Gurudev Chitrabhanu
Human life is a cohesive whole comprised of two polarities - physical, creative, sexual energy on one hand, and divine spiritual energy on the other. Just as east and west, north and south, are inevitable complementary points of direction, so are these two energies equal counterparts to one another. Both are essential to our life and growth. When we comprehend the intrinsic relationship between these powerful energies, we will come to understand human life more fully.
Therefore, the second point on which we will meditate is the place of our physical origin, the second center, located at the pelvis area, from which flows all our creative and productive energy. First, we ask ourselves, “What is the purpose of this creative energy? Is it for our temporary satisfaction or is it something to be suppressed? What is its nature?”
As we meditate deeply on this question, we will begin to recognize intimations of our own beginning and the potential for a loving and mutually fulfilling relationship with another human being. We will then naturally discard the idea of sin and guilt. After all, one cannot reach the end of a journey without first experiencing its beginning, So, in a sense, the beginning is included in the end. How, then, can we enjoy a blameless end if we have devalued our beginning?
I have seen people whose glimpse of spiritual awareness was limited by a lingering sense of guilt about their sexuality. They could not let go of the idea that sex is ugly. Such people cannot be truly pious as long as they continue to degrade the process of their own birth by calling it sinful. Too often, these same people mistakenly believe they are free from sexual desire while harboring a hidden, unrecognized longing. The result is anxiety and tension. Obsessed with a subtle curiosity, their minds are continually tempted by every form of sensual suggestion.
We tend to forget that we develop from one stage of life and growth to another and that each stage, from beginning to end, has its proper function. For example, it does not occur to a grown man to criticize himself for having built castles in the sand when he was a little boy. He recognizes that by building sandcastles as a child, he learned how to give form to his ideas as an adult. Such childhood experience bestow a foundation of wisdom to all subsequent stages of our life. We should approach the second center of meditation with this idea in mind and appreciate it as the center of our origin, the place of our creation
As we learn to value this center of creativity and begin to understand it from a new perspective, we will realize that we should not squander this precious energy on temporary enjoyment or on the momentary release of tension. To spend our energy wastefully is the inevitable consequence of failing to see its importance in maintaining the body and in making our life complete. We are in the habit of dividing the body into separate, unrelated parts. By assigning different meaning and worth to each part, we have created an unnatural tension between inner feeling and outer reality. Too often, we allow ourselves to be hypocritical, outwardly professing one set of values while inwardly failing to acknowledge our hidden desire and curiosity. Why, for instance, do we feel more comfortable seeing a naked child than we do seeing a nude adult? Why? Because at that moment, we are focused, not on the totality of the adult standing before us, but only on a single aspect which we have mentally separated from the rest. Now, instead, we begin to appreciate the human being as a whole, and we recognize that each part of the body is significant only in relation to the others. The eyes, mouth, ears, hands, inner organs, and so forth, all cooperate for the benefit of the entire organisms. When we comprehend the whole, we no longer segregate and devalue the parts.
So it follows that we do ourselves and our partners a grave injustice when we focus on just the sexual aspect of our relationship, spending this energy merely for temporary satisfaction. We not only deny ourselves the joy of being in tune with the whole of life, but also exclude our partner from participating in our understanding. One thing is true: Any relationship built on lust and sex alone is not going to last long. That relationship is no different from a person going to a restaurant. When the hunger is satisfied and the thirst is quenched, there is no further need to continue eating and drinking. Naturally, you leave the restaurant. Those who live on the level of temporary sexual gratification have not understood the nature of love.
Real love is peaceful: it encourages us to enjoy simply being and communicating with one another, sharing our thoughts and understanding of life. Real love does not end. Excitement continually ends. When you reach the end of your excitement, where do you go? You go back where you started. With love, however, there is no such dead end. It is always moving toward eternity. Love is eternally creative because it has no finish.
When this second energy center is truly flowing and creative, there is love. Then you live comfortably with your partner, free from the need to concoct some artificial excitement or mentally rehearse what you are going old, how you are going to meet, or what you should say. After all, where is the reality when you merely copy your mental rehearsal? Such mental games prevent you from experiencing real gentleness and genuine communication.
It may be helpful for you to know that the teaching about this energy center originated in the East several thousand years ago in an atmosphere where the relationship between man and woman was considered very sacred. Their bodies were not thought of as houses of potential sin and guilt, but as sanctified love temples in which two souls came together in Holy Communion. The warmth of their love protected them as they remained together throughout eternity. They did not imagine their relationship as ending in death, but saw it instead as a perceptual thread of meeting and love from lifetime to lifetime. Often, at their first meeting, a young couple would sense that they were coming together now because they had known one another before somewhere, and that they would meet yet again in the future.
The teaching evolved out of a cultural perspective very different from today’s world, where the pursuit of immediate and temporary gratification too often leads to frustrated expectations and hatred between partners. The teaching acknowledges the presence in all of us a meaningful, creative power, which unites two people even when they are in a state of meditation. There is no hurry, no show, and no anxiety about what you should do or how you should do it. You are tranquil.
