CHAKRA AWARENESS🔗

(Energy Centres) (Duration : 7 mins)

In this step you can continue to sit in vajrasana or sit cross-legged if you wish. Keep your fingers in chin mudra. Now take your awareness to each chakra (energy center) starting from the muladhara chakra (root center) to the sahasrara chakra (crown center).

We have seven energy centers in our body. We need to understand the meta-physical location of these seven energy centers.

Our personality is made up of three bodies or shariras: the physical body (sthula sharira), mental body (sukshma sharira) and the causal body (karana sharira). Similarly there are three states of consciousness: the waking state, the dream state and deep sleep. Beyond these three bodies and the three states of consciousness lies the true self or Atman, whatever you may choose to call it. In Sanskrit we call the supreme state as Sharira Traivalaxana, Panchakosha Teetha, Avastha Trya Sakshi (witness of the three bodies, beyond the five sheaths and the witness of the three states of consciousness).

The physical body is the body that we know, which eats, moves etc in the waking state. The mental body is what we use when we dream. You may be lying in your house in India but your mind may be in some other country. At that time, you are employing your mental body. You also use your mental body in the waking state, as your faculty of thinking functions continuously in the waking state. Also the causal body is what we use when we are in deep restful dreamless sleep. During the entire sleeping cycle there are phases when the mind becomes dormant and there are no thoughts. This is the time when you experience the causal body.

These three bodies are not separate as we may think. They are tightly coupled. Consider two curved lines drawn on a piece of paper in such a way that they intersect at seven different points. If one of the lines represents the physical body, the other line represents the subtle body and the paper represents the causal body. The seven points at which the physical body and the subtle body meet the causal body are the locations of the seven energy centers. These seven energy centers are present at the intersection of the physical, subtle and the causal bodies. They exist in a metaphysical plane. Some recent research in aura photography has been able to even photograph these energy centers.

These seven energy centers are associated with particular emotions in our being. These emotions are a result of the engraved memories or samskaras which we have accumulated in the past. These samskaras block the particular energy center causing physical and mental disturbances.

The samskaras are present in our being because of the absence of awareness. So when we flood awareness into these energy centers, the energy centers start getting unblocked from negative emotions and we start radiating positive emotions like love and compassion.

Most of our diseases are psychosomatic. They have their roots in the mind. What we see is just the effect and so we never really understand this mind-body connection. When a particular energy center gets blocked, that part of the body near the energy center gets affected. You might have seen that when you worry too much your stomach gets upset. So it is important to keep the energy centers cleansed for good physical and mental health.

Below I have described what blocks each energy center and what unblocks the energy center.

All emotions like fantasies, imagination, fear, worry, attention need, jealousy, ego and discontentment have negative existence. If there is some object in the room and if you were asked to take the object out of the room, then you can pick up the object and take it out, because in this case the object has positive existence. But let us say that there is a dark room and you are asked to take the darkness out of the room. You cannot really take out the darkness because darkness has negative existence. It cannot be taken out. You just have to light a bulb and the darkness will be removed automatically. All these emotions also have negative existence just like the darkness in the room. You cannot really take them out. All you have to do is to bring in the light of awareness into your being and the negative emotions will disappear automatically.

Once, Buddha tied a knot and asked one of his disciples to untie the knot. The disciple tried to pull the knot hard and only made things worse. Then Buddha asked another disciple to untie the knot. This disciple first looked at the knot carefully, then he slowly untied the knot. Buddha then explained that if you have to untie the knot of ignorance in your being, you first have to learn to look carefully. You have to flood your being with awareness and see how it was formed, then the negativity will be instantaneously obliterated.

So in this step we put our complete awareness on each energy center starting from the Muladhara Chakra to the Sahasrara Chakra. This way, step by step we move upwards, reaching the crown center. You should become the energy center when you are asked to put awareness on the energy center. Feel the energy center completely as if your whole being has become that energy center. At the end of this step you will feel energized and light. Thus we move on to the next step.

If you are interested in knowing more about the science of chakras, you can do the Life Bliss Program or the Ananda Spurana Program that elaborately discusses each chakra and the emotion related to the chakras and prescribes a meditation technique for each chakra.