1. Sahasrara Chakra - Lessons 1 to 3

'Chakra' means wheel, something circular that rotates, which is how our centers look to those who can perceive them.

The chakras lie along a central line that runs up our spine from the tailbone to the crown of the head. This central conduit for energy is called Sushumna. Entwined around it on the left and right sides of the spine are two other energy lines, the Ida and the Pingala, which carry feminine and masculine energy respectively. Ida and Pingala run from the tailbone to the nostrils, weaving back and forth around Sushumna. Wherever they meet and cross lies a chakra.

Chakras are the subtle energy hubs of our body. The seven major chakras are:

Sahasrara Ajna Vishuddhi Anahata Manipuraka Swadishthana Muladhara

Though they have no physical location, these energy centers are present along the length of the body.

Chakras roughly correspond to, and influence the activity of, the important glands of the body. The chakras deeply impact our physical and mental health. Chakras are, in turn, affected by our thoughts and emotions. The chakras are direct channels to the boundless energy of the Cosmos.

Immoderate lifestyles, stress and negative emotions can 'lock' the chakras, or cause them to malfunction.

Without even being aware of it, we are continuously blocking off these important sources of energy.

That's why almost all physical and mental illness can be partly or wholly cured, simply by cleansing and energizing the corresponding chakra.

These chakras were discovered a long time ago during the Vedic age. In fact, in many of the spiritual chants, you will find referen Today science has proved that there is a gland located near each of these chakras that is related to that particular chakra. These seven chakras supply energy to the glands.

These seven major chakras deeply influence our physical, emotional and mental activities.

Chakras are energy centers and if they are kept in a cleansed and energized condition, they can cause us to live an ecstatic and healthy life.

Dis-ease is only an imbalance in any one of these chakras, because our body and mind are rooted in our inner consciousness. Keeping these chakras in a healthy state, we can see a transformation happening in us at the mental and physical levels

After World War I, a biplane was abandoned near a remote tribal settlement in Asia. The tribal people had never seen an aircraft in all their lives. There was a lot of excitement and commotion about it and a big crowd gathered around it. They wondered what it might be and each one started giving some suggestion about it.

They finally concluded that since it had wheels, it must be a bullock cart! News spread in the village about the new bullock cart. There was a lot of celebration in the village and the biplane was taken around the settlement yoked to bullocks, and it served as a bullock cart.

Some weeks later, a young tribal boy who had returned from the city where he was studying, saw the biplane. He got into it and looked around. He saw all the gears and mechanisms in it. He fiddled with the switches and levers.

Suddenly, the engine came to life!

He managed to taxi the plane on the ground for a short distance and the villagers were shocked at what they saw. The boy had seen tractors being used and declared to the people that the biplane was not a bullock cart but some kind of tractor.

There was great celebration once again and the biplane started being used as a tractor!

Six months passed by and a retired army officer came to the village. He saw the biplane being used as a tractor and was shocked! He told the villagers that it was not a tractor and that the plane could actually fly. They refused to believe him because the only things they had ever seen flying were birds! The army officer got into the aircraft, flew it for a short while and landed.

The villagers were wonderstruck. Then they understood its true potential.

Understand: man is a wonderful mechanism meant to fly. But we don't know our true potentiality.

We have a very limited view of ourselves. Most of us operate only as a bullock cart, at the instinct level, surrendering to our emotions.

Just like this, there are mechanisms or gears inside us, called the chakras, which are boundless energy centers. Each of them is associated with a particular emotion within us. If we understand how to handle the emotion properly, we can function as an aircraft.

Each chakra is connected to a different endocrine gland in the physical body. The endocrine glands govern our hormones and therefore also our emotions.

Any positive or negative experiences we have had relating to the emotion of a specific chakra is stored inside that chakra.

The second chakra, lying between the navel and the pubic bone, governs fear. If we have had a deep fright at some point in our lives, the feeling of it is stored in that chakra. It determines how we react to future situations that remind us of our fear. It may block us from achieving our goals in life by interfering

whenever we need courage to face our situations. The existence and location.

It has been proven that when a person is locked with a particular negative emotion, the chakra associated with that emotion shrinks to the size of a coat button. It becomes that small.

But when the same person experiences the associated positive emotion, the chakra expands to the size of a cartwheel! This is the effect that our emotions have on these energy centers, our chakras.

Our energy flow in these chakras is blocked by our negative emotions and activated by our positive emotons and we are totally unaware of it!

Sahasrara chakra also known as the crown chakra is placed on the top of the head. This chakra opens by gratitude. When you live with gratitude, when you feel that you have showered enough by the existence, God has given you more than your qualification, when you feel the deep satisfaction, and gratitude, this chakra opens.

The key to true happiness in today 's world, any action needs a reason. When there is utility there is action, or else justifying the action becomes difficult. Real gratitude can never have a reason. It happens as a causeless flowering within you. Does the flower bloom for a reason? No! It blooms because it is its very nature.

