Seven Little Known Birds of the Inner Eye

by Mulk Raj Anand

  Under the elaborate structure of the cerebral cortex, almost driven up by the higher convolutions connected by the oculomotor nerve with the brain, survives the thalamus, the remnant of the primitivist storm centre of the brain, the source of all the vitalities which the progenitors of man, from jellyfish to ape, have bequeathed to us (Fig. 27).

  There is scientific evidence that the source of action and sensation is located in the sensory and directing motor centres of the thalamus and the corpus striatum, both of which receive and pass on messages to their subsidiaries.5 The thalamus is the chief sensory centre; the corpus striatum is the chief motor centre in the cortex of the brain. The usual function of the thalamus is to receive sensations from all parts of the body and relay them simultaneously to the spinal cord even before they reach the grey matter. The thalamus bird transmits messages quickly, impatiently, simultaneously (Fig. 28).

  The thalamus is the reflex centre in the brain, all impressions ascend to it, and it relays everything to the spinal cord; thus, yoga philosophy suggests possibilities of control of this organ to prevent distraction of the mind from too many sensational impressions. The core of the thalamus, on a level with the root of the nose, can be controlled by breathing exercises. This sensory basal ganglion of the brain is curiously white in colour and yet it gives the most hot-blooded responses, and asks impetuous questions. But it helps the primary optical effects of visual and memory images, as well as sounds, to go further through the vibrations which are behind every interrogation.

  27. Primitive thalamus within the brain.

  28. Thalamus bird.

  And this response immediately connects with the higher functions of the cerebral cortex, through its own reservoir of instinctive urges and up rushes, and with the lumbar ganglion and the nervous system The nerves work by electrical signals and are in contact with all the far-flung activities of the protoplasm, where move the sensations, feelings, desires, fears, hopes and purposive aspirations seeking to perfect themselves in man. The link between the thalamus and the circuit of the senses is mainly through the vertebral column, the tree which spreads its tentacles into our metabolism and through which the messages reach down into the inner life.

  The primitiveness of man has often been made into a myth. In The Faerie Queene,6 by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, the wild man is a homely figure:

  For other language had he none nor speech

  But a soft murmure and confused sound

  Of senselesse words (which Nature did him teach

  T'express his passions) which his reason did empeach.

  Spenser's description can obviously be used to illustrate the activities of the thalamus in primitive man. The reactions of different animals, such as tigers, frogs and men, are themselves different. Of course, man's thalamus is more developed because it secures the help of the directing will. Man acts from awareness of danger, but is fortified in his will by the spear. The frog is confused and sees only a vague pattern of the encounter, if he sees anything at all.

  The thalamus is the first real vital centre of the whole body, after the eyes have done their work. It is the electric switch of the emotions and the motor force which touches off images and desires.

  The thalamus may be a primitive instrument, but it is the principal apparatus for transmitting experiences. In this primary brain, surviving from our animal ancestors, lies the first confrontation, the first effort at understanding the environment, and also, possibly, a powerful incentive for the creative instinct. Apart from other stirrings, it excites rapid breathing and faster heartbeats. All rough contacts and shocks are registered by the thalamus. It may dazzle the vision by obsession with a colour, it may evoke the energies of comparison and contrast with other colours and it may beckon sounds to start the search for a symphony.7

  Such a source of motivation as the primitive thalamus may thus supply the inspiration and often set the directions of the whole body-soul.8 The drift of the primary sensation may determine the character of a whole work of art. In response to one colour, the thalamus may arouse the passion for another colour, as if to balance the first. In response to a line in empty space, the thalamus may stir up waves that supply many potential answers.

  The "spiritual" life is ultimately shaped by the coordination of all the faculties of man. But it is likely that the first decisive battle of instincts, emotions and ideas takes place at the convergence of the thalamus, the cerebral cortex and the vertebral column. The intrusions from this intermediary world may be transient, but they supply the "cause'' whose consequences are as different as the great variety of individuals and their experiences. In the Tantric philosophy, the thalamus part of the brain is like a conch shell or shankh, coiling outwards in expansion and emitting its resonances (Fig. 29).

  Although the character of the thalamus is similar in most human beings, the reactions of different people to phenomena such as works of art may differ. In some people, or in all people at different times, the capacity of the thalamus may be limited by the development (or lack of it) of the potential energy to send messages to the brain (Fig. 30) and to the spinal cord. In most people the message from the thalamus goes to the spinal column before it goes to the brain.

  Thus some people ask the question "What?" as they stand before a work of art, stare and pass on without wanting to see; while some sit down before the painting or sculpture, allowing the body-soul to absorb the impact; and still others return after the preliminary look because the shock of surprise, wonder, or other sensations given by the thalamus has persisted.

  The fact that the thalamus invariably asks questions serves an important organic purpose in the life of man. Thus the question-mark bird cannot be despised. But it is kept so busy in its role as an intermediary, opening up the inner life of fears, hopes, hatreds, frustrations and desires, that we have to rely on all the processes deeper down in the protoplasm to allow for more intense experiences.

