Q - Dear Mukunda,
I very much resonated with my first Tratak practice, i have not practiced or been fully instructed on this before and look forward to regular practice.
In Tantra lesson 5, you mention the nadi’s ending in ten openings of the body, which does not include the vagina, interestingly later that evening i found myself reading your Forward to Uma Dinsmore - Tuli’s book Mother’s Breath and you discuss the concept of the ‘nine gated city’ in classical yoga, which you say does not include the vagina and that women have ten openings, is the difference in numbers here the fontannel seen as a nadi channel but not an opening? It interested me but also confused me a little can you clarify this for me?
A - Let me step back a bit and give a larger perspective of the subtle body. The gross anatomy of the 8 physical openings in men and 9 in women this is the gross openings that soon upon entry are no longer physical but in the subtle body as channels of consciousness called nadis. The other end of the nadis is the subtlest of the subtle body, a hidden heart often referred to as a cave, where all nadis originate. In tantra lessons I am speaking of my experience that women have more nadis than men. But this is not the tradition. The teaching is that the urethra is the 9th opening for men and women and the fontanel is the 10th but only when it becomes awakened. So the number for men and women should both be 9 unless there is awakening of the fontanel. The vaginal canal for some reason is not considered as a nadi in classical yoga tantra. In Uma's book I speak of this as a discrepancy, due to male version of anatomy, they leave out the birth canal. So this really means women have 11 nadi openings upon awakening and 10 otherwise. Namaste mukunda
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