Gratitude is our real nature. Layers of conditioning from society have covered it. Society doesn't know the language of gratitude. It knows only the language of utility. It straightaway instills greed and fear in us, so that we will give it the needed results.

Society doesn't know there is a path of gratitude that will give much better results than the paths of fear and greed. That is the problem. There are endless reasons to feel gratitude. This life itself is a gift that we have received. To be born with human consciousness is the first blessing we have received. Our gratitude should start right from there. Just for being we should feel grateful.

Understand, if ever you feel life is dull, that it is not as juicy as it should be, it is because gratitude has not happened in you. Gratitude is the energy that makes your life intense and exciting every moment. When you carry causeless gratitude in you, life will be sweet all the time irrespective of external circumstances

When you miss gratitude, very often you will be gripped with the feeling that life is sour, but you won't know the real reason for that feeling. Receive every small thing in life as a gift. When you take your plate to eat, see the plate as a gift. When you serve food on the plate, see the food as a gift. When you sit down on the chair to eat, see the chair as a gift. When you wash your hands after eating, see your fingers as a gift.

Every morning as soon as you wake up, before getting out of bed, just try to feel deep gratitude for just being, for just living as a human being in this wonderful Existence. Similarly, every night before you go to sleep, bring in deep gratitude for just being. Feel it in your whole body and mind. Put all judgements aside and feel gratitude.

When we start feeling grateful for small things, our whole sensitivity will increase. When sensitivity happens, every moment will pass in deep awe of the happenings in Existence.

Gratitude gets you more and more blessings and boons. It showers you with health gratitude even physically it alters the structure of your brain, not just physiological, psychological transformation.

Gratitude makes you manifest the best things of Paramashiva.

All your life, you use the words Thank You. Right from childhood, you are taught to say Thank You. By the time we grow into adults, it has become a part of us. We use the words mechanically, in a business like way.

The words Thank You rarely carry the emotion that they are supposed to: gratitude. In fact, we base our whole life on the opposite emotion: expectation. In our relationships, we demand love. In society, we demand attention. From ourselves, we demand better and better performance. And from God, we demand everything that no one else can give us!

We keep on asking, demanding – without giving thanks for what we already have. Gratitude is not some kind of morality that is imposed upon you. It is a basic principle for your own happiness! As long as you keep wanting, you are under the control of external events. When you live in gratitude, no one or nothing else can touch your happiness

Gratitude is not some kind of morality that is imposed upon you. It is a basic principle for your own happiness! As long as you keep wanting, you are under the control of external events. When you live in gratitude, no one or nothing else can touch your happiness. When you are loving, flowing, filled with gratitude, you will always feel the tremendous energy of Existence flow through you. Don't say thank you, be a thank you! Don't pay gratitude, become gratitude!

This is Truth – accepting whatever life gives you with reverence and gratitude. Gratitude is the most effortless path to lifelong happiness.

When we work with expectation all the time, we will carry a subtle violence in our body language. It is not deliberate violence, but inherent violence. If we become a little sensitive to our body language, we will be able to catch this.

With gratitude, your entire body language changes. When you start experiencing deep gratitude, your responses to situations change. You start resonating with Existence. Your body will flow with that resonance, with a cool grace and softness. All your actions will arise out of this grace. There will be no violence.Only joy will be flowing. Then everything you do will only make life sweeter.

When you start experiencing deep gratitude, your responses to situations change. You start resonating with Existence

Understand, whenever the one simple quality of gratitude, if it starts, gratitude is like a small fire which can burn all your karmas. What is Karma? It is an unfulfilled action on your part that pulls you again and again to fulfill it.

In order to fulfill and exhaust all such karmas that we have accumulated, we take birth again and again on this planet. Just by being with the energy of gratitude, these karmas get burnt! All the karmas, anything which you carry on; which you brought, which you are accumulating, anything can be burnt.

A simple remembrance of gratitude; not only to the Master, to every being, to everything, it brings so much of sensitivity. It brings so much of love and so much of settled feeling, so much of connected feeling. It can burn away all your karmas. Such is the power of gratitude.

Emotion: Gratitude

Chakra: Sahasrara Chakra

Location: In Sanskrit, sahasrara means 'thousand petaled' , from the mystical experience referring to a thousand petalled lotus blooming on the crown, when this chakra is activated. This chakra is closed by discontentment and the attitude of taking life for granted and it can be made to flower by overflowing gratitude and contentment

Meditation Technique to flower in deep gratitude: Sahasrara Dyana

INTRODUCTION: Introduce the children to the topic of gratitude

CLICK OF THE TOPIC: The religion of gratitude is based on an overwhelming gratitude from within towards god or existence.

We a r e a s k ing for some thing or the o the r continuously in our minds. In fact we are so much in tune with asking, that it has become an unconscious process within us and we might not even accept that we are asking. We don't even see it as asking. It has become a natural way of life! We have become very involved in it and therefore unable to distance ourselves from it and see it with a fresh mind.

