Arohan and Awarohan

Arohan and Awarohan are two Psychic Passageways. Session 2 of the 20 Tantric Kriyas

Last month I started us on a series of 20 Tantric Kriyas, with the first one being Viparita Karani Mudra. This month I will introduce you to a rotation of consciousness that is a foundational practice for many of the kriyas in this series. This technique can be found in my book Letters from the Yoga Masters on page 148. I have also created a short 6 minute video to help you with the process, which you will find just below this article. This video, and all the featured kriyas are here on our SOYA Youtube channel, as well. 

There will be some variations added on to this practice as you move through the kriyas, so let’s get to know how to do it.

There are two psychic passages that we will follow with our mind during this practice. Arohan is the ascending psychic pathway, and awarohan is the descending one.

Arohan begins at the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine and proceeds up the front of the body to svadhisthana, manipura, anahata, vishuddhi, and across the throat to bindu (the fontanel at the back of the head).

Awarohan descends from the bindu, over to ajña, across the throat to vishuddhi, and down the back of the body to anahata, manipura, svadhisthana, and muladhara.

As we breathe in, we feel the sensation of the energy rising up the front of the body and across the throat to the bindu, and as we breathe out we feel the sensation of the energy descending from ajña down the back of the body. The flow of consciousness is elliptical, and in a figure 8. Your attention moves from chakra to chakra as the chakra names are repeated, and your head moves with it. This means, you begin with your chin lowered and you have a downward gaze toward muladhara. As you move up the chakras, the head moves up. At the throat, the chin is parallel to the floor, and when your attention moves to the bindu, the chin is slightly upward. Then you do the reverse on the way back down… at ajña the chin is slightly up, at vishuddhi the chin is parallel to the floor, and the head continues to lower all the way back down.

I suggest you create a drawing like the one included here so you can follow the chakras visually until you get familiar with their locations. If you are unfamiliar with the Sanskrit names for each chakra, here is a list of them in English for you, from top to bottom.

• Ajña – brow
• Bindu – back of the head where the hair whorls in a circle
• Vishuddhi – throat
• Anahata – heart
• Manipura – solar plexus
• Svadhisthana – sacral
• Muladhara – root, base of the spine

This rotation of consciousness is a beautiful technique that can be practiced as a meditation on its own. It will help you to internally cognize the location of your chakras in the subtle body, and take you inward to a lovely, quiet, inner space. And we can never get too much of that!

Marion Mugs McConnell is the author of Letters from the Yoga Masters: Teachings Revealed through Correspondence from Paramhhansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Sivananda, and Others, published by North Atlantic Books copyright © 2016 ISBN 978-1-62317-035-6. This is an excerpt of the book, and reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books