  Being a primitive organism, the thalamus avoids the difficult, the complex, the equivocal, as they come from the windows of the eyes and along the film of memory images. It may, however, transfer to the body-soul certain fundamental form-giving interpretations, like mass, distance and volume, through its primary vibrations.

  29. Thalamus bird in brain.

  30. Sending messages to brain and spinal cord.

  31. Birds dimly roused.

  Of course, it brings material for absorption to the hungry inner life. And ultimately it helps the body-soul to synthesise experiences by transmitting all our urges to the brain and into the spine. It is the challenging bird, with its enthusiastic delights and disgusts, its capacity for raising obstacles and for yielding to the brain and the whole inner life.

  If we wish to value the genuine emotional connection with colours, lines and forms, the "quick," as D.H. Lawrence called it, in works of art, then we must consider the thalamus as a biological asset, for it brings the concrete feelings of the individual into focus until they are utilised through contemplation, supplementation and rationalisation into the organic human personality. The passionate psychological interest of this primitive underbrain, the flesh-and-blood response of the senses and the glandular vibrations connected with the nervous ganglion, perfected through mutational changes, supply the dynamics of every pictorial or plastic situation long before reason or practical good-sense can enter. Therefore it is important not to slur over the first vital and alive response of our middle brain before we move on to the cortical effects of our upper-brain intellectualism. Each one of us is alive with the thalamus, because this bird is in constant vibration. It arouses all the seven birds, even if dimly (Fig. 31), but its influence on the rhythm bird is intense (Fig. 32).

  32. Intense influence on the rhythm bird.

  4: The Rhythm Bird

  33. Yoga pose.

  34. Rhythm bird flies off.

  IF THE thalamus bird, the question-mark bird, or the tuftknot bird, as I have called the third messenger, takes us only to the departure point at
the confluence of memory, brain and spinal cord, then we have to go down into the depths below depths, along the vertebral column, to the sources of our rhythmic life in the unconscious, and towards the kundalini energy, before we can begin more fully to absorb visual experiences.

  The Hindu Tantra philosophy has worked out the modes of contemplation for stirring the depths of the kundalini and opening the various lotuses of the body. This is shown in the yoga pose indicating the stirring of the various lotuses (Fig. 33).

  The rhythm bird flies off airily in all of us (Fig. 34). I think that everyone is familiar with the kind of shiver, tremor or seismographic wave in the spine which sometimes makes the "hair stand on end'' when a melody or a strain of instrumental music moves us. (We have all felt it when a dog suddenly barks at us, or a bee is about to sting us.)

  Now, it is an established fact of the science of life that, whenever the body responds to the outside world, our nerves carry the messages swiftly. As Robert Campbell has written, "Because the nervous system is so acutely responsive and perceptive, it is a 'bundle of nerves.'" The fear of a bee sting can start a series of intricate responses. There are well over 100,000 miles of nerve fibers in the human body, and signals are continually travelling at tip to 300 miles an hour.1 Moreover, within this amazing network there are several different systems.

  One part of this maze, shown in a section of the spinal cord, is the central nervous organism connecting the brain, the heart and the spinal cord. From here nerves fan out through the body. And the nerve cells or neurons communicate with one another in times of danger or wonder or mere looking.

  In the yoga philosophy, the spinal cord is described as the communicator of the motor and sensory vibrations, and forms a complex that is vital for all life currents. Campbell describes the character of the spinal cord in contemporary biological terms:

  The basic unit of all this complex circulatory system, making possible everything from the blinking of an eye to the writing of an opera, is the nerve cell or neuron. Among all the cells of the body, neurons are unique in many ways. For one thing they are highly irritable and respond immediately to the slightest prod. And whereas most cells live out their lives in the relative isolation of some organ, our other tissues and neurons communicate with one another over vast distances.2

  At any moment of clanger, in the face of startling sensation or disturbance, the neurons come into play, connecting up and passing messages at terrific speed to the brain, which dictates action, excites the proper functioning of the vagus nerve and stimulates the inspiration and expiration of air from the outside world.3 The spinal cord is the column through which these interconnections take place. As Campbell testifies,

  the butterfly-shaped centre of the cord is composed of a vast number of interconnecting neurons, capable of switching signals to other neurons. It also contains the cell bodies of motor neurons . . . that send their fibres out to the many muscles of the body. The white matter of the cord is made up of innumerable nerve traits that travel upwards to relay messages from the senses to the brain, . . . as well as countless other nerves . . . travelling up and down from the brain to all levels of the cord.4

  Krishna Reddy's engraving indicates the possibilities of the life of the body in the protoplasm, igniting responses ranging from sensations, emotions, desires, hopes and fears up to purposive thoughts and imagination (Fig. 35).

  35. Engraving by Krishna Reddy.

  In the context of seeing a work of art, the messages transmitted by the neurons seem to contract or relax the muscles, so that some hitherto unanalysed movements take place at the end of the spine in the lumbar ganglion. These movements influence the whole body-soul, and involve it in the state of seeing.

