Stewards of Mind Realms
The Gods are the controllers of these force centers within man. They live in the innermost areas of form. To enter the mūlādhāra chakra, the aspirant must go through Lord Gaṇeśa. And when the aspirant progresses to the maṇipūra chakra, Gaṇeśa will introduce him to Lord Murugan. Once this is accomplished, the devotee will worship Lord Murugan as the Be-All and End-of-All, just as Gaṇeśa was worshiped when consciousness was in His chakras. Lord Murugan is the controller of the maṇipūra chakra, the chakra of willpower, and the two chakras above it, direct cognition and universal love. Now we can begin to see that the aspirant has to proceed in consciousness through the three chakras that Lord Murugan controls and meet all the tests before this God will introduce him to Lord Śiva. Lord Śiva’s realm is chakras number six, seven and beyond. The aspirant still must go completely through the chakras of Lord Śiva’s realm to become Śivaness—to experience His all-pervasiveness, and on into the essence of all essences, Paraśiva.
The aspirant who dearly loves Lord Śiva must finally go beyond Śiva’s personal aspect to reach the impersonal side, and this is why, when he finally emerges from Paraśiva, he is really a true bhaktar. He is the true monistic theist. In the world of duality, theism is in itself a duality. Theism is very compatible with the mind of man, which is duality itself. Monism, on the other side, is beyond the mind itself. Monism is timeless, formless, and it is spaceless as well. True monism cannot be conceived by the mind. Yet, the mind does know of its existence.
When the devotee has proven himself, the Gods begin to take notice. We meet a God as we go up through the chakras above the mūlādhāra. We meet an asura as we go down through the chakras below the mūlādhāra. A God appears as each higher chakra breaks open. As the mūlādhāra opens and awareness comes through it, we encounter Gaṇeśa. When we experience fear and anger, we meet and are influenced by the asuras of fear and anger. In the chakra that governs confused and selfish thinking, we meet and are influenced by the asura who rules this realm. Descending to the still lower chakras of petty theft, fraud and stealing, grand larceny, murder and violence, we would meet professionals in these areas. There are always inner Gods and outer Gods, for each chakra is a realm of consciousness with its own inner and outer hierarchy.
A chakra is a world, a sphere of consciousness. There are astral helpers and physical-plane helpers connected to each chakra. These spheres of consciousness do interrelate. A mentally healthy individual is functional in about three chakras, or spheres of consciousness, at a time. A person with severe mental problems would be in a single sphere of consciousness and could not deal with things that happened to him outside that area of the mind, or chakra.
When you meet the God or asura of a particular realm, it would always be a conscious meeting, but you may not always see the God or the asura. His presence would certainly be felt. Some symbol would appear, such as an image of Lord Gaṇeśa, or of Lord Śiva. A lot of people are open to Śivaness now and see Him through His images. Terrorists are seeing their asura gods in their guns, explosives and other weapons. At this time in the Kali Yuga, all states of consciousness are out in the open. All of the fourteen chakras are manifest in one way or another on Earth. It is a very intense time on the planet, and likewise a ripe time for spiritual unfoldment.