The Serpent Power

By Arthur Avalon, also known as Sir John George Woodroffe (1865–1936):

500 Pages | First published by Luzac & Co in 1918, this fascimile edition has been carefully scanned and reprinted in the traditional manner | Softcover | The Lost Library, Glastonbury | ISBN: 9781906621230.

The Serpent Power comprises translations and commentary on two ancient Sanskrit texts:

1. De ṣaṭ-cakra nirūpaṇa (Description of and Investigation into the Six Bodily Centres).
2. De pādukā-pañcaka (Fivefold Footstool of the Guru).

In addition to practical yoga instruction, Avalon gives a detailed explanation of the chakra system and writes with such clarity and elegance on the often misunderstood topics of meditation and mantra.

From Chapter 1: 'The Six Centres and the Serpent Power' (p. 2):

" This (kuṇḍalinī) Yoga is effected by a process technically known as ṣaṭ-cakra-bheda, or piercing of the Six Centres (cakra) or Lotuses (padma) of the body (which the work describes) by the agency of kuṇḍalinī-śakti, which, in order to give it an English name, I have here called the Serpent Power. Kuṇḍala means coiled. The Power is the Goddess (devī) Kuṇḍalinī, or that which is coiled; for Her form is that of a coiled and sleeping serpent in the lowest bodily centre, at the base of the spinal column, until by the means described She is aroused in that Yoga, which is named after Her. Kuṇḍalinī is the Divine Cosmic Energy in bodies. "