INTRODUCTION TO 7 CHAKRA SYSTEM BOOK.
“You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realise that you are in prison. If you think you are already free, you can’t escape.”
G.I GURDJIEFF
FREEDOM! Big word. Different meanings for different people, so what do we mean by freedom?
The Cambridge dictionary describes Freedom as:
1: The legal right to do what you want.
2: The ability to do what you want.
3: The state of being free from prison or captivity.
4: The state of not being affected or influenced by something negative.
5: The state of not being under control and being able to do whatever one wishes.
How many of these apply to you would you say?
If we go through these one by one we can begin to see what the concept of freedom actually is and if it applies to us and if so, how much and how easily.
1: The legal right to do what we want:
So straight away here we have encountered law.
But the law is different in each country, right? So, immediately freedom is not universal. In one country I am free to drive 130 kph and in another only 80. No big deal I hear you say but it’s imperative straight away to realize that laws (the legal kind) are not universal therefore for the purpose of this book we shall refrain from calling them laws and instead, call them RULES.
From now on we shall call anything decided upon by man - a RULE and only a phenomena experienced by all animals the same as a LAW. Gravity for example. Gravity treats us all the same and there is no denying it, thus gravity is a law and how fast I can drive my car is a rule. Great, that’s sorted so let’s continue.
2: The ability to do what we want?
Is this even vaguely true? Obviously not so let’s move on. Actually, by the end of this book it may be a lot more possible so we’ll leave that one for now.
3: Freedom from incarceration.
OK, so on a very basic level this is true. But as Gurdjieff implies above there are more than one kind of prison. As we will find later in this work, We can become a captive of our own minds, beliefs and those of society. The prison of the soul is rife and mostly what this book is about.
4: Not being affected or influenced by something negative?
This is closer to the true meaning of freedom. Our inner landscape is where true freedom resides. If we can keep our higher self intact and discover a way to remain pure then that is the beginning of true freedom. Which leads us to:
5: The state of not being under control and able to do what one wishes.
There are three powers controlling us. Three aspects of conditioning if you like. Three types of truth that we live by.
Universal truth
Societal truth.
Personal truth.
Universal: We can do nothing about these, except learn acceptance. These are LAWS in the truest sense.
Societal: This is where the problems start.
Personal: This is where most of the hard graft resides.
These will be the mainstay of this writing. To save ink we will call them the USP and refer back to them often.
For the purposes of “a system” (The mind likes a good system), we will be using the concept of the chakras in order to explore and unblock the seven stages of freedom devised here. Purists may shake their heads in dismay but the writer believes that as the chakra system encompasses every aspect of the human experience then it is the perfect vehicle to explain this very complex journey.
So to conclude this introductory offering we shall explore briefly the difference between laws and rules and then connect how this influences the USP truths.
Wakey wakey! Rise and shine!
The radio alarm goes off. The talented, overly happy DJ tells you:
“Good morning! It’s six o’clock on May the fifteenth 2023 and you’re listening to….”
Ok, All good, I know the date and I know the time - time to get out of bed for another day of whatever floats your boat. Only, do I?
Let’s look at time. 6am Central European time on May 15th.
If I live in Pirot, Serbia, at 6am it’s been light for nearly an hour as the sun came up at 5.05am.
If I am waking up in Vigo, Western Spain (on a similar line of latitude), it is still pitch black and the sun won’t be coming up for over an hour at 7.13am. That is a difference of two hours and eight minutes. How can we possibly call this the same “time?”
If I am in London with a one hour time difference the sun comes up at 5.08 pretty much the same time as Pirot. That sort of works until you realise Pirot is actually 1130 miles East. If we choose somewhere a little West of there, Let’s say Rome. A city 700 miles east of London that surely has a much earlier sunrise than London, right? Wrong! Rome has its sunrise at 5.50am a full 45 minutes after a city that is 700 miles West of it. That makes absolutely no sense at all I’m sure you’ll agree.
A great example of the stupidity of the man made calender and clock is this example:
On January the 1st 2017 United airlines UA890 took off from Shanghai. After an eleven hour flight it landed in San francisco on December the 31st 2016.
The sun has been around for billions of years, certainly before the birth of mankind. It is reliable and does the same thing without fail over and over again. It lessens and increases in intensity over time but I would suggest it is pretty reliable based on billions of years of service.
The time the sun comes up is a law. The man-made attempt at measuring time is a rule. Which one do you follow?
Now let’s look at the date: May 15th.
Here, it can get very complicated and by now, I’m sure you are either getting my drift or have put this book down and moved onto something else a little less challenging.
There have been countless calendars put into service over the years and none of them are very simple. Nature cannot be put into a mathematical formula so easily. If we’ve already seen that the sun can be relied upon as a gauge of time over a lengthy period - every three hundred and sixty five days then so can the moon and how long do you think the moon has been around? A few billion years also. One can trawl the internet researching calendars all day long and the ancients, Romans and 20th century scientists have all had a go at creating a foolproof calendar. Everyone of them has failed.
There are thirteen lunar cycles in a three hundred and sixty five day solar year, well, almost. An example of this is:
An Ethiopian year comprises 13 months, and is seven years behind the Gregorian calendar. In fact, Ethiopians celebrated the new millennium on September 11, 2007; this is because the Ethiopians continued with the same calendar that the Roman church amended in 525 AD.
Glad you’re not Ethiopian now aren’t you?
The point is, for example, when we celebrate a birthday or anniversary we are well off. A lunar birthday is actually only on the correct day once every twenty eight years if you go by the Gregorian calendar. Why is this important? Well, as we go along it should become clearer. In order to empower ourselves we have to begin to understand and live by the LAWS not the man made rules.
If we can state in all genuineness that it was exactly twenty years ago today that x,y and z happened and proudly hold a memorial for it without realising that, actually that is blatantly not true, then how are we ever going to be honest with ourselves and question far more important things? The very concept of every “day” is a lie. This is the purpose of this book. To question, experience empirically and free ourselves from a world of fakery and nonsense. As the micro is the macro, we then begin to free ourselves and move into a world of truth.
Then, the question arises: why were these changes made? If we look at the number thirteen, we get a glimpse. If ancient people knew the power of working with nature, if they understood what Steiner re-established as biodynamics as the way to get the most out of life, then taking that away so that they were now far removed from the flow of nature would disempower them. Just for good measure, to keep the delusion going they declared that thirteen was an unlucky number based on absolutely nothing at all. Another man made rule with no basis in fact that everyone believes or at least, goes along with. Nobody would want thirteen months in a year, would they? It’s unlucky!
And thus the societal aspect of the USP has overridden the Universal law and no-one even questions it. A rule over a law. That is why this example is important. It highlights the point being made on a very basic level.
We believe and abide by the rules as it makes life easier and we end up doing the same as everybody else; In one sense it’s vital for our survival. But, what if these laws begin to actually do the opposite? What happens when our rights are being eroded without our knowledge as we just go with the flow and do as we are told. Believe everything we are told to our own detriment? Well, that’s when the search for truth has to begin. That is when we have to free ourselves on many levels. This work is not for the faint hearted and if you have already given no kudos to the date and time thing mentioned above then I suggest you put this book down and go back to sleep. The rules are dependent on your belief and acceptance of them. Freedom is dependent on effort to question every aspect of your world, both, inner and outer. So, if you’re still with me, then, LET’S GO!