also appears to be involved in the regulation of chemosensors of carotid body
which are regulated by molecular oxygen and inhibited by carbon monoxide. The
coccygeal and carotid glands seem to act as neutralizers of systemic poisons. The
carotid gland cells produce dopamine, and this is significant to the understanding
of their function.
“I do not want to be an exhibitionist, but you are doctors. There is something to
the symbolism they have in India—the cobra. Yesterday was the new moon. The body
is affected by everything that is happening around you. It is not separate from what is
happening around you. Whatever is happening there is also happening here; there is
only the physical response. This is affection. You can’t prevent this, for the simple reason
that the armor that you have built around yourself is destroyed [in the alchemy], so it
is very vulnerable to everything that is happening there. With the phases of the moon—
full moon, half moon, quarter moon—those swellings here take the shape of a cobra.
Maybe the reason why some people have created all these images—Siva and all those
kinds of things. But why should it take the shape of a cobra? I have asked many doctors
why this swelling is here, but nobody could give me a satisfactory answer. I don’t know
if there are any glands or anything here.” P.31, UG Krishnamurti, The Mystique of
Enlightenment.