body. The navel is what remains from the umbilical cord that nourished our development in the womb where we are dependent on our host mother for life. Apana energized the erection and fueled the passion, propelled the egg to the fallopian tubes and the sperm to their union. Apana was the life force for the dividing zygote until nadis developed with the development of the umbilical connection to the prana of the mother’s body. As the embryo grew and became more complex, no longer was absorption of the mother’s apana adequate for further growth. Prana from the mother, through the umbilical, gradually replaced it as a source of life force. The mother’s apana provides energy for the birth contractions, forcing the child into the world.

The newborn enters the world separate from the mother. It exhales, and then inhales a first breath. Breathing begins with an exhalation and the last breath at death is an inhalation. With that first breath cycle, the new being draws life force into the body as an individual for the first time. This is the moment of the beginning of life. The spirit enters the body. Before, the now sentient being, was a complex growth within the mothers body. At the moment of life, with that first breath cycle, the circulation of blood in the infant’s body reverses direction. The heart pumps in the opposite direction and the blood that was being pushed through the veins out through the circulatory system is pushed through the arteries and returns to the heart through the veins. A soul has entered the little body, having picked the perfect set of parents, in the perfect set of circumstances, to give it an opportunity to experience what’s necessary for this cycle of spiritual growth. Free will determines how well the opportunity is utilized.

SECOND AND FIRST CHAKRA