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Vishuda/ Throat Chakra

Vishuda chakra, sometimes translated as with purity, is the throat chakra. It is located at

the level of the throat and is said to be blue in colour. It is associated with the thyroid andparathyroid glands, the pharyngeal plexus and vocal cords. Traditional symbols include: the black

oval or egg of Akasha (Aether/ Space/ Spirit Element) and the pure royal albino elephant.

Vishuda is said to control the voice and speech, the ears and hearing. It works through the dynamic

of equality, activity and peace and through the balance of the real and unreal, form and emptiness,

existing and not existing. In vishuda we recognize the ground of our being as empty of inherent

existence, its nature free and open like the sky. Perhaps we should say: the problem is that we dont

recognize this! Out of habit, karma, intellectual and emotional habit, we solidify our existence and

from there arises the magical display of our reality.

So we can see that the emptiness/ tongba that in the heart chakra arises in union with love

and compassion, actually arises in vishuda and shines in from above, as it were. Love and

compassion is one way to realize this emptiness; and the emptiness allows the love and compassionto expand to infinity.

So Spirit/ Aether in the West, we can say is the universal medium from which all arises. In

the East we can say: it is beyond the normal mind, yet is the basis for it; it cannot be said to exist or

be non-existent and its physical correlative is space. In the Heart Sutra it is put very well: form is

emptiness; emptiness is form; form is no other than emptiness; emptiness is no other than form.

In other words there is no actual mind here, in the sense that we usually think of it (i.e. the

appearances and projections). Space is beyond concept and cannot be fitted into any kind of

category. Even before we reach to the level of fully awakened vishuda, we experience this as peace.

The wisdom of vishuda then, is that everything is equal, everything is infinite. Beyond the

mind, it is beyond space and time. And this is how it really is. Its not a fanciful or exotic theory. It

is the basis or ground from which your mind arises right now, this very moment. And we have theability, the potential, to recognize this.

So out of equality and infinity we condense our reality. Useful questions to ask yourself in

this context, for empowering your everyday life are such as: where and what are my limitations?

What limitations do I impose on myself? Where do I lack space and time? What judgements of

inequality (especially better/ worse than) do I make as if by reflex? How do these constricting

qualities fit together?

For example: out of feeling time-pressured, I may judge myself as being not good enough

and fall into the reflex pattern of defence as being worse than everyone else which I hate. Feeling

worthless and under the cosh, I magically transform this worse than into a better than not in a

genuine way, but as an ego ploy taking the superior position with all those around me andbolstering it with a few delusions of grandeur.

Of course, this delusion is paired inextricably with a delusion of insignificance and the

hopeless feeling of being no good and worse than. Appearing calm and in control on the

surface, I am a seething mass of self-hate, recrimination and power-sucking hopelessness

underneath. My authenticity is shattered and to those around me I appear fake.

People are very sharp (the paranoid antennae of ego) even if they cannot fully explain to

themselves why they dont like you, or why they feel uncomfortable around you, they know they

do. Maybe your pattern is resonating with one of theirs and that, they dont like!

Real communication and cooperation ceases. I think this situation is played out continually

in the world of work and business especially, as well as just generally in our lives. How much more

efficient and profitable would business be if everyone learned and appliedshamatha!Instead of this usual scenario, imagine the following. Even with a relative understanding,

based in the normal mind, of this emptiness in vishuda, plus a little experience of the peace of

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shamatha, I rememberas the pattern arises. Instead of going with the habit of a lifetime, I take a

deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing and releasing into shamatha. I remember that everything

is open, free from the beginning, lacking solid inherent existence the solidity, the realness, the

sting is taken out of the habitual ego-reality reaction. I see my better/ worse than and my old

friend the superior/ inferior delusion and in that space I recognize that I have a choice (actually

many choices) about what to do next. I choose to let go of the pattern, expand beyond, see beyond it

and dissolve it in present-consciousness. I choose to be free from it.If Im at work, maybe I dont want to go all through this pattern straight away, exploring

every nook and cranny Ill do that later using it as a number 1. Current Event or a number 7.

