Chapter 18The Parts of the Body and the Centres · The Sides of the Body

of the higher consciousness (superconscient) is above the body. At the same time, the subconscient can be felt anywhere, felt as something below the movement of the consciousness and, in a way, supporting it from beneath or else drawing the consciousness down towards itself. The subconscient is the main support of all habitual movements, especially the physical and lower vital movements. When something is thrown out of the vital or physical, it very usually goes down into the subconscient and remains there as if in seed and comes up again when it can. That is the reason why it is so difficult to get rid of habitual vital movements or to change the character; for, supported or refreshed from this source, preserved in this matrix your vital movements, even when suppressed or repressed, surge up again and recur. The action of the subconscient is irrational, mechanical, repetitive. It does not listen to reason or the mental will. It is only by bringing the higher light and force into it that it can change.

* the legs below represent the special field governed by it — as distinct from the mental and vital parts in the body. So when there is working there, it means a working in the physical proper itself. Of course the physical is half-subconscient, but the field of the subconscient proper is below the feet, just as the field of the superconscient is above the head.

* The lowest centre at the bottom of the spine [is the sex centre]. It contains many other things, but also it is in its front the support of the sexual movements.

* It [the end of the spine] is the place of the physical centre which is also the sex-centre. The apex of it is at the end of the spine and it projects forward from there — commanding the organ and its action.

* The sex centre is the physical centre — it [the physical centre] happens to be the centre for sex and physical propagation also, but it is not separately and solely the centre of sex. If that were so, there would be no centre governing the physical consciousness, but only a centre governing the sex organ.

There is no subconscient centre. Its plane is below the feet as that of the superconscient is above the head.

* No, the subconscient is too vague to have a centre. It has a level — below the feet as the superconscient is above, but from there it can surge up anywhere.

Chapter Two

The Parts of the Body

and the Centres 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.

Yes, it [the cerebellum] has some connection with the subcon-scient.

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.

* 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.

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

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 including the mental physical, vital physical, material physical. This [aspiration rising from the legs] would indicate therefore an aspiration from Matter (bodily Matter).

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.