Consciousness And the Chakras
Gaining stability in any of the chakras above the mūlādhāra avails a certain control over the related chakras below the mūlādhāra. For example, the mūlādhāra has power over the second, fourth and sixth chakras below the base of the spine, the centers of anger, confusion and absence of conscience. Maṇipūra, the third chakra, has power over the mūlādhāra and the same Narakaloka centers in an even more expansive way. The reason center, svādhishṭhāna, chakra two, controls the centers of fear, jealousy and so on. The cognition, seeing-through-worldliness chakra—anāhata—the fourth center above the mūlādhāra, controls the reason chakra and the centers of fear, jealousy, egotistic self-preservation and so on.
All the chakras, indeed, are functioning in everyone, as everyone has willpower, memory, reason and so on. But each soul has a home base. The ahiṁsā person whose home base is anāhata chakra would not harm others, because he perceives the unity of all. The person living in the ājñā chakra above could never harm others, because he is immersed in divine love. The home base of the terrorist who takes pleasure, joy and pride and receives medals of honor for his disdain of human rights is the pātāla chakra, at the bottom. The average person, and this is what makes him average, functions predominantly in about six chakras. These would be six below the mūlādhāra for someone for whom fear is the high point. Three within that six are the sustaining elements.
The upper seven chakras spin clockwise, and this spinning creates the śānti, or ever-growing peace, within an individual dominated by them. The lower seven spin counterclockwise, and this produces an ever-growing turmoil within one so affected. The vulnerable part of spiritual unfoldment is when someone is in the higher chakras—for example will and reason—and has one or more lower chakras open as well. This means one set of chakras is spinning clockwise and the other set is spinning counterclockwise, which accounts for great mood swings, elation, depression, self adulation, self condemnation. So, Brahmadvara, the doorway to the Narakaloka just below the mūlādhāra, has to be sealed off so that it becomes impossible for fears, hatreds, angers and jealousies to arise. Once this begins to happen, the mūlādhāra chakra is stabilized and the renegade becomes a devotee of Lord Gaṇeśa. You cannot come to Gaṇeśa in love and respect if you are an angry or jealous person. That is our religion.
As awareness flows through the first three higher chakras, we are in memory and reason patterns. We see the past and the future vividly and reside strongly in the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind. When awareness flows through the anāhata and viśuddha chakras, our point of view changes. We begin to see ourselves as the center of the universe, for now we are looking out and seeing through the external world from within ourselves. We look into the primal force within ourselves and see that this same energy is in and through everything.
The chakras also relate to our immediate universe. Put the sun in the center, representing the golden light of sushumṇā. The Earth is the conscious mind; the moon is the subconscious mind. The vibratory rates of the planets are then related to the seven chakras: the first chakra, mūlādhāra, to Mercury; the second chakra, svādhishṭhāna, to Venus; the third chakra, maṇipūra, to Mars; and so forth. In this way, if you know something of Vedic astrology, you can understand the relationship of the influence of the planets as to the formation of the individual nature, and how these various chakras come into power, some stronger than others, depending upon the astrological signs, for they have the same rate of vibration as the planets. Now you can see how it all ties together.
Through the knowledge of the chakras you can watch people and see what state of consciousness they are functioning in. It is helpful to know that all souls are inwardly perfect, but they are functioning through one force center or another most of the time, and these force centers determine their attitudes, their experiences, how they react to them and more.