USCP (1998): Vāgdevatā Nyāsa; The Ājñā Chakra; The Pañcadaśī Nyāsa

Vāgdevatā Nyāsa

Next comes the Vāgdevatā Nyāsa, the eight forms of Sarasvatī. They are called Vāsinī, Kāmeśvarī, Modinī, Vimalā, Aruṇā, Jayinī, Sarveśvarī, and Kaulinī. This is the Viśuddhi chakra with the sixteen-petal lotus in the neck. The sixteen-petal lotus (the second chakra of Śrī Cakra) was associated with time earlier. But now in Viśuddhi, association is with space communications.

---

The Ājñā Chakra

Aiṁ Hrīṁ Śrīṁ… hsr-aiṁ hsr-klīṁ hsr-sauḥ. Here we are having “ha, sa, and ra” coupled with aiṁ klīṁ and sauḥ. Here when you say that Śiva and Śakti are united and the passion is united and maintained, then that manifests itself as the creating power, the nourishing power and the reabsorbing power. This manifests as the flow of time. The agni, the tip of the fire starts at the Mūlādhāra chakra and goes to the third eye. There it manifests itself as past, present and future, as the movement of time. hsr-aiṁ is placed in the right eye, hsr-klīṁ in the left, and hsr-sauḥ in the middle third eye.

---

Sahasrāra, the Crown Center

In the Sahasrāra, the crown center, all the chakras are collapsed to the single central point, the central point of the Śrī Cakra. In it are feet, thighs, then on to the Mūlādhāra, Svādhiṣṭhāna, Maṇipūra, Anāhata, Viśuddhi, Ājñā, Sahasrāra — a total of nine chakras.

Your identity with the Śrī Cakra is now complete. You have shed your ignorance that you are your body. Your body is a temple where God lives. Clean the temple and worship the God within. Cleaning, decorating and serving the body is called pūjā = worship. The worship is through the mantras. Mantras are related to the causal form; the cleaning is related to the five senses called pañcāmṛtas, the five nectars associated with the five elements.

---

The Pañcadaśī Nyāsa

Ka E I La Hrīṁ    Ha Sa Ka La Hrīṁ    Sa Ka La Hrīṁ

There are many hundreds of ways in which you can do nyāsas. There are whole chapters devoted to these various kinds of nyāsas. Paraśurāma, an avatāra of Viṣṇu, has clearly stated that these eight or nine nyāsas that have been given in this pūjā are enough. The others are fine and good if you do, but if you don’t it does not matter. Some people look at various books and say, “Ah, it’s nice here”, and pick up this thing and put it into their pūjās. They keep on adding, making the procedure intractable and unmanageable. Some people think more complicated the pūjā, the better it is. The real skill and cleverness lies in simplifying your pūjā and retaining its essentials and not overdoing it and not underdoing it.

The nyāsa of the Pañcadaśī can be done in many many ways. We will describe a few important ones now. Later on we give the most important way called the Mūla mantra nyāsa.

The form which is most universally followed is as the Mother who gives birth to you in the Svādhiṣṭhāna and Mūlādhāra chakras. There is a famous statement which translated says, “You can think of Devī as male. You can think of Devī as female. Or you can think of her as the flow which comes out of the union between male and female, the bindu.” So when you think of Lalitā Devī as the female, you think of her as the yoni (the birth channel), the source of creation.

Traverse one side of the yoni by saying Ka E I La Hrīṁ. Then traverse the middle line from bottom up, saying Ha Sa Ka Ha La Hrīṁ, and then traverse the other side of the yoni saying Sa Ka La Hrīṁ. The yoni is always in front of your mind’s eye and you are worshipping that all the time. This gives creative manifestations of all sorts. And it is this worship which is described in the 44 meditations in the beginning. It is a poetic description of how the yoni looks to you.

The other modes of nyāsa which give totally different fruits are as follows. You can worship the Devī in the heart center by concentrating on the right nipple (Ka…) and then the middle of the heart (Ha…) and then the left nipple (Sa…). This gives you jñāna = knowledge about nourishing your ideas, musical and dance. You can worship Devī in the lips (Ka…) and the two eyes (Ha… Sa…) or you can worship the Devī with the Pañcadaśī at the Ājñā center: the right eye (Ka…), left eye (Ha…) and the third eye (Sa…). This gives you command over all you see or imagine.

You can worship the Devī with the two ears and the third eye as the third point. Or you can worship the Devī with the two eyes and the back of your head as the point of the triangle. If you are looking straight up out of your body and you are looking down over your head it is then you will find that there is a hexagon being formed by the back of your head and the 2 eyes forming one kind of triangle, and the third eye and the two ears forming the other triangle. This is the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra located in the Sahasrāra and as you are looking down from above your head. All such meditations activate different kinds of powers such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc.

Each of these chakras that are in your body are all mapped in the Sahasrāra as well. You must realize that it is like electrical circuitry. The switch is at one place, the light is at another place. The switches are located at the chakras, but the light is all in the brain. So wherever you apply the switch when you touch that part of the body, there is a certain part of the brain that is energized and brings you a certain type of illumination. You cannot operate the light without turning on the switch. Your consciousness has to move to the switch in order to enlighten that particular part of the brain. That is why the arousal of the Kuṇḍalinī has to take place through various exercises in the mind. And these exercises are called nyāsas. As I said there are various types of nyāsas. These basic set of nyāsas found in the pūjā are enough if you do them with the proper awareness and concentration.