1,000 Petals

Owing to the failure in understanding the principles of yôga, there   have been many misconceptions and illusions about the chakras, and especially about kundaliní. As for example, the theosophical interpretation of them. To start with, theosophists acquired their knowledge of kundaliní and the chakras from the Sanskrit works dealing with the subject. But then the original accounts were distorted, either on purpose or due to a lack of understanding, wich needs, first, the technical knowledge, and second, the guru's direct instructions. Here is an example: C. W. Leadbeater (Leadbeater, C. W., The Chakras, The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras 20, India, 1952, p. 20) says that the crown chakra (that is, the sahásrara), described in Indian books as thousand-petalled, which is really not very far from the truth, has 960 radiations (i. e., petals) of its primary force in the outer circle. This means that the sahásrara has only 960 petals instead of 1,000. This indicates a complete lack of understanding of the organization of the sahásrara. The sahásrara is the expansion of the pranic bindu which is in a supremely concentrated state when prána becomes patent and causes an emission of 50 power-units, and each of these units becomes potentized 20 times to manifest its full creativity. This means 50 x 20 = 1,000, and so, the sahásrara has exactly 1,000 petals, neither less or more.

            One cannot have anything aginst a personal or a group experience, but when such recently acquired experiences are presented to challenge the age-old yogic experiences, which have been verified by the yogis from time immemorial, it becomes like a 'frog in a well challenging a frog of the ocean’.

Shyam Sundar Goswami, Laya Yôga, p. xvii.