ABSTRACT
According to the Yogîs there are two nerve currents in the spinal column, called Pingalâand Iḍâ, and there is a hollow canal called Suhttps://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429398025/5c43f48e-77ab-43ce-818c-24ac66ed5bec/content/sdot.tif"/>umnâ running through the spinal cord. At the lower end of the hollow canal is what the Yogîs call the “Lotus of the Kuṇḍalinî.’ They describe it as triangular in form, in which, in the symbolical language of the Yogis, there is a power called the Kuṇḍalinî coiled up. When that Kuṇḍalinî awakes it tries to force a passage through this hollow canal, and, as it rises step by step, as it were, layer after layer of the mind becomes open, all these different visions and wonderful powers come to the Yogî. When it reaches the brain the Yogî is perfectly detached from the body and mind; the soul finds itself free. We know that the spinal cord is composed in a peculiar manner. If we take the figure eight horizontally ( oo ) there are two parts, and these two parts are connected in the middle. Suppose you add eight after eight, piled one on top of the other, that will represent the spinal cord. The left is the Iḍâ, and the right the Pingalâ, and that hollow canal which runs through the centre of the spinal cord is the Suhttps://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429398025/5c43f48e-77ab-43ce-818c-24ac66ed5bec/content/sdot.tif"/>umnââ. Where the spinal cord ends in some of the lumbar vertebræ, a fine 48fibre comes down, and the canal is even in that fibre, only much finer. The canal is closed at the lower end, which is situated near what is called the sacral plexus, which, according to modern physiology, is triangular in form. The different plexuses that have their centres in the spinal cord can very well stand for the different “lotuses ” of the Yogî.
