The Chakras

By C. W. Leadbeater, Kurt Leland and Anodea Judith

Chakra (Sanskrit, "wheel") refers to the ancient Hindu concept of seven vortices of energy located on the spine from the tailbone to the crown of the head. These centers define the physical and spiritual contact points in the human body. In yoga they are bridges to higher consciousness symbolizing the journey from the material world to the divine. Alternative-medicine healers recognize them as a dynamic resource for health.

First published in 1927, this pioneering book by famed clairvoyant C. W. Leadbeater was the first to introduce the chakras to the West. With great clarity, he explains what each chakra means regarding our well-being, insight, and personal power, his color illustrations showing the chakras as they actually appear to those who can see them. Anyone can perceive the chakras, he says. We must merely become sensitive to vibrations finer than those to which we normally respond

The book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and remains a classic. The new material by Anodea Judith and Kurt Leland emphasizes its relevance for today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quest Books
• Release date: Apr 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9780835630818

Book preview

THE

CHAKRAS

THE

CHAKRAS

An Authoritative Edition of the Groundbreaking Classic

C. W. LEADBEATER

Foreword by Anodea Judith, PhD

Annotations and Afterword by Kurt Leland

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Copyright © 1927, 1997 by The Theosophical Publishing House

Annotations and Afterword copyright © 2013 by Kurt Leland

Second Edition 2013

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Cover design by Mary Ann Smith

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leadbeater, C. W. (Charles Webster), 1854–1934.

The chakras: an authoritative edition of the groundbreaking classic / C. W. Leadbeater; Foreword by Anodea Judith; Annotations and Afterword by Kurt Leland.— Second edition.

p.     cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN for softcover edition: 978-0-8356-0912-8

1. Chakras (Theosophy) 2. Leland, Kurt. II. Title.

BP573.C5L4 2013

299’.934—dc23

2012039348

eISBN for electronic edition, e-pub format: 978-0-8356-2117-5

5 4 3 2 1 * 13 14 15 16 17 18

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Editor’s Note

Abbreviations

Foreword by Anodea Judith, PhD

Preface to the First Edition

Chapter 1. The Force Centers

The Meaning of the Word. Preliminary Explanations. The Etheric Double. The Centers. The Form of the Vortices. The Illustrations. The Root Chakra. The Spleen Chakra. The Navel Chakra. The Heart Chakra. The Throat Chakra. The Brow Chakra. The Crown Chakra. Other Accounts of the Centers.

Chapter 2. The Forces

The Primary or Life Force. The Serpent Fire. The Three Spinal Channels. The Marriage of the Forces. The Sympathetic System. The Centers in the Spine. Vitality. The Vitality Globule. The Supply of Globules. Psychic Forces.

Chapter 3. The Absorption of Vitality

The Globule. The Violet-Blue Ray. The Yellow Ray. The Green Ray. The Rose Ray. The Orange-Red Ray. The Five Prāna Vāyus. Vitality and Health. The Fate of the Empty Atoms. Vitality and Magnetism.

Chapter 4. The Development of the Chakras

The Functions of the Awakened Centers. The Astral Centers. Astral Senses. The Arousing of Kundalinī. The Awakening of the Etheric Chakras. Casual Clairvoyance. The Danger of Premature Awakening. The Spontaneous Awakening of Kundalinī. Personal Experience. The Etheric Web. The Effects of Alcohol and Drugs. The Effect of Tobacco. The Opening of the Doors.

Chapter 5. The Laya Yoga

The Hindu Books. The Indian List of Chakras. The Figures of the Chakras. The Heart Chakra. The Petals and Letters. The Mandalas. The Yantras. The Animals. The Divinities. The Body Meditation. The Knots. The Secondary Heart Lotus. Effect of Meditation in the Heart. Kundalinī. The Awakening of Kundalinī. The Ascent of Kundalinī. The Goal of Kundalinī. Conclusion

Afterword by Kurt Leland

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates (following page 10)

