THE SPIRITUAL ORGANS

Philip Matthews

'Manifestations of life are always sevenfold.'
Rudolf Steiner The Riddle of Humanity.

To be candid, I am not sure what kind of reception this essay will receive. The world is certainly overburdened by now with diagrams, maps and figurations of occult and sacred symbols. The result is that many have come to believe that possession of a map of heaven is at once a passport to that region.

I bear in mind also Rudolf Steiner’s remark that the images perceived during spiritual development are merely indications of one’s progress and not as such of much value to others. In any case, we bear the signs of our spiritual state upon our being, signs that are perceptible to the spiritually advanced, so reporting our visions adds nothing to their assessment of us.

I accept this point. Almost from the beginning I recognised that many others have experienced what I experience, and that most of them maintain silence and strive on in humility for deeper spiritual understanding. Nonetheless, I have decided to bring forward this particular set of images. I do so for two reasons.

The first reason I will leave aside for the moment until I have created a context for it, which I will do below. The other reason is this: as you will see, the set of images is peculiarly complete in specified ways. By this I mean that the images form a complete set without at the same time disclosing all the knowledge that might be obtained from them.

In view of what I am presenting here, I should observe that the forms of the Chakras have remained largely unchanged over the last two thousand years. In fact the only deviation of note from the pattern familiar today is to be found in the 6^th century AD Yoga Upanishad, where the root Chakra is said to be triangular in shape. Even C.W. Leadbeater, who based his study, The Chakras, on his own clairvoyant investigations, maintained the forms in substance, deviating only to move the second Chakra up to the spleen, and to subdivide the brow Chakra’s two petals into 48 ‘undulations’ each. The well known model of the Chakras as lotus flowers with their associated figures and symbols date from an Indian compilation of the 17^th century.

Rudolf Steiner for his part accepted the traditional Indian interpretation of the Chakras, going so far as to adopt the didactic superstructure developed over the centuries. Even so, there is a case to be made for interpreting certain ‘living’ aspects of his teaching by reference to an exploration of the depths to be found in each of the Chakras. There is no doubt that the seven lotus flowers were of great significance to him, and that he explored them ceaselessly, with truly wonderful results.

Until I perceived this aspect of Dr Steiner’s insight, my interest in the Chakras had been peripheral, just another part of the wide spectrum of occult knowledge and speculation. My first experience of them came during a course of yoga I undertook with Lily Donat in London in 1977. Towards the end of the course she led us to contact the base Chakra. I was very surprised when the Chakra actually made its presence felt! However, I was much more taken by a painting of the Chakras, done by one of her students, that hung in the exercise room. Years later, at Christmas 1985, I managed to create my own painting of the familiar tree of lotus flowers. It was a profoundly satisfying experience.

I became immersed in Rudolf Steiner’s works during the late 80’s, concentrating upon the cross-structure of the epochs of the Earth’s evolution and the development of the human bodies or sheaths. At the same time, my meditation began to develop in the early 90’s, as a result of completing a project that had spanned twenty years. These private experiences ranged in a systematic way – seen retrospectively – through familiar and unfamiliar regions, culminating in January 1996 in the series of images set out below.

I feel I should say something about the nature of the sources I am using to give this account. Like so many, I have kept diaries and account books. When the present series of meditations began in late 1991, I was content to hold them in memory. Only in early 1992, when I realised the scale of the inner activity, did I begin to keep notes. It began as an expediency: I jotted down abbreviated accounts of my experiences in pencil on folded sheets of unruled A4, thus obtaining 4-page units of writing space. I filled these pages with condensed accounts plus whatever images, shapes and transforms occurred. The handwriting is tiny – I need a glass now in order to read it.

These accounts were intended to serve three purposes. One was to make an accurate and sufficient record as soon as possible after the experience. The second was to hold a comprehensive record of the whole cycle of mediations in the hope that I might better understand it in the future. The third reason is in some ways the most important. I write down my experiences in order that I might forget them. I do this in order to forestall the modern habit of labelling the new and the unknown (and the spiritual world is unknown to each of us prior to our experience of it) with preconceived concepts and names. I forget my experiences so that I do not contaminate future experience with spurious expectations derived indirectly from past experience. I stress this now because it was only when I went back over my notes of the Chakra meditations earlier this year that I began to grasp their possible significance and value.

I now intend setting out the accounts of the Chakra meditations in a ‘raw’ state, as a Diary. Only the relevant entries will be given, all abbreviations will be expanded and personal elements will be excluded unless they convey necessary information. Square brackets enclose explanatory notes not in the original account.

