Entries from May 2006 ↓

Tonight I did a little research on an interesting area of subtle body anatomy described in yogic texts called the kanda which some yogi’s believe is the Indian equivalent to the Chinese taoist’s lower tan tien (Japanese hara). Unfortunately there is a lot of disparity in the described location of this point in each of the sources I found, so it’s hard to say with any precision.

The sources below place the kanda, variously:

• Below the muladhara chakra
• At the muladhara chakra
• Between the anus and the root of the reproductory organ (muladhara chakra?)
• 12 inches above the anus
• At the cauda equina (mingmen?)

Thanks to affenbrot for bringing this to my attention in my subtle body anatomy thread and to sunshine for getting my whole trip on this started with his sacrum vs. tan tien thread.

Following are snippets of my research, each linking to my sources.

Yoga
by Deolal Mahabir

The Kundalini is a force lying dormant in the Kanda, the Conus Medullaris of the spine.

Hatha Yoga Illustrated
by Martin Kirk, Brooke Boon

There are approximately 72,000 nadis in the energy body that channel energy. Three are primary, including the central sushumna and two others on either side. The left-side channel is called the ida. It’s qualities are cool, soft, reflective, and sensitive like the moon. The right-side channel is called the pingala and is associated with heat, activity and strength, like the sun. The balance of energy flow on these two sides affects the sensations of heat and cold in the physical body. These two channels originate in the sushumna, near the base of the spine (in an energy vortex, or bulb called a kanda), and they correspond to the first chakra, muladhara. They spiral up the sushumna, crisscrossing at each of the six higher chakras.

The chakras can be visualized from the front of the body as lotus flowers with the roots in the back. As the life force, or prana moves through the system, it makes the chakras spin.

Spiritual Nutrition
by Gabriel Cousens

The Shiva Samhita describes fourteen main nadis. From the perspective of the flow of Kundalini, we will consider three of them - the main channels through whcih Kundalini flows: sushumna, pingala, and ida. All three originate in the kanda region beneath the Muladhara (base) chakra. The point where they start is called yukta triveni (coming together of three streams).

kanda (S) - fibrous area below the base chakra from which the Kundalini emanates.

The Green Serpent and the Tree: Kabbala and Kundalini Yoga
by James N Judd

[…]Ida and Pingala. These begin in the head behind the nostrils, with Ida on the left-hand side carrying the feminine polarity energy, and Pingala on the right side carrying the masculine force. As they descend in a spiral motion they jointly connect at each Chakra, and finally unite at Kanda, the ‘cave’, at the base of the spine just below the first Chakra. In other words, the uniting of the separate energies passing through the channels of Ida and Pingala forms the Kundalini power at the bottom of the spine.

The Center in Yoga
Yoga Bulletin, Kripalu Yoga Teachers’ Association, Summer 1997

Yearning for ascension feels irrelevant to who I am and what I want. Such a striving feels like so much else in our phallic culture: prizing mind over matter and spirit over soul, racing to climb the ladder of success, straining for self-improvement, valuing what’s high and light while denigrating what’s down and dark, glorifying the head honcho at the peak of the pyramid. While yoga purportedly intends to balance and unite the pairs of opposites, including feminine and masculine, the fascination with the vertical scale of chakras seems to reinforce our culture’s patriarchal values.

However: Yoga’s map of energy anatomy does chart the body’s center, the one-point counterpart to the Japanese tanden. This largely overlooked subtle energy structure is called the kanda.

The kanda (meaning knot or bulbous root) is described in various writings as a white or golden sphere or egg-shape located a few inches below the navel. It is the origin of the fourteen major nadis (energy pathways) including the Sushumna, Ida, and Pingala-also named as the river goddesses Sarasvati, Ganga, and Jumna.

Kundalini Yoga
by Sri Swami Sivananda

All the Nadis spring from the Kanda. It is in the junction where the Sushumna Nadi is connected with the Muladhara Chakra. Some say, that this Kanda is 12 inches above the anus.
…
[The Kanda] is situated between the anus and the root of the reproductory organ. It is like the shape of an egg and is covered with membranes. This is just above the Muladhara Chakra. All the Nadis of the body spring from this Kanda. It is in the junction where Sushumna is connected with Muladhara Chakra. The four petals of the Muladhara Chakra are on the sides of this Kanda and the junction is called Granthi-Sthana, where the influence of Maya is very strong. In some Upanishads you will find that Kanda is 9 digits above the genitals.

Kanda is a centre of the astral body from where Yoga Nadis, subtle channels, spring and carry the Sukshma Prana (vital energy) to the different parts of the body. Corresponding to this centre, you have ‘Cauda equina’ in the gross physical body. The spinal cord extending from the brain to the end of the vertebral column tapers off into a fine silken thread. Before its termination it gives off innumerable fibres, crowded into a bunch of nerves. This bunch of nerves is ‘Cauda equina’ in the gross body. The astral centre of ‘Cauda equina’ is Kanda.
…
Muladhara Chakra is located at the base of the spinal column. It lies between the origin of the reproductory organ and the anus. It is just below the Kanda and the junction where Ida, Pingala and Sushumna Nadis meet. Two fingers above the anus and about two fingers below the genitals, four fingers in width is thespace where the Muladhara Chakra is situated.
…
All Nadis start from the Kanda. Kanda is located in the space between the origin of the reproductory organ and the anus.
…
[Kundalini] is the coiled-up, sleeping Divine Sakti that lies dormant in all beings. You have seen in the Muladhara Chakra that there is Svayambhu Linga. The head of the Linga is the space where Sushumna Nadi is attached to the Kanda. This mysterious Kundalini lies face downwards at the mouth of Sushumna Nadi on the head of Svayambhu Linga.

