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Mūlādhāra Chakra. 'Mūla' means the root. 'Chakra' is the circle, meaning circulating energy. 'Mūla' means origin, the foundation, and it is called the Mūla Śakti. This is the origin and the root where it begins: the Kuṇḍalinī. From the 72,000 nāḍīs, one nerve, which we call the Vajranāḍī, supports and balances that Kuṇḍalinī Śakti. Śakti means energy. There are three principal nāḍīs: Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā. The Iḍā Nāḍī goes through the left nostril, beginning in and balancing the right hemisphere of the brain. The Piṅgalā Nāḍī goes through the right nostril, balancing the left hemisphere. The third is the Suṣumṇā Nāḍī, the major nāḍī of all. This nāḍī begins at the Ājñā Chakra, comes to the left side connecting to the left nostril (Iḍā), and also connects to the right nostril (Piṅgalā). Yesterday, I explained that Iḍā is called 'ha', the energy of Hara (Śiva), and Piṅgalā is called 'ṭha', the energy of Hari (Viṣṇu). Together they become 'haṭha'. Thus, the name 'haṭha yoga' comes from these two nāḍīs. The left is 'ha', the right is 'ṭha'. Their balancing and coming together means uniting; that is called yoga. So here we can say haṭha yoga. Now, haṭha yoga has different definitions and practices. In this part of the world, people think they practice haṭha yoga, but what you are practicing is rāja yoga: āsana, prāṇāyāma, relaxation. Haṭha means you try very hard, using willpower. We must have willpower to achieve something. Don't give up. Try, try, try. Practice, practice, practice. In the Bhagavad Gītā, it is said to Arjuna, "Abhyāsa, abhyāsa, he son of Kuntī" – practice, practice. There is a story. A yogi was practicing every day, sitting in a park near a river under the shade of a tree. After years, he lost confidence. He thought, "So many years I am practicing, I have no experiences, no miracles, no success." He put his mālā near his shoulder and sat dejectedly. When you have little confidence and are disappointed, you sit like this; it is called a mudrā. He was thinking, "So many years I practiced my mantra, but no success." He looked at the trunk of a tree and saw a little ant. In its mouth was a grain of sugar. The ant was climbing the tree; after half a meter, it lost the sugar. It went down, searched, found the grain, and climbed again. After twenty centimeters, it fell again. It went down, found the grain, and climbed about one and a half meters, only to lose it again. The yogi observed this ant, sometimes even helping by placing the grain closer. In about one and a half hours, the ant finally brought the piece of sugar from the ground to a hole between two branches where its babies were. It managed; it did not give up. The yogi said, "Practice now. This ant is my guru. Never give up." Try, try. Practice, practice, practice. Have confidence and say, "I know I will do it." So, haṭha yoga. Haṭha means different kinds of willpower. "I will do it. I will not give up." There are different kinds of haṭha. First, the heart of the king – what a king wants to get, he will get it. Who can stop him? Luckily, there are no more kings now; the kings are the prime ministers or presidents, but thanks to God, temporarily. That is called Rājahaṭa – the will of the king. Even if he must fight a war or battle, he will fight for his wish or for his nation. Then it is called Bālahaṭa – the will of a little child. When a small child begins to cry and wants something, it will not give up until you give it. The child will cry and cry. Finally, the parents surrender. So children have strong willpower, and we parents have strong love. But even strong love cannot win against the will of the child; your love has to surrender. Then comes the third, Strīyāhaṭa – a woman's will. Yes. When a woman decides, it will be, sooner or later. How we do that, I don't know; you know better. She will fulfill her wish. That is called Strīyāhaṭa. Her heart may be positive. If she wants to give good, vegetarian eating, she will keep on doing it; finally, the husband will say, "Yes, okay." When husband and wife are fighting or arguing, always the Śakti, the woman, is the winner. Sometimes they are merciful and say, "Okay," but sooner or later she will win. After one year, two years, a few days, or months, she will do it. And then there is the yoga of Haṭha – the will of the yogī practitioner. If he wants to realize God, he will do it. He will renounce everything: all desires, all fashions. He or she will meditate and pray until getting near to God. Because the Haṭha Yogī has only one way, only the highway. No one can block the way. You either go over or under the bridge; it doesn't matter. You have to give everything up for only one destination: God. Renunciation. Therefore it is: renounce and enjoy. If you want to be happy, if you want to enjoy life, then renounce. Otherwise, as many things as you collect, that many problems you have. As many things you have, that many burdens you have. But it is not easy to renounce. So renounce your attachment, renounce your desires, renounce the fashion of your dress, renounce property. Share with everyone. Share everything. Renounce and enjoy. That Haṭha Yogī doesn't matter; he will walk on snow, on very hot sand, or on a thorny path, but will go through. That is called haṭha yoga. Secondly, haṭha