Chapter 3

Modern medicine works with the physical aspect of our machine but almost completely neglects the spiritual aspect. Spiritual well-being is important to our general well being. Spiritual well being, like physical well being, depends on the proper functioning and balance of our human machine. If the balance and functioning of the spiritual element of our machine is to improve we must be willing to accept the task of consciously making the improvements. Improvement does not happen automatically. We must become doctors to our spiritual selves. An important place to begin the process of improving our spiritual wellness is found in our centers.

There are five lower centers and two higher centers involved in the functioning of the human machine. These centers cannot be physically isolated and yet the existence of these centers and the functions they perform are most evident. The five lower centers are the sex center, the instinctive center, the moving center, the emotional center and the intellectual center. The two higher centers are the higher emotional center and the higher intellectual center. These seven centers work at different speeds and use different energies. The centers are responsible for the management of our life energy.

At birth the centers are usually working properly but because we learn to think in unprofitable ways and develop wasteful identifications, the five lower centers become imbalanced. The five lower centers rob each other of energy and do the wrong work. For example, the emotional center does the work of the intellectual center or the moving center does the work of the intellectual center. The two higher centers work well; the imbalanced lower centers prevent the energy and clear thinking occurring within the higher emotional and the higher intellectual center from entering into the spiritual process of the human machine. This is important to understand. Spiritual development is a matter of causing the worldly elements of our lives to become properly valued and balanced in a way that allows our spiritual energy the opportunity to influence and thereby transform our lives.

The sex center’s energy is creative and transformational and should work in harmony with the other centers. The energy a properly functioning sex center brings to the operations of the human machine is dynamic. Unfortunately, the intellectual, emotional and moving centers are seldom functioning well enough to make good use of the sex center’s energies. The lower centers usually simply steal energy from the sex center, and because they are not balanced well enough to work with this type of energy they malfunction. This malfunction can be recognized as an unusual intensity in the activities of the center. The moving center becomes obsessed with being the strongest or the fastest. The emotional center promotes an often obsessively intensive identification to groups of ideologies that may for example preach the wrath of God or even promote killing in the name of God or Allah. The intellectual center begins to argue or criticize almost everything.

The instinctive center is responsible for the physical balance and timing of the human machine. It regulates the heart beat, the breath, the orderly work of the organs and the five senses in general. In most instances the instinctive center is working well enough to allow for spiritual development.

The moving center manages the learned motions of the human machine, walking and talking for example. The intellectual center initiates learning, and as the task is learned the moving center is given control of the task. The moving center operates at a much quicker speed than the intellectual center. The increased speed of operation allows us to do complex tasks without giving them much thought. If we had to think about every thing we do, accomplishing a task could be exhausting. Many of our habits are maintained in the moving center. From the first and second levels of consciousness we allow the moving center to perform many of the tasks that should be accomplished by the intellectual and the emotional centers. Take the task of reading for example. The intellectual center and the moving center are responsible for reading. The digestion of the material being read requires thought. When the moving center is given the task of reading, the process becomes automatic. The words are read but the ideas being presented by the words go undigested; the words have no meaning. Constant talking is another example of the moving center wasting energy.

People tend to talk and talk. We talk about everything and usually our conversations reflect thoughts and emotions formed around habitual wrong thinking, imagination and negative emotions. Even when we are alone we talk to ourselves. We talk to ourselves about how we are mistreated, misunderstood and unappreciated. We daydream about imaginary situations and go on and on within ourselves about our imagined strife. We can conserve energy by learning to observe ourselves as we talk. We can save energy by stopping the internal dialogue. Another example of the wrong work of the moving center is the unnecessary muscle tension that happens within our bodies. Huge amounts of energy are lost in useless muscle tension. We can save this energy by observing ourselves and learning to relax the unnecessary tension.

The emotional center is responsible for the proper digestion of our impressions. Proper functioning of the emotional center is critical to our spiritual well being. Love, generosity and kindness are some of the positive manifestations of our emotional center. Hate, greed, and jealousy are some of the negative manifestations of our emotional center. The wrong work of the emotional center occurs when the emotions are allowed to become habitual or negative. Negative emotions have no place in our lives. Negative emotions are wasteful habitual reactions that prevent our spiritual growth. Therefore, self observation directed specifically toward the emotional center and its emotionally negative malfunction is essential to spiritual development.

The intellectual center handles the thought process. It formulates ideas that are translated into books. It digests problems. It thinks about situations and initiates actions that can be taken in order to solve problems. The intellectual center puts the pieces of the puzzle together. Imagining all the problems that might befall us is an example of the wrong work of the intellectual center. For example, when the intellectual center attempts to do the work of the instinctive center the intellectual center begins to think about all the things that can go wrong with the physical operations of our machine. It begins to imagine all the illnesses and breakdowns that the machine might have. And its negative imagination regarding these situations can cause us to think that we are ill. Self observation will show us that much of our time and energy is spent in negative imaginations.

The higher emotional center and the higher intellectual center feel and think about life in an entirely different way. The power or energy of the two higher centers is the power or energy that the spiritually enlightened have learned to access.

We ascribe to ourselves the attributes of a balanced machine. We think that we can do the things that a high performance spiritual machine can do. We must understand that before we can perform like a highly developed spiritual machine we must take steps to improve the inner workings of this machine. Reeducating the five lower centers to do the jobs they are designed to do will greatly improve our lives. Proper functioning of the lower centers will allow us to come in contact with the two higher centers. The life experience that is possible when we come in contact with the higher centers is profound.