MULADHARA

MULADHARA:
Excerpted from C.G. Jung's 'The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga' courtesy Gary Sparks



"So we are all in the roots, we are upon our root support. ('Root support' is the literal translation of muladhara.)"

"Therefore we may assume that the way out of our muladhara existence leads into the water."

"That woman entangled in the roots is just entangled in her personal life."

"[M]uladhara is here, the life of this earth, and here the god is asleep."

"Kundalini ... means to separate the gods from the world so that they become active ... ."

"[T]he convictions of the muladhara world are very necessary. It is exceedingly important that you are rational, that you believe in the definiteness of our world, that this world is the culmination of history, the most desirable thing. Such a conviction is absolutely vital. Otherwise you remain detached from the muladhara—you never get there, you are never born, even. There are plenty of people who are not yet born. They seem to be all here, they walk about—but as a matter of fact, they are not yet born, because they are behind a glass wall, they are in the womb. They are in the world only on parole and are soon to be returned to the pleroma where they started originally. They have not formed a connection with this world; they are suspended in the air; they are neurotic, living the provisional life."

"[I]t is utterly important that one should be in this world, that one really fulfills one's entelechia [the urge of realization, the gem of life which one is. Otherwise you can never start Kundalini; you can never detach. ... You must believe in this world, make roots, do the best you can ... so that [some] trace is left of you. For you should leave some trace in this world which notifies that you have been here, that something has happened. ... [I]f you touch the reality in which you live, and stay for several decades, if you leave your trace, then the impersonal process can begin. You see, the shoot must come out of the ground, and if the personal spark has never gotten into the ground, nothing will come out of it; no ... Kundalini will be there."

"[I]n muladhara we are just identical. We are entangled in the roots, and we ourselves are the roots. We make roots, we cause roots to be, we are rooted in the soil, and there is no getting away for us, because we must be there as long as we live."

"I want to call your attention to the animal symbolism of which I have not yet spoken. You know that the series of animals begins in muladhara with the elephant that supports the earth, meaning that tremendous urge which supports human consciousness, the power that forces us to build such a conscious world. To the Hindu the elephant functions as the symbol of the domesticated libido, parallel to the image of the horse with us. It means the force of consciousness, the power of will, the ability to do what one wants to do."

"[M]uladhara is the symbol of our present psychic situation, because we live entangled in earthly causalities. It represents the entanglement and dependence of our conscious life as it actually is. Muladhara is not just the outer world as we live in it; it is our total consciousness of all outer and inner personal experiences."