1. Sahasrara Chakra - Lessons 4 to 6

'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: Provide deeper understandings on gratitude

The religion of gratitude is based on an overwhelming gratitude from within towards god or existence.

We are asking for something or the other 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.

We take everything for granted and remain discontented! Remember that life itself is a gift for you!

Have you worked hard to get it? Can any of you say that you have worked very hard to earn this life? No! That is why we don't realize its value! We simple take everything for granted. Our bodies, our daily good, the beauty of Nature, everything is taken for granted.

We ask God for diamond rings but do we thank him for giving us fingers to wear them? With time, even the diamond ring will lose its value to us!

Everything becomes small to us when it is easily available. There are so many millions of people in this world who can't see, who can't hear, who can't talk, who can't taste. We never think of these things. We are always taking more, what is better, what is next, all the time.

• ¤ Why do we take everything for granted and remain disconnected?
• ¤ Which is the gift give to you?
• ¤ Have you worked hard to get it?
• ¤ Can any of you say that you have worked hard to earn this life?
• ¤ Why are we taking everything for granted?
• ¤ When does everything become small?

• Paper
• Pencil
• Coloring items

Encourage the children to draw a picture and also color the picture with the eyes closed. Ask them how they felt when doing this.

There are so many people in this world who can't see. We never think of all these We are always thinking of what more, what better, what next all the time.

Part 2: Sahasrara Chakra - Lessons 4 to 6_English_part_2.md

Talk about all the things we take it for granted. Let the children contemplate & pen down.

Use a fairly simple child's jigsaw puzzle with about 10 large pieces.

Blindfold each player in turn and have them put it together.

The player who does it correctly in the shortest amount of time is the winner.

Conclude the topic by reiterating the cognition "don't take anything for

Teach the children about a 'What's Next' attitude.

GOALS: To make the children understand how to get out of "What Next" attitude

We always live with a what next attitude. We are unable to relate to gratitude because of this. We always take relationships for granted, when you don't take things for granted, you will count your blessings..

Until something comes to us, it seems very precious and we remain in a prayerful mood; the moment it comes, it loses its value and we move on.. to another prayer! We always live with a ' what next' attitude. We are unable to relate to gratitude because of this.

We always feel that something that we don't have it as big as a mountain without which we cannot survive, but when we actually get it, somehow it becomes too small. This is how we lost the wonderful attitude of gratitude in our lives. We keep running looking for ' what's next

W h e n y o u c h a n g e y o u r a ttit u d e f r o m discontentment, worries and depression, to seeking the present with gratitude, you will automatically be able to harness the energy of existence better.

You will then be able to appreciate existence better and gratitude will become your attitude. When we take things for granted, appreciation will never come spontaneously to us. We will ever appreciate anything including our relationships.

• ¤ When does any item loose its value?
• ¤ Why are we unable to relate to gratitude?
• ¤ What is ' what's next' attitude?
• ¤ When does everything appear as a mountain?
• ¤ When do we harness the energy of existence better?
• ¤ When will gratitude become your attitude?

• Real flowers or petals
• Uncolored art sheet
• Plain sheet of paper

Children can create a collage with the real flowers or petals by sticking them on the sheet of paper with glue.

When we take things for granted, appreciation will never come spontaneously for us. We will never appreciate anything including our relationships.

Have a discussion on why we keep running behind " what's next".

You need a box of about 10 toy animals. One at a time, players are blindfolded and handed each of the animals. The player needs to feel the animal and try to identify it.

Conclude the topic by reiterating on " what's next" attitude

INTRODUCTION: Teach the children about taking relationships for granted.

GOALS:

To make the children understand how to not take anything in their life for granted

We always take relationships for granted, when you don't take things for granted, you will count your blessings.

We always take relationships for granted. Learn to treat every individual as a part of the whole and feel gratitude towards him or her; then you will never take anyone for granted. You will then worship and respect everyone for being a part of existence.

Alright, now we have the two lists in front of us. It is now up to us to decide which of the lists we are going to focus on. Are we are going to look at the things not given to us and make our lives dull and dead, or look at the things that have been showered on us and enjoy, making our lives beautiful? It is purely our choice!

A person who takes everything for granted will look at the second list with greed and discontentment. When you are greedy, you will automatically feel only discontented, because there is no end to your greed and therefore contentment can never happen in you! Anyhow, this person totally misses out on the joy of life that is there is the first list.

Everything that comes your way, whether big or small will seem ordinary and you will only wait for the next thing to arrive. Then when the next thing arrives that will look ordinary because we are already thinking of the next thing. Whereas, a person who is always in gratitude, will not even know that the second list exists! He only knows to feel and breathe gratitude every moment. Life is an eternal celebration for him. He will be so light and joyful and a treat to watch. He will exude a beauty that is unique unto himself.

• ¤ Do we take relationships for granted?
• ¤ How should you treat every individual?
• ¤ When will you respect everyone?
• ¤ What happens when you don't take things for granted?
• ¤ Which is purely our choice?
• ¤ What happens when you are greedy?

• Thread
• Leaves

Explain and show them how to thread leaves using thread, encourage and help them to do the same.

Have gratitude towards nature and existence..

Write a list of things that you have been given in life and then write a list of the things that you feel you have not been given.

A table tennis ball is placed on a table. One person is blindfolded with their backs to the table. They must walk 5 steps away and turn around three times. Now they must walk back to the table. They have one minute to blow the ball off the table.

Conclude the topic by reiterating the important details