yoga is a practice of purification, called Ṣaṭ Karma – six techniques. You have likely heard from your yoga teachers: Netī, Dhautī, Bastī, Naulī, Trāṭaka, and Kapālabhātī. These are the six techniques for the purification of the body. If you do this, illness will be far away. Illness will telephone you: "Can I come to you for a while?" The Haṭha Yogī says, "Do not come close." Accept only accidents or some kind of infections. Haṭha Yoga is the most powerful yoga. When the Haṭha Yogī decides... Do you know the renunciation of a Haṭha Yogī? There is a beautiful story. Should I tell it? Otherwise, you will not remember the Mūlādhāra. There was a small village of about 40-50 houses, and a crematorium about one kilometer away. Someone died, and they performed the funeral, burning the body with a lot of wood. They put the coals together and went home. It was a cold winter, with a little air and rain – like a water spring, half snow and half water. Cold air. Śiva and Pārvatī – you know Pārvatī is Śiva's wife – went for a walk around midnight because it is a peaceful time. Śiva said, "Let's go for a walk." Poor girl, it was cold. If you love him or her, you have to do everything together. Suddenly they came closer and saw a fire glowing. They went about 100 meters closer and saw a man sitting, a Haṭha Yogī, baking a thick chapati. He made dough and was baking it on the fire where the dead body was burned. Women are always good-hearted; they have mercy. Pārvatī said to Śiva, "My lord." He said, "Yes, my Devī." She said, "Who is that?" Śiva said, "This is a burnt-out yogī sitting and cooking, baking his bread." She said, "In your kingdom is darkness. What do you mean? He is your great bhakta and has no facilities, not even to properly cook his food. He is making his bread on the dead body's coals. There are so many people having great villas, drinking, dancing, parties, billionaires and millionaires. They don't think of you at all, and you give them everything. And he is night and day remembering you, Lord, and you don't give him the facility for his cooking, at least. Give him something, please." Śiva said, "He doesn't want anything." It is very easy to say when you don't want to give. Pārvatī said, "Give him. I will see you give, and he will refuse." Śiva said, "Don't make an argument for us. It is better we just go a little away and pass by." She said, "No, I'm not going more. I stay here. You go and give him something, okay?" You see, the women are winners, but how long? That is the question. About fifty meters away, there was a bush. Śiva said to Pārvatī, "Stay here behind the bush, look, hear, and see. I go to give him something." She said, "Yes. Thank you, thank you. God, you are merciful, my Lord. Please give him more than he asks." Śiva went. The yogī was breaking his chapati with his tongue, and Śiva stood in front. The yogī did not look up; he was occupied with whether his chapati was properly baked. After ten minutes, Śiva said nothing. The yogī paid no attention. "Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya. Who are you?" He did not look up. That is a Haṭha Yogī – one who has no desires, no fear, who is above death, pain, name, and fame. That is a great Haṭha Yogī. Again Śiva said, "Namaḥ Śivāya." The man said, "Who are you?" He was still looking; the bread was not burning. "Who are you?" Śiva said, "I am the Lord of the Lord, Mahādeva, Śiva." The yogī did not say, "Oh!" He was looking at his bread. And he said, "Why did you come here?" Now, Pārvatī was biting her finger between her teeth. "Why did you come here?" But still he looked down; he did not want to see Śiva at all. Śiva said, "I am Śiva. I came to give you something." The yogī said, "When did I ask you to give me anything?" Śiva said, "I didn't ask you for anything. But when I come and appear in front of bhaktas, I give something. Even you can ask for a blessing." He was not answering. It was very cold, but Pārvatī was sweating in her sārī. Śiva said, "Ask anything." The yogī said, "Okay, if you want to give me something, then please go away." Śiva went away. Śiva walked away, and Pārvatī slowly came from behind the bush. She said, "I'm sorry, my lord. I'm sorry I humiliated you." He said, "No, no. It is a Haṭha Yogī." That yogī is above Śiva. That is a yogī. My dear, if some God comes and asks us, we will immediately say, "Yes, please, give me one car, one nice house, God give me one work, please," etc., etc. So, desire – as long as we will not renounce our longing, our desires, we will not get to that higher consciousness. We are caught in the net, like a fish or a mosquito in a mosquito net. Therefore, we practice renounce, renounce, renounce. And so these three nāḍīs – Iḍā, Piṅgalā, Suṣumṇā – take from the Ājñā Chakra, turn again left to right. So the left nāḍī – meaning nerve (nāḍī is not a nerve, but we have to give the name 'nerve' because we don't have another name) – goes to the left. The right goes to the left, crossing near our vocal cords, and there is our thyroid gland. That is called the Viśuddhi Chakra. "Viś" means poison, and we can purify the poison through this chakra. To learn the Viśuddhi Chakra's techniques, read Hidden Powers in Humans, or when we come to the Viśuddhi Chakra we will talk. We cannot talk about one cakra in ten minutes, either ten days, ten months, or ten years. When