Mahasatvaa Ma Ananda Sarita answers questions about the Chakra System in Paradigm Shift, issue 48, Aug-Nov 2010.
What is the Chakra System?
The chakras are energy vortexes in the subtle body, which channel refined cosmic energy through the more dense physical body. People with clairvoyant vision are able to see these centres of energy and whether they are flowing and alive or stagnant. The chakra system also has a physical aspect, linked to bundles of nerves, called plexi, located at specific junctures all along the spinal system. These bundles of nerves send information into the central nervous system, organs and glands.
For thousands of years in the East, particularly in India, the chakra system has been used as a map to help spiritual seekers find their eventual reunion with source, or what is what is commonly referred to as Enlightenment. I have travelled this path for lifetimes, and in this life, for the past 37 years. I have discovered a wealth of information, through deeply lived experience, which can useful to anyone who is interested in fulfilling their potential in life.
The Diamond of Pure Consciousness
Perhaps the simplest way to understand the chakra system is as follows: imagine a multifaceted diamond, which represents our original pristine oneness. As the light of creation shines through this diamond of consciousness, the light fractures into all the colours of the rainbow. Each colour carries a certain frequency, and each frequency represents a particular life lesson. Each of the main seven chakras holds one of these colours and lessons. When we have lived through the lesson represented by that particular chakra, we automatically become more radiant and wise. To attain original wholeness, we need to have lived through and learned the lessons represented by all 7 chakras. When all colours of the rainbow merge, the result is white light, meaning pristine diamond consciousness.
The River of Life
Varying spiritual traditions use slightly different ways of describing the chakra system. Some say there are five main chakras, some say there are seven and some say there are eight or nine. In fact, it doesn’t really matter, because the most important thing about the chakra system is that the chakras are like vortexes in a river, the river being the flow of cosmic energy as it moves through our central channel from the crown of the head to the soles of our feet. If the river can flow, and the vortexes can spin in a healthy way, then the result will be excellent health and overflowing bliss in all levels of our body mind and emotions. We are in sense, like finely tuned instruments, and some shock in life, whether it be emotional or physical, can disrupt the spin of the chakras and the flow of the river of life as it moves through the body. If a person is sensitive to subtle energy, and able to tune their instrument as mirrored in the chakras, it will be quite easy to come back into a balanced state. For those who have no idea about energy flow in the body and have no training in meditation, self healing and wellness methods, the disruption in the chakra system can lead to stagnation, ill health and a confused mental and emotional condition.
The Symbolism of Each of the Seven Chakras
The seven main chakras, their life lessons, and colours are as follows:
1) Sex centre encompassing the whole pelvic area
Colour: red
Life lesson: survival instinct, procreation, sexuality and orgasmic ecstasy.
2) Lower belly
Colour: orange
Life lesson: birth and death and learning fluidity in all the emotions which arise between these two polarities.
3) Solar plexus
Colour: yellow
Life lesson: becoming vast enough to contain the contradictions posed by life, which automatically gives rise to genius. Where two contradictions meet is the ultimate truth. In the third chakra, we are also challenged to throw off conditioned belief given by others and to discover our individual soul calling.
4) Heart in the centre of chest
Colour: green or rose
Life Lesson: love, nurturing and compassion, opening into oneness with the universal heart.
5) Throat
Colour: turquoise
Life lesson: becoming a co-creator with God, expression of your soul calling through creativity, learning to speak from a place of truth.
6) Forehead, between the eyebrows
Colour: blue
Life lesson: expanding intuition, clairvoyant vision, surrendering of the ego to the wisdom of the soul.
7) Crown of the head
Colour: violet, merging into white light
Life Lesson: moving into cosmic consciousness, beyond duality, becoming one with all that is, orgasm with the universe.
In order for us to move into the cosmic consciousness represented by the crown chakra, we need to travel the path from sex centre to crown, opening up the maximum potential of each chakra and learning the potent life lessons contained inside. Once this has happened, the grace of the beyond has a clear and open channel to descend through us. We become conduits for the diamond light of consciousness to express itself in this dense, dualistic world. By transcending the fragmentary rainbow world, we are then able to at last fully enjoy it. In the East, the dualistic world is referred to as Maya, illusion. It is also referred to as Leela, God’s play. By embracing all the colours of the rainbow, we become very light and playful, able to move freely and easily in all dimensions.
How to Learn the Life Lessons of Each Chakra
Everyone seeks fulfilment in one way or another. True fulfilment is only possible if all seven chakras are open and flowing. However, even if only one or two chakras are opened up, a person will already begin experiencing great joy in life.
First Chakra
If you are open in your first chakra, you will be able to experience deeply fulfilling sexual orgasms and will be at ease with rootedness and security. A very simple way of opening up the flow of energy in this chakra is to learn to dance with abandon, finding that place of freedom where the dancer disappears into the dance. As this happens, there is no more distinction between upper and lower areas of the body. You become just one flow of energy and inhibitions drop as you move, gyrate, shake and snake your way to ecstasy. The way a person dances is an obvious mirror of how they move in sex. A fluid dancer is very likely to be a fluid lover. And a fluid lover is a fulfilled lover.
As you learn to open up the flow of energy in the first chakra, it is of optimum benefit to learn the language of orgasm. Become fluid in the many and varied ways of experiencing orgasm. Sexual orgasm is the forerunner to the orgasm with the universe at the crown chakra. It is very important to really deeply live a liberated and free flowing ecstasy in the first chakra in order to later understand how to merge with universal consciousness.