Repeating Event remember? Yet even the recognition of the basic spaciousness of my mind, in

that moment, releases me from the restrictive and crippling effects of the habitual pattern.

Even though I may not in that instant have completely or fully resolved my worse than/

inferiority , better than/ superiority pattern, so to speak, I retain enough clarity of nowness, enough

basic sanity to stay authentic. I retain the ability to be stable, good-hearted, and easy with myself

and others.

Out of this I maintain a genuine communication and cooperation with those around me. I see

more clearly what to do and how to do it. I am freed up to ask for help, or to delegate, or to take

another course of action. Freed from the solidity and deadliness of my pattern, I can act in a mannerthat is appropriate to the situation.

And this is not an all-or-nothing deal. I may partly release myself from the grip of the

pattern and still hold to part of it. My actions resulting from this partial freeing-up will still be more

useful and genuine than otherwise, though not yet as positive and useful as they can be. With

continued practice, both in meditation and in life, I gradually learn to deal more and more

thoroughly with myself in the moment. Gradually I can transform bigger and bigger negativities, in

as long as it takes to remember.

So this is a benefit of the view of vishuda, even from within the normal mind. Actually to

realize emptiness and have it as your natural view, all the time, to have, as it were, a natural

remembrance of emptiness can you see how very practical that would be? So how come we dont

have this view of emptiness? You know the answer ego habit and obscuration.

Ego is terrified of emptiness, as it equates it with death and annihilation. So you might

expect some very strong reactions from ego as you approach the level of this chakra. And this is so.

As vishuda is beyond the normal mind, it is beyond ego all together. In a sense, we find in vishuda,

egos last stand

You can see the scene. Out on the wild frontier the frontier of consciousness. You have

caught your one-time best friend, Ego, in the most fundamental of betrayals. He has always

squirmed out of it before. But now you are convinced. The proverbial cat is not just out of the bag,

it is running amok round the camp-fire. Ego, in fear for his life, full of malice, scorn, hate and

anger, furious that you have caught him out, circles the wagons, readies his best and biggest

weapons. Hes gonna blast you back into concrete consensus reality with your tail between yourlegs. No escape for you, buddy! No one gets out alive! If Im goin down, says Ego, youre goin

down with me!

What we are talking about here is identity crisis in its most powerful guise. In that sense it is

also the spiritual awakening. Ego will try anything to bring you back into duality-consciousness, to

ensnare you in the games of this-and-that, self-and-other. All your unresolved patterns will arise, all

your emotional negativity, all your intellectual stories. Ego is incredibly sneaky, expert in the games

of delusion. It has an incredible amount of stratagems all designed specifically for you. An

incredible amount, yes, but not an infinite amount. And what is infinite? The wisdom nature.

It is the wisdom nature that sees through the delusions of ego sees that it doesnt actually

exist anyway. Perhaps we are getting a little ahead of ourselves here this discussion belongs more

properly in ajna. There is overlap in trying to discuss the final three chakras as they are, from ourpoint of view of the relative mind, somehow the same thing

So ego will try to pull you into conflict even fighting it is a way to prove that it exists and

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to keep you from the recognition of that equality and infinity. Out of the many ways that ego

distracts and entraps you, lets look at two: sorrow and anger. By sorrow we mean what has been

called the Long Night of the Soul.

Here, it is like everything has turned to shit! We are hopeless and in despair. And also fear

and a kind of stifling paranoia is there, a kind of claustrophobia. We are at the bottom of a deep well

of depression everything is horribly real and, were it not for our self-pity, would be just too

overwhelming. We face a vast black chasm of nothingness and annihilation (egos view ofemptiness) that is what is/ seems so horribly real. We feel sick and tired to our very bones. We feel

like we have lost everything and that its all been for nothing. There is no point; there is no reason;

there is no goal, no reward, no redemption. Its all come to this because weve been had in some

monumental and utterly pointless way a sick joke by God, or maybe the Devil we dont know

and we dont care (so we say to ourselves actually knowing the opposite to be true and hating

that this is so, and hating that we cannot be honest even in this).