you open it, it is called the khajana. You know what is khajana? It is an Urdu word meaning treasure. You open it, and you have all the jewelry and everything. Similarly, every chakra, when you open it, there is one after another story coming, one after another good word is coming, energy is coming, my dear. It is something beautiful. This is the point where Śiva drank the poison. This is another big story from the churning of the ocean, searching for the nectar. First, what came? The poison. They did not know where to throw it. If they put it on the earth, the whole earth would be destroyed. Neither the asuras nor the devas wanted to take it. In this Kali Yuga, the atom bomb is that poison. If we explode it, everything will be destroyed. If we can't, still we have fear. Who can neutralize this? Only Śiva can do it. So Śiva said, "Okay, you give me this poison," and he drank it, but he held it in his throat, so all his throat became blue. That is why Śiva is called Nīlakaṇṭha, the blue-throated one. And that is Śiva with the practice of prāṇāyāma. What we did this morning – inhalation through the nose and exhalation through the mouth – this is a technique to clean the poison from your body and control your thyroid gland. The thyroid gland is a big problem, especially for ladies. If you practice this kriyā, you will have no problem with the thyroid gland. So yoga is also a remedy, a treatment, a healing power. These two nāḍīs are like the snake; it is called Nāga and Nāginī. Nāga means the male, Nāginī means the female. Two channels, strong and turning back: the left went right, and the right went to left. Now the right went to the left, and the left goes to the right, so they are always meeting again here. There is a second chakra: Anāhata. Anāhata means endless; there is no border. When this chakra opens, one has the ability of singing. Maṇipūra, answer. Then your voice becomes that of the best singers in the world, or you become a poet or an artist. In the heart chakra, there are the jewels of wisdom, and there is also emotion. This is our heart and the light of the soul. You know Hanumānjī's story? Otherwise, next time I will tell. Hanumān said, "Always God, Rāma and Sītā are in my heart." Some people said, "Everyone can say, 'God is in my heart.' Can you show me?" Then Hanumān tore his chest. Blood was flowing, but there in his heart, Sītā and Rāma were inside, giving blessings to Hanumān. That's it. After, in the Bible, they wrote about Jesus's holy heart. But it is the holy heart of Hanumānjī, because it was 10,000 years ago. Well, then again it goes. Because the power is so strong, each wants to unite, male and female, so it again comes like this. So again, another chakra is in the navel: the Maṇipūra Chakra. We spoke about Maṇipūra about 1% only. The Maṇipūra Chakra is most powerful. You can digest anything. All bacteria you can destroy at any time if the Maṇipūra Chakra is active. If it is weaker, then we have many diseases because we don't practice Haṭha Yoga. After that, again it turns and meets down. What is that chakra called? Svādhiṣṭhāna. In reality, the first seat of the Kuṇḍalinī was in Svādhiṣṭhāna. "Sva" means the self, and "sthāna" means the place. The Kuṇḍalinī was there, but due to ignorance, it went down. The Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra is full of desires, compassion, and passion. All your passion and energy is in the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra. If you can't control this, you can't come anymore up. There are many stories of these chakras. Then again, this nāḍī goes further and comes together. From here, they started to get a union, but they did so long until they merged into oneness. But there is Śūnyākāśa – unconsciousness, nothing; you can't know anything. It is like a frozen state, so it is called Śiva Liṅga. Liṅga means the attribute of the entire universe. That is the Śiva Liṅga, that is a manifestation. There is consciousness, there is light, there is energy, there is the embodiment of Śiva, omniscient and omnipresent. There he manipulates, there he appears, there his consciousness becomes the light, and he manifests himself. So there are these three nāḍīs: Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā. Suṣumṇā is the consciousness, is balancing, and these two nāḍīs go like this and like that. Where they cross is called a junction, and there is the chakra. There is immense energy. And so it comes to the down end of the spinal column, and there is a mūla. Mūla means the roots, so our foundation is there in the Mūlādhāra Cakra. Till there, it is human energy, and down there it goes into animal energy. So when you have immense emotion, you begin to act like an animal, but then you realize and become like a human. That is why that is the border between human and animal consciousness. Śiva is the master of both: the animals and humans, or devas and asuras, the gods and satans. Both are controlled by Śiva. There is Śiva energy in us. Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya. Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya... Har Har Bholi. Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya. Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya... Śaṅkara Bhagavān Kī Jai! Well, so this, our energy, is called dormant consciousness. It is a sleeping serpent, but it is only a symbolic serpent. There is not a feeling of a real snake. When it awakes, if you practice wrong and some wrong mantras are used, then in the bottom of your spine, near your anus, a fire begins. And then the vibration goes up. Sometimes you feel something going up. Sometimes you have a crawling sensation, like ants on you. So when you feel ants are crawling on your spine, then go and change your dress because you did not clean properly, and wash your back with a brush. That was not a Kuṇḍalinī of any kind. You thought it's Kuṇḍalinī, but it becomes a psychic imagination. You read in a book, or you look in the mirror, and suddenly you imagine this. Everything is imagination. Then you feel that the snake is going around my body or through the spinal column. That is not awakening. Awakening of Kuṇḍalinī is when you feel contentment, the joy of the supreme joy. You realize, "Yes, I am one with the supreme." The happiest minutes of your life; it doesn't remain for whole days. It is only a glimpse, but it will come time to time. In the Mūlādhāra Chakra, there is an elephant. You have seen, down, an elephant. The elephant is a symbol of prosperity. The elephant represents Gaṇeśa. The elephant is the most ancient creature, and it is such a creature where each and every piece of its body is very valuable. The elephant has seven trunks. Seven trunks? I didn't even see two trunks. Did you see the seven? So, what means the seven trunks? These are symbols. Seven trunks means Saptadhātu. Saptadhātu means seven minerals. These seven minerals represent what is under the earth in the roots, and these seven minerals are what we need for our health. When our health is solid, that is the symbol of the seven trunks: the seven minerals. The elephant is called the mighty, the power that can hold your existence, your being. The balance is there on the foundation. You see this: a home, a yoga cave – we see the foundation. How strong is the foundation? The multi-floor building is on it. So, after that, our Svādhiṣṭhāna, Maṇipūra, Anāhata, Viśuddhi, Ājñā, Bindu, and Sahasrāra – all these chakras are based on this mighty elephant as a symbolic elephant, and Mother Earth, which has all these minerals for our well-being and our health. And there is a seat of Śiva and Pārvatī. So here is the Śiva Liṅga, and the snake is coiled three and a half times. Generally, it is going down. Until your Kuṇḍalinī is not awakened, it is dormant. It is sleeping energy. But when the Kuṇḍalinī awakes, then this snake makes its way straight upward to the Sahasrāra Chakra. That is called the unity of the Śakti and the Śiva. Śakti means your energy, your power, your willpower. Śiva means your consciousness, so that your spiritual power merges into the divine consciousness of Śiva. It is not meant physical body, not meant male and female. In every woman, there are both symbols, male and female. Every woman has more male energy in the imagination, and every man has more female energy, more feelings and imagination about the woman. So this is how Śiva and Śakti are together. But here, the Śakti is the energy, that knowledge is the Śiva. Your consciousness, pure consciousness, is the Śiva. So when the Śakti will merge this light, this energy, into the light, it is Brahmajñāna. Now, there are the petals of this Mūlādhāra Chakra, and it is a symbol of the lotus. The lotus is a symbol of the very beautiful, the flower of the king, or the king of the flowers. The lotus grows in muddy water, in dirty water. The roots are there, but the bloom comes above, very pure and clean. So, our roots are in this material world where there is a lot of dirt – emotional dirt, anger, hate, jealousy – but still, that lotus flower is within our ātmā. One day, when we come above this attachment, we enter into the Brahmaloka. Then, each and every petal of the lotus, the enfoldment of each petal, brings one siddhi, one quality, one happiness. Each petal brings some kind of joy for us. And on that petal, there is an alphabet written. The first alphabet is Devanāgarī, the Sanskrit alphabet. This is not man-made; it appears in meditation as a resonance. So on each petal, when it opens, at that time a nāda comes – the resonance, the beautiful voice of beautiful instruments. Each letter represents one God. Therefore it is called Akṣara Brahma. Akṣara means alphabet, and Brahma means the supreme. So, my dear, in our body is the entire universe. The entire universe – just look within thyself, don't look outside. The whole universe is in you. Yathā brahmāṇḍe tathā piṇḍe: what is in the universe is in your body. If you want to have astral traveling, then travel in your body. This is your inner world, so big and vast. You can fly with airplanes. The beauty of your inner self. Therefore, you are God. But the āsurī śaktis, satanic powers, have encased our inner gold. So let us work on this. We will come to it again further. So it is a science. It's endless knowledge. These chakras are not only beautiful designs – "Oh, what is this elephant? It has a crown, so many. What is this snake?" Every alphabet is a bīja mantra, the seed, the corn of this Mūlādhāra Cakra. That is called 'laṁ'. We will come to that after, next time. Wish you all the best, and I hope you will think it over. We will practice, and we will continue this again in different satsaṅgs and lectures. Ādi Oṁ.