You will be interested to know that there are many examples of couples who married young and after creating children, remained together for years without the need for sexual gratification. They enjoyed each other’s company and were not at al unhappy because they had not been brains washed into believing that the whole meaning of marriage is sex. Those who enter married life preoccupied with sexual gratification start hating and blaming one and other when they don’t get fulfillment. The whole relationship becomes very ugly. Ultimately, the marriage ends in depression and divorce.
However, if two people approach their marriage with the idea that they are meeting to build a life together and complement one another, then sex comes naturally and spontaneously. It is not a prerehearsed event. Sex neither joins the two lives together when it is present, nor breaks them apart when it is absent, because the two lives are connected by a larger feeling of total creativity.
No matter what creative endeavor you attempt, you may eventually feel the need for someone with whom to share it - someone who will bring to the experience and energy of a different, but compatible, nature. Male and female are like two complementary electrical currents. Each has its unique, inborn quality and each serves the cause of human evolution, the cause of perfection. We must endeavor to discover and develop the real feminine and masculine natures without distorting them with concepts borrowed from the outside world.
Many teachers would not have you meditate on the second center because they feel that generally people mistakenly believe that the sole purpose of this energy is to enhance sexual pleasure. If that were true, then meditating on this center would only stimulate your appetite for sex. I am teaching you about the second center because I believer that ultimately you must go beyond such a limited view of this powerful force in order to embrace the creative whole ness of life.
When you meditate on the second center, you are refining you energy. Just as crude oil must go through several stages of purification before it becomes a substance fine enough to fuel a jet engine, so we also must remove any dross, any gross elements before our energy can take us upward. Our energy must be refined if we are to enjoy a life free of turmoil - a life of bliss, peace, and clarity of reception.
The universal law is that we are free to be whatever we like. Why, then, are a few people dynamic, positive, and balanced while the majorities seem to be hampered by feeling of inadequacy? Why do we so often see our problems magnified? No one stop us from being happy, creative, secure, and enlightened; yet we are afraid to leave behind the familiar habits of negative thinking. Why? Why don’t we realize that every problem has a solution just as every lock has a right key? Our difficulty is that our daily haste and confusion prevent us from discovering the key that is needed. If we have refined our energy, however, it will guide us in the right time to the right place.
This purified energy is not indecisive and confused, nor is it scattered in all directions. It has the power to dissolve all feelings of impotence and free us from the conceptual limitations that block our creativity in any area of our life. If we have believed that others are luckier than we are - that they are more gifted and showered by grace - then now is the time for us to realize that all human beings are touched by the same divine element. When the mental concept of limitation is lighted, then the door of our creativity is opened. Our inner store of energy is made available to us when we make a positive decision and take a step in definite direction. We will discover that life offers us whatever we believe it will offer us. So when we meditate, let us give up our preconceived images and execrations - and all the tension and unhappiness that spring from them - so that we may become natural and our minds may become very pure and clear. Then we will enjoy our inherent creativity.
The second center, located at the pelvis area, is called swadhisthana in Sanskrit, which means “the place of our origin.” Swa means “your own” and adhisthana means dwelling, residence, or origin.” As the element of the first center is earth, representing our foundation sot the element of the second is water, symbolizing our creative energy. Be aware of this element within the blood flowing through your veins and within all the cells of your body. Generally, meditations on this center will increase the sense of taste because of the presence of water in the saliva. As you master each element making up the body you will be able to control and effect a healing change.
The visual symbol of this center is a crescent. Just as you know that the crescent moon will develop into beautiful full moon - a circle of perfection - so you are reminded by this symbol that you also are gradually moving toward your perfection. The color of this crescent is silver, which is bright and shining. In the same way, every human being can be illumined by the force of the inner flow of his own creative energy. If as you visualize, you link the image to your feeling of energy, your visualization will not be an artificial projection it will be, instead, a significant experience for you.
So, as you close your eyes, imagine yourself sitting on a lovely silver boat which is formed by crescent moon. Now you are floating along a river or like on the energy of the crescent moon, enjoying the creative life. Your boat is carrying you safely from one shore to the next. Simply enjoy yourself!
If your mind wanders from this scene, silently say the mantra mano-ramam. Mano means “mind,” and Raman means “player”; the mind-player, the one who dwells within. Be in tune with this beautiful creative energy, this immortal dancer in life.
The function of mantras is to lead you to the deep experience of meditation. When you feel you are in tune with the inner creative force, then let the mantra go. It is like riding an elevator. Let it take you to the floor you want; then get out or it will carry you back to the ground floor again. When you enter the ecstasy of experience, allow all words to remain on the surface.
Now in your meditation, you are relaxing and visualizing the river or lake, which pleases you. Be calm and free from any excitement, tension, or haste. Quietly watch the beautiful, flowing water and see yourself and your life floating smoothly on the silver crescent boat. Experience the equanimity from which springs your creative energy. Free yourself from the old ideas and become natural within this serene meditation.
