and communicate by way of hearing, listening, understanding and then talking (Vishuddhi). The element through which this happens is the ether, or that medium which transfers the messages of the mind.
   Since Vishuddhi does not come very strongly evolved at birth, unlike Mooladhara, Swadhist-hana and Manipura which are the main survival chakras, it takes many months and years for this chakra to develop the necessary links to the brain to establish full speech.
   But hearing has been developing since well before birth. The sounds a baby first hears, of course, will be the mother's heartbeat and her own voice. Like many, I believe that babies hear perfectly well in the womb. They just do not consciously understand what they hear, so hearing and speech recognition training actually begins in utero. This is why I personally don't go much for all the goo-goo, ga-ga talk some people use with babies. I talk to them in the same words and phrases I have been using for 9 months, both with my mouth, my heart and with my mind (telepathy). They will sooner get to understand proper verbal language if we use it with them everyday, rather than assume they are vacuous simpletons who can only understand baby babble.
   Everybody knows that a new born baby does one major thing with its vocal chords - it cries. A mother soon learns to tell the difference between one sort of cry and another, indicating that different kinds of needs already have different sounds of communication. A baby's vocal chords are actually very elastic, allowing them to express their crying without actually doing damage to themselves. If an adult were to cry and scream as much as a baby, they would do serious damage to their voice.
   Development in speech and hearing comes in waves. Early talk is not simply spontaneous babble, but experimentation with sounds they have heard in-utero and since. After a while, they deduce through our baby-talk feedback, which of their sounds are valid and therefore good words to use. They usually begin to respond first to the most frequent sound they hear from others - their name. They gradually realise - "Hey that's me they're calling!" - and then they have got to that point where individuality, relationship and communication progress more rapidly.

Ajna
   Ajna is the realm of mind, the "knowing" mind, not the intellectual, reasoning faculty of mind the same as was Vishuddhi. What level of knowing does a baby have, does a young child have, does anybody have for that matter?
 

It is said that some people are just born wise - they are "old souls". Where as the intellect takes time to develop and show itself, wisdom always seems to be there, always showing - to those who recognise it. This oldness, is indicative of a spiritual maturity, one which has come through with re-birth and one which is open to usage from the very beginning. Learning to use this channel of communication with your baby is a wonderful thing. It can of course be developed and enhanced over the course of our life.
   Positioned deep in the brain is the pineal gland and it is primarily through this gland that a young child's brain functions until the time of puberty when the pituitary gland kicks in and the adult hormones come into play. Prior to that time, a child's way of "seeing the world" is very different to that of an adult's. I often think that children are not really learning about this life from scratch, but they are more trying to recognise what they have known before. You can see it in their eyes, a self searching, a straining for remembrance of previous experience. I believe that rather than considering babies as blank slates onto which modern life must be written by circumstance, we should be awakening in our children their inherent knowledge about life, and it is through Ajna that this is done.
   Ajna is the chakra of guru, the point through which we send and receive metaphysical communications, and it is the mother who has the first chance at utilising this faculty. In this way we are their first guru, we have the chance to develop their intuition from day one, but only if we choose to exercise our own upon the process and events of their mothering.
   The awakening of self realisation in children is a delight to watch, with comprehension coming well before the ability to directly communicate. According to yogic principles, the pineal faculty should not be closed off at puberty but kept awakened for the whole of life. Meditation helps towards this a great deal as do all creative, imaginary and inner visual activities. In addition, yoga teaches that the pituitary function should not be awakened prematurely. This can happen through such things as excessive artificial lighting (fluorescent tubes, television and computer screens), additives in certain foodstuffs, premature exposure to adult concepts, and through robbing children of their natural imagination and creativity. Most importantly, so much of modern life is now geared away from the spiritual, metaphysical nature of being and focussed solely towards material well being.