SAHASRARA CHAKRA

The Thousand Petaled Lotus, or the Thousand Spoked Wheel, are names given to this centre also known as the Crown Chakra.  It is the highest point of the psycho-spiritual body that the chakras and other pranic systems form.  In some schools of yoga it is not regarded as a chakra, but beyond them.  Thus it is sometimes situated within the upper head, where it is regarded also as the `brahmic fissure` or `brahmarandhra`, or above the head outside the physical body.

It is here that the united forces of Shiva and Shakti (or Parvati, Shiva`s wife), are said to reside.  Saivites – devotees of Shiva – regard this point as the equivalent of Mount Kailasa, the Himalayan home of Shiva and Parvati.  In general in yoga this point is regarded as the point of our highest development.  It is in this centre that Sushumna ends, allowing the final merging of the forces of opposites within the body.  The Kundalini power which has travelled all the way up from the Muladhara Chakra, passing in turn through all the lower chakras, now merges with the masculine force of Shiva to create the enlightened, balanced Self.

The significance of the Brahmarandhra is that it is one of the eleven portals or gateways from the body.  For most ordinary people at death the life force is said to leave via one of the physical openings – ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, anus or excretory/generative organs.  For accomplished and realised yogis the life force is said to leave via the Brahmarandhra.