Work with Meridians. Sushumna, Chitrini, Zhen-Mo, “Microcosmic Orbit” and the Middle Meridian

Spiritual Practices / Work with Meridians. Sushumna, Chitrini, Zhen-Mo, “Microcosmic Orbit” and the Middle Meridian

Work with Meridians. Sushumna, Chitrini, Zhen-Mo, “Microcosmic Orbit” and the Middle Meridian

Upon mastering all exercises described above it would be appropriate to put the main meridians of the body to rights.

The whole human body, as well as the bodies of animals and even plants, is being run through by numerous canals, invisible with regular eyesight, which channel energies of various levels of refinement around the organism. These canals, called meridians (or nadi) were discovered and utilized in ancient Chinese medicine (Zhen Tsyu therapy).

Meridians can be discovered, in particular, because of their increased — compared to adjacent body tissues — electroconductivity (but one should keep in mind that electric current, even the weakest one, is inadequate for them, therefore the methods of punctate electrodiagnostic and electropuncture can be used in the extraordinary cases only).

Meridians can be seen by people whose range of perception was expanded through systems of trainings similar to ours.

As a result of inflammatory processes in the body tissues, contaminating type of nutrition or external negative energetic influence meridians can lose their conductivity. In this case, lingering disorders of the organs that got deprived of proper energy supply may develop. Such diseases usually cannot be completely cured by using drug therapy. In cases like this, acupunctural methods and similar therapeutic techniques: laser, vibration and other kinds of influence through “biologically active points” of the integument turn out to be efficient. These methods work because they restore conductivity of meridians by means of sending currents of energy through them.

Let us talk about several meridians that can be successfully used in psychic self-regulation.

All chakras are connected with one another by large meridians that run along the spine, as well as the front and the middle part of the body. A wide canal called sushumna (tu-mo or du-mo in Chinese) runs along the spine from muladhara to sahasrara. One of its functions is to distribute the energy accumulated in muladhara to other chakras. This energetic potential forms primarily of svadhisthanic energy — udana (through sublimation, i.e. transformation of udana into energies of other chakras), unless one does not waste the latter due to overtiredness or illness.

Within sushumna — in its back section — there is a significantly narrower canal (its diameter is about 2 centimeters), called vajrini, through which udana flows to other chakras.

The third of the spinal canals — chitrini (Brahma nadi) — is located behind sushumna. It begins at the end section of sahasrara, passes under the occipital bone and runs down the back part of the neck and then — down the backmost part of the spinal column, coinciding with the spinous processes of vertebras and the skin. Chitrini is an exceptionally important structure for us. It will serve us as a standard for one of the subtlest states, to which we will afterwards attune the emotional sphere. On the G.Gurdjieff’s “Scale of Hydrogens” [34] the state of chitrini is assessed as H-3. This is the Holy Spirit’s level of subtlety. Upon learning to concentrate in chitrini one can easily “dive” as a consciousness through this canal into eons of the Holy Spirit and directly communicate, embrace and then merge with Him there. This is how religious truths turn from abstractions into reality.

The system of chakras is also communicated by the front channel zhen-mo. It begins from the upper end of sushumna, forks into two branches that turn around sahasrara and join in the forehead area to split into several small canals that run down the face and join again in the vishudha region. One more branch of this canal crosses through the middle of the head, reaches the chin coming through the palate and joins the other branches at the neck. After that the canal runs down the front side of the trunk, branching off to every chakra, passes the share bone and heads for the coccyx. We will be especially interested in the upper part of this canal that unites the four chakras of the so-called “emotional center” [34]: anahata, vishudha, manipura and ajna into one functional block.

The leading role in this complex is played by anahata and vishudha, of course. The intensity of emotions depends to a certain extent on the manipura chakra, while the ajna chakra serves as a liaison for interaction with hypothalamic-pituitary complex, which plays an extremely important role in coordination of emotional and behavioral reactions of the entire organism through the endocrine control system.

Only those people whose front canal is well-developed and who know how to use it are able to experience truly exalted positive emotions in communicating with other people and with nature. But such people are extremely few: only a handful per thousands. Most people do not have a developed front canal and it takes special efforts to develop it.

In Chinese tradition the system of the spine and the front canals is called “microcosmic orbit”. By means of circulation around the “microcosmic orbit” one of the stages of transformation of energy within the organism is performed. The aim of this stage is production and accumulation of the “golden elixir” in the human organism — this is what the subtlest energy obtained as a result of such transformation was called in the ancient alchemy. The previous stage of this process takes place when samana — the energy derived from food — gets down from manipura to active svadhisthana. Performance of exercises with the “microcosmic orbit” produces a strong emotional effect, changing the entire personality, making man buoyant and willing to give his sincere cordial love to other people.

On one of the subtlest planes the system of chakras is communicated by one more canal — the middle meridian. This wide meridian connects developed chakras, running vertically through the middle of the entire body. It forms along with development of chakras: it cannot be found in people whose chakras are undeveloped. Its width corresponds to the diameter of chakras. This is also a very important energy structure of the organism.

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Let us begin with sushumna. The easiest way to cleanse it is with an image of a “bottle brush”. In order to do this you need to imagine yourself moving back from the body out of anahata and becoming a little bigger then the body. Then start to scrub sushumna with this “bottle brush”. An important detail that you should keep in mind while doing this is that you need to also cleanse the passage from sushumna to muladhara, which goes not just down from the sacrum in a straight line, but down and forward.

The next in turn for cleansing is the middle meridian. It is convenient to work with this structure at special “places of power”, which are auspicious for moving concentration of consciousness below the body. This implies that by this time the consciousness of the practitioner should be developed by performing the previous exercises to such an extent that allows him or her to be able to move as a consciousness below the body without losing the subtle state.

Upon entering the middle meridian from below you need to “wash” its walls with an image of a wet rag with a soapy foam, for example, or in any other appropriate manner.

After that it is quite important to cleanse the partition between sushumna and the middle meridian. In order to do this you have to be in both meridians at the same time, coming into sushumna from above and to the middle meridian — from below. The partition between them and possible dark spots on it become visible. Elimination of these spots brings the next stage of purification of the body.

When sushumna is cleansed, you may start working with the “microcosmic orbit”. For this you enter the two lower chakras and bring their energy up the sushumna, “throw” it over the head and bring it down through the front canal back to the two lower chakras. Then repeat this cycle of energy circulation. During this process, coarse energies, including those that were causing diseases, get transformed into subtle ones in the zhen-mo meridian.

After first few times of working with the “microcosmic orbit” you must perform a deep relaxation in shavasana.

In the future you may learn to change the trajectory of the energy moving around the “microcosmic orbit” — so that the energy flow will pass through the diseased regions of the body (if there are still any). This will enable you to heal them.

You have just learned to make energy circulate around the “orbit”, which included sushumna meridian. But in the future you should learn to do the same through chitrini and within the energy “cocoon” that surrounds the body. All this will bring yet another levels of health improvement and refinement of consciousness. In the practice of our school, this is usually performed quite easily at the corresponding “places of power” — areas that have a special energetic significance for a human being (see [11,16] for details). You may well find them somewhere around the place you live in.

In conclusion of this chapter I should mention that there are methods of Chinese Qi Gong that got into our country, which involve work with the “microcosmic orbit” without preceding thorough cleansing and development of chakras and meridians. In such cases the entire work gets performed only at the level of visual images, while purifying, healing, and refining effects are not obtained.