As a teenager I was always tormented by a driven sense of ill-ease, which remained a mysterious motivating stress, I could not sit still for long, if not walking I would often run to try and find release from this hidden and perplexing “cramp” which I knew was somehow connected with my navel region but seemingly unknown other than alluded to by instinctive & intuitive words and phrases such as (having)”guts” (being)”gutless”,”butterflies in pit of stomach”, which seemed to point to something, yet not identify it exactly
When I first read Adi Da’s book “The Method of The Siddha’s” — the penny dropped–The vital center was here clearly explained to be like the lens of a camera and in the “usual man ” given to locking up compulsively and unknowingly, as a “knot” or “cramp”. I found this knowledge to be wonderfully liberating and clarifying, clearly identifying for the first time exactly what this compulsive ill-ease was all about.
It was a real starting point for me, just having had the most basic source of my apparently mysterious torment described and identified was a true beginning and I naturally resolved from that point to go through what ever process was necessary to take responsibility for it.
As far as I know, Adi Da is the only contemporary teacher, who speaks with real wisdom and direct knowledge about the vital center in man. Elsewhere it is usually referred to as the navel chakra and overlooked to some extent as to its true importance in the total anatomy of the body mind.
Now many years later thanks to the Grace of Adi Da Samraj my Sat-Guru and Teacher, I am only really beginning to understand this mechanism and its enormous impact on life as we commonly know it. Many people may find this wisdom useful, there are several online texts available which directly address the vital & vital shock, this is perhaps the best source, vital shock
The usual person lives in the state that I call “vital shock”. Ultimately, this shock includes more than the vital. Indeed, this shock operates even on a very subtle level. But its most obvious (and directly motivating) form is the sense of shock in the vital being. Ordinarily, the vital-at its chief center in the middle of the body-is contracted. You constantly feel that contraction, even physically. You may feel a kind of cramp, a tension in the middle of the body. And everyone constantly tries to relieve that tension through various experiences, various pleasures.
The vital center is like the shutter of a camera. It curls in on itself in order to close, and unfurls in order to open. It is like your hand. If you clench your fist as tightly as you can, it eventually becomes painful. Like your hand, the vital center is alive, sentient-and, like your hand, the vital, when it contracts, causes a painful sensation. Indeed, it causes not only a physical sensation, but also many other repercussions in life and conscious awareness. Therefore, when this contraction occurs in the vital, you not only get a cramp in the stomach-you have an entire life of suffering.
Adi Da Samraj
