Clearly, springing from the great diversity of Nature, the body/consciousness nexus is a system of many interlocking and interdependent relative states, growing and changing, living and dying, always in flux. And that includes -- at least in the case of human beings -- a continually evolving self-understanding via the "mind" of a subjective "I AM" and its myriad relationships to the body and to the unfathomable depth of consciousness. The greatest extension of this self-understanding has been called "awakening to spiritual reality."

Many can say they have tasted this "spiritual reality". In fact, such experiences and knowings of "spiritual reality" have been a primary force in shaping society, since ancient times. We can therefore call "spiritual reality" an objective fact, by simply appreciating the concrete effect this subjectively known reality has had in the affairs of humankind.

What is not so clear to me is whether we can still say there is an empirical relationship of spiritual reality and the human metabolism that can be localized to various bodily "centers" apart from the human brain.

Ancient visionaries of India saw such centers. Their systematic description of the "chakras" gained a lasting acceptance in that part of the world, and is now widely accepted in the West as well.

A great modern saint, Ramana Maharshi spoke of another center -- "the heart on the right" -- which he said was superior to all the spiritual loci of the body. Although in later life Ramana told his followers not to place any particular importance on "the heart on the right", the Western spiritual teacher Da Free John (Franklin Jones) took up "the heart on the right" as an important aspect of his teaching.

In the essay below, written some years ago, I challenge the chakra-model of spiritual consciousness (including "the heart on the right"). Based on the rather obvious fact that the brain is the locus of waking consciousness, it occurs to me that any expanded or spiritualized version of that consciousness would also find its empirical bodily nexus in the brain.

Resolved: As an organ of Consciousness, the brain is senior to "the heart of the right".

It seems to me the brain gets "overlooked" (or at least underappreciated) in some spiritual circles. There is much attention on the chakras, "the heart on the right", and the sahasrar above the brain -- but little appreciation of the brain itself as the senior organ of spiritual awareness and even of Realization.

The "chakras", with the exception of the ajna and the sahasrar, have almost no physiological correlative in the gross body. The ajna and sahasrar, as hypothetical "higher centers beyond and above the brain" at least can be said to be woven into the consciousness that permeates the brain itself...although it is not at all clear whether this in fact occurs at a physiological or molecular level. (Two other "minor" chakras -- the manas and soma -- have been identified between the ajna and sahasrar.)

The other five chakras -- visuddha, anahata, manipura, svadhisthana, and muladhara -- are rather vaguely located and loosely identified with various bodily organs that are linked to one another through the circulatory, endocrine and autonomic nervous systems.

The "heart on the right", on the other hand, has been specifically identified by seers with the sino-atrial node -- a tiny region on the right side of the physical heart that generates the electrical signals that control the heart.

Consciousness, if it exists at all in these physical organs, is functioning at the energy and "systems" level -- not the "wisdom" level. That is to say, we do not experience the physical organs as being conscious and self-aware. We do not experience the heart as being an organ of consciousness. We do experience the brain as being conscious and self-aware.

(Regarding the lower chakras -- a few years ago it was discovered that the intestines have a tiny "second brain" attached to them -- but this too is operating in a mechanical way, far below the threshold of conscious awareness.)

Anyway, my point is we have this absolutely wonderful organ called the brain, that we experience directly as an instrument of our consciousness and our spiritual awareness -- isn't it just possible that such a complex and amazing instrument might be a higher manifestation of Spirit than a digestive organ or a tiny valve in the heart?

I understand the theory that says we have spiritual bodies and "sheaths", independent of the gross body, and that spiritual consciousness may experience itself as manifesting and permeating these spiritual bodies. Focusing awareness in these spiritual bodies may create a sense of well-being in the gross body -- even a sense of physical bliss or of physical healing. But it would be a mistake to identify such experiences with the gross body. Only one part of the gross body has evolved as the flower of spiritual awakening -- the brain. The rest of it is just so much "meat".

I also understand, via personal experience, the theory that there are "doorways" to spiritual Realization which may appear to be localized in the area of the heart in meditation. But visionary and meditational experiences centered in and through the spiritual heart do not have a correlative in the gross heart. The heart is not an organ of higher consciousness. It is simply a big hard-working muscle!

The premiere organ of consciousness is the brain -- in fact, the brain is the only bodily organ that is specifically designed as a vessel of conscious awareness. And a marvelous job it does!

Why is their a general lack of respect for the brain as a spiritual organ? I suspect that some make a mistake of thinking that because their "ego" (or sense of limited consciousness) is self-located in the brain, that the brain is therefore a secondary organ to the "chakras" and "the heart on the right".

Furthermore, the general disparagement of the ego by "spiritual" teachers may have led to the projection of spiritual functioning into the dumb organs, and away from the living center of spiritual consciousness -- the brain.

Unwittingly, perhaps, people like Franklin Jones (Adi Da) have perpetuated this distrust of the brain-mind through relentless support for the existence of the ego. Adi Da's making of the ego into the "bad guy" in his private story has led him away from his early unitary wisdom and into the embrace of mystical phenomenalism and its associated perspective politics.

The Mythology of Flashing Lights

Franklin Jones, in the early days, was a great debunker visionary phenomena. (See especially certain parts of his book The Method of the Siddhas.) As he used to say, just because one sees a flashing light, or gets a funny little throb in "the heart on the right", does not mean one has had any kind of "spiritual experience" -- or contacted a higher reality.

As he said, real spiritual experience is an event in which consciousness itself is illumined and awakens, in varying degrees, to its profound Self-nature, beyond all esoteric signs and all psycho-physical phenomena.

But while debunking "The Blue Pearl" and other supposedly "divine" visions, over subsequent years Frank accumulated a mythology of his own "exclusive" visionary phenomena -- including the "five-pointed star", the "amrita nadi", and "the cosmic mandala" -- not to mention the prolific self-mythologizing of his physical and mental qualities as well as the abstract idea of his spiritual "uniqueness", "firstness", "lastness", and general superiority to all beings who ever lived or ever will live!

He saw a star, he saw a "cosmic mandala", he saw an invisible nerve "shaped like a seahorse" -- but at no time did it occur to him to celebrate that astonishingly complex mandala of awareness -- the human brain.

Which part of the body is the finest flower of evolution, the root-master of all the other organs, including the heart? Which part of the body is the true seat of consciousness? I am speaking, of course, of the brain.

The work begins and ends in consciousness -- your consciousness. This is the real yoga. If you are conscious, you are good to go. If you are "egoically" conscious, you have all you need to begin.

You begin your yoga knowing only that you are conscious and that you have a body, and the bodily seat of consciousness is the brain. Bodily, most of your yoga can and will be accomplished via the chemistry and energy-physics of the brain. The brain is the master of the body. And your "I Am" is the master and enlivener of the brain and its body.