The Serpent Power — Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe) (1924)
“Is scriptural authority, which, by-the-by, I hold in utmost reverence, really challenged by this interpretation? The nature of the dynamic equivalent and its relation to the static background have been indicated in the previous two communications, and I need not dilate on them. I have claimed throughout that the Mūlādhāra, as the seat of static (i.e., coiled) power, can never be rendered a vacuum in relation to such power except in the circumstances of Videhamukti (bodiless liberation), when the triple body (gross, subtle, causal) must dissolve. I think, also, that the point of view which you have taken can be reconciled with this interpretation of the matter. The Kundalī Shakti is the static aspect of the life of the whole organised body, as you say rightly. The relation between the lives of the individual cells and that of the whole organism is not clearly understood in science. Is the common life a merely mechanical resultant of the lives of the individual cells, or are the lives of the individual cells only detailed manifestations of the common life? In other words, is the common life cause and the cell-lives effects or vice versa? Science is not yet settled on this point. As a subscriber to the Shaktivāda (doctrine of Shakti) I am inclined, however, to give primacy to the common life; in the germcell itself the common life is given in substance, and the whole development of the Jīvadeha (Jīva body) is only the detailed carrying out in particulars of what has been already given in substance, according to the principle of Adrishta (Karma). Nevertheless, I am quite willing to concede to the individual cells lives of semi-independence. ‘Semi,’ because they require to be sustained to a considerable degree by the life of the whole. Benefit or injury to the life of the whole reacts on the condition of the cells; the death of the whole life is followed by the death of the cells, and so on.
“Now, in every cell there is, of course, static-dynamic polarity; in the whole organism, also, there is such polarity or correlation. In the whole organism the static pole or correlate is the coiled power at the Mūlādhāra, and the dynamic correlate is the operative power (the five Prānas —viz., Prāna, Apāna, Samāna, Udāna, and Vyāna), which actually carries on the various functions of the body. Ordinarily, therefore, this dynamic power is distributed over the whole body, vitalising not merely the larger tissues, but the microscopic cells. Now, the devitalisation (as you say) of the body in Kundalīyoga or Shatchakrabheda is due, I venture to think, not to the depletion or privation of the static power at the Mūlādhāra, but to the concentration or convergence of the dynamic power ordinarily diffused over the whole body, so that the dynamic equivalent which is set up against the static background or Kundalī Shakti is only the diffused fivefold Prāna gathered home—withdrawn from the other tissues of the body—and concentrated in a line along the axis. Thus ordinarily the dynamic equivalent is the Prāna diffused over all the tissues; in Yoga it is converged along the axis, the static equivalent or Kundalī Shakti enduring in both cases. Thus also the polarity or
“Is scriptural authority, which, by-the-by, I hold in utmost reverence, really challenged by this interpretation? The nature of the dynamic equivalent and its relation to the static background have been indicated in the previous two communications, and I need not dilate on them. I have claimed throughout that the Mūlādhāra, as the seat of static (i.e., coiled) power, can never be rendered a vacuum in relation to such power except in the circumstances of Videhamukti (bodiless liberation), when the triple body (gross, subtle, causal) must dissolve. I think, also, that the point of view which you have taken can be reconciled with this interpretation of the matter. The Kundalī Shakti is the static aspect of the life of the whole organised body, as you say rightly. The relation between the lives of the individual cells and that of the whole organism is not clearly understood in science. Is the common life a merely mechanical resultant of the lives of the individual cells, or are the lives of the individual cells only detailed manifestations of the common life? In other words, is the common life cause and the cell-lives effects or vice versa? Science is not yet settled on this point. As a subscriber to the Shaktivāda (doctrine of Shakti) I am inclined, however, to give primacy to the common life; in the germcell itself the common life is given in substance, and the whole development of the Jīvadeha (Jīva body) is only the detailed carrying out in particulars of what has been already given in substance, according to the principle of Adrishta (Karma). Nevertheless, I am quite willing to concede to the individual cells lives of semi-independence. ‘Semi,’ because they require to be sustained to a considerable degree by the life of the whole. Benefit or injury to the life of the whole reacts on the condition of the cells; the death of the whole life is followed by the death of the cells, and so on.
“Now, in every cell there is, of course, static-dynamic polarity; in the whole organism, also, there is such polarity or correlation. In the whole organism the static pole or correlate is the coiled power at the Mūlādhāra, and the dynamic correlate is the operative power (the five Prānas —viz., Prāna, Apāna, Samāna, Udāna, and Vyāna), which actually carries on the various functions of the body. Ordinarily, therefore, this dynamic power is distributed over the whole body, vitalising not merely the larger tissues, but the microscopic cells. Now, the devitalisation (as you say) of the body in Kundalīyoga or Shatchakrabheda is due, I venture to think, not to the depletion or privation of the static power at the Mūlādhāra, but to the concentration or convergence of the dynamic power ordinarily diffused over the whole body, so that the dynamic equivalent which is set up against the static background or Kundalī Shakti is only the diffused fivefold Prāna gathered home—withdrawn from the other tissues of the body—and concentrated in a line along the axis. Thus ordinarily the dynamic equivalent is the Prāna diffused over all the tissues; in Yoga it is converged along the axis, the static equivalent or Kundalī Shakti enduring in both cases. Thus also the polarity or
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