Secret Chakras or 4th Dantien
I have been extremely fortunate to learn about certain chakras that most methods and traditions do not know about. I am talking about the chakras below and above the physical body, as you can see from the pictures attached.
I remember my beloved teacher Sivakami saying that there is a push from the masters in inner realms trying to bring knowledge and practices relating to these centers back to humanity because they have so much positive impact, i.e. because they are spiritually so powerful. I am certain that these centers have been known much more widely in ancient times than they are now.
In buddhism there are "bhumis" or grounds, written in old sutras such as the Avatamsaka and yet there is not a single buddhist lineage that uses them or knows how to use them and it is rare to find a buddhist master ever even mention them. Even though most buddhists don't know about bhumi chakras, just recently the wonderful Garchen Rinpoche clarified their meaning by saying,
"As Milarepa has said: the empty clear mind just becomes increasingly clear as you keep meditating. That's what we call the Bhumis and the paths, the different stages. Even though they're given different names, it's just an increasing becoming clear of your natural state... So this is how the four yogas really are a gradual development of the realization of the mind. So even though we count and list different Bhumis and different paths and there's different teachings on that, this is really how we should see it.
This is also a very important teaching, the most important teaching by Milarepa where he said that the so-called Bhumis and the paths are the progressive realization or recognition of the clear and empty nature of the mind. The Bhumis and the paths are nothing but signs or road signs so you know where to go. You know where you're at. So practitioners need some kind of signs so they know they're on the right track.”
from Garchen Rinpoche's introduction to the Four Yogas of Mahamudra (May 13th 2021), translated by Ina Bieler
In a bit more cryptic manner but still clearly the Secret of the Golden Flower, a taoist-buddhist text from few hundred years ago says,
"The ancients' method of transcending the world, refining away the dregs of darkness to restore pure light, is just a matter of dissolving the lower soul and making the higher soul whole". (2:14)
In taoist terms, the mentioned higher bhumis (that relate directly to the chakras below and above the body) would be called the fourth dantien. I am not that learned about the variety of taoist methods but if I remember correctly the fourth dantien is mentioned and taught by Mantak Chia, famous taoist teacher, although I have not seen it mentioned by others. It is worthy to mention that the formerly buddhist esoteric practitioner Mikao Usui (1865-1926), who discovered and taught reiki, a form of spiritual cultivation and healing included fourth dantien, i.e. the body's external centers in his system. In kriya yoga, a form of internal yoga taught by Mahasiddha Babaji to his Indian student/s that is widely spoken in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda, the heart and soul of the method are these centers. My zen art master Terayama Roshi from Tokyo practiced the 4th dantien daily, both through chi gong and zen calligraphy.
So, from what I have seen over the past decades there are bits and pieces of the fourth dantien or bhumi chakras as we call them in Amrita Mandala method, here and there...
But people should really learn about them because connecting the bodymind with them is like hooking into a source of pure love and pure energetical power that to borrow the words from the Secret of the Golden Flower, "dissolves the lower soul and makes the higher soul whole", i.e. dispels self-centered confusion and habits, and makes the human energy system or psyche whole.
There are all kinds of little secrets and things that would make the path so much easier to lot of people if they only knew about them.
Monsoon blessings,
-Baba, 19 March 23, Amrita Mandala Sangha