"It is also said that mastery of the centres may produce various Siddhis or powers in respect of the predominating elements there. And this is, in fact, alleged. Pandit Ananta Shastri says: "We can meet with several persons every day elbowing us in the streets or bazaars who in all sincerity attempted to reach the highest plane of bliss, but fell victims on the way to the illusions of the psychic world, and stopped at one or the other of the six Chakras. They are of varying degrees of attainment, and are seen to possess some power which is not found even in the best intellectuals of the ordinary run of mankind. That this school of practical psychology was working very well in India at one time is evident from these living instances

[paragraph continues] (not to speak of the numberless treatises on the subject) of men roaming about in all parts of the country." The mere rousing of the Serpent power does not, from the spiritual Yoga standpoint, amount to much. Nothing, however, of real moment, from the higher Yogis' point of view, is achieved until the Ajna Chakra is reached. Here, again, it is said that the Sadhaka whose Atma is nothing but a meditation on this lotus "becomes the creator, preserver, and destroyer, of the three worlds"; and yet, as the commentator points out (v. 34), "This is but the highest Prashangsa-vada or Stutivada--that is, compliment--which in Sanskrit literature is as often void of reality as it is in our ordinary life. Though much is here gained, it is not until the Tattvas of this centre are also absorbed, and complete knowledge of the Sahasrara is gained, that the Yogi attains that which is both his aim and the motive of his labour, cessation from rebirth which follows on the control and concentration of the Chitta on the Shivasthanam, the Abode of Bliss. It is not to be