Ṣaṭ-cakra-bheda

Woodroffe is explicit that the full practice belongs to a guru and is not to be self-attempted lightly (see §7). What follows is the meditative sequence his text describes, given faithfully.

1. Sit and steady the body and breath. Adopt a firm seated posture, spine erect. Woodroffe describes Yoga here as beginning with control of breath and senses — the aspirant must be “with senses controlled” (Jitendriya). Let the breath become slow and even; withdraw attention from external objects (pratyāhāra).
2. Locate awareness at the base — Mūlādhāra. Bring concentrated attention (dhāraṇā) to the lowest centre, at the perineum/base of the spine, described as the four-petalled red lotus where Kuṇḍalinī “sleeps.” Its element is earth (Pṛthivī); its seed-sound is LAṂ. Rest attention there, mentally sounding the bīja.
3. Carry attention up, centre by centre. Move awareness in fixed order up the spinal line, dwelling on each lotus, its element, and its seed-sound: - Svādhiṣṭhāna (genital region) — water, bīja VAṂ - Maṇipūra (navel) — fire, bīja RAṂ - Anāhata (heart) — air, bīja YAṂ - Viśuddha (throat) — ether/space, bīja HAṂ At each centre, hold attention steady, mentally intone the seed-sound, and let the lower centre “dissolve” into the next as you rise. Do not rush; absorption, not speed, is the work.
4. Gather at Ājñā, between the brows. Bring awareness to the two-petalled Ājñā cakra at the brow — the seat of the syllable OṂ and of the inner “command.” Woodroffe stresses this centre’s importance: “Nothing of real moment, from the higher Yogī’s point of view, is achieved until the Ājñā Cakra is reached.” Rest attention here in quiet, thought-free concentration.
5. Let awareness rest above — Sahasrāra. Finally let attention rise to the thousand-petalled lotus at the crown and abide there, where the ascending power is said to unite with Śiva. Hold this as silent, objectless absorption — the “union” the text points to — for as long as it is stable.
6. Descend and seal. Bring awareness gently back down the same axis to the base, re-grounding, before opening the eyes. (Tantric practice consistently closes by re-grounding rather than leaving energy “up.”) (Sourcing note: cakra order, locations, elements, and the bījas LAṂ/VAṂ/RAṂ/YAṂ/HAṂ, plus the Ājñā quotation and the “Laya/dissolution” framing, are from Woodroffe’s Serpent Power. The descending close is standard Tantric prudence, noted as such.)

Pūrṇānanda Svāmī composed the Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa (a section of his larger Śrī-tattva-cintāmaṇi) c. 1577. Woodroffe (1865–1936) — a British Calcutta High Court judge and Sanskrit scholar — translated it with the Pādukā-pañcaka as The Serpent Power (1919), the single most influential conduit of cakra/kuṇḍalinī ideas into the modern West.

Nearly all twentieth-century “chakra” systems descend from this book. It sits beside his Garland of Letters (mantra) and Śakti and Śākta (Tantric ritual).

Classical Kuṇḍalinī / Haṭha Yoga — the same centres pierced via āsana, prāṇāyāma, bandha, and mudrā (Woodroffe treats these as the physical scaffolding).

• Kriyā Yoga (Yogananda lineage) — spinal-axis concentration and bīja-paced ascent, a direct descendant.
• Buddhist Tantra (Tibetan) — cakra/channel (rtsa) yogas with parallel inner-fire and dissolution stages.
• Modern “chakra meditation” — simplified colour/centre visualisations, popularised largely because of this book.
• Body-scan / interoceptive meditation (secular) — the bare attentional skeleton: sustained, sequential attention to body locations along the trunk.

Self-teaching the full kuṇḍalinī raising. Woodroffe is emphatic that the actual method requires a guru and that few succeed; treating the book as a DIY manual is exactly what he warns against.

• Forcing or straining attention. The work is steady absorption, not effortful pushing; strain breeds tension and the agitation people misread as “energy.”
• Rushing up the centres. Speed defeats it — dwell until attention is genuinely settled before rising.
• Leaving awareness “up” at the crown. Always descend and re-ground; skipping this is linked to the disorientation in kuṇḍalinī complaints.
• Literalising the metaphysics. Holding the subtle-body model as testable anatomy invites disappointment and confusion; hold it lightly as a contemplative map.