Concentration and the Centres of Energy in the Subtle Body

People constantly ask whether they should concentrate focused in the heart, between the eyebrows or above the head. The short answer is “yes”. Each centre of concentration relies on a different power of action. In the end, what is more important is the action of concentration itself. An individual will find that one or another of these centres of concentration provides an opening, or a more powerful action, and he will naturally set his focus in that area. It is also true, however, that at different times in the progress of the sadhana, the concentration will naturally shift from one to another centre depending on the need of that particular passage in the course of spiritual growth.

There are other centres of concentration that may find their place in the development of concentration for different aims or purposes. For the sadhak of the integral yoga focusing on the psychic and spiritual transformation called for in that yoga, the three noted above are the most usual and the most useful. Other spiritual paths have focused on other centres, for instance, the practices of kundalini yoga seek to awaken the serpent power sleeping at the base of the spine in the first chakra. Certain Chinese paths have focused in concentration centered in the solar plexus.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “One can concentrate in any of the three centres which is easiest to the sadhak or gives most result. The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all fully to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening.”

“This is what is called in this yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental, vital, physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual nature) consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in this yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement then the Power from above has in its descent to pen all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difficulty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difficulties can be greatly minimised.”

“The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one’s mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and the integral change of the being and nature.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter IV Concentration, pp. 45-46