The múládhára controls the solid factor in the body; its symbol is a black elephant. Its four vrttis (káma, artha, dharma and mokśa) are the four categories of human desire, and happiness needs all four.
Main characteristic: earth Animal symbol: a black elephant (unbridled, unpredictable power, uncontrolled instincts) Factor: solid Glands: sex glands (testes and ovaries)
It is said that if a person is happy, they can make the whole world happy. But when are we truly happy? And how is the múládhára cakra connected with our happiness and our desires? You will find the answers to these questions in this article.
So what is the múládhára A center of psychic energy in the body; seven major ones lie along the spine.?
The múládhára is the first cakra. Physically it is located in the area of the coccyx, the small bone at the bottom of the spine that curves inward. The tip of the coccyx is the center of the cakra, which forms around this bone. In other words, it is the seed from which the cakra itself is projected.
The múládhára controls the solid factor in the body, that is, its solid components: bones, nails, hair and so on. The symbol of the múládhára cakra is a black elephant, representing enormous, wild, unbridled energy. A person with a strong múládhára cakra enjoys good health, and their body gives off a pleasant fragrance.
A cakra can be pictured as a lotus, each petal of which stands for a certain A mental tendency or propensity, such as fear, longing or love; fifty are described in all., a propensity of the mind. The múládhára has only four petals, four vrttis, which in Sanskrit are called káma, artha, dharma and mokśa. These four vrttis represent four categories of desire. When these desires are satisfied in a balanced way, a person feels happy. Let us look at these categories of human desire more closely.
Káma
The longing for physical objects. The desire to eat and to sleep, the sexual instinct and the urge for safety all belong to the káma vrtti. When these needs are met, a person feels happy to some degree. For animals this is quite enough for complete happiness. But for a human being it is far too little, because a human has three more kinds of needs.
Artha
A higher level of desire. In Sanskrit, artha means, first, psycho-physical desire and, second, money. An "arthalan" is a rich person, someone who has money. The two meanings of the word artha are connected: money makes it possible to realize this psycho-physical longing, that is, the mind's needs for psycho-physical objects.
There is a phenomenon whereby people, seeking to get pleasure and happiness from a psychic object, are ready to ignore their physical needs: sleep, food and so on. And the higher the category of desire, the more pleasure a person gets from satisfying it. People dream of work they love, want to be able to travel and to have access to various sources of enjoyment, both crude ones (food, comfort) and subtle ones (music, films).
The first two tendencies of the múládhára cakra are extroverted: to fulfill these needs, the mind has to turn toward the outer world. Yet once these needs are met, it is impossible to feel completely happy, because a human being has a desire for infinite happiness. Káma and artha give only limited pleasure.
The inherent nature of a thing; for a human being, the longing for the Infinite and the effort to reach it.
Dharma is the next tendency in the múládhára cakra. Dharma is a psycho-spiritual need, a psycho-spiritual longing. This tendency of the mind is already introverted: it makes it possible to touch the inner source of happiness.
Philosophy says that the deeper the layers of the mind, the wider and larger they are, and the deepest layer is our spirit, infinity. The physical body is, as it were, placed inside a vast mind, and the mind is placed inside the infinite spirit. But if the mind and spirit are identified with the body, boundlessness is forgotten. And when the mind turns inward by switching off the outward tendencies, through introspection, a special practice of meditation, and touches its spiritual sphere, it begins to feel spiritual happiness.
Gaining spiritual happiness is called dharma. People find it through art, through music, through love, through extreme sports, through the will to win and so on. These are all moments when the mind stops and goes beyond the bounds of ordinary thinking. The longing to experience one's deepest layers, one's deepest resources, one's spirit, one's spiritual being, is called dharma, the psycho-spiritual longing. It is what moves people to spiritual search. Once this longing has awakened in a person, they can no longer live as they did before.
People gripped by the psycho-spiritual longing who do not receive proper guidance in time suffer greatly. Many of them, not having found the right path, become alcoholics or drug addicts. We need to understand what a drug addict is looking for. Some of them are simply hedonists who seek pleasure, but many are looking for God; they are looking for infinity and do not find it. They say: "Everything around is dust."
"You will be content with yourself and your wife, with your stunted constitution, but the poet is on a worldwide binge, and no constitution is enough for him."— A. Blok
The message here is: "I feel cramped; how can I break these chains? I want to break free, to breathe deeply, I want to fly."
This longing is what is called dharma.
Final liberation: the mind merged completely in the Supreme.
Mokśa is the longing to find peace and rest. This too is an introverted tendency, when a person wants to end their struggle and find a state of stable and flawless happiness. But they do not understand that freedom cannot be attained on the physical level. Even if they are given everything on the physical level, a huge dissatisfaction will remain. It happens that a person struggled, thinking, say, that happiness lies in money. They struggled, won, earned a great deal of money, and shot themselves. They had been told that happiness lies in money. The money came, but happiness did not. So the person suffered total disillusionment. This is the danger of a life without spirituality.
The opening and strengthening of the múládhára cakra happens through the divine force that sleeps within it. All the cakras are awakened by this force, which is called kuńd́alinii shakti, or kulakuńd́alinii. This sleeping divine energy wakes up and becomes active at the moment of initiation into the practice. During initiation the guru, the spiritual teacher, transmits to the disciple a spiritual force that awakens this sleeping principle within them. That is why initiation sets in motion the flowering of the personality. Kuńd́alinii shakti can be kept in an awakened state by using a mantra, even if a person takes up the practice of meditation out of some physical or material aspirations. Kuńd́alinii does not pass through weak and closed cakras. As kuńd́alinii awakens, a person becomes kinder and happier and reveals their potential more fully.
So you have been introduced to all four categories of human desire. There is a model called Maslow's pyramid, which reflects the theory of a hierarchy of needs. The psychologist Maslow, who formulated it, determined that physical needs lie at the base: food and the basic instincts. The next level is safety, then fulfillment in society, and finally peak experience, connected with sudden feelings of happiness and the fullness of life. But peak experience ends in dharma. Yogis go one step further and say that peak experience is not the limit.
The limit is a state of complete, flawless freedom, of infinity. All four categories are needed for happiness.
There are a number of A yoga posture held steadily and comfortably; it balances the glands and quiets body and mind for meditation. for the múládhára cakra; they strengthen and balance the múládhára cakra. And, of course, meditation develops and opens all the cakras, the múládhára among them.