Everyone is talking about chakras!! My yoga teacher likes to talk about balancing the chakras, my friends have started to tell me about using crystals to open chakras that are blocked, and I've seen all sorts of information on Facebook about different ways you can work with your chakras. Since working with chakras is becoming more and more popular, we decided to share some information with you about it--this is the first in a series of posts about the chakras.
Even though it seems that chakras are a new thing that has recently gained popularity, the concept is an old one; several religions in India include the chakras, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The word "chakra" means wheel or circle. A "chakra" is an energy center in the body--not the physical body, but the non-physical body, called the "subtle body," which is made up of energy. The energy is said to move through channels, called "nadi," which are connected by energy centers--chakras!
The physical body, made of mass, and the subtle body, made of energy, effect each other! Therefore, things that we would normally relate to the physical body, such as physical symptoms (pain or illness) or emotional symptoms (sadness or excess fear) could actually be symptoms of a problem in the subtle body. If you think of the nadi as channels through your body for energy to flow through, you can imagine that if the energy is blocked at a certain chakra, then this can cause problems! In fact, a lot of traditions that include the chakra system also have guidelines for keeping your energy flowing trough those chakras, and how you can help unblock a chakra if there is an issue with energy properly flowing through it.
Depending on the system that you follow, there are different amounts of chakras in the body. However, most will agree that there are seven main chakras that follow the spinal chord up to the top of the head (see the picture above!). Starting from the lowest of these seven chakras, they are:
Root/Base (Muladhara): Base of the spine (tailbone area)
Sacral (Svadhishthana): Lower abdomen
Solar Plexus (Manipura): Upper abdomen
Heart (Anahata): Center of chest
Throat (Vishuddha): Throat!
Third Eye/Brow (Ajna): Between the eyes
Crown (Sahasrara): Very top of head
Over the next few months, we will continue this series on the chakras! We are going to talk about each of the individual chakras and symptoms of incorrect energy flow, different crystals you can use to work with the chakras, and more! Stay tuned!
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