Language of the Gods, Part Three: Tantra and Chakras, with Debashish Banerji

Debashish Banerji, PhD, is former Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles as well as an adjunct faculty member at Pasadena City College and the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the former director of the East West Cultural Center in Los Angeles. He is author of Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformative Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Sri Aurobindo and also The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore, a book about his great grandfather. He edited an anthology about his great uncle, Rabindranath Tagore in the Twenty-First Century.

Here he focuses on the more esoteric aspects of the Sanskrit tradition, particularly as embodied in Tantra. Whereas traditional Vedanta teachings emphasize the attainment of spiritual freedom by abandoning all desire, in Tantra the emphasis is placed on the fulfillment of all desires. Tantric traditions also elaborate in great detail the subtle bodies of the human being, include nodes of awareness called Chakras and pathways between these Chakras called Nadis. There are seven Chakras starting at the base of the spine and rising up to the “Thousand Petalled Lotus” above the top of the head. Each of these is associated with a different focus of consciousness. Each is also associated with a different Hindu goddess. Through Tantric meditation one achieves an awareness of the unique powers associated with each goddess.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He serves as dean of transformational psychology at the University of Philosophical Research. He teaches parapsychology for ministers in training with the Centers for Spiritual Living through the Holmes Institute. He has served as vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of its Pathfinder Award for outstanding contributions to the field of human consciousness. He is also past-president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people are encouraged to cultivate and apply their inner, intuitive abilities.

(Recorded on December 19, 2015)