Letters on Yoga - I

Chapter II

The Parts of the Body and the Centres

The Parts of the Body in Yoga

Different parts of the body indicate for this purpose different parts of the nature. The head is the seat of the mind (buddhi) and the lower part of the mouth, chin, neck are the seat of the external or physical mind. It indicates that the force is working there to change and prepare this part of the mind and get rid of resistance and wrong mental habits.

The Cerebellum

Yes, it [the cerebellum] has some connection with the subconscient.

The Ear, Nose, Face and Throat

It cannot be anything physical but only a subtle physical sensation. The ear is the passage of communion between the inner mind centre and the thought-forces or thought-waves of the universal Nature. It sounds like a sensation of opening and enlarging of this passage.

The nose is connected with the vital dynamic part of the mental—a man with a strong nose is supposed to have a strong will or a strong mental personality,—though I don't know whether it is invariably true. But the vital physical? Of course the nose is the passage of the Prana and the Prana is the support of the vital physical.

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The working on the lower part of the face always indicates an action on the externalising mind (physical mental) whose centre is in the throat.

The neck and throat and the lower part of the face belong to the externalising mind, the physical mental. The forehead to the inner Mind. Above the head are the higher planes of Mind.

The organ of speech is an instrument of the physical mental or expressive externalising mind.

The Chest, Stomach and Abdomen

It is because the centre of your difficulties has been there [in the chest and stomach]. The chest = the emotional nature exposed to wrong feelings; the stomach = the dynamic vital centre, exposed to wrong desires, ambitions, sense of possession and vital ego etc. But all that will progressively become things of the past, when the Peace, the Presence, the inner happiness increase and take possession of the external nature.

Yogically, psycho-physically etc. etc. stomach, heart and intestine lodge the vital movements, not the physical consciousness—it is there that anger, fear, love, hate and all the other psychological privileges of the animal tumble about and upset the physical and moral digestion. The Muladhara is the seat of the physical consciousness proper.

As for the lower part of the body, it is the physical and external vital that it represents at present and that has still to be penetrated and held by the Force. But the conditions under which it can be done are growing more complete. The physical opening needs a great quietude which replaces the tamasic inertia of body

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nature by a true peace. Then all else can be done.

The Legs and Feet

It is the material consciousness that is indicated by the legs and feet. Below the feet is the subconscient. There is no big centre below the Muladhara in the body, but there are minor centres everywhere.

The leg indicates the physical (material) consciousness. All below the Muladhara is the range of the physical consciousness proper including the mental physical, vital physical, material physical. This [aspiration rising from the legs] would indicate therefore an aspiration from Matter (bodily Matter).

The Sides of the Body

The two sides of the body are supposed to represent two different sides of the being, the side of consciousness and knowledge and the side of force and action. The feeling you had at meditation may have been the sense of the removal of some veil of obscurity covering the mind—the head from the crown to the throat being the seat of the thinking mind.

It is usually supposed that the left is the side of power, the right of knowledge.

The ascent from below [the left foot] means of course the material and subconscient calling down the higher power—and it is true that there is a correspondence between the depth from which the ascension goes and the height from which the power from above comes.

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