Yet in that sorrow, there is still the crazy fantasy mind working (of course!). We blame, we

deny, we justify crazy flights of revenge and pointless destruction. Out of that space of self-pity

and sorrow, arises the most venomous and self-righteous anger, hatred and aggression. And the ego

grooves on it. Nothing matters. So f*ck everything. Its like weve opened the doors of hell and

that brings with it more hopelessness, more self-pitying sorrow; more blame, denial, justification;more anger, hatred and aggression. In some sense we feel massively powerful and the desire is to

misuse that power. Yet we also somehow know that the power is nothing other than an expression of

utter powerlessness. We want to explode in our impotent rage, yet somehow cant. Somehow,

somewhere we are trapped in a doorless cell a prison of our own making, we realize. Yet we wont

budge. The realness is horrible but it is real. Compared to the nothingness, at least we still exist.

We feel forsaken and utterly, utterly alone cut off from people and from God, from

anything that is good, true and beautiful. The very idea that enlightenment exists is a joke. Even the

idea that other people exist fills us with loathing; and that they could matter in some way is both

ridiculous and also cuts us like a knife.

So you get the idea of Long Night of the Soul! Others have put it much better. Also, the

details may not be personal to you. Just so long as you get the kind of idea of it, the atmosphere. It

is, really, the most condensed version of your ego-reality. Youll know the details yourself.

And the antidote? The view of emptiness, love and compassion. Also, and maybe especially,

devotion. It is this that takes us across the abyss, from the illusion (of really existing ego) to the

reality of love and freedom, spontaneous and perfect activity, enthusiasm and joy, freed from the

extremes of this and that, of existing and not existing. You can see how even in the love that we feel

at the moment, we are released from the heavier ploys of ego. In love, forgetting our stratagems,

forgetting our self, we feel a certain freedom and joy and peace, dont we? So we expand that

love. And expand it and expand it. We learn to love beyond the fear. Then where is the ego? Where

is the Long Night of the Soul? Not only do they not really exist they never did.

We included this illustration of sorrow and so on, not because you are likely to come to itthroughshamatha! Rather, it is an indication of how the ego-reality, in extreme, works. It is also a

reminder no matter how solid our thoughts and emotions appear -- they are just fleeting and

insubstantial. Remember the ego is not you. Realizing this fully, vishuda opens fully. Yet even in

the meantime we can still empower vishuda and in so doing empower our life. The basic lesson is

that we always have a choice.

Now vishuda is connected, as a kind of reflex, to manipura with the heart chakra being the

balance and pivot, so to speak. From our discussion, above, you can see how this gives the

clearest indication that it is through love and compassion, informing trust and transmuting power,

that we come to a natural recognition of emptiness. And the trust here, can also be called devotion.

The thyroid gland, in oriental medicine, is associated with the Liver which is related to

manipura. The emotion of the Liver, that is -- stored in the Liver, according to oriental medicine, isanger. In manipura, the anger is related with power and dualism sometimes anger, especially as

assertion, is a way to regain our power when it has been taken from us.

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When anger is released from dualism, that is -- when it is experienced at the level of vishuda

-- we experience it more in its raw energy state, as it were. Freed from subject and object we can

apprehend the energy of anger without the stories of ego. It is angerless anger so to speak. And

the quality of anger when there is no anger, no ego, present is tremendous clarity. It is this clarity,

this discriminating awareness or discernment, which is a great healer of anger as it affects both the

Liver and the thyroid gland in both the emotional and physical senses. Well come back to this

again a little later.Vishuda, then, is all-encompassing space. It takes us beyond the normal realm of our usual

conscious awareness. In this regard it opens us to working with other realms realms deeper or

higher than usual consciousness. So we can think of working with our unconscious bringing the

light of awareness to levels where the very chemistry of the body is changed.

