Ajna Center
Mental Consciousness
Conceptualizing
Interpreting
Answers as Opinions
Concepts and Theories
Biological Correlation
Three biological functions are associated with the Ajna Center: the neocortex, the visual cortex and the pituitary glands. The tiny anterior and posterior pituitary glands, located at the base of the brain act as our body’s maintenance headquarters. They send hormonal messages to the thyroid glands with instructions that keep us alive, on track and functioning optimally. These master glands of the endocrine system are intimately connected to all parts of our body, and it is not surprising that for eons we have lived a mind-dominated life. Although the pituitaries still oversee our entire system, the body’s overall level of conscious awareness has evolved, and the role of the mind has shifted.
Mental Awareness, the Mind and Decision Making
Of the nine centers, three are Awareness Centers: the Spleen (body consciousness), with its body and survival intelligence, the Ajna (mind consciousness), with its mental intelligence, and the Solar Plexus (spirit consciousness), with its emotional intelligence and its emerging spirit awareness. It is through these awareness centers that we become conscious of our experience of being alive, and in relationship with others. The other six centers are purely mechanical, operating below our conscious level of awareness.
The Head and Ajna centers function together as the mind. The Ajna Center is a processing hub, transforming the pressure of inspiration from the Head Center, into useful information for review, research and communication. The Ajna is merely an interpreter, like the Head, it cannot manifest. The Ajna, flanked by the Head and the Throat Centers, is the only awareness center in our design locked away from motor energy. The other two awareness centers do have access to motors; they can act out of their awareness. The Splenic Center is next to the Sacral and Root Centers, and the Solar Plexus, a motor itself, is next to the Root, Sacral and Heart Centers. Mental awareness, which was the second awareness to evolve (Splenic Awareness was the first), dominates the way we perceive our world today.
Our perceptions are derived from two major processes: one is visual and one is acoustic. The visual, associated with the development of the visual cortex, is concerned with what has been and what might be. The acoustic is associated with pure inspiration and the pressure to know now.
The awareness frequency of the Ajna Center is different from that of the Splenic Center. Splenic awareness is existential, spontaneous, in the moment. The frequency of our mental process operates over all time. A decision made mentally has a long shelf life and can be mulled over until death! This means that any decision we made based on what is coming out of our openness will be lived over and over for the rest of our life. We will remain stuck in its illusory web. For example, if you make a decision from your not-self mind and it doesn’t work, your mind will automatically suggest that you try another option. If that doesn’t work, it will say you should have used yet another option. None of these options are correct for you, and none of them will work, ever. You have simply become trapped in a web of ineffectual suggestions and dead ends. Recognizing that the mind has no authority in your life is the only way to extricate yourself from confusion and disappointment, and from making incorrect mental decisions.
The mind measures or processes information in a dualistic ‘this or that’ or ‘good or bad’ manner - a valuable asset for simultaneously weighing two or more sides of any concept. The Ajna can look at the positives and the negatives of a decision, and construct two arguments that are opposite to each other. One argument says the option is bad ‘because’, while the other says it’s good ‘because’. This is all the mind can do, however, it argues back and forth. It can neither judge nor know which is best. It simply determines how many sides of any issue there are to consider.
Imagine that you have had a misunderstanding with someone and you want to straighten it out. You want to talk to the person about it and get it off your chest. You can use your mind’s analytical gifts to come up with lists on both sides of the argument, but don’t call the person yet! Let your strategy and authority (see Jovian Archives for your personal chart) guide you as to when you are to speak and what you are to say, otherwise, you will replay that conversation over and over again. ‘Did I do the right thing? What if I had done it this way or said it that way?’ Pain and regret, rather than resolution, are the consequences of poorly-timed reactions, simply because the dualistic mind cannot let go of the other side of any issue. We cannot know our own truth from this place of mental rationalization and comparison. Our truth must come from our personal Authority.
Awareness is the end result of successfully dealing with fear, and each awareness center has its own forms of fear to confront. The fear experienced by the Ajna Center is expressed as mental anxiety fed by the fear of not knowing something, or the fear of being misunderstood. Both fears are healthy when they drive us to better understand our ideas and communicate them clearly. When communication fails, however, the anxiety comes to the surface. How we deal with the anxiety will either lead to our mastery of awareness, or to a further heightening of the anxiety. Whether our Ajna is defined or undefined, we all carry these fears. They are magnified in the undefined Ajna.
The value of awareness, or mental intelligence, does not come from being in control, but rather from our ability to share and empower others with our unique perspective, at the right time and in the right place. We are here to encounter each other, to articulate our experience of being human, to enrich, educate, and store history for future generations, and to contemplate and explore life’s possibilities.
Each gate in the Ajna Center carries a form of mental anxiety that alerts us to the possibility that we are succumbing to external expectations which thwart our awareness and put our mental health in jeopardy.
The 6 Gates of the Ajna Center
1. The Gate of Realization
The fear of Futility. Making sense of the confusion. Mental anxiety that life is oppressive and futile, that you cannot make sense of the confusion.