1. The Root and Spleen Chakras

2. The Navel Chakra

3. The Heart Chakra

4. The Throat Chakra

5. The Brow Chakra

6. The Crown Chakra

7. The Chakras according to Gichtel

8. The Streams of Vitality

Figures

1.1. The Chakras

1.2. Representations of the Crown Chakra

2.1. The Three Outpourings

2.2. The Spinal Channels

2.3. The Forms of the Forces

2.4. The Combined Form of the Forces

2.5. The Chakras and the Nervous System

2.6. The Ultimate Physical Atom

4.1. The Pituitary Body and the Pineal Gland

5.1. Hindu Diagram of the Heart Chakra

TABLES

1. The Chakras

2. The Chakras and the Plexuses

3. Prāna and the Principles

4. The Five Prāna Vāyus

5. Colors of Lotus Petals

6. The Sanskrit Alphabet

7. The Symbolic Forms of the Elements

EDITOR’S NOTE

In preparing this edition for publication, I have added explanatory endnotes, along with an appendix containing further information by C. W. Leadbeater about the chakras and a bibliography. Following the table of contents and list of illustrations, an additional list of abbreviations used for frequently cited works includes background information on the Hindu scriptures discussed and quoted in the text. I have added an afterword that provides context for how Leadbeater’s clairvoyant investigations of the chakras evolved into the somewhat different expressions of the chakra system encountered today.

In the text itself, I have not restored a few sentences that were omitted in recent editions of the work—which, according to a publisher’s note, were relevant only at the time of the original publication. Except for minor editorial corrections and clarifications, such as modernized, Americanized spelling and identification and verification of quoted material, the main body of the book appears in the same form as when it was first published in 1927.

Citations in the original text are enclosed in parentheses, including when I have updated page-number references to be consistent with more recent editions than were available to Leadbeater. Citations I have added to Leadbeater’s original text appear in brackets. In my own material—namely, the afterword and the notes—citations appear in parentheses.

—Kurt Leland, 2012

ABBREVIATIONS

Books

(See bibliography for full publication information)

ADW—Awakening to Divine Wisdom (Gichtel)

CW—Collected Writings (Blavatsky)

EP—The Esoteric Papers of Madame Blavatsky (Caldwell)

EYT—The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (Feuerstein)

HLF—The Hidden Life in Freemasonry (Leadbeater)

HST—The Hidden Side of Things (Leadbeater)

IGT—The Inner Group Teachings ofH. P. Blavatsky (Spierenburg)

IL—The Inner Life (Leadbeater)

LP—Light on the Path (Collins)

OC—Occult Chemistry (Besant and Leadbeater, 1919 ed.)

SD—The Secret Doctrine (Blavatsky)

SP—The Serpent Power (Avalon/Woodroffe)

SC—A Study in Consciousness (Besant)

VS—The Voice of the Silence (Blavatsky)

Indian Scriptures

¹

BG—The Bhagavad Gītā (references by chapter and verse). The Lord’s Song. Part of the Mahābhārata, the Indian national epic poem, though considered to be a revelation of divine wisdom like the Upanishads. Variously dated, possibly from the fourth to the third centuries BCE.

GP—The Garuda Purāna (chapter and verse). Scripture of Vaish-navism (worship of the Hindu God Vishnu) from about 900 CE attributed to Garuda, the eagle that bears Vishnu on its back. A purāna is an encyclopedic collection of traditional information on various subjects. Three chapters of this voluminous work deal with yoga and are often translated together under this name.²

GS—The Gheranda Samhitā (chapter and verse). Collection of Gheranda [a sage]. Important yoga text from late seventeenth century CE.

HYP—Hatha-Yoga-Pradipikā (chapter and verse). Light on Hatha (Forceful) Yoga by Yogī Svātmārāna (mid-fourteenth century CE). Famous manual of yoga.

PU—Prashna Upanishad (chapter and verse). An early Upanishad, probably dating from between 600 BCE to 100 CE,³ in the form of six questions put to a sage and his responses.

SCN—Shatchakra Nirūpana (also Sat-Cakra-Nirūpana; references by page number to translation in The Serpent Power). Description of and Investigation into the Six Bodily Centers, a Tantric text by Swami Pūrnānanda (sixteenth century CE).⁴ Tantrism was an expression of Shaivism (worship of the Hindu god Shiva) and offered a body-centered approach to enlightenment, as opposed to other forms of yoga that focused on consciousness alone.

SS—The Shiva Samhitā (chapter and verse): Collection of Shiva. Important yoga text from late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries CE.

TMU—Thirty Minor Upanishads (references to page number): Includes references to the following: Dhyānabindu [Meditation Point] Upanishad, Shāndilya [name of sage] Upanishad, Tejobindu [Radiance Point] Upanishad, Yoga Kundalī [also called Yoga Kundalinī] Upanishad, Yogatattva [Principles of Yoga] Upanishad. These are classified as Yoga Upanishads, each composed sometime later than the Yoga Sūtras.

YS—The Yoga Sūtras (chapter and verse): Primary source text of aphorisms on yoga attributed to Patanjali and thought to have originated in the early centuries CE.