I am aware that these entries will appear extremely cryptic at first sight, but the commentary on the individual Chakras that follows on the Diary should help to explicate them.

Please note that I refer to the Chakras by the number of petals each possesses – the most unambiguous way to refer to them in shorthand. Thus the base Chakra has 4 petals; the solar plexus Chakra has 6; the diaphragm Chakra has 10; the heart Chakra has 12; the throat Chakra has 16; the brow Chakra has 2, and the crown Chakra has 1000.

This is the Diary:

24/12/95: Med[itation]: at throat: life like flame consuming paper: ‘mineral disposition’:

1/1/96: Being introduced itself as ‘RUDOLF’: surprised by this, too soon for RS[teiner]..

11/1/96: CHAKRA med begun (I): First vision: : Latter [i.e. the spirals] rotating: indistinct but movement: ALWAYS RETURN.

15/1/96: Chakra (II) med: (clear): Larynx connect-ion: crown fill [sic]: gap at pineal: deep place: closed: plan constructed for reference [see below].

20/1/96: Chakra III: [Image of Chakra 4 appears here] [Chakras] 4, 2, 1000 open: Kundalini hot and cold, active: separation involved in all this: [Chakras] 16, 12, 10 closed still (6?).

2/2/96: Chakra IV: Kundalini established in own ‘garden’ (gate): All centres contacted: Med 2: Kundalini left in place.

9/2/96: Chakra V: [Chakra] 2 = silver ring – vibrant: base-ring around dark spaced [sic] in Heart, had to pull myself up sharply.

13/2/96: Chakra VI: [Chakra] 6: counter rotation dark spheres on outer rim, then intense rim dark centre: [Chakra] 12 = 4 x 3, then 3 x 4 then livid: sudden : 2 very active: [Chakras] 10 + 16 quiet still.

17/2/96: Chakra VII: Prayer then [Chakra] 16, like gas ring, dark otherwise: sudden: much unconsciousness..

27/2/96: Chakra VIII: [Chakra] 10 = sphere of 10 raised faces: erotic, rel[ated to] male, homo[sexual], father: 4 + 6: see all chakras N/2: i.e. 12 = 2 x 6 (Hex) 6 = 2 x 3 (triangle) : cross = Kundalini = plant.

2/3/96: Chakra IX: NB – occurred during initial med: throat to eyes – chakra 2 appeared, next throat + chakra 16 as ring with face, two horns reaching [last image repeated] – later saw that ring is that of arms/hands that supply throat: v. significant: chakras may be integral, so that [meditation] may deepen to operations with chakras:

3/3/96: Chakra X: pre-med[itation]: 12 red rosy X [ie Rosy Cross] for chak[ra] 12 heart: chak 6 = Black white yellow gold : Kundalini ‘rooted in God’ – scarlet?

13/3/96: Chakra XI: 12 = : Dark: ‘start here’.

22/3/96:
(A) Dr[eam] RS[teiner] red [as though] from wind: [I am asked] ‘how many books?’ – 12/16.
(B) WARMTH/AIR - SOUND - WATER: Chakra XII:

16 = 2 = 1000 =

In addition to this: you can see that on 15/1/96 I set up a ‘plan’ for reference. I drew the Chakras in ascending order in the traditional lotus form. Then, as the meditations progressed, I set alongside each Chakra the new image(s) as I experienced them. They are laid out here (see last page) substantially as I saw them. The only modification is an adjustment of the root Chakra. I first drew it thus: The modification is intuitive, but it does not change the import of the image at all.

At the beginning I said I had two reasons for deciding to communicate these new images. One was because they form a complete set. I think you can see that this is true. The other reason, the compelling one for me, is the encounter with the spirit who called himself ‘RUDOLF’ at the start of the sequence, and a second encounter, this time in dream, with Rudolf Steiner.

Now, I want to emphasise that it is this aspect which compels me to disclose these images. It is not an authority to do so, nor does it underwrite my doing so. Believe me when I say that I only became aware that the Chakra meditations were bounded by these two encounters earlier this year, when I first set out to study my notes of the meditations in detail.

It seems to be a common factor in spiritual development that spirits – good and bad – are drawn to the opening one is creating. It is my conviction that if one is obliged to remain silent about one’s visions, one is doubly obliged to maintain silence about the spirits one encounters. Delusion in the matter of images is one thing; delusions about spirit beings is a graver and more frightening matter.

With this caution in mind, I am prepared to submit to the impulse to make these meditations known to those they might interest. I am presenting them here in a ‘raw’ state so that no one is seduced by persuasive presentation or pretty pictures. In the end, you will have to judge their worth for yourself.