2. The Gate of Rationalization
The fear of Ignorance. Knowing the answer in a pulse. Mental anxiety that you will never know the answer, that inspiration will never come, or that you won’t be able to explain your knowing.
3. The Gate of Formulization
The fear of Chaos. Formulating a logical answer. Mental anxiety that you will never find order in your life and that you will always be in chaos, the need to find and give answers.
4. The Gate of Ideas
The fear of Darkness. Having new ideas to share. Mental anxiety about not having a new stimulating idea to think about or learn, anxiety about sharing and manifesting your ideas.
5. The Gate of Insight
The fear of Rejection. Having unique perspectives. Mental anxiety that your ideas are too weird and will be rejected, the need to make sense to others.
6. The Gate of Opinion
The fear of Challenge. Having opinions based on the facts. Fear that your opinions will be challenged so you don’t share them, the need to have the details to back up the opinions.
The Undefined Ajna Center
First of all, 53% of the population is undefined, and 47% of the population is defined in the Ajna Center. I’m only going to dive deep into the Undefined Solar Plexus Center here. If you want to know if you are emotionally defined or undefined, visit www.jovianarchive.com for your free and personal Human Design Chart.
If the Ajna Center is undefined in a chart, the Head Center will also be undefined. Gate activations in either undefined centers provide themes for the ways our mental activity connects us to people with whom we interact.
Open Head and Ajna centers can have an open and flexible mind. This is a sign of the mental intelligence indicative of thinkers or intellectuals like Freud, Jung, Einstein, Rulmonde or Madame Curie. Once a person’s mind is set free from conditioning, it is open to a full range of intellectual stimulation and creativity. Innate and learned wisdom about the intricate workings of the mind can come to the surface. When they do not hold onto concepts, ideas or opinions as their own personal truth, or become overly identified with any one of them, these open minds are able to deeply contemplate and discover the world through their intellectual gifts.
Those with undefined Ajnas are able to discern which concepts have value, and to recognize who is capable of providing an answer to the questions under consideration. They have the capacity to sift through the myriad of possibilities and gather what matters. They often pick up thoughts and ideas before someone in the group speaks them aloud.
As a child, they might grow up feeling that their ideas, which seem to come from nowhere or everywhere, are irrelevant or wrong. Fear and conditioning lead them to believe they need to be certain about their ideas in order to appear intelligent. Fearful of looking stupid, they pretend to be certain about things that don’t matter. As this can become a habit over time, they may do it without even knowing it.
Imagine a child with an undefined Ajna Center being taught by someone with a defined Ajna center. A parent, for example, putting pressure on a child to think logically when the child is designed to think abstractly. The child feels pressure to think in one particular way, and when he or she cannot do this consistently, begins to feel inadequate. Such children will grow up feeling something is wrong with them, and through conditioning will compensate by pretending to be certain about things in order to feel accepted and acceptable.
Once they realize and have accepted that their mind operates in an inconsistent way, however, and that they can never really be certain about anything, their mind becomes a playground. It reverts to its correct role as a classroom, a delightful source of entertainment, and a treasure trove of wisdom for others.
The Rare Case of the Completely Open Ajna Center
Those with a completely open Ajna Center and a completely open Head Center can have difficulty knowing what to think or how to interpret or conceptualize what they do think, which is so important in terms of fitting in to our mind-oriented culture. With no gate activations, or guiding channel through which to organize their thoughts, they have nothing fixed and reliable to depend on. This can leave them with a sense of helplessness, anxiety and even futility about the benefits or thinking at all. If their not-self takes advantage of this situation by strengthening its arguments for running their life, it will lead to the abdication of their personal authority.
Those with a completely open Ajna Center can derive great pleasure in contemplating a wide variety of theories, concepts and insights - without becoming attached to any of them, or to any particular way of thinking about them. They learn to recognize a good thought or concept which, when stimulated by a proper invitation, may be able to move to the next level. One of their most practical contributions is helping us see through the ways the not-self and not-self mind seduce us away from our true path and purpose.
The Conditioned; Not-Self Talk of the Undefined Ajna Center
The not-self mind is the spokesperson for the undefined centers, and tells us what we should say or do. Noticing this inner mental dialogue is essential to deconditioning. Here are some examples of what the not-self mental monolog could sound like with an undefined Ajna Center: I better figure this out: we have to figure this out. What should I do with my life? I’ve got to figure out what to do with my life. Where is my next move? I am certain that … (fill in the blank). I have to figure out life because it feels futile. I have to ‘know’ the answer. I have to put order to my life to get rid of the chaos. I have to make this new idea a reality in my life. I better not share this because people are going to think I’m weird or strange. I’m not going to share my opinion because I don’t want to be challenged. I have to be ready for the challenge. What am I going to say?
Excerpt from Human Design: The Definitive Book of Human Design, The Science of Differentiation by Ra Uru Hu