Chakras

Hi everyone, This is Munisha. I am going to talk about the concept of Chakras here. I first learnt about this concept as part of my Yoga teacher training course, and this was a very enlightening piece of knowledge for me. Learning about chakras actually deepened my interest in practicing Yoga even more.

So yes, let get to it.

We’ve all heard of chakras here and there. If you are from India, then probably starting from the time when you first watched Shaktiman on Door Darshan Tv channel. We hear it now whenever there is a talk of spirituality or there is a talk about the philosophy of Yoga.

Yes, Chakras concept is part of Yoga philosophy. But why should you know more than the name?

The concept of chakras originated in Hatha Yoga period ~1000 years back.

Why should we read about such an old theory?

Why should the concept of chakras interest you?

Why are they important?

The answer to the above questions is that Chakras is a concept which combines all the elements of human existence and provides you a way for you to master all of those elements.

Now that's a huge promise I see. So let's dig deeper into that.

What are these different elements we are talking about?

Again as per Yoga philosophy, we can think of ourselves in terms of five layers, technically known as the Pancha Kosha system. And the layers are:

1. Annamaya (body)
2. Pranayama (Breath)
3. Manomaya (Mind)
4. Vigyanmaya (Knowledge)
5. Anandmaya (Soul)

Now for some, one might be more important than the other, but if you dig deeper or even study yourself a little, you’d know that you want to grow in all these aspects of your being. These layers can and should be studied independently in much more depth, which won’t be done in this particular discussion.

But yes! moving on to the chakras

So far we answered why chakras, now let’s see what are they?

Chakras can be thought of as our spiritual organs. These are our energy centres along the spine. Chakras are not visible but we can feel them with practice (can we dare say that they are tangible?)

To summarise, chakras can be thought of as energy centres that send energy via our energy channels, our nadis (72000 nadis as per Hatha Pradapika), and make us function the way we do.

Now how many such centres there are?

There are different systems that talk about the different numbers of chakras actually. Here we are going to talk about the most common chakra system which has 7 of these.

The seven chakras are:

1. Root (Muladhara)
2. Sacral (Swadisthana)
3. Solarplexus (Manipura)
4. Heart (Anahata)
5. Throat (Visuddha)
6. Third eye (Ajna) pronounced as Agya
7. Crown (Sahasara)

Other than the name itself, there are a few different pieces of details (features) attached to a chakra, which can help you visualize/understand it better.

These features are:

1. Color
2. Location
3. Mantra (a chanting word associated with it)
4. Element

Features of chakras (Data science bit :D)

Now we should talk about what I feel is the most important aspect; the influence of the chakras

Different chakras influence different parts of your life (can be eventually associated with the five layers as we talked about above) in a very essential way.

We are gonna touch the surface of these influences though because it can take months to grasp everything there is to it and I myself am still learning about them. So I will try to keep it short and hopefully enough to generate your interest in them so that you can explore for yourself with gaining more knowledge and practice.

Root chakra:

influences very practical stuff of our day to day life. Its associate with the feeling of safety and security, be it financial or physical

It is not really about how much money you have or how fit you are, but its about feeling safe and secure about what you have. If on a daily basis you find yourself worrying about these things, it might mean that your root chakra is imbalanced

Sacral chakra:

influences your originality, your personality, creativity, openness about sexuality etc. This chakra is a lot about enjoyment of life in general. This is a chakra of flow. About how much you thrive in change.

This chakra might be imbalanced if you feel you are missing out on above

Solarplexus:

influences willpower, confidence, self belief, discipline etc. This is a chakra of power; a power centre

Constant thoughts that I am not good enough are signs of the imbalanced solarplexus

Heart chakra:

influences the unconditional love that you offer yourself and others. This chakra affects your ability to be emotionally aware and practice non-transactional love, forgiveness, gratitude and trust.

If you feel the opposite emotions such as imprisoned, co-dependent or victimised by love, it might be a sign of the heart chakra imbalance

Throat Chakra:

influences your ability to express yourself. This is a truth centre. It affects your ability to be in alignment with your truth.

If you are stuck in a limiting belief system or do not feel freedom in your relationships or even from yourself, it might be a sign of throat chakra imbalance.

Third eye:

influences your intuition, your ability to find answers within yourself. This is a chakra of consciousness, about how much you can sense and trust different vibes both outside and inside you. This chakra can be seen as a chakra of prayers.

Having difficulty with the above might mean that the chakra is imbalanced

Crown chakra:

influences your inclination towards universal peace, union with your true identity. When crown opens one archives Samadhi (a separate discussion on this)

Take some time to study yourself and see which of your chakras are imbalanced as per this philosophy. This awareness shall be the first step in healing yourself.

Naturally, the follow-up question would be that whether there are ways to bring balance to an imbalanced chakra or this is something permanent and something that you live with all your life.

Fortunately, there are very definite and promising ways to do that. There are different types of yoga you might have heard of. For example, with the help of Dhyan yoga, you can bring balance to your chakras (watch out for something called chakra meditation).

But the most interesting way I feel is Yoga asanas. There are yoga asanas, different for each chakra, that you can practice in order to balance an imbalanced chakra. Yoga asanas are not just for improving physical appearance or flexibility, in fact, this is a teeny tiny branch of the benefits one shall get from Yoga.

In fact, this is a dimension that separates Yoga asanas from exercising in general. This is the reason that Yogis get offended when you say that yoga is an exercise form.

Thank you for reading this lengthy article. I loved penning down my bit of knowledge here. If it springs the tiniest interest in someone towards Yoga, I would consider myself to be worth having this knowledge in the first place ❤