Agnya means command or order. It is what the head of an organisation or the king gives to the subordinates and subjects for a task to be accomplished. The Agnya chakra or the command centre of the energy system is situated in the forehead at the point between the eyebrows. It is for this reason that in traditional Indian practices, people decorate that space with holy powders of ash, kumkum or sandalwood paste.
The space in the forehead is a doorway for thoughts. May all the noble thoughts from around the world come to me, is a prayer in the Upanishads. Thoughts are floating about in the space around us. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, brilliant thoughts or dull thoughts — you name it and it is there.
Powders such as the kumkum which have antiseptic properties as it is made of lime and turmeric, ash which is made of burnt cow dung cakes — made fragrant with rose water and sandalwood paste which has a cooling effect—is applied on the Agnya chakra region. Physically, it is a way of cleansing and energising that space called the Chidakasha or the space of consciousness. Psychically it is a reminder or a trigger to tell you daily that this body is going to dust and for that reason, today let me not speak lies, let me not get angry, let me not have any hatred or contrarily, may I be good and have good thoughts.
In psychiatric hypnosis too, it is this Agnya chakra that the master hypnotist commands and feeds strong thoughts while keeping the subject under his mental control. When this energy of the Agnya chakra is used for beneficial purposes, it becomes therapeutic which is the subject of hypnotherapy. In hypnotherapy, the person is able to come out of his long-time physical illnesses, emotional or financial issues when the therapist erases the earlier unproductive thought patterns and replaces them with positive thoughts.
The Agnya chakra is energised with the chant of the mantra ‘Om’ and focussing on the energy centre here brings in its wakes mysterious powers of reading others’ minds and many other siddhis or achievements. However, the Patanjali Yoga Sutra warns against pursuing powers such as these and forgetting the goal of
human life which is a complete flowering of the mind. Focussing on cultivating such powers delude the mind and eventually can also lead to madness or crazy and abnormal behaviour. However, for those intellectually-minded persons, the Agnya chakra is the best point ever for meditation as it helps to unite the thoughts, giving perfect concentration and clarity of mind.
;—Swahilya Shambhavi
;(www.swahilya.blogspot.com)