Now, this neednt be as startling as it may sound. There is a link between hormones and

emotions. This seems just common sense to us and in the medical world, there are those who are

researching the actual physiological mechanisms (hormones, brain function and so on) associated

with emotion. So with every passing emotion, the chemical balances of the body fluctuate.

Exploring and resolving emotional issues in the mind will, similarly, affect the state of the body

through this mechanism.

So to go into the other realm of the unconscious, through the doorway, as it were, providedby the realization of vishuda, can mean the opportunity to clear and balance the system way beyond

the boundaries that presently we work within.

Other realms can also include, literally, non-human realms. Here we open to working with

the subtle realms associated with our earth: the aethers and the elementals; spirit realms; other kinds

of beings who live on the earth, yet are not (usually) sensible to physical sight: various sorts of

dakinis and nagas; faerie-realm; the jinn and so on. We can approach these beings through myth and

legend and by using what we call the mythic mind.

Evidently, the opportunity for self-delusion and fantasy is great when entering such realms.

This is where the basic meditation is invaluable. Only intimacy with your own mind and emotions,

knowledge and understanding of working with your usual patterns, will elevate a potentially useless

(or even dangerous) fantasy into (what Lazaris calls) fantasia a genuine and positive, useful

experience. Traditionally, and sensibly, the yogi or shaman will have spirit helpers, guides and allies

in these other realms to help. It is wise to follow their lead in this. Although shamans and yogis are

often really quite eccentric, when properly trained they are very rarely completely insane! This,

unfortunately, is not the case with untrained, ill-equipped dabblers in the West. Also in the East.

There are many such sad cases whose lives are a morass of fantasy and delusion even when they

are sub-clinical.

As it is beyond the mind, vishuda is also beyond time. It is related with the fourth time

talked of in vajrayana beyond the three of past, present and future. This is the ever-rolling moment

of now, of the wheel of dharma, of becoming. In this time frame, the fourth time, the Buddha is

teaching at Sarnath and at Vulture Peak right now, this very moment. From within the limits of ourrelative mind, our three-dimensional mind, this is incomprehensible. If were a bit more open we

may think of it as a nice idea, or an interesting theory. This is to miss the point, though. It is literally

true

Being beyond time, then of course, time-travel is also possible. Past lives are not really past,

future lives are not really future. Outside of time, there is no time. Actually we time-travel all the

time: in memory and expectation. What we remember and what we look into the future and see. Its

all very normal. Yet, as we are released more and more from the constraints of the ego-I and its

insistence on linear time and past causality, our ability to look into the past and future, to be in the

three times, also becomes more and more. Vishuda is also, then, the basis or circumstance that gives

rise to divination and so on. Please note this does not mean that you have already paid that gas

bill!So the danger here? Well, its the same one as always. Except that now its a little bit more

extreme, or can be. When we hear these ideas and hear that it is definitely possible for us to realize

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this level of our nature, our ego can go into tricky-overdrive! Usually this only happens with very

experienced practitioners.

Having practised for a long time, we feel that we have really got somewhere. Were not

completely sure that we have, so maybe its more like we feel that we oughtto have got somewhere

hang it all, we deserve to be somewhere: we want that badge, that accolade, that gold-star so

everyone can see we are someone to be reckoned with, someone who knows something, someone

who is properly above and beyond the rest of you, common people. We want everyone to see weare, wellsomeone. There is a kind of desperation in it. I must be special, I just must

This is known as ego-inflation and leads to all kinds of megalomania and convoluted fantasy

and manipulations. Quite often people at this point will set themselves up as spiritual teachers.

They can appear to be quite competent to the inexperienced, yet they have nothing to give and

actually no real desire to give whatever they might have the motivation is not only highly suspect,

it is downright destructive. Avoid such people! This is quite difficult in todays spiritual

supermarket so take your time and really scrutinize any teacher before taking their word for

anything.

