________________
132
Philosophical Writings
skull.26 There is a full-length discussion and details about each of these centers and the consciousness transformation when a particular center is activated. For the sake of brevity, we drop it. However, we shall definitely note that the central conception inspiring the whole Tantra is that of the Subtle body. There is one question that everyone naturally asks : is this subtle body to be thought of real ? “The Tantrik answer is: if by real you mean belonging to the world of objective outer facts, no; it is ‘upstream of all such facts, and is an important sense more real than they. But it is discovered only as inner experience, like taste of a lemon, by anyone who makes even a modest effort to focus his attention inward."27
The entire concept of centers is highly scientific based on the fact that our body is not just a body with physical or gross body. Besides, as the old Vedantic knowledge tells us we have five degrees of being, the material, the vital, the mental, the ideal, and the spiritual. “The oldest Hathayogins and Tantriks of India had discovered six nervous centers, now closed, could be opened up. "28 To conclude this doctrine of Energy Centres in less symbolical and more philosophical language, we can say that, “real energy of our being is lying asleep and inconscient in the depth of our vital system, and is awakened by the practice of Pranayama. In its expansion it opens up all the centers in which reside the powers and the consciousness of what would now be called perhaps our subliminal self; therefore as each center of power and consciousness is opened up, we get access to successive psychological planes and able to put ourselves in communication with the world or cosmic states of beings which correspond to them: all the psychic powers abnormal to physical man, but natural to the soul develop in us."29
The secret of the power of mantra, the six chakras and the Kundalini Saktiare the central truths of which the Tantricphilosophy claims to give us a rationale and the most complete compedium of methods. “All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practice.” 30
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
