Brow chakra

Brow chakra (Ajna)

The two-petalled lotus flower, the so-called brow chakra or forehead chakra (Sanskrit: आज्ञा Ājñā [aːɟɲaː] "the perceiving"), also known as the third eye or the spiritual eye, is one of the seven chakras, the main soul organs of perception in the human astral body. It is located just above the root of the nose. It is set into action when the consciousness soul is transformed into the imagination soul. In the course of the modern Rosicrucian path of spiritual training, it is activated as the first soul organ of perception. Its two wings or leaves then first point gropingly like two astral tentacles into the soul's outer world. When what they experience begins to be imprinted in the etheric body, imaginative cognition, conscious astral clairvoyance, lights up. Although other lotuses also convey imaginative experiences, the two-petalled lotus is nevertheless the main sense of imagination.

The concept of the "spiritual eye" goes back at least to Cicero, who speaks of the mentis oculi in his discussion of the appropriate use of the simile by the speaker. However, Cicero clearly does not refer to a real spiritual faculty of perception, as it is only given by the imagination, but to a sensual faculty of imagination that is as concrete as possible. For parables, he recommends speakers to use vivid images from their own experience and not those they have merely heard of, „for the eyes of the spirit are more easily directed to the objects we have seen than to those we have only heard“. Rudolf Steiner now explains that sensual perception, the sensual imaginative faculty and real imagination, which is a non-sensory, purely mental perception, actually make use of the same mental organ, namely precisely the two-leaved lotus flower, albeit in quite different ways. When the activity of the two-petalled lotus located between the eyebrows turns inwards, the capacity for external, sensual perception arises. When its "astral tentacles" turn outwards, imagination arises. (Lit.:GA 115, p. 54)

The two-petalled lotus flower also marks the I-point through which self-awareness (Sanskrit: अहंकार ahaṃkāra, literally: "I-maker", from ahaṃ "I, ego" and kāra "making", from the root kṛ (kri) "doing", from which the term "karma" is also derived) awakens.

At the same time as the two-petalled lotus flower, the throat chakra, the 16-petalled lotus flower, which mainly conveys inspiration, is also trained to a certain degree in modern initiation, so that a certain basic understanding and a corresponding orientation in what is seen clairvoyantly is possible. That is why both lotuses were depicted in the middle section of the red west window of the first Goetheanum, which was intended to artistically represent the experience of imagination.

According to the findings of the German mystic and Jakob Böhme disciple Johann Georg Gichtel, the forehead chakra interacts with the Jupiter sphere. According to yoga teachings, its colour is indigo blue.

In Egyptian mythology, the "third eye" is symbolised by the Uraeus serpent.

See also

• Chakra

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophie – Psychosophie – Pneumatosophie, GA 115 (2001) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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