Persons

CWL—Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934)⁵

HPB—Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–91), founder of the Theosophical Society (1875)

FOREWORD

Blazing the Chakra Trail

I t was forty years ago that I first discovered the word chakra. I remember saying it aloud several times, letting it roll off my tongue as if I could taste it. I felt a shot of energy throughout my body, knowing that I had found a valuable key to an immense treasure. Little did I realize that it was to become my life’s work to revive this ancient system as a map for the new millennium.

I turned to research. There were very few books on the chakras at that time. Serpent Power, Arthur Avalon’s translation of the ancient texts, published in 1919, was one of the few, but it required one’s deepest scholastic concentration and a Sanskrit dictionary just to read a few pages. It was a valuable text for those with passionate interest, but not for the general public.

C. W. Leadbeater’s book The Chakras became the classic. I devoured this book, and even today my copy is bound together with paper clips and rubber bands, well worn and thoroughly digested. My heart leaps whenever I see a copy of my own books looking like this—I’m sure Leadbeater would spin his chakras in the grave were he to see my dog-eared copy of his.

I was no stranger to Theosophy, having studied everything metaphysical from as young as I could remember. But even forty years ago, such texts were still obscure. They weren’t discussed as common parlance at dinner parties. We who read them were met with raised eyebrows, as if we hadn’t yet matured into the real world of things you could measure and prove. C. W. Leadbeater, back in 1927, was clearly ahead of his time, a pioneer in the field of subtle energies.

Today we have a vastly different cultural landscape. We are undergoing an extensive spiritual revolution and cultural evolution, opening the doors to every spiritual tradition that has been known or studied. Books that deal with metaphysics, spirituality, and our inner psychology dominate the market. Workshops abound for adult education in self-help and inner exploration. Yoga centers blossom across the land the way Christian churches did in the early centuries of the Common Era. Meditation is no longer the province of monks in a remote monastery but a common practice in everyday life, for everyone from housewives to corporate employees. Some schools employ the concept of taking time in rather than time out when children get too rambunctious.

We are heading into a new era, one in which humanity is being initiated into a higher state of being. That higher state is not a fairy-tale transformation that happens with the wave of a wand but a slow metamorphosis in how we understand the life force: how it is organized, how it flows through us, what it means, and how best to utilize it.

One aspect of this initiation is to fully occupy our bodies and live in the center of our core—our sacred center—the vertical column of energy that rises from base to crown. This axis mundi, which Leadbeater calls the axis of creation or rod of Meru, is our personal connection between heaven and earth. In ancient myths, it is said that doomsday will approach as heaven and earth become disconnected. In a world where doomsday is precariously close, we are called to this core connection as a way of healing, not only ourselves, but also our fractured world in which spirituality and everyday life have become dangerously dissociated.

The core is common to all living things—every blade of grass, every tree, every person’s vertical channel, including the core of our legs, arms, fingers, and toes. To come from our core is to occupy the most direct access to Source that we have: the Source within, aligned between heaven and earth.

The chakras exist as sacred centers strung like jewels along the axis of our vertical core. When the chakras are aligned, we become that connection between heaven and earth. From this place we are capable of co-creating heaven on earth, from a place of consciousness, wisdom, sensitivity, and compassion. Perhaps with this connection intact, we have a means to avert doomsday and continue the evolutionary experiment into its potential glory.

Few people actually live in their core. Because it is the source of vital, divine energy, we learn at any cost to protect it as we grow up through the twists and turns of childhood. We create necessary defenses, but they come with a cost. Later, our vital life energy becomes more engaged with those defenses than with the precious core we were trying to protect! We no longer feel our aliveness, our vitality, our raison d’etre. The chakra system brings us back to our core.

Energy psychology is a rapidly growing field in mental health, combining knowledge of chakras, meridians, and other subtle energies to heal and transform. Just as we didn’t know how germs caused illness before the invention of the microscope (and even then doctors resisted the knowledge, leading to countless unnecessary deaths), we are now discovering that subtle energies contribute to illness and wellness in ways we are just beginning to see. Gradually, instruments are being developed, such as Kirlian photography, that help us to view these energies and correlate data. In time, there will be more, and the influence of subtle energies will become proven and accepted. Until then, we rely on clairvoyants who can see and sense these energies to guide us in our quest.

Leadbeater was among the first to publish a clairvoyant view of the chakras. For me it was a revelation that such things could be seen without instruments, through the development of our psychic faculties.