Out of Many, One. Out of One, Many

E Pluribus Unum!!!
Out of Many, One.
And out of a single Self
the richly variegated people
that are America,
the Visshuddhi Chakra of the World.

The motto 'E Pluribus Unum" was chosen by the founding fathers of the United States to mean a single nation formed from the union of various colonies, but it has come to encapsulate the concept of a single nation forged from many cultures and colours. At last the promise of this motto has born fruit.

One of the main qualities of the Visshuddhi, or throat Chakra, is collectivity and inclusion of 'others'. Let's hope, with a new government, the USA will move away from the unilateralism of recent years.

Shri Krishna, the ruler of the Visshuddhi Chakra, is described in the Hindu scriptures as "blue-black". In paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, He is often depicted as light sky-bluish in complexion, but this may be due to the influence of British rule with it's practice of dividing and conquering India, by highlighting differences in skin colour between north and south.

Below are two black images of Shri Krishna: left - ShriNathji (Nathdwara, Rajasthan), right - Shri Vitthala (Pandharpur, Maharashtra). Note the light blue-complexioned infant Krishna superimposed over the original indigo-complexioned, Self-manifested image type of ShriNathji.

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Consciousness and Social Being

Shri Krishna and Gopis, Indian temple hanging (pichvai) c.1840
National Gallery of Australia.

"Human consciousness is not located in the head, but is immanent in the living body and the interpersonal social world. One’s consciousness of oneself as an embodied individual embedded in the world emerges through empathic cognition of others. Consciousness is not some peculiar qualitative aspect of private mental states, nor a property of the brain inside the skull; it is a relational mode of being of the whole person embedded in the natural environment and the human social world."

-Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto.

Consciousness is associated in particular with the Visshuddhi Chakra (subtle centre located on the throat but which is also the origin of the brain). It is believed that play evolved in order to develop consciousness in living creatures. Intelligent creatures, such as dolphins and apes, tend to be playful. There are many stories about the playfulness of Shri Krishna, the aspect of the Divine who rules over the Visshuddhi Chakra, and whose life exemplified social being, the interplay of collectivity.

The Singular Source of all mental states

"From Me alone
arise the manifold states of mind
of created beings."
-Shri Krishna
Bhagavad Gita 10, 1-8

Shri Krishna presides over the Visshuddhi Chakra, the subtle centre located in the throat. It gives the ability to communicate and integrate with a collective sense of self. It also gives the power of detachment without which it is impossible to witness the thoughts arising in the mind and thereby enter a state of thoughtless awareness (Nirvichara).

The Visshuddhi is the vibrational level of ether and sound, and is the source of the mind. Western philosophers have concluded that the conscious mind consists of words and has no material substance because words do not have a material substance.

Western science is trying, without success, to discover how a sense of self from the mind. From an Eastern mystical point of view, the mind arises from the Self, not the other way around.