  Undoubtedly the area of the lumbar ganglion, which is associated in yoga with the "mysterious kundalini"5 is the seat of powerful urges of the "serpent power'' that lies dormant in the unconscious. The Tantra philosophy calls it the queen of life which survives in the vertebrate animals by breathing. It is also considered the source of health, of sleep, of dreams and of all deeper stirrings. According to the philosophy of the kundalini, the farther a man plumbs the depths of his personality in rest, the more deeply he may be able to ally himself with the rhythms and energies which the artist has made manifest in the formation of lines, the sweep of colours or the structure of a composition. For "the centre where all residual sensations are, as it were, stored up is called muladhara-chakra, and the coiled-up energy of actions is kundalini, the coiled up."6 The connection between the afferent and efferent fibres of the vagus nerve, as in the diagram (Fig. 36), shows the intricacy of the dialectic situation.

  The serenity, or poise, in which the artist was supposed to seek contact with the inner sources of rhythm was indicated in Hindu psychology fairly accurately. The necessity of achieving dhayana mantra (project picture) before starting to make the work of art was enjoined to craftsmen.7 The artist was asked to pray and to brood on the theme or to stimulate concentration on the image. This injunction was obviously based on the belief that the organisation of forms arises from the impact of outer experience on the underworld of the jungle of feelings, emotions and urges. The vasanas, or energies and sounds, come from the organic image and resurrect awareness from the deeps into actual shape or form, and with a perception of a ray of beauty, truth or joy.

  As the ancient writers were aware of the difficulty of every craftsman performing yogic exercises and prayers as a preliminary to creative work, they suggested the easier mode of cultivating the dhayana mantra in dreams, where some of the reflexes of the subconscious are registered in essence and symbol. The image-maker is instructed to pray on the night before beginning his work and after ceremonial purification: "Oh Thou Lord of all Gods, teach me in-dreams how to carry out the work I have in my mind."8

  The contact with the rhythms of the subliminal world through dreams which was recommended to the craftsmen is also essential for the onlooker. The spectator is supposed to bring almost as much sensitivity to the work of art as its creator. The "lineaments of images are determined by the adorer."9

  36. Intricacy of dialectic situation

  (Courtesy. Taraporevala and Sons).

  37. Chakras (Courtesy, Taraporevala and Sons).

  From the centres of psychic force, the chakras, and their relations with the simple unconscious and complex conscious, afferent and efferent channels of the autonomic nervous system, comes energy (Fig. 37), The Hindus emphasise the mysterious vagus nerve, the six plexuses of the sympathetic and the course of the vagus nerve (Fig. 38).

  Buddhist architectural forms are built upon the principle of the excitation of responses by the various chakras (Fig. 39). In the psychophysical analysis of the Buddhists, the chakras are said to be located one above the other in the human body. Consciousness develops through these in the following ascending order; at first we have the experience of sense objects, then of pure mental objects, later the supramundane consciousness of enlightenment, placed on the head of the Buddha. Lama Anagarika Govinda has interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine as follows:

  The chakras as radiating centres of pyschic force give a new impetus to the interpretation of the human body as a cosmic manifestation. Not only was the spinal column compared to Mount Meru, the axis of the universe, called meru-danda, but the whole psychophysical organism was explained in terms of solar and lunar forces, which, through live channels, the so-called nadis, streams, moved up and down between the seven chakras which in their turn represented the elementary qualities of which the universe is built, and of which the material elements are only visible reflexes.

  The most important nadis are: the "median nerve," Sushumananadi (Tibetan: druma-tsa), running through the centre of the spinal column, and two nadis, Ida (Tibetan: Kyangama-tsa) and Pingala (Tibetan: Roma-tsa), which coil round the "median nerve" in opposite directions, the pale white-coloured Ida starting from the left, the red-coloured Pingala from the right.

  Ida is the conductor of lunar or moo
n-like (chandra-svarupa) forces, which have the regenerative properties and the unity of undifferentiated subconscious life as represented by the latent creativeness of seed, egg and semen, in which all chthonic-telluric cults are centred. Pingala is the vehicle of solar forces (surva-svarupa, "sun-like"), which have the properties of intellectual activity, representing the conscious, differentiated, individualised life.

  Individualisation, however, in separating itself from its origin, is as death-spelling as knowledge severed from the sources of life. This is why wisdom and compassion (prajna and karuna) must be united for the attainment of liberation.

  And for the same reason Pingala, the solar energy, without the regenerating influence of Ida, the lunar energy, acts like a poison, while even the elixir of immortality (amrita), to which the regenerating lunar energy is compared, has no value without the light of knowledge.

  But in the life of the ordinary individual, this synthesis, which would stimulate the dormant faculties of the various psychic centres to a state of divine harmony and power, does not take place, because only the bodily discipline and mental concentration of yoga cause the latent human energies of the root centre (sahasrara-chakra) to rise from centre to centre until the thousand-petalled lotus (as the sahasrara-chakra is also called), the seat of latent solar energies, is reached and vitalised through this union and set free to permeate the whole physical and spiritual organism of the individual.10

  38. Six plexuses of Western anatomy.

  39. Buddhist architectural forms.