Major Nadis

 

Spiritual Flow States that Inform the Physical

The Major nadis are often discussed in yoga classes and nidra type trainings. You may have had some exposure to the Ida & Pingala breath, for example. Or you may have been trained to focus your breathing on one nostril vs. another depending on the time of day and activity, digesting your meal would use the active, Pingala and bringing awareness to Ida would support moving into sleep cycles.

The Major and Minor Nadis (you’ll read about the Minor Nadis in the next topic), deliver prana to the Etheric chakras and aura. They are not static, rather they are flow states, moving pranna through the channels to actualize the physical. I particularly appreciate the cyclical understanding of energy that we begin to understand and work with as practitioners. It is said that the Nadis generate the chakras, and yet the chakras cannot exist without the Nadis. In fact, they are self-actualizing energy centers that work in tandem with one another to manifest physical reality.

Sushumna

The Sushumna, or Central Channel vibrates in the third subplane. Sushumna is of course a Sanskrit word, its translation is ‘most gracious’. Each one of the Major Etheric chakras receives energy from the Sushumna as its energy flows from the Etheric first chakra (muladhara) to the crown chakra (brahmarandhra). The Major chakras distribute energy to the Minor chakras, along with the energy distribution that generates from the Minor nadis.

Hatha and other yoga forms focus on creating equal balance between the Ida and Pingala nadis so that the Central Channel can fully activate and facilitate an energy flow through the Sushumna for spiritual enlightenment. Known as Kundalini Rising, this is a highly advanced spiritual state that can take hours upon hours and years of meditative practice to create the balance that enables the awakened energy to flow.

New Age Mythology

Throughout the 30 years I have been practicing energy healing, I have had several meetings with clients and/or students who described experiences that were labeled (either by themselves, or by other New Age/spiritual healers), a Kundalini Rising. There is an absolute truth that if Kundalini rises in a spiritually immature or unevolved person that extreme disruption can result. In many cases, this disruption is considered a permanent situation, and can create mental and emotional illness and discombobulation. It takes a lot of work to have a sucessful Kundalini Rising. It also takes a lot of work to have a disruptive Kundalini Rising. It’s a pretty rare thing.

Every single instance of a person entering my practice because of a Kundalini Rising experience was not that at all. It was a case of profound energy dysregulation, brought on by ungrounded spiritual practices, disembodying meditations, and a naivete about what the impact of ungrounded spiritual practice can create.

As a practitioner, please learn to distinguish between a deeply spiritually evolved client who in personal practice may well achieve a Kundalini experience and a client or individual who perhaps meditates regularly, but hasn’t actualized spiritual practice into daily, grounded experience. Someone can be spiritual and live through their spirituality, and someone else can be spiritual and out of touch with it in practical reality. This latter person will be unlikely to achieve Kundalini Rising.

Ida

The Ida nadi is associated with the feminine. Its color is white, and its celestial connection is the moon. Ida means ‘comfort’. It is a calling for and recognition of the intuitive, the spiritual, emotions and conscious awareness. Emanating from the third subplane of the Etheric, flowing and spiraling upward, commencing from the left side of the body and the Etheric 1st chakra, migrating up the spine and the back of the head, the Ida terminates at the right nostril.

Pingala

The Pingala nadi is associated with the masculine. Its color is red, and its celestial connection is the sun. Pingala means ‘tawny’. It is a calling for and recognition of the intellect and the ability to manifest and actualize. Emanating from the third subplane of the Etheric, flowing and spiraling upward, commencing from the right side of the body and the Etheric 1st chakra, migrating up the spine and the back of the head, the Pingala terminates at the left nostril.

A Barbershop Pole, not a Caduceus

Many systems think of the Ida and Pingala as mirroring a Caduceus, the double serpent entwining a staff of ancient Rome or Greece. The modern or Western chakra system as discovered by the Theosophists recognizes the Ida and Pingala as tracking one another in tandem, in the way of the red and white stripes of a barbershop pole.

Not used in the Etheric practitioner program

Now that you have all this information about the Major nadis, you can store it away for future use. The Major nadis are important, of course, but for the type of work we’ll be doing in the program, we leave these nadis out of the equation. We’ll do much more work with the Minor nadis, as they are essential elements of supporting physical healing and evolution. Should you elect to proceed to the Energetic Assessment: Determining Root Cause practitioner program, we’ll revisit these nadis then.

Next Steps:

Proceed to the next Topic in this Lesson, the Minor nadis.

 

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