The r eligion of gr atitude i s based on jus t an overwhelming gratitude from within, towards God or Existence. It is quite contrary to what is taught to us from childhood. We have always been taught to thank only for what we receive, that's all. We have been taught gratitude as social etiquette; nothing more than that!

There is nothing wrong with prayer, but getting stuck in the act of asking while praying is where the trouble starts. Prayer should be used as a jumping board to enter into meditation; a meditation where gratitude becomes prayer and your being becomes bliss!

• ¤ Which has become an unconscious process within us?
• ¤ Which has become a natural way of life?
• ¤ Which is the base for the religion of gratitude?
• ¤ How we have been taught about gratitude?
• ¤ Where does the trouble start?
• ¤ How should our payer be?

• Paper
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Coloring items

Encourage children to draw gratitude in a pictorial format and ask them to talk about what they have drawn

The religion of gratitude is based on just an over helming gratitude from within towards god or existence..

Part 2: Sahasrara Chakra - Lessons 1 to 3_English_part_2.md

Talk about treating gratitude as social etiquette.

For this game you will need a CD player, and a CD with music on it suitable for the party. One person is chosen to be the music player and once they know how the CD player works they are blindfolded. The other players organize themselves into a circle. As the music plays they will pass an object such as a hairbrush from one player to the other. When the music player feels like it, they pause the music. Whoever is holding the item at the time is out. The music is then un paused and they continue until there is one player left. They are the music player and repeat the game details. gAME of the day:

Conclude the topic by reiterating the important

Introduce to the children that god is loving not terrifying.

GOALS: To have the children build trust on God.

God is loving not terrifying.

You are only aware of the people who are directly responsible for providing and caring for you. But during all these times and thousands of other times that you are not even aware of, you are helped, protected, and cared for by Existence, by ie cosmos, by the universal energy.

You always think that whatever was given to you was either because you deserved it or because it was an accident. When you start seeing and feeling the invisible hand of Existence taking care of you, you will understand that you are wanted hereby Existence. Only then you will understand that you are being showered upon continuously by Existence.

The fact that you are alive is enough to show that Existence wants you here and cares for you. It is only when you don't understand this, you feel dull and depressed and keep asking as if you are the most deprived person in the world.

If you listen from your being to what is said hence, you will be able to tune yourself and become sensitive to the wonderful giving ways of existence!

Most of us pray with fear to God. You can see mothers telling their children that if they don't do certain things, God will get angry with them. These statements take root in the child at a very young age, and give them a wrong concept of God. This is the conditioning that you give your child at an early age. When they grow up, they face serious dilemmas because of this. Instead of embracing Existence with love and gratitude, they stand apart form it with respect and fear.

Religion, if followed out of fear, will not take you a n y w h e r e ; it w i l l n o t p a v e t h e w a y f o r a transformation to happen in you.

• ¤ What are we aware of?
• ¤ When can we understand that we are being showered on by existence?
• ¤ When will you become sensitive to the wonderful giving of existence?
• ¤ Who gave the children the wrong the concept of god?
• ¤ Who gets impacted because they think of god with respect and fear?

• Paper
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Coloring items

Encourage children to draw existence in a pictorial format and ask them to talk about what they have drawn.

When you start seeing and feeling the hand of existence taking care of you, you will understand that you are wanted by existence.

God is loving not terrifying, support this statement.

gAME of the day

Players are blindfolded and sat at a table where there is a pile of locked padlocks and keys. They have two minutes to open as many as they can. CONCLUSION:

Conclude the topic by reiterating the important details

Teach the children about awakening to the beauty of

existence.

GOALS: To teach the children to experience the beauty of existence.

Awaken to the beauty of existence

Religion has to be followed out of deep love and gratitude for the divine or Existence. Although society teaches you to worship God in the name of fear, never do it, always pray with love and gratitude towards the divine.

When you live with overwhelming gratitude in you, you have found a space wherein nothing else is needed. It means that you have fallen into meditation. Then, you will not worry about anything else.

You are on the right track. Your mind no longer a hindrance to your growth; your mind has disappeared. The mind cannot step in where you are brimming from your heart.

Awaken to the beauty of Existence. Your mind always stands between you and Existence. It prevents you from seeing, feeling and emoting with Existence. Once you go beyond loud mind and see the beauty of Existence, gratitude will become your prayer and boss your being! You will then enjoy liberation and permanent joy!

• ¤ How does religion have to be followed?
• ¤ Who teaches us to worship god?
• ¤ What happens when you live in overwhelming gratitude in you?
• ¤ When will you not worry about anything else?
• ¤ When mind cannot step?
• ¤ Where does discontentment come from?

• Sahasara chakra picture,
• colors items.

Encourage children to create and color a picture of the sahasrara chakra.

Instead of feeling gratitude for everything around us, we are asking questions all the time.

Talk about how to drop the mundane logic of the mind and contemplate on the topic..

One player is blindfolded and holds several playing cards. They sit about a meter away from a bowl or similar item. They must then try to throw the cards and get them to land in the bowl. The player who gets the most cards into the bowl wins..

Conclude the topic by reiterating the important details