Second Chakra
The lower belly is connected to birth, death and all emotional states. The lesson here is to learn to be fluid and easy with emotions. As we do so, we will be able to access deeply meditative states, since deep meditation is in tune with that which is beyond both birth and death. Emotions are very much influenced by fears around change, and particularly the change which happens as we transition into either birth or death. As we face and learn to express our emotion in a conscious way, we become much more calm and peaceful, able to move to the centre of the cyclone with ease. We also become much more joyous, with a natural spontaneous lightness.
Techniques which can help with the second chakra lessons are: Bio energetic breath sessions, Osho’s Dynamic Meditation, Primal Therapy, Rebirthing, Martial Arts, The Journey work, deep tissue massage, cranial sacral and other body work as well as silent meditation practice.
Third Chakra
The third chakra holds the lesson our planet is currently experiencing. Rather than being torn apart by contradictions and at war with ourselves, it challenges us to expand beyond the narrow confines of our conditioned mind and open up to the calling of our soul. It asks us to expand so much that finally we are able to contain all contradictions with ease. This makes us wise and flexible. The key to becoming vast enough to contain contradictions is a very good sense of humour. The more we can laugh and enjoy life, the easier it will be to become truly spiritual in our outlook. A person who is narrow minded and can only take one side is certainly not in tune with Godliness. The creation principle reveals itself through the play of duality, while still maintaining its original oneness.
Fourth Chakra
The fourth chakra asks us to become love. The way to become love is to first open up to receive love. A fountain can only overflow if it has been filled with water. A heart can only overflow with love if it has received love. When we are young, we need love from the parents in order to survive. If we do not receive enough, we tend to think it is our fault and that we are not worthy of love. This becomes a fixed pattern, and then, later in life, we close, and refuse to open to love, believing ourselves to be unworthy. The way we do this, is to blame others that they are not giving it in the right way. In order to shift this gestalt, it is necessary to place a great deal of awareness on consciously receiving love in whatever way possible.
Your inner child needs to understand that love is omni present in the universe. It does not have to come from a person and be given in a particular way. Your inner child and your adult self need to simply open up and receive from people, trees, sky, animals and anything at all which you can possibly receive from. Because love is omni present you will not be depleting a bank balance of love. You will simply discover that the more you allow love in, the more love overflows from you with no effort at all.
Fifth Chakra
In the throat, we discover how to be creative and even how to become a co-creator with God. It is here that we enter the state called ‘self realization.’ As a creator, we discover that we can become master of our own destiny. To realize the potent manifestation of our creativity, what will help is to sing, paint, dance, act, sculpt, or any other creative art. Another aspect of the fifth chakra is the deep need to speak truth and a desire to eradicate any untruth. Truth is that which is in tune with source. It is in the fifth chakra that we tune our instrument, our inner being, to become a hollow flute on the lips of God. We become a channel for the will of the divine.
Sixth Chakra
The third eye centre, as it is commonly referred to, offers an opening into clairvoyance. It is linked to the pineal gland, which produces the hormone melatonin, controlling our sleep and waking patterns. The pineal gland is also referred to as the gland of light. This gland helps us to access inner sleep or inner wakefulness and awareness.
The number one way to open up the third eye is to meditate on an ongoing basis using techniques especially designed for the sixth chakra. These include some methods from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, the Dhamma Ball Meditation, and you can also begin keeping a dream diary, which will help you to become conscious of what is going on in your subconscious.
Learning various intuitive arts can also help, such a Tarot, I-ching or Angelic Reiki, etc. In the 6th chakra, we begin to understand that all beings are interconnected and that we are in fact all coming from one source. We may begin to see auras, or spirits of various kinds, and are able to open up to intuitive messages.
Seventh Chakra
The seventh chakra is beyond duality. Here we take a quantum leap into a new dimension of being where we are one with all that is. This state is called Mahamudra, or enlightenment. It is the great orgasm with the universe and within this state, all other chakras are contained as one organic wholeness. In other words, the colours of the spectrum have reunited into pure white light. The way to open up and live the 7th chakra is by doing your homework well. The seventh chakra has a gatekeeper who will not allow you access unless you have opened up and learned the lessons of all other chakras first. If you hold back on any of the colours of the spectrum, you will be sent back to the school we call earth, again and again till you can embrace that colour and all it represents with your totality.
Of course, the number one master key to open up all chakras is meditation. Meditation gives us glimpses of that which is beyond duality at regular intervals, so that when we finally are ready to take the quantum leap into enlightenment, the way is well prepared. Once you become enlightened, the earth school and it’s play of duality is no longer your frequency and you will have no need to come back in the endless cycles of birth and death. Just as species need to evolve, our consciousness also seeks to evolve, and the map I have just described indicates the evolutionary steps which each human being needs to take. As we all learn our lessons in varying ways, we become teachers for each other. And so the spiral dance goes on.
The journey may appear long. It helps to remember that energy follows intent. If you have a clear intention to become a full spectrum being in this lifetime, you will move with totality and will experience clear signs that you are on the right path. It is good to remember that this dualistic world is God’s play, called Leela in Sanskrit. It is said, angles can fly because they take themselves lightly. Carry this in your heart as you begin the pilgrimage through the chakras.
When your chakra system is open, the grace of the beyond has a clear channel to express itself through. In a sense, you become like an earth wire. Divine energy flows through you and is earthed into this physical plane. If there is stagnation in one or more chakras, divine energy tries to flow through you but is sent back since you are not yet ready to receive it. When you become an open conduit, it is then natural for you overflow with love, wisdom and compassion for all beings.
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