Before I undertake what I intend will be a fairly concise commentary on the images, I must point to one limitation in the means of presenting them. You will notice that colour is an important element in the images. Unfortunately, it is not possible to reproduce coloured images here. I have attributed colours to the various images, based in part on disclosure and part on interpretation. In the following commentary I take the liberty of detailing these colours.

THE KUNDALINI GARDEN.

This image is novel in the context of the Chakras and totally new in my experience. I see it as a hollow building block filled with earth (green) from which two plants grow, one ‘hot’, the other ‘cold’ – red and blue, which form the interlacing currents, Pingala-Sun and Ida-Moon of Indian tradition, that rise from Chakra to Chakra to the brow Chakra.

The injunction in the 11/1/96 meditation to ‘always return’ reminds us that the Kundalini must always be returned to its resting place in the Garden after any exercise involving it, a caution repeated by most authorities on the subject.

Much is said of the Kundalini Garden in the meditations, more than I am prepared to absorb even yet. But a word of caution: the rising of the Kundalini is represented by many authorities as a traumatic event. One must be careful then not to confuse the knowledge imparted in these meditations with one’s experience of the events referred to. In other words, I know important things about the Kundalini, but I am less certain of my experience of it.

ROOT CHAKRA – 4 petals, at base of spine. Colours: Base, red; armature, blue; globe, yellow; tip, white

This is a truly transformative image. Fourfold as the four bodies of the human being – red for physical, blue for ether, yellow for astral, white for Ego. Best images: an egg in an eggcup; a chalice with host; Grail with stone; a shaving mirror.

Notice how the fundamental nature of this organ is signalled in the 20/1/96 meditation by the echo set up in all the other organs, like a roll call, excepting the organ immediately above, the 6.

I will refer to it again at the end of this discussion.

SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA – 6 petals, below navel.

The colouring is as indicated in the meditation of 3/3/96. I feel that the gold and yellow triangles rotate against each other. I have little meditational experience of this lotus and only one physical experience. Even my reception of the images has an element of confusion. You see that on 20/1/96 I raised the question of the status of this lotus after I listed only six lotuses as opened or closed. The arrow through the six means to point to the hexagram in the 15/1/96 entry. I forgot then that the hexagram there is linked to the throat lotus and seems to refer back to the content of the 24/12/95 meditation, which precedes the series proper.

I don’t intend pursuing this matter further here – it is one aspect of the meditations that I cannot yet fathom. There may be a link, to do with alchemy, between the hexagram of the throat – the ‘mineral disposition’ – and that associated in detail with the solar plexus Chakra, but I am not prepared to speculate on this.

The physical experience, by the way, was one of intense joy rising from that part of my body at the sight of a group of obviously happy people in a park. It seems thus linked with the diaphragm and heart Chakras. See below.

DIAPHRAGM CHAKRA – 10 petals, above the navel.

Colour, pink, violet-pink, red-pink.

I have seen this Chakra vividly a number of times. I call it the lotus of wrath, but suspect it is also the source of the love felt in the heart lotus. The opening of the Chakra brings all your anger and resentment to the surface. In anger you will see the lotus – a congeries of bulbs/spheres like a blackberry – bristle with what can be best called erect nipples. It is shockingly erotic to behold, but it is the seat of our moral feelings even so.

This is another fundamental organ, witnessed by the crosses I placed around the entry and by the fact that all the other organs are checked, here in terms of a kind of reducibility to simple pattern. I have not investigated this yet.

A warning. The opening of this Chakra seems also to draw a great deal of disturbance to you, not necessarily directed at you, but such that you will be upset, angered and frustrated to a degree that might surprise and dismay you. This experience lasted over eighteen months for me.

It is nonetheless a deeply beautiful Chakra. It is one that abides always with you once opened.

HEART CHAKRA – 12 petals, behind the heart.

Colour: the reference is to the Rosy Cross, therefore red plays a part. But I have connected the form this lotus takes with another aspect of Rudolf Steiner’s description of the spiritual world, one I developed to its final form during a study of The Fifth Gospel. Succinctly, the heart lotus is the image of the Macrocosm in us. Conversely, the spirit world is precisely of the form of the heart lotus. In a sense, then, the heart is both a door to the Cosmos and also the Cosmos already there. Otherwise: the Ego has its home for us in the heart, the heart is its true image.

