to practice the Tantric methods without a teacher makes himself
very ill. So the Tantras have got a bad name both in the West and
here in India. A good many of the American " occult " books now
sold are scraps of the Tantras which have been translated. One
difficulty is that these Tantric works often use the name of a
bodily organ to represent an astral or mental centre. There is
some reason in that because all the centres are connected with
each other from body to body; but no reliable teacher would set
his pupil to work on the bodily organs until he had some control
over the higher centres, and had carefully purified the physical
body. Knowing the one helps you to know the other, and the
teacher who has been through it all can place his pupil on the
right path; but it you take up these words, which are all
physical, and do not know to what the physical word is applied,
then you will only become very confused, and may injure yourself.
For instance, in one of the Sutras it is said that if you
meditate on a certain part of the tongue you will obtain astral
sight. That means that if you meditate on the pituitary body,
just over this part of the tongue, astral sight will be opened.
The particular word used to refer to a centre has a
correspondence in the physical body, and the word is often
applied to the physical organs when the other is meant. This is
what is called a " blind," and it is intended to keep the people
away from dangerous practices in the books that are published;
people may meditate on that part of their tongues all their lives
without anything coming of it; but if they think upon the
corresponding centre in the body, a good dealÄmuch harmÄmay come
of it. " Meditate on the navel," it is also said. This means the
solar plexus, for there is a close connection between the two.
But to meditate on that is to incur the danger of a serious