So here we might mention delusions of grandeur as a particular sort of ego-inflation. Now

we would venture to guess that everyone, including you (please excuse me, if you are an

enlightened being), has delusions of grandeur. The obvious ones are mostly busted by life and bygrowing up and going out into the world. Contact with people will soon cure you of thinking youre

the greatest whatever. It is the subtle delusions of grandeur that remain the ones that we dont let

anyone see; the ones that are the flip-side of our delusions of insignificance. Both sorts of delusion

of grandeur obvious and subtle, are related with vishuda in this respect. So in relation to thyroid

problems, or problems with the voice, for example, we can look to such delusions to guide us to

where our body-mind system is blocked. We can start to work with vishuda.

Delusions of insignificance, of course, relate more directly with the spleen (see the 7EM

section). So vishuda and swadisthana have a relationship here. Moreover, as manipura is the

reflection of vishuda below the heart, as it were, we can see that both delusions of grandeur and

insignificance have a relationship with anger, with power and powerlessness and so on. If you

cannot see how someone in a state of apathy/ inferiority (spleen) could possibly be angry try

pushing them to do something! You will find the snarling anger beneath the surface very quickly!

In the Western mystery tradition ego-inflation has been characterized as the demon

choronzon. This is the true picture of the ego that rises before the adept as s/he plunges into the

abyss the long night of the soul. We can think of this as a kind of bardo experience (an extreme

experience of a particular reality so that the opposites of ego-reality seem to merge and become

indistinguishable -- please see works by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche for a wonderful exposition of

what bardo means). There the adept has a choice either to let go of the ego reality, as we have

called it, the empty-fantasy, the manipulation and so on and become what they more truly are,

beyond ego. Or the adept can cling tight to the ego and become the Ego (with a big E!). Crowley

put it very well, poetically: to be reborn in the City of the Pyramids, or to become a black brother.In Tibetan Buddhism, this kind of complete-egohood, Ego, is known as Rudra. Please note that in

Hinduism, Rudra is a son of Shiva and such connotations definitely do not apply.

Happily, it is said that it is just as difficult to achieve complete egohood, as it is to achieve

complete enlightenment. Or, you could say, its as easy to become enlightened as it is to become

Ego. Good, I was worried there for a minute

One thing that is very significant in the above that it is easy to pass over is the matter of

choice. The adept, they say, has a choice which path to choose. So in the abyss, in the long night of

the soul, or, you could say, when you are depressed or confronted with any of the manifestations of

ego-reality you have a choice which way to go. You can choose the path of liberation (the path

that leads in that direction); or you can choose to stay stuck where you are. You have the choice all

the time ego or you, ego or youok, the words are a bit limiting here: you in this context meansthe you that is free from ego; it means the sense of you that is released from I-ness; the sense of

clarity of the vipasyana (and then mahavipasyana the great vipasyana) that arises from out of the

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shamatha.

So even though the abyss experience is usually written as though it were a particular event,

the mechanism of such experience is happening all the time. And the experience ofbardo, to which

we likened it above, although not happening all the time, is nonetheless not that infrequent. In other

words, it is not something that is outside or beyond our experience already. It is not something that

is irrelevant to us as we already are.

From the very start, even though you may not have been aware of it, or been able to usethese actual words, the basicshamathapractice has been presenting you with the situation of such a

choice and with the opportunity to practise making such a choice. And the more you practise in your

meditation session, the more the choice becomes visible and available in your life. What at first is

invisible, then becomes visible and maybe appears difficult yet it is just a habit and a view. Like

the old saying everything becomes easy if you get used to it by practising and getting used to

shamatha and the process ofshamatha, the habit changes. Then the good habit becomes easy. When

your reflex is to become mindful and aware in response to ego-patterns, and then to make a choice

to step out of ego, then your practice is becoming very good, very powerful and very useful. Then

even such baited ego-traps as the long night of the soul, or the abyss have no power over you at all.