Thus I colour the lotus as green in all parts except the outer sections of the diagonals, which I colour red:

Love pours from this lotus. It can suffer greatly too. Neither its love nor its pain is of the Ego, but of us as living beings. It is in the heart that the Ego can learn about earthly life, if it can be brought to recognise the fact that it is immersed in this life.

The instruction of 13/2/96 that one should begin all activities with the spiritual organs at the heart Chakra follows the advice given by Rudolf Steiner. While it is necessary to contact the Brow Chakra first at the beginning of our relationship with the organs – because this organ protects us – all subsequent activities should start with the Heart Chakra. Taken with the earlier ruling that the Kundalini should be restored to rest in its Garden, these rules are clear and simple. You will find that you follow them in any case, if you enter upon this activity with due reverence.

THROAT CHAKRA – 16 petals.

As a gas ring, it is coloured blue and pale blue. However, the face, with its twelve points, is white with the points in red.

This is a complex Chakra, an extremely complex structure. Image it as the Claddagh ring, two hands holding a heart. The heart is the principle of the circulation I have seen in this image. But it is a difficult Chakra to experience. I instinctively prayed on 7/2/96 before receiving details of it. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s spiritual growth culminated in the opening of this Chakra amid very great anguish, where he felt the two arms reach up into his head to his brow.

It is in some ways the most highly specified of the Chakras, with its heart face, its horns and its arms. As for the horns: only recently have I seen that these horns are the equivalent of a crown. Thus the heart is crowned here.

BROW CHAKRA – 2 petals, just above the nose.

Colour: the central ring is silver, dark at centre. The petals are white, with sun and moon inscribed upon them, sun on right and moon on left to correspond to the terminals of the Kundalini currents.

This is the most traditional of the images here. It is the easiest to open and should be opened first, as advised by Rudolf Steiner. It is the seat of a kind of knowledge, almost like a companion, a supportive and generous one at that. But discipline is needed here. Its easy embrace can spell loss of consciousness, that can tempt one to the bad habit of using meditation as a sedative.

CROWN CHAKRA – 1000 petals, above the head.Colour, white, or scintillating and multicoloured: flashes out sprays of light.

This lotus appeared easily several times as a flashing light. I feel I experienced not the Chakra itself, and certainly not its transcendent nature, but a distant, very distant image of it that served as an occasion for the imparting of an important insight into this scheme.

Though not detailed in the 2/2/96 meditation, the meditation on 2 (the brow Chakra) referred to there had the form of a line of movement from the crown lotus down to the brow. You will notice in the full scheme that the centre meridian, called Sushumna, is absent below the brow Chakra. When I first painted these images I thought afterwards that I had overlooked putting in the Sushumna and got into a bit of a fuss over it. Only by rechecking my notes did I see that it was not to be included.

This is a significant deviation from the traditional plan, but here the Kundalini currents rise to meet the descending current from the crown. There is authority in the Indian sources for seeing the Sushumna as descending into the body, rather than rising from the root Chakra as some assume.

Finally, there are two last features I would like to draw to your attention. The first I can best illustrate by means of the following table:

Notice that the Chakras are revealed in a distinct order, and that some revelations have a kind of echo among other Chakras. Thus an aspect of the Kundalini Garden is revealed along with the disclosure of the image of the 6-petal Chakra(no. 2). Again, the image of the brow Chakra is repeated as the difficult throat Chakra is revealed. See how preparatory images of the heart Chakra appear as echoes of other disclosures.

The order of disclosure is meaningful. First the Kundalini, the energy of the Chakras, then the first Chakra, then the guardian brow Chakra. Next the Chakra of wrath is revealed before the obscure throat Chakra, then the hidden solar plexus Chakra, whose hexagram structure is echoed in aspects of the throat Chakra itself. Then comes the heart Chakra after much preparation, then finally the crown Chakra, the Cosmos itself.

I did not notice the second feature until twenty months after the meditations! Learning from experience is surely a lengthy process.

In the last meditation the top three Chakras are linked in a composite structure. Now, look at my version of the base Chakra, the chalice-like bowl and host above it. Can you see the throat Chakra in the base and armature? See the brow Chakra stripped of its petals/wings in the globe and see the remote crown Chakra in the white spot at the tip of the globe.

I believe there is a great mystery in this coincidence of forms.

Now notice that the solar plexus and diaphragm Chakras are excluded from this scheme. Notice also how unique each form is. Both are very active Chakras – both are living Chakras. I believe that we, as human beings, have made these Chakras. I believe it is these Chakras that are to be transformed into the higher natures. See that the heart Chakra, the Chakra of the transforming Ego, has already begun this process in the throat Chakra.

9/9/99