The chakra system, kundalini and ashtanga yoga
by Todd Caldecott

Most schools of yogic thought advocate a system of six chakras in the body, with the seventh, called the sahasrara chakra, representing spiritual transcendence. These six energy vortices are connected by the sushumna nadi, the central axis or channel (nadi) of the body, and the pathway of the awakened kundalini. The sushumna nadi originates in the kanda, or `bulb’, located in the physical body at the base of the spine. Wrapping around the sushumna nadi in a helical fashion are the ida and pingala nadis. The ida nadi, or “channel of comfort,” represents the feminine and lunar aspects of the body. It begins on the left side of the kanda and terminates at the left nostril. The pinglala nadi, also known as the “tawny current,” originates on the right side of the kanda. It is associated with the male, solar aspects of the body, and terminates at the right nostril. For the spiritually unevolved, the ida and pingala nadis are the main paths of energy flow in the body, and the yogin/yogini seeks to resolve this polarity by activating the path of energy flow upwards through the sushumna nadi.
…
Manipura Chakra
“City of jewels,” (mani - jewel, pura - city). Ten-petaled lotus the colour of rain clouds. Location of the kanda (the origin of the 72,000 nadis), pierced by the sushumna like a gem on a string. Represents personal power and directed will. Encompasses the celestial realm. Represented by the cobra. Above 10th thoracic / navel.

Even our mind making distinctions is a part of this Great Perfection, not separate from it.

And even what is truly truly evil and that we must always reject as such is part of this Great Perfection.

And even this apparent sense of being lost and ignorant and in the dark, and having to seek a Truth we initially imagine is separate only to finally awaken to enlightenment, which is paradoxically a simple noticing of what was there all along; every step of this whole process is part of the Great Perfection.

Allow stillness cultivation into the core of your practice and also allow whatever to arise to arise.

Sometimes, like in springtime, what arises will be juicy, alchemy.

Other times, just the simple “ordinary” living of life. Chopping wood, carrying water.

Sometimes an odd blend of both. Chopping wood, carrying a steaming cauldron.

Had a cool experience in acupuncture the other day. I was lying there with needles in me in a dark room. I started playing with a kind of Big Mind style parts therapy. If you are familiar with parts therapy, the idea is also similar to Michael Winn’s organ shen spirits, the concept being that you have a family inside you, mostly aspects of yourself at various ages and with different beliefs, desires, traumas, etc. In a therapeutic setting you work to get in touch with these parts, talk to them, help them relate to other parts, grow up, cry, etc.

So I’m lying there and decided to start treating every single thought and feeling that arose in my awareness as a part of me but not fundamentally Me in an abiding sense. When a thought or a feeling came up, I just gently “grabbed” it and placed it in front of me so it was no longer “inside” me. (It also wasn’t repressed because it was in my awareness in front of me.) I was fascinated by how rapidly my mind became very quiet by this exercise and how transparent my feeling space became. Hearing thoughts in my head, my mind ruminating, and then just simply grabbing the part that was thinking those thoughts and putting him outside of me instantly caused that whole source of thinking to cease! Feeling a knot of tension in my stomach and just simply grabbing the part that was feeling that way and placing him outside of me instantly released the tension, the part of me that was feeling that! I kept doing this to the point where I was tossing dozens and dozens of parts, just scooping them up and tossing them in front of me and I kept becoming clearer and clearer, like I wasn’t there anymore.

Finally there was a spontaneous question that came up in the clear space. “Who is the part that is guiding this whole process?”. Then the part that asked this left of it’s own accord, and in that instant I was left with a flash of pure peace. I literally saw a flash of white light and I was awareness without content. For just one brief moment.

Then a bunch of parts got really excited, and one jumped back in and said things like “Holy shit! This is so cool, this must be enlightenment! You are waking up! This is so cool!” LOL! Silly parts.

Protectiveness, strength, power, decisiveness, direction, purpose, presence, stability. These are qualities that feminine energy, almost by definition, naturally seeks.

The ideal of Taoism is not to create a watered down grey soup where every individual is a little island of perfectly nice, sanitary internal balance. I see it more like that the world itself, our interactions with others, with nature, with animals, with the sky, the sun, the moon, this is “external” alchemy (external in quotes because the universe is our body one part of which is our individual physical body), and in a sense it’s an infinite game, or if you prefer an infinite dance.

At times, perhaps even for an entire lifetime, there are dancers in this play of human alchemy that are more like fire and other human forms that are more like water, and when they come together an arc of sexual alchemy occurs between them. It’s not fire’s purpose to become half water, or or water’s purpose to become half fire, they each have their own natures. They need at least the principle of the other’s energy for the alchemy of their destiny. And again, not to become the other or half and half, but to fully embody their own true nature (which is both beyond and also fully is their form).

In lovemaking for example, I’m not sure about you, but in my experience, enjoyable lovemaking involves polarities of strongly embodied feminine and masculine principles, principles of water and fire, of reception and penetration. Perhaps these energies occur as “roles” that each partner switches, back and forth, but not in effort to dillute them into one substance.

Perhaps that is why these energies were called fire and water. Obviously the two cannot truly “get along” and fully understand the other. The best we can do is enjoy the dance.